As the nights draw in and we enter the season of encroaching darkness, my mind turns to memories of summer. Summers are filled with many memories for me and many of those memories relate to beaches. From childhood beaches, with their rock pools, sandcastles, dead crabs and sunburn, to the exotic, tropical and empty beaches of the island paradises of the Maldives, these are my memories.

I have thousands of photos of every aspect of beaches, but do any of them capture the essence of a summer beach?

In recent years, I have spent summer vacations in the South of France, in the coastal area of Languedoc-Roussillon, with many contented afternoons on the long sandy beaches of Marseillan Plages. A big beach towel, sun screen, mp3 player, bread, wine and cheese - as close to perfection for a summer afternoon as you can get.

And the following photograph is one of the most evocative for me of those afternoons; a simple picture of my own footprint in pristine sand and a feather trapped by the tide.

Nick Fuller of JadeGreenImage