Shadow of a Bridge

I apologise for the recent outpouring of vitriol but I find it hard not to comment on the excessive obsession of bureaucracy with Health & Safety - in the long term, unless checked, these petty tyrants will destroy our societies. The human race can achieve nothing without taking risks. A child who has grown up in a protective cocoon will be floored by the first unforeseen hazard it encounters; it will have never fallen out of a swing, been bitten by a wasp, spoken to someone it doesn't know, discovered the pitfalls of life for itself. The child will be totally unprepared.

I stepped over a low wall to get this photograph. It took me closer to the river bank but I was never in danger - I was on a solid, horizontal, non-slippery surface. I did not have a safety line, nor a life-jacket, nor a hard-hat. I was a naughty boy. It felt good.

Bridges make interesting images. This one crosses the River Lee to the gas works that so fascinate me. Those pipes and girders cry out to be intimately caressed by my wide-angle lens but I still haven't found a way to get close to them; a tall fence and serious security wire stopped me using the bridge.

I was attracted by the shadows, the strong one across the water and the pointed one running off upstream. Low, winter sunlight made them possible, a wafting sheet of pale yellow spreading across the Docklands of London. It was gorgeous.

Then I made my way back the the studio, ate an instant meal from Tesco's and settled down for an evening of unremitting boredom.

You Can't Be Serious 2!

According to the paper, a woman has now been charged with initiating a bomb hoax on the oil rig.

No news as yet as to whether the management have been charged with the more serious crime of listening to her in the first place - I can think of 'wasting police time' at the very least.

You Can't Be Serious!

A woman had a dream about a bomb on an oil rig installation off the Scottish coast - I'll just emphasise that - a dream. As a result the management evacuated 161 employees and brought in up to a dozen RAF and civilian helicopters. Total cost of the operation was about £500,000.

Those of us who have dreams usually have the good sense to keep them to ourselves. What is so totally unbelievable is the management's reaction. I quote - "We are very relieved that this turned out to be a false alarm, but obviously had to treat it seriously".

Obviously? It was a DREAM, stupid! Yet one more example of the extreme over-reaction to anything to do with health, safety or terrorism in our risk-averse, cotton-wool encased society.

(Incidentally, as part of my job I used to have to deal with bomb warnings and with the activities of the IRA and Welsh Nationalists in the 80s and 90s, they were not infrequent. The procedure was to only accept information from a reliable source. At no time, as far as I can remember, did I get any input from someone recently awakened from the land of Nod by the effects of an over-indulgence in vintage Cheddar cheese).

Epic Epping

Epping Forest is the largest open space in the London area, a richly wooded swathe of countryside wrested from the clutches of land-grabbing developers by Acts of Parliament in 1878. Despite its proximity to some of the grimmer areas of the city (apparently it's a favourite dumping ground for the victims of east London gangs and the highwayman, Dick Turpin, had a hideout there), it can generate scenes of great beauty .

I caught this image this morning as I was taking a short-cut between the M25 and the M11 (I know, too much detail). An irresistible sun-through-mist opportunity presented itself and, just for once, there was somewhere to park the car without screeching brakes and hooting horns. Obviously I was wearing the wrong shoes for muddy tracks but art triumphed once again over practicality.

Incidentally the locals maintain several ancient rights, including that to collect "one faggot of dead or driftwood" per day per adult resident. The ability of poor and down-trodden lesser mortals to benefit from the largesse of nature has always been restricted; one of my ancestors, Selena Lander, was arrested in Cranham Woods for taking 'green' timber rather than dead. The magistrate dismissed the case when the constable failed to produce the evidence. Keeping warm in a damp, labourer's cottage in winter must have been a daunting task in Victorian times, as it still is today for those marginalised by society or their own actions.

Woman in Red

The weather here in the UK is magnificent and that's not a term I use lightly; frosty mornings followed by crisp, warm, sunny days. Spring has sprung and the wildlife is mighty confused. I am, of course, working inside a very large, dark room and so it's all passing me by.

My only taste of this unseasonal bounty is the lovely, misty view I get across the wasteland of the Olympics construction site to the skyscrapers of London's docklands as I make my way into work. I'd like to show you a suitable image but stopping on a flyover on the A12 is not the action of a sane man, or even one, like myself, whose nuts and bolts may be slackening off a little.

On a similar day last year, Pixie ventured out onto the pier at Whitby in Yorkshire. It's fair to say that she is not always a willing model, as witnessed by the look of suffering on her face. I can tell that my quest for the perfect reflection shot is not be being favourably received. Perhaps she was hungry or, judging by the bags she's carrying, eager to renew her assault on the charity shops.

As is so often the case, the only way I could get that picture with Pixie centred in the puddle was to hang in mid-air just off the pier, the North Sea boiling away under my feet.

It's a technique I've not quite mastered as yet.

Prostrating

Image-making on hallowed ground again, as sure a sign of winter as the absence of swallows or the arrival of Easter eggs in the shops before Christmas. I am driven into the only public spaces with photographic potential on a cold day.

Prostrating myself in front of altars has not formed part of my plan-for-life but there's a first time for every thing. The carpet was nice and clean and I needed a direct view of the subject rather than relying on balancing the camera upside down on my foot on the end of a monopod.

For ecclesiastiophiles, the church is St Laurence, Ludlow, Shropshire, essentially Norman with Victorian restoration. It is another of the great English parish churches built off the backs of sheep.

And now, strangely, I can think of nothing controversial to say, or, for that matter, do, unless starting a sentence with the word 'and' counts. But, (which is a word regarded with similar malevolence by the sentence police as 'and' when it comes to opening up a fresh line), I should try to think of something.

Thinking.

No, peace and contentment.

Have a nice day.

(And don't get me started on 'nice'. My English teacher, Miss Hurst, exhorted us to find an alternative in all circumstances. 'Nice' had no place in her version of the language of Middle England.

And she was right. It's a nasty word, redolent in laziness of tongue. Put it away, boy.

And see me after school).

Dingle or Thicket?

I’ve always had a bit of a thing about photographing nature ravaged by industry or, for that matter, industry ravaged by nature. This old gas works in east London has attracted my attention before but now, with the trees in winter plumage, I thought it worth another look.

It is not that simple though. The site is on the opposite side of a tidal river and an electrified railway line. Despite my well-built, over-generous height of 6’ 3 ¾”, I’m not tall enough. Serious, industrial-grade fencing stops me from getting closer and composing a clean shot.

I could probably get a better angle from a riverside towpath outside the compound I’m working in. I won’t bother to try, though; in this area anyone carrying a camera would be seen as easy meat, a quick source of readies for the next fix or a few more bottles of amber nectar. So I’m stuck with clambering up and down steps and odd bits of equipment in the somewhat futile attempt to make something of what is, to me, a rich source of imagery.

In my business, a little bit of foliage in the foreground is known as ‘dingle’; it adds interest, leading the eye to the main subject. Usually there would be a lot less of it than shown above. Perhaps this array of bare branches would be better called ‘thicket’.

Incidentally, it may appear a bit pedantic, and even pretentious, that I’ve insisted on specifying my height to the nearest ¼ inch. It’s just that I had my height measured recently for the first time in about thirty-five years. To my surprise, I’m ¾” taller than I was in my twenties. I thought I’d better make the most of it before I begin shrinking into senility.