New Year in North Norfolk.

The Queen loves the beach which stretches out for miles behind me, vast expanses of windswept nothingness that recently gave up its quest to hold onto a prehistoric wood-henge.

But the sea and its roar are behind me now, gone behind the dunes which roll in the incongrous dampness of a quiet new year rather than the bright sunny Summer days of laughter and warmth.

In the pines, the stillness is quiet. The lines of trees are almost uniform, the regimentation broken by a sapling, an young spirit looking for recognition, an expression of individuality in a larger world of conformation.

Below the pines, a soft bed of needles: an irony of sorts, that softness can be found in sharp-ended spikes. The softness comes from two directions, the lens at full bore surrounds and caresses the image with comforting distortion, wrapping the image in a velvet cushion of dark warmth.

Taken with a Canon 35mm F1.5 lens wide open.

Jem, 9 Jan 2001