With such lovely autumnal sunshine I headed out to the New Forest this week with the intention of trying to capture some sunset landscapes and grey mares to photograph. White horses have a deep connection to the south of England … Continue reading
Two of my favourite things plus a night away with my better half was always going to bode well. Dreadzone at eden project in Cornwall on October 1st was like having your favourite pudding and your favourite meal delivered by hand. The following day exploring the flora of Eden was like a 7 course meal for my eyes and camera!
A startlingly beautiful and almost alien venue at night we were greeted by gifts of Acai berry juice freshly harvested from the tropical biome. Warmly welcomed by Dan Ryan, editor of Eden’s online conservation website Plant Talk, who was kind enough to put us up in his camper (thanks Dan!). I have been volunteering for Dan as photojournalist and wasn’t sure if I was more excited to photograph Dreadzone in such an amazing structure or the plant life the following day. But both were as wonderful to shoot as the other.
An intimate gig with an audience of eight hundred nestled between the biomes Dreadzone played with abandoned pride, clearly showing their joy gigging at such an inspiring venue with the multi coloured Cornish crowd in full appreciation. Once the rhythm section of Big Audio Dynamite in the 1980’s the new album Eye on the Horizon is available now on Dubweiser records. Look out for tracks Gangster, Little Britain (not the tv show the song!) inspired American Dread and the hypnotising Tomorrow Never Comes. The band played with personal passion dedicating the track Changes to a member of eden team who had recently lost her father, their connection to their audience as strong as ever. Oh how we danced under eden’s biomes, as those who know would say “Oi Oi!”
Eden isn’t just about plants, occasional gigs (the spectacular Kate Tempest plays next month) and the largest greenhouse in the world. As a registered charity member’s of the team work with the homeless on their Great Grass programme which enables participants to realise new skills on registered training courses and support into employment. There are campaigns to encourage school children to learn how we can grow our own foods, a deep geothermal energy project proposing to build the first UK geothermal power plant, and so much more to learn and explore. Wear comfy shoes and layers, that tropical biome is hot and go, you’d be silly not to!
In one of my mother’s diaries, writing about my first year, it says that I seemed to be only soothed by watching the leaves above me from the comfort of my pram. The patterns, colours and movement of leaves I do find fascinating. The veins of chlorophyll like a road system spreading across a continent. The fun of being a child again and kicking up fallen leaves in autumn afternoons. The delicate prize of a skeleton leaf more fragile than antique lace. Yup, she was right I liked leaves. I found a skeleton physalis case this week which I am yet to photograph so in the meantime here is a series of luscious leaves that I have taken this year.
I’m a bit nuts about moths. It was the dead greater tiger moth that I found under the rose bush when I was three that did it. I carried it into the house and nestled it’s furry body into a … Continue reading
When I was a gardener occasionally a client would be heard to say ‘Isn’t that a weed?’ that I was tending. Instead of starting a long conversation about what is a weed and what isn’t; is the double headed poppy that … Continue reading
It is 10 years now that I have been visiting crop circles. Late spring begins, the rape fields flower and the circles start to arrive in the fields of Hampshire, Wiltshire and slowly over the decades they have spread up country, over the channel, the atlantic, the globe. Beautiful circles, beautiful art work, beautiful messages, beautiful questions…
‘Who’ is usually the dominant question when people see the amazing images created in the crop fields but after dancing that dervish for a decade and finding myself down Alice’s rabbit hole I am now much more interested in the ‘Why’ of them. Why? For fun, for mystery, for art, for communication, for connection, to create wonder and amazement in the viewer and for those that read these glyphs a little deeper: a truly mindboggling array of geometric patterns to decipher and understand.
Like cherries on the top of a fine cake, crop circles enhance and add that little bit of magic and mystery to an already luscious ancient landscape filled with monoliths, stone circles, archaeology and wild nature that are the fields of Merry England…and beyond!
This little photo series show a few of the circles, the croppies (the people) and the surrounding areas that I visited this year and the wonderful Barge public house that provides safe haven for relaxed colourful campers on the banks of the Kennet Canal.
“In this green and pleasant land
We have a dream to understand
In the mountains of the mind
There is a spirit you will find…” © Dreadzone
I don’t think Dreadzone were singing of crop circles when they wrote this but my, doesn’t it fit well!
A fellow photographer, who creates superb calendars, Steve Alexander is the lucky one who gets to fly above the circles and capture these wonderful images. Like flying over the Nazca lines ~ it is only in flight that we can see the full picture. Thanks Steve :)
Being the proud owner of a rather lovely new Nikon D5000 I have been getting out and about as much as possible this summer exploring conservation areas for butterflies, wild orchids and as ever, inspiration. A few weeks ago I … Continue reading
Ropewalk Community Garden is one of those little jewels hiding away in the centre of an urban concrete sprawl that you just never knew existed. Back in the cold early month of March I popped down on a drizzly Sunday morning to help with the weaving of a willow arch for the children in the area to play under.
With the guidance of ‘The Willow Man’ the local community; all ages including grandmothers, fathers and their children came together to bend, weave and tie the living willow into an arched tunnel for the children to run through, hide in and marvel at over the years to come. A wonderful day that taught children to tie knots, how something dead can grow and how working together brings many laughs and new friendships. Community work at its best, muddy!
My new love of nature photography began to take me on a curious path. Walking through a blue bell wood on a hunt for a hill that my partner had been able to see from his inner city apartment I found what I thought might be a spring orchid. This gorgeously happy yellow flower with the big green balls really captured my imagination and on my knees in the new nettles I took a photograph that when posted on a facebook orchid group was noticed by Dan Ryan the Editor of The Eden Project’s brilliant online conservation magazine Plant Talk where you can find information and articles about global conservation projects and some more of my photography series.
I love how only on editing I saw that a young bright green grasshopper was sheltering under the blooms lemony roof. It turned out not to be an orchid at all but ‘Yellow archangel ~ Lamiastrum galebodolon’. Hey ho, from small mistakes come wonderful new contacts and I am now an official Eden Project volunteer photojournalist. Thank you Dan for noticing 
Back at the tail end of a long dark winter I picked up my partners Pentax Optio. In my pyjamas I crept out into the dark morning, like a bear slumbering out of its’ cave after the rain, and was absorbed by colour and light. Last summer I had bought a jumbo bag of spring bulbs and there on that bleak morning were the forgotten treasures of freshly blooming crocus. It was these photographs that inspired me to start a project called ‘A Brave New World’ taking a photograph a day of nature and colour to keep me inspired. I hope they inspire you too.
