Painterly marks on a Newlyn fishing boat

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Newlyn fishing boat marks showing rust and blue, yellow and white paint
Newlyn fishing boat marks showing rust and blue, yellow and white paint
Sometimes as you approach Newlyn for a photographic trip the weather deteriorates and whilst I don’t mind walking about in the rain it’s often no good for taking photographs. That’s especially true if you’re wanting to capture the bright colours of the boats in reflections in the harbour. So it was a few days before Christmas when the light faded and the reflections just disappeared in the gloom.

So onto plan B…that is looking for patterns and textures in the fishing boats themselves. The fishing paraphernalia often provide good subjects – nets, ropes, pots, etc – and in this instance there was a small part of the blue hull that was scratched and scuffed to reveal dashes and splashes of yellow and white paint. Along with the stains of rusts and wear and tear this patch of marks was as if a painter had splattered the surface with different paints and made marks for the fun of it.

I took a shot covering a tiny part of the massive hull in front of me and found I really liked the random, haphazard strikes. I found it quite beautiful. Art maybe.

Six months later and we’ve used part of the image as a top on a small side table and it looks fab.