End Of Summer: BJM by Mark Leighton

Most of us at one time or another have experienced the end of a summer. I don't just mean a date on a calendar, or a time of year. I am positive most of you know the end of a summer, that specific summer, as a very distinct and powerful sensation.

The melancholy feelings that something special, something that might never get repeated is coming to end. The air around you changes far too quickly from sticky hot to cool as days get shorter and you brain is cruelly forced from fantasy back to reality.

As harsh as the end of summer can be, it is much sadder to think of never having experienced one. Without an end, there was no beginning and nothing within those months to look back on longingly as Autumn begins. I have been fortunate to have had more than a few of those summers. It is a struggle as we age to keep summers, or any reason really, one you mourn the end of. When it does happen though, you know you have experienced something meaningful.

It is this point in time photographer Mark Leighton has captured so succinctly in this series of shots with Ben. Ben is from Hereford, England, a student, and a member of his college's rowing team. Most of the images shown here come from Mark's second shoot with 19 year old model last September. The end of a summer, and the end of a day.

'We were particularly trying to catch the "magic hour" at sunset time. The problem is that it is not an hour, so there is a mad rush to do as many as possible in a short space of time. On the west coast in Portugal, it can get quite fresh as the sunsets, so Ben was quite brave in the Ocean and on the wet sand. On one of the shoots he also had an audience of couples enjoying a romantic walk along the beach at sunset - the view was more spectacular than they might have imagined!'
Mark Leighton