The spirit of place

Last Sunday some friends and I had a walk along the beach at Shoebury Garrison in Essex. Half way I came across a roll of exposed 35mm film, an unexpected find. I picked it up and looked for any images and found none. The film had been exposed and the natural elements had taken their toll. I put down the film and carried on walking.

I thought of what the roll would look like if I scanned them and I thought about Stephen Gill. Stephen did a book called Buried, a book I would love to own.

  

Buried

The photographs in this book were taken in Hackney Wick and later buried there. The amount of time the images were left underground varied depending on the amount of rainfall. The depths that the pictures were buried at also varied, as did their positioning. Sometimes they were facing each other, sometimes back to back or sometimes buried singly. When burying my first batch of photographs, a passing man spotted me and asked what I was doing. Not only did I not want to give the location away of some of my buried pictures, but It just sounded a bit weird to say that I was burying photographs so replied that I was looking for newts. As soon as I’d said that I looked down and saw a newt at my feet. Not knowing what an image would look like once it was dug up introduced an element of chance and surprise which I found appealing. This feeling of letting go and in a way collaborating with place – allowing it also to work on putting the finishing touches to a picture – felt fair. Maybe the spirit of the place can also make its mark.

Stephen Gill

The next three days that roll of film was playing on my mind, and today I went back in the bitter cold to find it again. I found it in the same place and tonight I scanned the images.

The very last scan

Is this the spirit of Shoebury Garrison? The spirit of place? Who knows, all a bit "strange" to me.

 

 Ken