For years I carried a photograph in my head.
I knew the composition.
I knew the feeling.
But I was stuck in an office in London, waiting for the chance to leave, to get north, to stand in the wind again.
When the moment finally came, I packed the van and drove seven hundred miles in one long push.
I slept in Glen Etive, woke early, and kept going — through the Highlands, across Skye, and on to the ferry at Uig.
The familiar rhythm of that journey always feels like a return to something, even before you arrive.
On Harris, I dropped in on a friend for coffee and pancakes, then carried on to Scarista — a beach I never tire of.
The wind was howling in off the Atlantic. Big, turquoise rollers crashed onto the golden sand, each one throwing spray far downwind.
I sank into the sand and watched for a while. It felt good just to sit there after so many months of waiting.
I already knew the photograph I wanted to make. I’d seen it in my head often enough.
So I set up the tripod, chose the lens that would give me the framing I’d imagined, and took a few test frames.
The light was soft and diffuse; there was no need for filters. The composition fell into place easily — but the day had something else in store.
A dark shape moved in the surf. At first I couldn’t work out what it was.
It rose with the next wave, hanging for a moment in a cross-shaped silhouette against the glassy blue water.
Then the wave collapsed and a seal surfaced, watching me.
I walked a few metres down the beach. The seal followed, keeping pace in the water, head bobbing just above the surface.
I walked back the other way and it followed again.
So I ran — and it followed faster, the two of us tracing parallel lines along that wide shore.
We kept this up for a few minutes until, eventually, it disappeared beneath the waves.
It was a small, magical encounter — a vast beach, turquoise rollers thumping the sand, a playful seal shadowing my steps, and the photograph I’d carried for so long finally made.
The wind was blowing hard enough to tear the tops off the waves.
When I turned to leave, I noticed a line of cows grazing the machair above the dunes, unbothered by the weather,
moving slowly through the grass as if this kind of day were the most ordinary thing in the world.
It felt like a fitting reminder: the photograph is the excuse, the anchor — but the day itself is what stays with you.
