Affair that craves exposure

The view which perhaps best encapsulates Mark Denton’s love affair with the coast doesn’t exist any more.

A few years ago when he first stood on an outcrop above Thornwick Bay, Flamborough, looking out across at the giant rock arch, its feet firmly planted in the sea, he felt he had finally found the definitive image of Yorkshire’s wild coastline.

As the light began to fade, he took out his camera and afterwards went back to his studio, vowing he would return soon.

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It was another year or so before he was back and for a moment he thought his memory was playing tricks.

“The Major Arch was gone; the view was unrecognisable,” says Mark, who ran a bookshop in Scarborough before becoming a professional photographer 10 years ago. “The plinth where it had stood was so clean and flat it looked like it had been sliced by cheese wire. I thought at first it might have been a controlled demolition for safety reasons, but I later found out collapse was entirely natural.

“The archway had been on borrowed times and I suspect only seabirds were present to witness its departure. Each time something disappears, there is another view which takes its place, but it will be another 1,000 years or more before we see an archway like that.”

It’s this ever changing nature of Yorkshire’s varied coast which Mark sought to capture over a two year period. The project took him from the slate terrace homes of Staithes to the tourist streets of Scarborough and beyond to the more remote headland of Flamborough and it was one which had its roots in Mark’s own childhood.

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While he now lives in the Yorkshire Dales, he grew up in Seaburn, just north of the River Wear in Sunderland and the family home was just a few hundred yards from the North Sea.

“It’s a very brief journey nowadays, although it seemed rather longer with short legs, but it was always with much energy that I ran excitedly down Dykelands Road to the beach. Digging holes in search of Australia was one of my favourite pastimes; another was throwing stones into the sea.

“Even at that early age I was already experiencing the feelings of peace and even melancholy that the sea brings me today – a photo taken by my father on the beach shows me at five with a very wistful look in my eye.”

When he was given his first camera around the age of 12, the first photographs he took were at the mouth of the Tyne and long before he had turned professional it was always the coast which seemed to draw his lens.

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“There were holidays with my grandmother at Butlins in Filey, day trips to Skegness, Berwick and Bamburgh and longer journeys to Torquay and Paignton. When I started to photograph the Yorkshire coast professionally it almost felt that I was meant to be there, it felt like I had come home.

“I went all over during those two years, but Flamborough was the place I was always drawn back to. I think maybe it’s because it feels so remote. From the village, it’s a mile or so before you get to the end of the headland and even in the height of summer there are never many people around.”

While many of Mark’s photographs, brought together in a collection called The Yorkshire Coast, feature idyllic views, he does not shy away from capturing the reality of those areas which have fallen victim to the ravages of time.

At Spurn Point he photographed the deserted lighthouse and the remnants of fishing nets clinging to the wooden groynes it was hoped many years ago would protect the shoreline from coastal erosion and at Saltwick Bay it was impossible to ignore the remains of a fishing boat which ended its days behind Black Nab. Only parts of the hull and engine block remain, poking up through the sand as an eerie tribute to those who have risked their lives at sea.

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“I never wanted to produce a collection of seaside postcards,” says Mark, who is currently working on another project focusing on the Dales. “Blue skies and the sun shining is what most people tend to think of when they imagine the perfect picture of the coast, but actually you often get much more interesting photographs when the weather isn’t quite so perfect.

“When storms are ravaging the cliffs or when a view is just about to be blotted out by snow clouds, the landscape takes on a whole new aspect and it’s that variety that I really wanted to show. Yes there are pictures of the sun rising, but there are also images of the coast at its most extreme.

“The coast is a place where children paddle in the sea and where tourists flock, but it’s also a place where people have died – I was often reminded of that by flowers laid at cliff edges and of the fact that others have been saved by the brave work of the volunteer lifeboat men, coastguards and the Royal Navy.”

In Mark’s collection, the Yorkshire landscape is definitely the star of the show and few people appear on any of his images.

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“For me it wasn’t about the people or the communities, although inevitably the human hand will have had a bearing on most of the scenes I shot. It was never my intention to produce a history book or an accurate record of how the coast has developed over the centuries, it was all about the landscape as it is now.

“It’s funny really even on a sunny day, come 6pm people who have gone for a day to the coast start making their way home and often it was just me and the view in front.

“While I’m obviously always looking for the next photo opportunity just being by the sea is hugely enjoyable and Yorkshire is blessed by so many fantastic spots.”

The project was clearly a labour of love, but behind each picture there is also a sense that Mark is capturing a landscape with an uncertain future.

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“If there is an underlying theme to the book,” he writes in the foreword. “It’s only that we should enjoy and care for the coast while it lasts. It won’t be there forever, at least not in its current form. I am tempted to say it won’t be there for much longer. The threat of global warming looms larger every day.

“Current scientific knowledge suggests two main possibilities. In the first scenario, the steady rise in global temperatures will lead to the melting of the polar ice caps and Greenland.

“The trapped water in Greenland alone has the potential to raise our sea levels by seven metres.

“Rising seas will inundate low-lying areas of the Yorkshire coast, such as Whitby harbour and the Scarborough foreshore with frightening regularity, not to mention decimating the sandbanks at Spurn and threatening the entire city of Hull. Higher tides will also speed the erosion of weak areas such as the Holderness Coast and Filey Brigg.

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“The second scenario is even harder to contemplate, in that the polar melting and increased rainfall produced by global warming could weaken or even stop the Gulf Stream, the global conveyor of heat that benefits the UK so much.

“Our climate could rapidly begin to match that of areas of similar latitude, such as Alaska and parts of Siberia. The coastline could be extended by miles of sea ice during long bleak winters.

“Nothing is certain, though few climate scientists envisage things continuing as they are.

“Regardless of who or what is to blame, that is just not the way the planet tends to operate. So enjoy the Yorkshire coast while it lasts.”

The Yorkshire Coast, by Mark Denton with a commentary by GP Taylor, is published by Frances Lincoln, priced £9.99. To order through the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 01748 821122.