Torre Sant'Andrea sea stacks

Twelve kilometres north of Otranto the Adriatic has eaten the soft limestone into arches, coves and free-standing towers of rock. Torre Sant'Andrea is the best-known stretch: half a dozen white stacks a short swim offshore, a small beach between them, and a cliff path along the top with a ruined watchtower.

The photographs are made from the cliff edge, not the beach. From the path the stacks line up against open water and the colour does the work — pale rock, turquoise shallows, and a hard blue beyond the sandbar. Stand on the low rock shelf and the whole sea fills the background.

Sunrise is the hour: the light comes straight off the water onto the rock, the sea is usually flat, and there is nobody there. By ten in July the beach below is full and the cliff path has a steady line of people on it. Overcast days actually deepen the water colour, so grey is not a write-off.

The edges are limestone and they crumble; stay back from the lip, wear something with grip, and do not climb the stacks themselves — every summer somebody has to be taken off them.