Stills

I don't know how well this image goes down with people who don't know this type of British coastal village, but, for me, this is a wonderful evocation of a type of place that I know well.

In addition, you've created lots of lovely patterns and juxtapositions with the shapes. It would be so easy to ruin the pattern, so on my test of 'any other photograph from the same place would be worse' yours is a great photo!

Even the drab colours are relieved by the orange spot (lower right).

Was there a chippy?

Marvellous.
 

When I first looked at this image I was not too keen on it, perhaps as Colin suggests, because I'm not familiar with such a place, or maybe because I am more partial to images with animate objects. But I keep coming back to it again and again and find interest on many levels.

Tremendous depth is created by the angles and repeating and receding lines and shapes going back into the image and the foreground textures and colors are striking. There is much to look at for a long time here, so it is quite successful by that measure.
 

It's the rope that brings it all togehter. The curvilinear rope stands in firm opposition to the decidedly linear pier and boat launch.
 

Huge depth here John. I get the feeling of being pulled right in and up that street. Too many elements for me to decide that this is anything other than a representative image of the place overall, which is not a bad thing of course.
 

I'm getting the depth, the shapes, the repeating patterns and interplays. I'm being drawn in and out through the dominant jetty foreground and concrete road in the back. However, it's just not coming together as a whole for me. I think Colin touched on why this is as I have no basis upon which to place this kind of location.
 

I wasn’t conscious of the rope until I read the other comments. The compositional item that attracted my attention was the ‘straight sided spiral’ created by the wave, quay, harbour walls, and the slip way. This eye path leads to a hexagon with the wet rocks in the centre and I never really got out of there.
 

I should really go back and do a panorama from this point in order to show the massive red brick building associated with mining and quarry work along the edge of the small harbour. Up on the cliffs to the right are a succession of abandoned buildings and quarries, now forming a gritty backdrop to the Pembrokeshire coastal path.

No chippy but a good pub that serves local crab and lobster. Polish waitresses attend to the summer hordes. At the end of January there was hardly anyone around.

Thanks for the comments, which have left me scratching my head a bit. I'm not sure why one has to be familiar with a place or location in order make sense of it. I suppose it is representative as Johnjo says as is anything that is not totally abstract. In fact, I wanted the harbour wall to be dominant in the picture.

I'm sorry I dumped you on the rocks Rex.
 

I'll expand: There is no single object that attracts/keeps my attention.

You have all the plays and angles etc leading me up and down a path but nothing dominates. If I had experience of this kind of location I could add some other senses to the mix whilst looking at the picture. This would then enhance my appreciation of the scene as it would be triggering single (strong) recollections which I can subconciously focus on.

Trust this relieves some of the head scratching...
 

Thanks for coming back Akikana but your expanded statement is what I had understood you to have meant in your first comment, so I am no further forward! I am not sure why Colin highlighted it as a potential problem for viewers because then it resonated through the other comments. It is interesting because it has to do with seeing and there I contend that there is an element of cultural conditioning that puts a set of blinkers on us when it comes to looking at something outside our experience. If you had said there was a technical deficiency in the composition (Rex's point) then I would understand that it was a straight viewing/photography/picture issue. Given Johnjo's statement "too many elements" I might understand your conundrum to be that all that detail (as well as the shapes) didn't explain the location. I say this very much as discussion and to delve into the "I could add some other senses to the mix". I suspect that the answer really lies in your first sentence: "There is no single object that attracts/keeps my attention", which makes it a technical issue. It would be interesting to hear if anyone can add any other perspective.
 

Well, I started this....

When I first looked at this picture I had a strong sensation of being there. I know what it is like to stand on a harbour wall such as this in January. I know why things are the shapes that they are, and I can imagine what is just out of the frame. It led me on an imaginative experience, but one which relied as much upon images in my head as the image in front of me. A lesser photograph wouldn't have had this effect, but even this strong photograph wasn't working with an empty viewer.

If I look at the picture and try to remove my experience of such places I might first notice the drab colours. Then maybe the poor maintenance. Or perhaps the oddly angled street (from a perspective of watching the surf, or admiring the sunset). I might think 'if this is Wales, I'll stick with New South Wales, thanks all the same'.

So I wondered what somebody without South West Britain in their history would think. Hence the comment.
 

A very perceptive 'wondering' Colin. I have to say that I am stuck inside my cultural bubble that is Wales (current slice of time) and not NSW (despite having been there!); in other words the intent is to show, not try to reach another's experience. Fascinating!