Aftershock

In my effort to be a good blipper and post a photograph every single day this year, I realised this morning that due to a combination of circumstances I needed to do a couple of back-blips. The photographs had been taken, just not uploaded. So, having woken up with a start this morning and completed the task via my iPhone, I started to surf the blipfoto uploads appearing at that time.

Of course what was around 7 in the morning here in the UK, was late in the day in New Zealand, and blippers who I didn't know until now, were posting their entries for the end of their days - folks like karenjulia, pixelsmiths, hpx and several others. A browse around their postings for the last few days was really sobering reading. Whilst I had heard about the earthquake in New Zealand, the stories their blips (or lack of blips) were telling really touched me and I found myself in tears.

I'm in my beloved village of Crail right now, and as an antidote to the dark thoughts I was having I headed out before anyone else was awake and took my camera down to the beach. Left the iPhone at home - that's how much I wanted to disconnect from the world at that point.

In the mood I'd fallen into, it was difficult to work out how to see beauty in my surroundings. The weather was drizzly, the light flat and the coast showing signs of the pounding it has taken over the last few days from the high tides and storms which have taken their toll on the coastal path.

Took several shots but nothing pleased my eye, so I thought to get down to a granular view of the world - perhaps a close up of some grains of sand would help the perspective.

But there's not much sandy beach right now, just pebbles and it was slippy getting down from the cliff to the rocks. Once there I cast around for subject matter and the idea of a rock sculpture started to take shape. Black pebbles against the sandstone colour of the rock pavement in front of me.

A series presented itself - 42 rocks collected, then gradually taken away one by one until only one remained.

The series completed, I headed back up to the coastal path and at the top encountered a young lady carrying a tripod. 'Are you looking for inspiration as well, I asked?' 'It's a telescope', she replied. And with those three words, the future suddenly seemed bright again.

The music in my head which accompanies this is: Supertramp - Two of Us - the line which goes "Look at me I'm a speck of sand, and I'm building dreams in a strangers' land, tell me why do I care, tell me why do I care"