Ok, I'll admit that this isn't just a commentary project, it's primarily an exercise in composition, and there's no easier place to do this than on the coast, where the horizons are distant and flat, leaving not much background clutter, and the act of composition is more Rothko than Constable.

But still, there is something fascinating about the British on holiday, and I'm not talking about, or interested in the drinking and clubbing culture, or the gravitational pull toward familiar fast food in far flung places. I'll leave that kind of scathing commentary to other photographers. I'm more interested in the vernacular; the surface of these places. These are nostalgia factories. When I was a child, coming from a near landlocked shire in the north of England, a seaside resort was an utterly exotic, sensation filled experience. So many elements of each of our family holidays is etched in my memory, and these treasures resonate achingly in places like Clevedon.

Technically, Clevedon isn't even a seaside resort. It squats on the edge of the Bristol Channel, the River Severn's muddy brown exit into the Atlantic. It's not a place you'd go if you'd want the pristine sandy beaches or wild cliff top walks of nearby Devon and Cornwall. Most likely it's a place you'd go because you can afford it and you can get there easily. It has a uniquely British feel, and conforms with so much of the country's seaside resort culture: a preponderance of bed and breakfast hotels, amusement arcades, fish and chip shops, ice cream parlours, a pier, a promenade... Things to do and ways to keep the kids occupied if the weather isn't all that great, or the sea is either too cold or too rough, all of which are to be expected and hedged against.

I love places like these, and the people who come to them. They are unpretentious holiday destinations for families who are blessed with an admirable lack of self consciousness, and I can't help but feel warmly toward them because the familiarity of these places is burnt into my consciousness, so I can still relate to this very particular holiday experience, and do so very happily.