Tim Parkin - Landscape Photographer

Northumberland is one of Britain's oft overlooked gems. It also manages to fit the most castles per square mile of any part of the UK and one of it's earliest must be at Holy Island. Lindisfarne's often brutal history embues the area with an epic feeling that it's isolation from the mainland further enhances. Opposite the castle, the local community has used it's boatbuilding craftsmenship to create the most distinctive garden sheds in the world. Each is a basically a custom built boat turned up side down and a door added to the transom. As I was walking around one of these boats and admiring the dark contours of the bitumen coated canvas on a particularly shapely shed, I noticed the shape of the castle was similar to shape of the shed 'keel' and an idea formed. The sun was high in the sky and so a colour picture was virtually impossible and the effect I wanted to create, showing the texture of the cavas and the shapes of the castle and keel, would suit post processing in black and white where large contrast changes can be applied without creating an discordant result. The only thing left was to wait for 20 minutes for the tide to move a small fishing boat out of the way :-)