Tidewater
Fourteen dawns on the Matang coast, where the forest is half land and half sea.
- Kuala Sepetang and Kuala Gula, Perak
- 14 mornings, March 2023 to February 2024
- Medium format, 80 mm lens, tripod
- Between 06:40 and 07:30, falling tide
01Channel, first hour. Kuala Sepetang, Perak, 2023.Made from the bow of the sampan with the engine off, drifting on the last of the ebb. 
02Roots at low water. Matang, Perak, 2023. 
03Jetty, 06:52. Kuala Gula, Perak, 2024.The figure is a cockle collector going out to his boat. He walked the whole jetty in under four minutes. 
04Seedling. Matang, Perak, 2024. 
05Stilt houses across the river. Kuala Sepetang, Perak, 2023. 
06Ebb channels. Kuala Gula, Perak, 2024.
Notes on the series
The mangroves between Kuala Sepetang and Kuala Gula cover about forty thousand hectares, and twice a day most of it disappears. I went out on the falling tide, in a borrowed sampan with an outboard I was not allowed to use before six, and stayed until the mist lifted. On most mornings that was half past seven.
Nothing here holds still for long. The channels empty and fill, the roots stand up out of the mud and sink again, and the light changes colour every four minutes. I worked with one lens and a tripod set low, so that the horizon sits in the same place in every frame and the tide is the only thing that moves between them.
The series was made over fourteen mornings in two dry seasons. Every plate is a single exposure on a medium format sensor, with no sky replaced and nothing removed.
Prints from Tidewater
- Channel, first hour, 2023From RM 1,450
- Jetty, 06:52, 2024From RM 1,450
Next series
