Red Crane at Portland Bill #1

I returned to the Red Crane at Portland Bill on a stormy morning in October 2025. Its paint was almost entirely gone, leaving a dark framework above the golden rock ledge. The sea was rough and the wind persistent. This was the first of three visits to Portland Bill during that trip, and I was as taken with the place as I had been on my earlier visits.

My first trip to Dorset was in 2013, when I co-led a photowalk along the Jurassic Coast with a large group of photographers. I returned in 2017 for a week on my own. Those were quite different experiences, but both left me wanting to come back. The variety at Portland Bill in particular has always been part of its appeal. Beyond the lighthouse, there are rock platforms, broken edges and small structures that offer plenty to work with.

Looking back at Come Fly with Me, one of the photographs from that first trip, I was already drawn to the cracks and potholes in a platform behind the lighthouse. The shape and texture of the stone remain a large part of what interests me here. The ledge beside the Red Crane also has a working history as quarry tramway that led to the Red Crane shipping place.

A familiar subject, different conditions

I had photographed the crane on my 2017 visit, and published Sunset at Portland Bill #1 in August 2018. That photograph, included in my Seascapes & Shorelines portfolio, has a broad foreground shelf and a band of warm pink light beneath the clouds. The crane sits farther back within the scene. In this new photograph the foreground rocks feel much closer, framing an opening of blue water that leads out towards the crane and the sea beyond.

An eight-minute exposure changed the appearance of the conditions considerably. The rough water became smooth, with pale traces of wash gathering around the rocks. Above the horizon, the moving cloud softened into broad sweeps. The weather is still present in those traces, even though the photograph has a stillness that was quite different from the experience of standing there.

That relationship interests me. The stone holds its detail, from the rough foreground edges to the horizontal layers beneath the crane. Between those solid forms, the water becomes much less definite. The crane’s narrow diagonals sit clearly against the softer sky, while the warmth of the rock separates it from the surrounding blue.

Seeing a familiar place differently

Seeing the two photographs together brings me back to what I find so interesting about revisiting a place. Different weather accounts for some of the change, of course. A sunset and a stormy morning give me different things to work with. But the photographs also reflect how I see, feel and experience the place, and the decisions I make in response.

Almost eight years separate these two visits to the crane. I’m fascinated in what that interval looks like in the photographs: where I place the familiar subject, how much space I give it, and what I choose to include around it. Returning gives me the chance to recognise those changes in my own work, as well as to spend more time in a place that continues to draw me back.

You can find more images from the Dorset in my Europe & Beyond portfolio or in my Seascapes & Shorelines portfolio.