Field Notes
In Turner’s painting ‘Ships in a Breeze (‘The Egremont Sea Piece’)’ (c.1806-7) I noticed that the foreboding sky, flashes of light, sea and incoming weather are rendered sharp and mostly unmoving. The big and all powerful sky towers over the ships struggling to harness the energy of these mighty elements. Whilst a flotilla of ships under canvas isn’t readily available nowadays, Kent has a number of offshore windfarms also trying to harness the wind for energy. When the sky filled with brooding clouds and moved across the Thames Estuary I felt capturing this beautiful cloud and the contrasting light in that one spectacular moment preferable to a long exposure that would emphasise more the passage of time.