Colin Prior Analysis

Colin Prior Analysis

‘Rock Hall Fishing Station, St Cyrus

“I am deeply passionate about making images. Most of my waking hours are spent thinking about photographs I would like to make and planning how best to go about creating them.” – Colin Prior. A driving force behind Prior’s work is his deep connection with natural world that became apparent when he was six years of age. Through his landscape photography, he expresses his feelings about the world by arranging them in a way he sees fitting. Colin Prior’s main passion is the theme of capturing photographs of a moment that will never occur again.

This photograph is of Rock Hall Fishing Station at St Cyrus. It is obvious from first look that this photograph is a coastal view of a sunset. Not a bright sunset, but a paler one with pastel hues across the sky. These colours can be seen reflected in the calm water. It is hard to say whether the tide is coming in or out from the beach as this photograph has captured the tide when it was at a midpoint between the two. Alongside there being no predominant, looming clouds in the sky and no heavy waves rolling into the shore, this shows that there was no ‘bad’ weather when the photograph was taken. On the beach, where the water is covering the sand, rocks can be seen embedded in the beach. The cliffs to left of the image are covered in what I am assuming is grass as they are green, opposed to white cliffs that usually indicate they are made of chalk. There are no buildings that can be seen in this photograph, nor any people wandering around. Also, something that I find quite odd is that there are no visible animals in this image; no birds, fish or mammals.

I was unable to find a meaning for this photograph; however my first thought was that perhaps Prior chose this particular beach due to the rocks imbedded on the sand suggesting that the land was originally there but after time, the waves that hit against them slowly eroded them away, leaving only the strong parts of the land there. This could be the meaning behind the image, no matter how hard things get, if you preserver, you can remain strong. I feel that this image very calming due to the colours that have been captured; pale, pastel colours in the sky that also is replicated on the water’s surface. The sunset is a big part of what makes this photograph beautiful, and although there are sunsets every evening, they are never quite the same. Perhaps the moral that Prior was trying to portray is that even if something seems the same, it can look and be very different. Time could also be being illustrated in this photograph as the setting sun shows that the day is ending and also the time of day it is. This image I believe is also showing that beauty is better left untouched by humans, how nature created it.

I really like this image as it gives me an immediate sense of calmness from the colours emitted from the sky. I think that Colin Prior took this photograph at a good angle as, to my eyes the image looks balanced with the correct amount of land and sea crossing over. By taking this photograph at a wide-angle, I believe that this has made this image so much more beautiful and almost life like compared to if the photograph was taken and / or presented in a square format..