Film director Danny Boyle led poignant beach tributes to the hundreds of thousands of men who never returned from the First World War.
Artists and locals used stencils and rakes to sculpt onto beaches the images of those whose lives were lost after leaving these shores for the trenches. Later, those portraits would be washed away by the tide.
Formby Beach in Merseyside and Blackpool Beach were among the chosen sites for 'Pages of the Sea', marking 100 years since Armistice.
The portraits were chosen by Bury-born Oscar-winner Danny Boyle to represent the stories of ordinary people, covering a range of ranks and regiments, who gave their lives to the War effort.
The Slumdog Millionaire director said he had been inspired by Walter Bleakley, a 27-year-old private from Radcliffe who was killed in action on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Somme.
The director, who was behind the spectacular London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony, said: "The idea was to come to the beaches, create a work of art on the beach and to say goodbye to all the people who left from these beaches a hundred years ago.
"It's a tribute to the people who left from these very beaches over 100 years ago and so few of them returned really.
"The 100th anniversary of the Armistice initially felt like an opportunity to say a final goodbye and we may well decide it is a final goodbye and that we don't commemorate the First World War any more."
But he added: "My mind has been changed by doing the research in this project and I think we should keep celebrating their sacrifice."
Standing on a beach in Folkestone, where a portrait of war poet Wilfred Owen was sculpted in the sand, he added: "In terms of this beach, Wilfred Owen swam here the day before he left for France and he never returned.
"Thankfully his poems did but that's extraordinary - to stand here and think he stood here and it has not changed.
"It would have been exactly the same and that connects you somehow with them really and makes them alive in ways that you can say an honest thank you to them all - to all these people."
Volunteers in Blackpool worked from the early hours, in darkness, at low tide to form the face of young Lance Corporal John Edward Arkwright.
Born in 1890 during Queen Victoria's reign, just down the road from Blackpool in Lancaster, he was among thousands of patriotic volunteers eager to serve his country.
He landed in France with the 1st Battalion, King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment on August 23, 1914.
Three days later he was dead, killed in action during the battle of Le Cateau.
The former police officer with the Lancashire Constabulary was aged 23 and left a wife, Isabellla.
Danny Boyle was asked to get involved with the tribute by 14-18 Now, a programme of art commissions marking the centenary which has enlisted more than 300 artists over the last five years.
The tribute is the final piece in a series seen by more than 30m people.