Salty Dublin is captured in new exhibition and book

A NEW exhibition and a book of Dublin coastal photography has captured the city’s seashore in dramatic images.

Dublin Salt is an exhibition and book that has opened in Dublin’s Studio 10. Dublin Salt has been a three-year journey through the capital’s salty perimeters by local photographic artist Peter Gordon.

Despite travelling the world with his landscape photography, Peter has felt most inspired in his own back yard, Dublin Bay. From Skerries to Shankill and everything in between, he has searched for the perfect light, just the right tide and unique conditions, in an attempt to make a landmark collection of Dublin landscapes. 

Peter slept on Ireland’s Eye, did overnights on Dalkey Island and visited locations time and time again at obscure hours of the day and night to realise his vision. Witnessing the mist on Dollymount strand at 5am, finally capturing the perfect reflections and tide of the boat wreck on Rogerstown Estuary, witnessing an epic storm batter Dun Laoghaire Baths before they were torn down and seeing the Forty Foot glow more than an hour before sunrise in the most intense colours imaginable, the only witness to the event, were just some of his experiences. Peter wanted to encourage people to see his local landscape in a new and exciting way and to see the city and its relationship with the sea and the shore in a new light. 

“If you travel in a straight line from Balbriggan to Shankill the distance is about 40 kilometres,” he explains. “These two towns on Dublin’s coastal periphery form both the boundary of the county and the two defining points for my exploration of Dublin’s salty perimeter.

“I’ve always lived beside the sea, and the sea has always resonated with me, as a child growing up in Shankill, spending summers in Wexford. There is something about the air, the smell, the taste. It gets in your bones, it invigorates you.

“I often stare out of my attic window from my home in Booterstown, as weather systems move in and out of Dublin Bay. With the stacks at Poolbeg as the anchor, Dublin can throw up amazing and inspiring natural conditions.

Changeable light mixed with cloud and tide is a powerful formula. A familiar location is quickly transformed into something distinct and new, a moment never to be repeated. Being present for these moments was the essential factor in the creation of Dublin Salt,” Peter added.

The book has been tastefully designed by Read That Image to reflect the minimalist approach undertaken by Peter in Dublin Salt.

At 120 pages long and with over 50 images, it has a hard cover with a luxurious soft touch cover and spot lacquer finish.

The exhibition consists of fine art prints of 25 images from the book. It runs in Studio 10, 10 Wicklow Street, Dublin 2, until November 19.