The Sea Bird

Every so often the photographic gods smile down upon us mortal photographers. My turn came early in December when Cathy and I spent three days at Coffee Bay on the Wild Coast.
Early one evening, as we strolled along the beach looking for any interesting objects left behind by the receding tide, we came upon this dead sea bird.

My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the scene before me. Conditions were changing fast and I wasted no time in setting up. With the soft light fading rapidly, I regularly reassessed the exposure, and adjusted accordingly, finally ending with a time of 35 minutes. It was dark when we finished!

The resulting pinhole image is more than I could possibly have wished for at the time.

"Sitting back and viewing it now brings back a flood of feelings and emotions - poignancy, sadness, the continuous circle of life and death and the relentless and restless moods of the sea!"