Seawaves No. 2

1 Jan 1898
Silent
1m

Waves roll onto a shingle beach and breakwater on the Northeast coast.

William Henry Youdale was an early adopter of moving pictures. He worked as a draper, but performed magic lantern shows and acquired a film camera to further his enthusiasm. He filmed around the North-east coastline, including Morecambe, but the location of this beach is less clear. Youdale lived in Cockermouth, Cumbria - could this be nearby Silloth?

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From the collection

Sea Wave Films

The 'sea wave' genre might be one of the more surprising genres to come out of early film. But for Victorian audiences there was something hypnotic about these compact studies of movement.

Surely most of us, if we've ever stood before the sea have found ourselves transfixed by the rhythms of gently lapping waves. The violent churn of a really rough sea gives us something else again - a real sense of the ocean's magnificent, sometimes alarming power.