RIP Lone Tree

This morning I went out walking on one of my usual routes - I hadn't been this way for some time and the going was heavy. Over two grassy sheep fields, is another large arable field which has a lone tree in the middle of it. The field had been ploughed over the winter into huge furrows and I felt momentarily disoriented as I scanned the horizon for its familiar outline only to find it missing! I felt sure I had made a mistake - perhaps the tree had been in another field after all. But as I walked round the edge, it became clear to me that it was definitely no longer there. Perhaps it blew down in stormy weather or more likely it was removed by the farmer to make ploughing easier. It had always been a landmark which showed the direction of the public footpath across the field, usually hidden by crops or ploughed up in the winter. No longer will it be there to point the walker in the right direction or to offer a bit of welcome shade on a hot sunny day. Another small change in the landscape, probably not noticed by many but sadly missed by me.

I have taken many photographs of this tree over the years, with various assorted cameras and in all seasons. Here is a selection.... RIP Lone Tree!

Marshland sights and sounds

On my last visit to Swanscombe Marsh I was initially struck by the sense of peace and quiet but the more I wandered, the more my ear became attuned to the variety of sounds in the landscape. Whenever I stood still to concentrate and take a photograph, I became aware of the insistent, sibilant rustling of the reeds, the creaking of the willows, the warbling and chattering of various birds and the occasional strident cry of an unseen pheasant that seemed to be stalking me. The mournful, melancholy hooting of the riverboats and the distant background clanking and beeping of machinery were a constant reminder of the human activity taking place on the periphery of the site. In the little creek the masts of the boats rattled and jangled and the wind tugged at the flapping tarpaulin.

Everywhere were signs of life emerging from the long sleep of winter - trees in bud, pussy willows and silver birch, yellow coltsfoot, an incongruous clump of daffodils, and fat bumblebees lazily buzzing around. As well as the flocks of black headed gulls circling the river, I also saw mallards, coots, magpies, pigeons, and some sort of unidentified warbler swooping low over the grass. Other signs of activity were less welcome - the burnt patches of grass and evidence of pollution in the pools testifying to man's intervention in the landscape. Nature, however, seems to be able to adapt and make the best of things in the most inhospitable and unpromising places..... 

Not Dark Yet

"Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain"

Not Dark Yet, from Time Out of Mind
Bob Dylan

Spring comes to Swanscombe Marsh

Typical April weather with a stiff breeze, intermittent sunshine and scudding clouds transformed the marsh on my last visit there two weeks ago. The sun lifted the palette of soft yellows and greens, highlighting the buds bursting on the bushes and bringing alive the reed beds. Occasional patches of yellow flowers nestled on the beds of the stream and the wind rippled the surface of the water in the pools, the reflected sky turning them a deep blue. The whole place felt scrubbed and fresh and my winter cobwebs were blown away. I came away feeling uplifted.

Whilst pottering around the little creek where the boats are moored I met one of the inhabitants - a man who has been building a houseboat there for about a year. He gave me a bit of background information about the place: officially a boat club, in reality it is a place where men come to tinker with their boat building and renovating projects. He was a local man and had previously worked on the river for years, but had only recently been aware of the existence of the creek.

The boats are in a variety of states - some only worth scrap like the huge barge waiting for a tide high enough to float it and be taken away, and some like the battleship built from scratch. One or two people live there but the majority visit off and on. It has a delightfully dilapidated, ramshackle air but you can easily imagine that the people using it view it as a sort of haven, an escape from work and the chores of everyday life. What will happen to it if and when the theme park gets built is not known but I would hazard a guess that Paramount would  prefer to have a neat and tidy sanitised version!

Spring is cancelled this year II

Here is a different take on the same subject matter as my last post.  Instead of using my digital SLR, I shot these using black and white film on the Hasselblad.  The square format gives a different, perhaps more formal feel, and the black and white lends a more sombre and melancholy note.

The snow has all but disappeared now, and much as I enjoy using the snow as a backdrop to my photographs, I sincerely hope we have seen the last of it for this year!

On Swanscombe Marsh II

Some more pictures from my recent Swanscombe Marsh trip...

I pretty much had the place to myself for three hours though did come across a couple of people - a solitary man striding along, a father with his young daughter on bikes and a man walking his dog. The latter stopped to talk to me and I was struck by his enthusiasm for the place. He told me that he had been coming here regularly for 6 or 7 years and appreciated the peace and quiet and the wide-open spaces. There were carp to be found in the pools and he had even seen a kingfisher on occasions. Sadly, he said that quite a lot of local people were in favour of the proposed development as they thought it might bring about an increase in the value of their homes, better road infrastructure and lots of jobs. The surrounding area is quite run down and who can blame people for wanting what many would see as improvements - peace and quiet and open space cannot compete with these sorts of benefits in most people's eyes.

I can imagine that many people looking at these photographs would wonder what was worth preserving - it is after all a rather desolate and scrappy looking landscape littered with pylons and bits of rusting metal. It is difficult to measure the importance of this kind of liminal space on the edge of the city but once built upon, it will be gone forever. And does the world really need another theme park? I know which I would prefer.....

On Swanscombe Marsh

Not much activity on the blogging front recently I'm afraid, but I've not been idle! I've just started work on a new project photographing the area known as Swanscombe Marsh, which is situated just east of Dartford in Kent on the banks of the River Thames. The project is being undertaken by a group of photographers from Crossing Lines - a collaboration between Goldsmiths University Centre for Urban and Community Research and London Independent Photography. The idea is that each photographer will approach the project in their own way and a more complete and varied picture of the place will eventually emerge. I will certainly be interested in seeing other interpretations - nobody's vision is exactly the same and there will obviously be a variety of approaches.

The area consists of low-lying marshland and old quarries on the margins of the city of London and is the site of a proposed redevelopment involving a huge Paramount Studios theme park. These photographs show it as it exists now - a windswept, rather desolate place with traces of past industrial activity and evidence of recent attempts to fence it off and discourage members of the public from access. However, it is traversed by public footpaths and is used by dog-walkers and other local people for recreation and exercise. It is not an area which could be considered traditionally beautiful, but its derelict wildness lends it a certain stark and shabby kind of beauty, and the combination of expanses of sky and water give it a wide-open feeling.

This is an area of the country which is not familiar to me and I have no emotional attachment to the landscape. However, I hope that the photographs will be more than purely documentary in nature. As ever, I will be attempting to evoke a sense of place, using the weather and light to convey the particular mood and atmosphere of the area. Depending on weather conditions I may experiment with black and white but for now I have chosen initially to photograph on medium format colour film with the Hasselblad - using this camera automatically slows you down and allows a more contemplative mood to permeate the images.