Artist Statement

Artist Statement

I have chosen the medium of photography to try to illustrate the beauty of the seaside town that I have been lucky enough to live in. I wanted to look more into the harbour and the recreational side of the town rather than the religious aspect. The harbour is where the majority of the village would have made their income for the first 100 or so years of Howth becoming an established town. Many of the fishing boats have been owned by the same families for generations. They have great pride in the craft and intended on keeping the tradition alive. 

I would describe my photography as in-depth, showing the actual reality of living in a seaside town in Ireland. At this time of the year, there are seldom bright and sunny days. This year has been a partially dull and gloomy winter. Almost like the weather is depicting how everyone is feeling during this Corona Virus time.  Many of my photos were taken before or after heavy rainfall, I’ve tried to find some photographs from the summer of Howth so that you can see the comparison of the lighting. 

I tried to capture the colours of the habour as much as I could. Typically there are a few colours that are used over and over again in seaside landscapes and infrastructure. Colours like red and green indicate lefts and rights, red being left and green being right or port and starboard. There are also a lot of blues, greys and whites that would be mostly in the buildings. Every so often theres pops of bright colours from the vibrate orange lifeboat or from the different coloured spinkiers which is a type of sail. However there has been no racing recently so nobody has flown their spinikers for a long time. 

I was hoping to show the true beauty of my home however the weather and my timings would never coordinate. That made me look at my project in a different light. It made me look for inspiration else where. My orginal plan was to photography the sunny Sundays with familys playing and getting ice cream. Lockdowns and freezing weather stroms prevented that vision from being captured. Although it made my job harder it made me look deeper into the area and not just the surface level of what is visually pleasing. 

I took inspiration from the people who ventured into the freezing water everyday from some release as a form of exercise during lockdown. I looked at all the lighthouses and how the are still such iconic symbols of Howth even if they aren’t in full use today. I saw beauty in the seagulls which are typically hated by all the residents and the visitors. The set backs that my project faced made me appreciate the little everyday beauty in my surroundings. We take advantage of the beauty that our areas posess because they become second nature to us. This project reminded me of the beauty that my area has.