The quiet times
Daniel Wretham manages to imbue his images of the county's eastern coast with a sense of stillness
Published in August ’19
This boat has certainly seen better days, but few prettier sunsets
Daniel Wretham is a Dorset based landscape photographer and has always had a keen interest in landscape photography since he first picked up a camera in his early teens.
As he says: ‘I started taking it seriously in 2010 and have been hooked ever since. I have a great passion for Dorset’s coastline and the surrounding area and I love the beauty of the landscapes of Britain. Chasing light has become an all-consuming and life changing experience for me and I can’t see myself ever stopping.’
This obsession is at its acme when he is chasing rainbows, that most ephemeral of lighting effects. He is still waiting to get his perfect shot of Corfe Castle under a rainbow… after five years of trying.
Dorset has always been a popular photographic location, but has of late become an absolute magnet for landscape photographers, with many aping the shots of other photographers – standing in the tripod holes of others, as it were.
For a long time, the Jurassic Coast was Daniel’s main interest: ‘It’s where I feel at home and at my most creative; we are so lucky to have such a fantastic stretch of coastline with so many features to shoot, but even if I don’t have my camera, I love to walk along it and just take in the sights and feel of the place. I have ventured to many other places, but Dorset is where I am pulled back to every time. Sandy beaches are,’ Daniel says, ‘great for sunbathing but not so much for a photographer.’
But his work along the eastern section of the Dorset coast –the non-Jurassic coast – shows that when a gifted photographer puts his mind to it, any part of the Dorset coastline can be beautiful, especially if the timing and the lighting is right.
In these haunting images of a deserted Dorset, he captures the stillness, calm and serene beauty of the waters from Christchurch to Old Harry Rocks. From rusting hulks being overtaken by nature, to concrete blocks tilting madly like a crazed old prospector’s teeth, he manages to imbue the ugly man-made intrusions into nature with a beauty all of their own, just by subtly playing with the angle and colour of the light.
www.danielwrethamphotography.com
Old Harry as the clouds to the east are illuminated by the setting sun in the west in early July
The calm after the storm: a very early morning August shot in Poole Harbour
Evening light looking toward Moriconium Quay
Looking west from Turline Moor over Rock Lea River and Lytchett Bay
Being in position to shoot this image at 5.30 on a summer’s morning meant that Daniel could soften and hide the background with the mist
Looking east along Bournemouth’s beaches just before nine in the morning in December
Bramble Bush Bay’s ‘Dragon’s teeth’ are not in their first flush of youth, but their decrepitude adds to this image’s power
