As far as I know, I seem to be the only person around who thinks a subject like this is worth recording; (I even went to the trouble of driving 400 miles to do it). Its Romney Marsh in Kent. The skyline here is the top of a shingle beach full of fishermens detritus; its as though its all been washed up by a tsunami. Theres more, it goes on for miles, but if I put it all on a web page it would look like a long bootlace.so heres just a portion. I don’t find it beautiful but I do find it interesting. Although I went to art school once upon a time I prefer to make much of my photography documentary in nature rather than artful. The interest for me here aren’t the boats so much as the collection of old sheds; some of them are relics of things which used to have another purpose; ancient railway goods wagons, van bodies, packing cases. If you look hard enough you’ll probably find an upturned boat with someone living in it like something out of a Dickens novel. The whole thing is totally unarranged, an unconscious, haphazard and extraordinary convergence, much like the rest of this area which must have evolved in the days before planning permission. People may well come and photograph the picturesque individual parts, especially the boats, but why is nobody else interested in the totality of it all? If there is anyone else out there who likes this unpicturesque picture and has a nice long public wall to put it up on please get in touch.
Which raises a few questions. There are very long walls out there in public places which are totally featureless, boring, and crying out for something to look at. Hospitals especially; I have had stuff up in hospitals occasionally and the feedback when I do has been tremendous. Lots of people there have lots of spare time and spend it in front of all that detail. But the people who decide what goes up there seem to prefer conventional, conceptual or abstractive images. . Underground stations are another anonymous wilderness: they fill up all that space with adverts and often the same advert bombards us with mindnumbing repetition. Airports are yet another place I'd love to feature in; (they even have an audience which is slowly transported along their endless wallspaces).. Which is exactly how I want these images to be seen, travelled along just like you have to do with the Bayeux Tapestry or the half-mile bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.
