Way back in 2014, my uncle had a heart attack while on holiday which left him very weak. I think he knew he was going to die. Sometime shortly before then I'd re-made contact with that side of the family. On one final visit, just as I was about to leave, he disappeared off, and came back with a camera of his, which he said he wanted me to have. It was a Mamiya C330 medium-format camera. I took it with me on a trip to Portugal, and took pictures of various subjects to test the camera. Those that I took of the west coast of Portugal - the Costa Vicentina - blew me away, and I decided to take a series of photographs on that subject. The result, after two further trips, is a selection of images, a few of which you see here. I particularly love this part of Portugal - and Galicia in Spain - the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula. It is wild and unspoilt. The rocks are rugged and the sea rough and violent. For some of these images, I had to hike over the cliffs to get there, and stand amongst the waves to get a shot. Out there alone, you feel the primal force of nature, the crashing of the waves that shape the coastline over millennia, and you realise how small you are and how short your life is; how big the universe; how time marches on relentless. You gaze out over the ocean, and think that there's nothing but open sea for hundreds of miles, until America. Atlántico. I like to think that my uncle would have been proud of these photographs.

Copyright © All rights reserved.
Using Format