Solstice Surfscapes

Hannah Tapping
Jun 25
3 min read

Words by Hannah Tapping

Mat Arney’s five-year photography project to capture the surf at the minute of sunrise and sunset on the solstices presents a fresh take on familiar scenes.

Cornwall is a county bound to the seasons and the sea. And just as the tide ebbs and flows each day bringing high and low tide, over the course of a year the lengths of our days and nights ebbs and flows as we cycle through the seasons.

The peak and trough of that annual cycle of sunlight are the summer and winter solstices, and like the tides they are different at different locations because they are the moments in time when that place is at maximum tilt towards (summer) or away from (winter), the sun.

For the past five years, photographer and creative Mat Arney has been making “surfscape” images at his local beach at the minute of sunrise and the minute of sunset on the summer and winter solstices, using long exposures and intentional camera movement techniques to create painterly images that blur the beach, the waves, and the clouds. The results capture the atmosphere and feeling on these key dates in our cycle of seasons.

“Giving myself a tight brief for this project has made it more interesting, and added an element of challenge,” explains Mat. “Because a lot of my day job involves photography, I set myself these projects to keep photography fun and creative for me, so that I don’t fall out of love with my camera. These surfscapes are about capturing the light, the weather and the mood at those very specific moments in time, not making the most perfect or colourful version of this type of photograph. If I were trying to do that then I’d be making these at different times on different days. Everybody can relate to the shortest and longest days of the year though, and that’s what connects people to these images.”

As the series has developed over the years, patterns have started to emerge. There is greater variation in the colours of the sunset images from season to season and year to year, as the sun has just set into the sea and the state of the clouds above the horizon reflect colour or drama. In the early mornings the sun rises behind Mat and his camera, hidden by the hills behind the beach. These images are more similar, regardless of season, with a muted steel-blue and ochre colour palates.

Viewed individually there are standouts, but as a body of work Mat’s surfscape collection (which also includes supplementary images taken before and after the surfscapes themselves) adds up to more than the sum of its parts. “I said I’d get to five years because I needed a point to aim for,” Mat reflects. “But, I really enjoy doing these. So I’ll probably keep going.”

Solstice Surfscapes will be exhibited at The MMI in St Agnes from July 26th to 27th.

solsticesurfscapes.com