Every year they are cloaked in polythene or fleece either dug into the soil or held down by weighted plastic bags. From afar the polythene can shimmer like the surface of a lake, while the fleece can resemble snow when the air is still or ripple like water in a wind.
Being slow to work out how to make what I see match what the camera sees I have been trying to photographed these surreal fields for the last three springs.
With no wind and a clear sky today I made some pictures which I think are more successful than my earlier efforts.
The first picture was an attempt at making a traditionally bucolic landscape composition, with the incongruity of the rippled white surface peppered with black bags. A self-conscious effort at subverting a genre, I suppose. The second shot is more about the ripples and repeating patterns of the bags, while being a 'straight documentary' composition.
These pictures, and others I have taken of farming related scenes, seem to fall in with what I'm coming to think is my main preocupations for photographic subjects - the way man impacts on the natural world and how nature encroaches on the man-made environment. It could all too easily be assumed that this arises from some deep dislike of what mankind has done to the world, but I don't think it is. I just find it interesting that, in the UK at least, there is no such thing as a natural environment yet no matter what is done to alter it flora and fauna find ways to adapt.
In a way my interest in people using the beach and dunes for pleasure, and for profit, is part of this preoccupation. With the sun shining on the warmest day for a long time there were a few people enjoying the beach this evening. I snatched a couple of shots of a horsey person before wandering into the dunes to photograph something I had tried to picture a couple of years ago.
Of the two frames this was the best. It's one of those 'nearly' shots though. The pink boots and child's jacket are nice, as is the spread of figures over the frame. There's even a catch-light in the horse's eye,and the contrail leads to the horse's head. Where it falls down worst of all is the horse's handler's head being obscured by the leading rein - not to mention her face being turned away, although that is less troublesome as the implied gaze is towards the two riders. There are also two annoying niggles; the car by the horse's tail and the figure cutting into its neck. The flare to the bottom left and the central horizon. I can live with. Hey ho.
My venture into the dunes was not too productive. I had left it too late and the angle of light was wrong. On my way back I took a couple of pictures of the entrance to the beach, trying to include all the relevant elements to set the scene. I'm not sure if the topography of the dunes prevented me getting a high enough vantage point between the two places I shot from or whether I just messed up. The perfect shot would have been made from between the two. I might go back and try again sometime.
What is interesting about the two frames (which I only picked up on when processing them as they replaced each other on the screen as I clicked through the images) is that I have placed the telegraph pole in almost exactly the same place in both, and it's damned close to a vertical 'rule of thirds' line. I didn't do this consciously. I was concentrating on trying to get all the buildings framed and eliminating wasted space.On the way home I snapped another interaction of technology with the environment. Albeit the far from natural environment of the sandplant. Even the inclusion of a silhouetted figure on a trail bike in a simple 'landscape' picture like this makes it hold the attention much longer than mere bricks and rubble - no matter how appealing or evocative the light.
Despite making some pictures which have given me plenty to think about I still feel in need of something substantial to concentrate on. Perhaps I need a break from the viewfinder for a while to recharge my psychological batteries.
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