"Coastal Textures"

While Biarritz is often associated with golden sunsets and crowded summer sands, I found myself drawn to the Côte des Basques on a raw, overcast morning. The Atlantic was restless, churning against the shore with a rhythmic, heavy persistence that felt almost industrial.

I positioned myself on the stone rampart overlooking the beach. The contrast here is striking: the rigid, man-made geometry of the promenade walls versus the chaotic, organic texture of the ocean. The tide was low, revealing vast stretches of wet sand that mirrored the leaden sky above.

Using the 23mm lens (a 35mm equivalent), I wanted a documentary feel—wide enough to capture the context of the cliffs but tight enough to isolate the surfers as small, solitary figures against the immense power of the sea.

Technically, the light was flat, which is often a curse for landscape photography, but perfect for black and white. I set my aperture to f/8 to ensure everything from the stone foreground to the distant waves remained sharp. A shutter speed of 1/500s was crucial here; it was fast enough to freeze the surfers mid-stride and the crashing foam, rendering the water with a tactile, almost concrete texture rather than a silky blur.

In post-processing, I stripped away the color to eliminate distractions. Without the blue of the water or the beige of the sand, the image becomes purely about structure, texture, and the scale of the human figure against the elements. It’s not a photo of a beach day; it’s a study of waiting and resilience.