The Buoy Has Gone

Two weeks ago on Sunday morning I was watching out of my window as a boat called Galatea sailed down from Ramsgate towards Deal. A sight i have seen many times. This huge vessel works for Trinity House, the charity that runs all the UK's Lighthouses and navigational maker buoys. Every few months it comes and service The Buoy and other navigational buoys off Deal. I thought it was another routine stop. Only this time something was different. 

On arriving at The Buoy I saw the team winch another totally different shaped port lateral marker buoy off the deck and drop it in the water. They then took The Buoy, my buoy, out of the water, put it on deck, and sailed off. The Buoy was gone..... 

Galatea from Trinity House taking The Buoy

As I am sure you can imagine - after photographing this buoy for 15 years, it came as a bit of shock to see this happen - although i am amazed I was there to witness it, what timing, as if it was meant to be.

But it has left me with quite a dilemma. The Buoy project was supposed to go to 500 unique single edtiion prints. I am on 433. Can I finish the series but with this new buoy that looks so different? I have taken some test shots and I can't possibly go with that idea, it looks too odd.

So what to do?

A very different shaped Buoy ready to dropped into the sea...

The Buoy now on board Galatea...

The story of The Buoy is that it is a constant in an ever changing world. That constant has gone, or rather it has changed. There is a buoy still where The Buoy used to be, doing the same job. It is the same, but different. The situation has brought to mind that famous phrase - The King is Dead - Long Live The King. In that meaning we understand that the King is merely a story, an idea, that can be inhabited by different characters. And so that is how I feel I am going approach this, The Buoy project will continue, but with a new character, who will start the journey just as the first Buoy did, at number one.

So, The Buoy is Dead - Long Live The Buoy. 

Buoy No.434

How to end this chapter though?

I am going to release two last prints of the original Buoy.  The first is one that I intended to put out as number 500. It was a shot I took in 2021 and had been waiting for years and years to get - The Buoy sat right at the heart of rainbow. I have never got another shot like it since. 

The second print will be the last ever photograph I took of The Buoy. It sits in an ethereal world where the sea and sky have merged into one. It is an image that is all about that strange red marker that I have watched so intensely for so many years, nothing else in it matters. And in that sense, it is incredibly apt. It is all about The Buoy. What better way to round things up. What an image The Buoy delivered to say goodbye. 

Buoy No.435

To everyone who has been part of this journey so far, I must say a huge heartfelt thank you. The Buoy project wouldn't have happened with out each and every Buoy ending up in your homes and on your walls. Each and every one is special to me and, I hope, to you too. Now time to move on.