The Gironde

18th June 2018

Still Net
18th June 2018

On the Gironde Estuary in early summer, the air hangs with a kind of quiet expectancy. The tides breathe in and out, and the fishing huts — carrelets, as they’re called — sit suspended on spindly stilts above the shifting waters, waiting.

This image was the result of several patient days spent tracking tide times and light. I wanted not just a photograph of a structure, but a moment of near-silence — the stillness before or after action, when everything hangs in balance. The long exposure flattens the water into mist, and the net becomes a kind of sketch, barely tethered to the real.

There’s something deeply poetic about these huts — part sculpture, part machinery — echoing the rhythms of generations who’ve fished these waters. They’re both delicate and enduring, like so much of what I try to photograph.

Keywords: fine art photography, long exposure, black and white photography, Gironde Estuary, France, fishing huts, minimalism, seascape photography