Thirty-six frames of the same lighthouse, and one of my thumb.

The sky went a strange colour around two o’clock, the sort of blue that makes you check your glasses. I had one roll of film left and nothing better to do, so I walked out along the sea wall.

Fog from the south

It came in slowly, in layers. The lighthouse went pale and then flat, until it looked like something cut from paper and pinned to the sky. I am not a good photographer. But some afternoons do most of the work for you.

A red and white lighthouse on a foggy day
Frame 12. The one everybody likes.
Small white flowers among green leaves
Frame 30. On the walk back, with the last of the light.

Notes on the roll

  • Frames 1 to 9: too far away, and I knew it at the time.
  • Frames 10 to 14: the good ones, by accident.
  • Frame 22: a dog, moving, entirely blurred, my favourite.
  • Frame 37: my thumb, somehow extra.

The thumb is the only one I would print. It is the only one I could not have taken on purpose.

Film is expensive now and slow to come back, and that is rather the point. I sent the roll off and forgot about it. Three weeks later a very blue afternoon arrived in the post, just when I had stopped remembering it, and for a few minutes I was out on the sea wall again.