Beachy Head is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 metres (531 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness in the east, to Selsey Bill in the west. Its height has also made it one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world.
In his ongoing project which centres around Beachy Head, Brian David Stevens documents the stark beauty of the area. The resulting photos are interspersed with reportage of the cliff’s fatalities from the Eastbourne Herald: a combination which is both striking and chilling.
Robert Macfarlane says of the project: “These are special images. I’ve never seen Beachy Head look like these. [The] billowing earth and the billowing cloud speak to one another. And those circling birds, aloft in the way that the suicides might long to be, reminded me of a line of Paul Claudel’s that I quoted somewhere in Mountains of the Mind: ‘We lack wings to fly, but will always have strength to fall.’ ”
Keep tabs on Brian’s progress via his website, blog and Twitter account.