Shap, Worthing & Preston

                                             Tata Steel Co., Shap, Cumbria.

During a trip to the Lake district from Lancaster, we passed through Shap. From this high point near the Fell Garage, you can see the fell that is High Street to the left. On the opposite side of the a road, slammed between the road and the motorway is a steaming factory belonging to Tata Steel company, at first at odds with the rural vibe but captivating none-the-less. 

The final image is of a photo merged/layered with an image that is textured (taken in Pisa), to give the illusion that it's an old image. This simple approach is part of a side project called Marginal images. Below are some more experiments with texture and colour. All of these photographs are carefully edited and selected to keep within a collection that have been exhibited locally and put up for sale.

                     Hollywood Bowl, Worthing, W. Sussex

In a three year period my wife had researched the best conversion units to fit our Citreon Berlingo to begin our road trips around the UK's coast. It was dreamed, it was planned and we set off. Before we picked up the unit near Eastbourne on the south coast, we stayed in Worthing for the night at a Travel Lodge. Our hunt for a chippy tea at sunset drew my attention to the brutal-esque ex car park building that's the 'Hollywood Bowl', a stark, 60s throwback that's now a precinct. The overlay is a detail from the blue paint spattered gate, spotted near a road in the Mani, Greece.

                   Avenham Lane high rises, Preston, Lancs

Avenham in Preston was home for many years and I was constantly taking photographs there. These flats feature many times in the marginal images set of work. They are taken from different perspectives but look like they could be anywhere. For this image I added the flaking surface of a concrete bridge, taken in New York. 

Dungeness, Kent.

Dungeness is a flat, eerie and wild edgeland nestled at the tip of southern Kent.

Through a camera you can frame a jumble of pylons, low buildings, a lighthouse and a power station. Small innocuous homes sit like compact, self sufficient huts out of season.

One of the few black cottages has thick yellow window frames and a borderless garden belonging to the artist and film maker Derek Jarmen, now kept and overseen by his partner. 

The shingle merges with the garden, without a border to speak of. The garden and the landscape beyond it casts a spell which was difficult to articulate, something about it being both bleak and beautiful. How do plants and animals survive at the edge of this otherworldly lunar-esque dimension? The wilderness of the place helped it become an SSSI, a site of special scientific interest. The only boundaries seem to be the few roads.

At the time of our visit I got out the car and marvelled at the distant horizon, where large ships could be spotted and in the foreground, weather battered boats lay up on shingle. A large rusted tank rests along with other skeletal detritus. Walking in the distance, a visitor, with their partner trailing behind. 

Nearby Jarman's cottage I stood on a pathway to photograph a defunkt BT booth that seemed at odds within the strange landscape. Crossing back over the road to capture more detail in the low scrub I heard a shout, "S'cuse me!".  I only turned when the bloke's voice came again, this time more gritty and annoyed. 

A man appeared in a wooly bobble hat, arms bellowing like Biffa Bacon's, "S'cuse me! You wouldn't like it if I came and walked all over your garden, would you? No! Well, don't do it on mine! " He huffed and turned quickly off, ignoring the apologies. He was right to moan, I hadn't been bothered to ask - mainly because it looked like nobody lived there. Looking at the photo I realise I ignored the situation completely since a bag of spilt stones on the same path indicated if there was an owner, they wouldn't be the type to get worked up. How wrong.