Neil White's coastal erosion

I've just come across this work by Neil A White on wayneford's posterous which documents the disappearing coastline of the East Riding entitled 'Lost Villages'. This is the same subject matter and exact same location in the East Riding that I have been shooting since 2008...see these previous posts Going only one way and Life's a Beach. This eroding coastline is clearly fascinating to others too.

It is interesting to see someone else's take on it. I have been photographing the area over a longer period of time but perhaps because of this, my approach has evolved somewhat and lacks the consistency visible in his series. Looking at his, I would say they fall comfortably in to the landscape genre and the image quality is far superior to any of mine. His composition is far better considered and the high image quality is probably due to the camera they're taken on, which is a 5x4 large format camera (it makes me more determined to crack the large format camera). Looking critically at mine, they don't have that exquisite, clean feel to them that I like in his, but my own are not entirely without merit. I think they would probably sit more comfortably within the social documentary genre than landscape, although they do lack people. They're perhaps less technical and more journalistic. Either which way, looking at his makes me want to go back again soon and take some more...

But strangely, I do feel kind of funny about seeing his series...I feel quite territorial over the subject matter particularly now I see someone else photograph it and with some recognition...I have no justification of course! But who said I had to be reasonable....