Salted and Together…

Last year (or early this year) it took me until we were contemplating our winter get away to kick me up the bum and get my summer holiday photos edited and archived away to the “I’ll be grateful I found time for this one day but right now it’s a right pain in the arse” family photo files. So whilst today in the heaviest frost on the ground day and this is by no means a quick edit for an August holiday… It’s better than last year. And I love them. And doing it took me back to this holiday. I can’t gush about the whole trip because it wasn’t gush-able. Mid COVID. My “fun Mum” tank was on empty after months of trying to think creatively about entertaining (and educating) 3 kids. I’d run out of ways and inclination to really sell a walk or any other COVID times friendly activities. But we still packed the car and hauled ourselves to our wonderful Woolacombe where at least wed see family faces whom we loved. At least there was the beautiful sandy stretch of Woolabcome bay and at least there was the Coastal path to tread and feel the wild wind of the ledges. At least there’d be cider and ice cream and pasties and scones. We anticipated rain (because it’s Devon and we’re not stupid) but we didn’t anticipate a first week of storms, 60+mph winds that our 3 year old couldn’t even walk against and whipped the sand in to our eyes relentlessly. What a year, what a summer and what holiday to put a punctuation mark in all of that. Oh and I had the perfect holiday read…

“Something in me was changing season too. I was no longer striving, fighting to change the unchangeable, not clenching in anxiety at the life we’d been unable to hold on to, or angry at an authoritarian system too bureaucratic to see the truth. A new season had crept into me, a softer season of acceptance. Burnt in by the sun, driven in by the storms. I could feel the sky, the earth, the water and revel in being part of the elements without a chasm of pain opening at the thought of the loss of our place within it all. I was a part of the whole. I didn’t need to own a patch of land to make that so. I could stand in the wind and I was the wind, the rain, the sea; it was all me, and I was nothing within it. The core of me wasn’t lost. Translucent, elusive, but there and growing stronger with every headland.”
― Raynor Winn, The Salt Path

We certainly came back salted. And together. Here’s a little of what it looked like in the moments where my mum-of-three hands bearing all things for all weathers for all of us had a moment to reach for the camera…

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Thanks for checking out my photo blog! My name is Charlie Alexander, I’m a portrait photographer specialising in children, families, weddings and branding portraiture. I am based just outside of Colchester, Essex but cover all over the UK and beyond. I am also a runner, a reader, a wife and Mum to three of my muses. You can find out more about me and work here!

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Woolacombe Devon Family Photographer