The coastline of The Hague is where the city slows down and opens up. In this photo series, Jop Hermans captures quiet moments along the shore, offering a calm, familiar view of the city by the sea.

Jop Hermans: Since 2013, I’ve been photographing along the coastline of The Hague. The North Sea coast isn’t a particularly spectacular backdrop. There are no mountains, no cliffs, and that’s exactly where the challenge lies. To add an extra element to my work, I began incorporating the cloud-filled sky into my images. In a way, the clouds have become my mountains.

What I like to search for as a photographer is a certain stillness within a restless landscape: the ever‑moving sea. To create that calm, I work with detail and a lot of space, what in photography is called “negative space.” A silhouette in a large empty space, like at sea, gives a sense of how vast it really is. When the line‑up is crowded, I prefer to seek out the solitude of a single surfer or one breaking wave. I look for details you only notice when you pause for a moment.

In essence, I’m searching for moments just before or just after the one you would normally capture. Everyone has seen a surf shot by now, but it’s those quiet seconds around it that I’m after. That’s where the challenge lies for me: sensing what’s about to happen, or what has just passed.

Follow Jop on @jophermans.photography or find more of his work on www.jophermans.com