When we travel in the UK we like to stay in seaside resorts if possible (since we were both born and raised in a coastal city and the sea is in our blood) and we like to visit piers when we find them. In 2014, while using Margate as a base, we hit Deal in Kent as we knew it had a castle; we didn’t know it had a pier but it turned out to be a lovely surprise, a simple, brutalist piece of work (if you like brutalist architecture and, as luck would have it, I do). While I love classic, Victorian-style piers too there is something so appealing to me to see one cast in concrete. Deal Pier is the third pier that Deal has had and was officially opened in 1957.
The great thing about piers from a photographic perspective is that the straight lines lend themselves so well to compositions. I always try to make a point of directing any diagonal lines into the corner of shots if I can.
