Beachy Head is a series of the highest chalk sea cliffs along the Channel Coast of southern England in East Sussex. There is a picturesque lighthouse far below the cliffs, standing stoically alone amidst the surf, and more high cliffs directly to the west, the famous “Seven Sisters” in the South Downs National Park. The sheer bluffs high above the waters of the English Channel attract tourists from all over Britain and beyond, including myself. I wanted to photograph the lonely lighthouse, so I planned to arrive when the light of the sun would be hitting it from the west, as it sank toward the sea to eventually be swallowed into the cold water before magically reappearing in the east the next morning. But when I got there, the sky was cloudy, gray and subdued, and the light was dull and flat. I took a few photos under that light. However, there was a gap between the clouds and the sea that the sun would sink down to in about 20 or 30 minutes. So I decided to wait for that to happen, because then the direct light of the afternoon sun just before sunset would hit the cliff and the lighthouse with a nice warm golden light. While I waited, I stood alone, near the cliff edge. The tops of the cliffs roll up and down in both directions, covered only by short windswept grass, almost like a lawn. There is some brushy vegetation scattered around, but most of the land on top of the cliffs is basically bare. So, you can see quite a long way around in most any direction. At times, there could be hundreds of people in view from any spot along the cliffs, but on this day, there were very few, and I was basically alone. I could see maybe a dozen other people elsewhere along the cliffs, but none near me, not even close. I was mostly looking toward the sea, and the sky, waiting for the sun to move lower. It was taking quite a bit more time than I had hoped, but I persevered. To a passing observer, I may have looked like a sad, lonely old man, gazing into oblivion from the edge of the world.

The next thing I know, a pair of people were approaching me, had come almost entirely upon me before I noticed them at all, even though they were both wearing matching blood red polo shirts that would have been visible a long way off. I just turned and they were there. It was an older man and a younger woman. A fancy logo was embroidered on their shirts, above their hearts. I glanced at it enough to see that it said something in small lettering about “Chaplaincy.” I didn’t stare enough to read the whole thing, because that might have seemed rude, and I’m never rude. Ever. They greeted me cheerfully. I answered their greeting in kind, but tempered with my Germanic aloofness. They proceeded to ask me friendly little questions, like where was I from, was I here on Holiday, and that sort of thing. Was I traveling alone? Making small talk, or so it seemed. “This is an odd place to be selling Jesus” I thought, because I instantly assumed that’s what they were going to do. Why else would they be approaching me in their matching red Chaplaincy shirts? “Why wouldn’t they be doing this in a city or town, where there are more people around?” I asked myself. “What a strange place to be approached by these folks. It’s almost like the edge of the Earth.“ Maybe you see where this is going, but I completely didn’t. Not one bit. I was almost utterly naive about their motive. I told them that I lived in the USA. “Where?” they wanted to know. “In Colorado” I responded. “Is that the desert?” the old man asked me, trying to imagine it in his head. “It’s the mountains” I said. “Yes of course” he recalled. He pictured skiers in his mind. I told them I was there at Beachy Head to photograph the sunset on the lighthouse, and that I was waiting for the light I wanted. I thought it might have been obvious, because I was holding my DSLR camera and encumbered with the straps and holsters associated with it. I expected them to launch into “by the way, we have a great little church in the nearest town, why don’t you come and visit?” at any moment, but they just kept asking banal questions. I humored them, but small talk bores me rather quickly in the best of situations. As we were chatting, the sun finally broke free of the dark clouds, and the golden light I was waiting for appeared and lit up the cliffs and the light house just as I expected. I let my new friends drone on for just a few more moments, but I was quickly getting impatient, because the window of time for the last light of the day was only going to last for a few minutes, and then the sun would disappear into the sea. So I said to them: “I have been waiting for this light, and now it’s here, so I must excuse myself to take the photos I want.” That was the end of it. They said “have a good evening,” and they walked away. I turned back to the cliffs and the lighthouse, and when I finished a little while later, they were gone from view. I couldn’t see their matching red shirts anywhere. Maybe I imagined it; it was all quite odd. Soon, the sun had sunk into the sea and the light was fading. So I walked back down to the car. When I got down to the parking area, the friendly folks in the red shirts were there, talking to a middle aged couple near the cars. I didn’t really want to talk with them anymore, but I couldn’t avoid them as I walked to my car. They didn’t address me, but as I walked right past them, I heard the couple say something about “that’s really sad” and then the old man said something about “some days are better than others,” and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks why there they were there, and why they approached me. You may have figured it out sooner than I did: the friendly folks in the red shirts were there to talk me down from the edge of the cliff, in case I had been planning to take a flying leap into eternity. As I hadn’t been planning to do that, it simply didn’t enter my mind that someone else might have been thinking of that. I suddenly wished I had realized all this at the top of the cliff, because I would have asked them for a portrait, and I would have thanked them for saving my poor little life. I must have seemed so ungrateful. They were right there in the parking lot, and I could have asked them for a photo there, but the context wouldn’t have been the same, without being at the top of the high, scary cliffs. So I demurred and let it be as it was. Later, I got on the internet and discovered that Beachy Head is one of the most popular places in the world to commit suicide, by jumping off the high cliffs, of course. The Channel Coast of England has many high cliffs, so I don’t know why Beachy Head in particular is the most favored place. All of the cliffs that I saw were high enough to kill you if you fell or jumped from them. Perhaps ambitious jumpers try to hit the light house on the way down. Those kind people in the red shirts had saved my life, and I hadn’t even realized it. It turns out the people in the red shirts patrol the area on a daily basis. I must have looked like a real live wire to them, a sad lonely old man standing alone at the edge of the cliff for a long time, looking at nothing. All kidding aside, those folks are doing good work, and here is their weblink if you would like to know more about them: Anyway, the 2nd photo shows the difference between the cloudy light, and the clear golden light of sunset. I like them both. “Photography” literally translates as: “light writing”