"Those who have visited Corfu will no doubt have their preferences for the inland or for the coast. In the high summer, an aerial view of this lovely island would reveal thousands of shiny roofs and hundreds of thousands of human bodies lying prostrate and motionless. A visitor from another cosmos would be bewildered by such a display. I stood in the rain on the southern tip pondering on all of this and contemplating what could be done here.

So many of us go to the beach not simply to swim but to gaze at three simple rectangles - sky, sea and shore - for a sense of calm. There is much comfort to be had from these simple shapes. Looking out across an ocean can often bring an immediate calming of the mind, a subduing of racing thoughts, perhaps like gazing into the heart of a candle flame; the mind can contemplate lofty notions of existence and purpose as we gaze out questioningly to the horizon. Freya Stark said in her Perseus in the Wind: 'and if one asked which of all sights in nature, is most lastingly satisfying, would one not choose the horizon?'

In the rain I indulged in none of these meditations, but simply felt frustration as to what, if anything, might be achieved. Often food and refreshment are of no consequence when images are being made, but here I became desperate for food. With that in mind, I turned to leave, only to be greeted, in the far distance, by a band of cornflower blue. With a northerly wind, I hoped that within an hour or so the sun may be unmasked by the rain clouds and the shoreline would be lit. I miscalculated. The wind speeds above are of course greater than at ground level, and within twenty minutes the division between blue and deep grey was both more pronounced and nearer to where I stood. There had been one further heavy burst of rain which had forced me to shelter under a leaky tarpaulin, and with the passing of the rain I was offered the very light I had hoped for. With not a molecule of dust in the air, the hard sunlight smashed onto the near water, filling it with an opaline iridescence. Setting this outrageous green against the distant foreboding rain clouds was so obviously the thing to do. As I look again at this image, I wonder whether others looking at it feel that the storm is brewing, soon to arrive, or that it has passed. Depending on the outlook of the individual, perhaps it is a case of the vessel being half full or half empty. The anticipated glass of good Greek wine in a nearby taverna quickly dismissed the idea of any glass being empty."  Charlie Waite