Throughout this shoot I recorded interviews with each subject, I asked each person multiple questions about how they felt they belong, what emotions they feel, what memories they have made here and why they feel they belong hear the most….
I asked Ellie a number of questions about how she came to belong to this place....
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What is your chosen location?
Ballaugh Beach
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What was you're first memory here?
"The first memory I can remember was walking down to the shores with my Grandma, I was tiny, we used to take her old dogs, Pep and Maggie, they were as big as me. After this I used to come to the beach almost every night with my primary school friends, many are still my best friends."
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Why does this particular place make you feel like you belong?
"I suppose because it is so close to home, walking two minutes away from my house to this oasis of calm, it grounds me and brings me back to a sense of reality, this is so rare to find, I am so lucky to have this, praticley on my back door, I feel safe here."
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What emotions does this place evoke?
"A real sense of calm and tranquility, it is an escape from everything anything, its timeless, you can never get bored of a Ballaugh beach sunset, its breathtaking every single times, although it's the same sand, the same sun and the same waves, for me it has become timeless."
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I asked Ellie to choose a piece of text or poem that best describes their feelings about their personal journey of belonging…
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Let us look for secret things
somewhere in the world
on the blue shore of silence
or where the storm has passed rampaging like a train.
There the faint signs are left,
coins of time and water,
debris, celestial ash
and the irreplaceable rapture
of sharing in the labour
of solitude and the sand. Pablo Neruda
