The Dawlish Coastline

Continuing with the theme of my own journeys I had the idea to photograph them. I travel by train quite a lot (hence my interest in the original posters) either to visit friends or go back home to Plymouth for the weekend, and I thought you see sights that sometimes go unnoticed. Railways can go places roads and therefore cars can't, but either due to the speed of the trains or whether it's just that people get bored of looking out of a window so always occupy their journey with a book or a film some sights can go unnoticed.

I wanted to try and photograph some of these sights to represent my train journey home (Bath - Plymouth) however due to the speed of the trains it's near impossible to get a clean crisp shot of anything other than when the train is sat in a station. I've also never noticed before just how dirty the windows on trains were until I tried to photograph through them and my camera kept tying to focus on the dirt on the window itself rather than the the view through it.

I didn't want to just give up on this idea so I tried videoing the journey through the window instead, however I didn't have a tri pod on me let alone even own one, so I did try to keep my hand as steady as possible but it's difficult on a moving train and I found it really frustrating when I'd watch these videos back and the camera was moving even if it's ever so slightly in every single one, and also the dirt on the window was really starting to get to me. So the following weekend when I went home again I tried a different tack of having the camera right up to the window so the lens was actually resting on the glass, and in doing this my camera didn't focus on the dirt as much, but more on the view that I was trying to record, and in having something steady to lean the camera on it made the videos more steady, not perfect but a lot better than my last attempt.

This is just one of my many videos that I've taken but I knew even before I took it that it would be my favourite. No matter what the weathers like, what mood I'm in, what I'm doing on the train even if it's some university work or something I will always put it all down when the train leaves Exeter St Davids station because I know that my favourite part of any train journey is coming up. When the train is going through Dawlish it could be the first time I've seen the sea since I've been home last. It could be months, and to someone who spent 18 years taking it for granted seeing the sea every day just by looking out of the sitting room window, I never realised how important the sea side is to me until I came to university and didn't see it everyday. So that's why this is one of my favourite sights, and why I'd like for my art project to continue down this path, perhaps using sights like these to design and create posters advertising the coastal towns of Devon and Cornwall.