It was a beautiful Sunday a couple of weeks ago . . . and I didn't want to stay inside an iron clothes, so I drove the mile to the Aberdeen Esplanade. I wasn't the only person with this idea.
I parked at the far northern end and vowed I would walk all the way to the harbour entry . . . two and a half miles away . . . and back. There was a steady North Sea breeze, a calm sea, and large rolling waves, some quite large. As it was a Sunday, the horizon was full of offshore oil platform tenders, the trucks of the sea.
I enjoyed capturing the waves crashing on the embankments of the Esplanade. . . it was high tide.
I walked slowly along, camera at the ready.
Some of the waves crashed with a loud THUD.
Although it was sunny, the air temperature was only about 3c (39f), and breezy. People are passionate about their sports and hobbies like this guy and his sea kayak.
This fellow was quite good at it. His rides were not long, but he caught a lot of waves. Fun.
2 1/2 miles up the arc of the Aberdeen Esplanade to the tall harbour control tower was my goal . . . I had never walked the full length before. There were many people out for a stroll: couples, old people, women walking their dogs, and whole families strolling along the North Sea shore. After I got up to speed, I left the camera in my backpack . . .
. . . and only stopped once to take this photo of the lighthouses out at Rattray Head.
The southern end of the Esplanade is at the entry to the medieval fishing village of Footdee, known locally as "Fittie".
Footdee sits directly on the sea, protected by a small-ish sea wall. I wonder what it is like here at high tide (like today) but with a big storm!
Such a pleasant place. Old stone terrace houses, short doors, benches, and interesting trinkets in all the windows.
The poured glass window testifies to the age of this old door.
I am forever being surprised by Aberdeen: wonderful new places to visit right here in my new home town. Footdee. The first mention of Fittie was in 1398. The current village of Fittie "is a particularly interesting example of a planned housing development purpose-built to re-house Aberdeen's local fishing community. Laid out in 1809 by John Smith, then Superintendent Of The Town's Public Works." [citation]
So sweet. These little places remind me a great deal of old Danish fishing villages . . . although the Danes would have plastered them and painted them with ox blood.
The sharp angle of the winter sun on this rough stone house created an interesting effect.
I walked back by the same house later as the sun was lower in the sky and the light yellowed from time to time.
In and among the more permanent stone structures of Footdee were these fabulously textured fisherman's sheds.
This weathered green shed caught my eye enough to want to do a study of its incredible surfaces . . . .
A late winter's sun's sheen on an old green fisherman's shed.
Yummie textures, light, shadow, detail, and color.
A nautical decorative feature added by who-knows-who, from who-knows-where, affixed who-knows-when.
I made it all the way to the old harbour tower . . . that had an inscription:
The inscription commemorates the 850 years since the founding, in 1136, of Aberdeen's Harbour Board! That'd be 878 years this year . . . WOW!
At the Aberdeen Harbour I encountered this screaming fellow waving the Jolly Rogers. I kept my distance; I didn't know if he was protesting the oil company docks nearby, or he was a football (soccer) fan, so I walked back through Footdee toward the Esplanade and the 2 1/2 miles back to my car.
They don't make fishermen's sheds like they used to. Too bad, as this one was beautiful in its own dilapidated and decaying way.
Corrugation! I've got corrugation! One of my favorite photographic subjects is corrugation and sundry things attached to it. This shed was divine, but the window was worth a closer study.
Astonishing beauty. I love this dilapidation . . . a picture of history itself . . . the work of time and weather upon a manmade object transits to a work of The Elements.
I left Footdee, a real, living, working, fishermen's village, for the crowds of the Esplanade. I will be back here again . . . maybe to see if it is possible to rent one of those little sheds . . . I imagined a week-end retreat . . .
I joined the late afternoon throng that had come to look at the North Sea, and then quickly walked the 2 1/2 miles back along the Esplanade to my car. A great day, yes, a great day.
Dr. Jeff Harper
