The magazine of the photo-essay
May 2020 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
I was commissioned by the Observer newspaper, in August 2003, to shoot a photo essay of Weston-Super-Mare beach in
connection with climate change. The big discussions on Global Warming, a phrase hardly anyone had heard of, were just
taking off and the Sunday newspaper, which is renowned for it's photographic coverage, was writing a feature on how
climate change might impact British beach culture and they asked me to look at a typical British seaside resort, at the
height of the Summer.
Weston-Super-Mare is a medium sized seaside town in Somerset, UK, it is situated on the Severn Estuary, not facing the
sea and although it has some nice sandy beaches, it is also renowned for it's mud, when the tide goes out. It was the
choice destination for working class holiday makers from South Wales and the Midlands but now has a much wider
popularity. It was a scorching hot day for my photoshoot and I spent about 6 hours roaming the beach, the promenade
and its pier, seeing people eating ice-cream and fish & chips, playing, sunbathing, swimming, building sandcastles and
riding the donkeys, I doubt many of them were thinking much about Global Warming!
by Christopher Jones
