Sea Change

“... a sense of threat as well as one of miracle attends Marten’s images. The people who fill his beaches at low tide seem often still to be there at high tide, invisibly in their fixed positions, fatally swallowed by metres of sea.”- Robert Macfarlane

Since 2003 Michael Marten has travelled to different parts of the British coast to photograph identical views at high and low tide, six or eighteen hours apart. His beautiful and surprising photographs reveal how the twice daily rhythm of ebb and flood can dramatically transform the landscape.

From holiday beaches to industrial estuaries, the photographs record two moments in time, two states of nature. Sea Change presents 53 of these diptychs, arranged as a journey around Britain, with an introduction by leading English nature writer Robert Macfarlane.

One aspect of what makes these photographs so compelling is the fascination of comparing each pair of pictures, spotting what has or hasn't changed. The contrasting views play with our sense of depth and perspective, and show how subjective is our perception of landscape.

The result is a substantial document capturing the variety of the British coastline, a portrait of the maritime landscape that makes visible in a dramatic new way the ebb and flow of tidal waters.