She’s a mesmerizing creature, the North Sea. A destination I am particularly fond of, especially during those cold, grey days when I can amble almost alone along the beach. My aging body whipped forward by a biting northwesterly wind. Gritty sand accumulating in my worn-out walking shoes.
Landrand | Belgian coast | Text & photos: Geert Huysman
I often find myself lost in contemplation here. Profound thoughts about life and the impending doom of death. About the power and beauty of photography. Wondering what on earth to put on the table for dinner tonight.
The boundary I find myself on here, that relentless divide between raw nature and real life, is both physical and aesthetic. Behind me lie the brick walls, the exhaust fumes, the fry shacks, and the clamor of the homeland. Ahead, the vast beauty of the unknown, deceptively gently laying itself at my feet, over and over again.
She loves silence, the sea. Sound doesn't carry far here. It's absorbed, sucked away until little more than a whispered rumor remains. I trudge through the sand in a cocoon of muffled tones. The volume of my thoughts drowned out only by the occasional wave.
My expeditions are an epitome of monotony. One day I go left, the next right. There are no other decisions to be made here. Frequently, my path is swayed by the wind's direction. Embarking head-on into the gale, only to be gently ushered back by the stiff sea breeze. There's an almost poetic rhythm to it.
Nothing, perhaps except for a stubborn breakwater, is here forever. The beach today is never the beach of tomorrow. Wave after wave, it is kneaded, eroded, and transformed. Each day I walk through a new landscape, sometimes gray and barren, sometimes bathed in brilliant blues and greens.
Even the buildings on the seafront are in a constant state of transformation. The dizzying pace at which cranes and scaffolding appear and disappear is only interrupted by that odd natural law known as construction holidays. Residents come and go, dictated by school vacations and the weather.
Only the seasons are set in stone. High season. Low season. Diked into two, as commanded by the mighty lobby of the perennially dissatisfied (a.k.a the Association of Hotel, Restaurant and Bar Owners). As one season flows into the other, back and forth, I stubbornly plod through the sand, camera at the ready, always in search of that purifying light.
I had never been a photographer who became lyrical about light. I recognized and acknowledged its qualities, sure. And I did my damnedest to make optimal use of it. But light had never been more than a lubricant to capture the events of the moment. That is, until I began my left-right journeys across the beach. Then light transformed from a mere tool into a subject on its own.
And then it became an obsession.
I can hardly put into words my fascination for the light of the North Sea. One moment disappointingly flat and mundane, the next of overwhelming intensity. Sometimes it paints the sea grey, sometimes breathtakingly blue or green. High above the water, on a canvas of cirrus and nimbus, it makes wild sketches in hues of orange, cyan, and magenta.
Today, I am a fisherman, fishing for light in the surf. The coastline stretching from Nieuwpoort to De Panne serves as my guide. I follow it in all its fickleness — now distant, almost out of reach, then near, with barely any space between the waves and the dunes. Always looking out to sea, I am in constant search of that elusive light.
I am seldom disappointed