To celebrate black history month, organised in Southampton in part by my good friend Don Jon manager of reggae band Ebony Rockers and race relations consultant, an exhibition of photographs (including some of mine) will be featured until end November at The Soul Cellar Southampton. Go see it or if you can’t? All of the fantastic photographers featured can be found at the wonderful www.johnnytoaster.co.uk
(Nice styling Toaster!)
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!
I had such a wonderful response to my recent blog about the Secret Garden Party festival I thought I should treat you to some more festival wild things that are we humble humans in full summer bloom in thanks for your kind words!
Pulse Festival grew from a little idea to raise some cash for Southampton’s Children’s Heart Unit as two fathers shared their concerns over their children’s ill health from congenital heart disease. From little acorns come large oaks and this wonderful family festival encompassed all that is good about colourful festival people, the music scene in Hampshire and and our green countryside. Located at Sunnyfield’s Organic Farm there were pigs to pet, organic produce to nosh on and tractor rides to keep the dads … sorry kids happy!
We got to see our lovely friend singer, songwriter and guitarist Lucy Kitchen sing her blend of folky acoustic sounds including the beautiful ‘Blue Eyes’ and a haunting rendition of Lamb’s ’Gabriel’ one of my personal top 10 ten favourite tunes.
Watching the Pulse people go by in their festival finery was a joy as ever and it was a pleasure to see so many happy families, daft dad dancing and painted faces. We didn’t stay for the evening as my daughter was leaving for three months travels the next day but I did round off my fun with a good jump around to Pronghorn.
One of Hampshire’s finest products of cow punk Pronghorn played Glastonbury this year and got this south coast crowd jumping and one little girl deciding it wasn’t quite her cup of tea…she’ll learn!
As day turned to evening a sunny shower freshened up the revellers and brought with it a rainbow. May it be a good portent for all of the families supported at Southampton General Hospital and may this little acorn of a festival grow into a sturdy oak. I believe the cash raised is still being counted but estimates suggest nearly £10,000 will be winging it’s way to the Heart Unit. A brilliant result, a beautiful event, do let’s have another!
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 :)
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!
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