Category: Jerusalem

 …or, why I will never be a great photographer.

I was out walking today when I noticed a commotion in the undergrowth. It was a young deer that was completely entangled in a wire fence. As I approached it started to panic, struggle and scream, I didn’t know a deer could make that kind of a noise, it was a kind of loud high pitched squeal which echoed all around the woods. The poor thing was completely stuck and looked to be beyond help without the application of wire cutters. I thought about putting it out of it’s misery rather than leaving it to a lingering death or for the foxes later that night. I decided to at least try and release it first. I had to almost break its legs to get them free and then force it’s body through the tight hole that was constricting it, all the time it was kicking, terrified and screaming. Eventually, I managed to get it free and with only minor cuts it bounded off into the undergrowth and was gone without so much as a thankyou!

Later, on recollection I realised I had no photographs.

 Many thanks to Geoff Mathews for inspiring me to come up with a title to work towards. 

Welcome to “Gardens of Earthly Delights” 

I can see I will have to do some research into Bosch. 

In the meantime here’s a few pic’s shot on my iPhone…

Why am I doing this, there must be more important things to photograph? With the world the way it is; pandemic, wars, Trump, Tory buffoons, Labour’s self-harming, poverty, environmental disaster – and I choose this! I guess everyone elses focus is on the bigger issues so perhaps that should be reason enough. Then again, I wonder what these images say about the bigger issues? Why should I care? In the grand scheme does it really matter when the human race gets wiped out, tomorrow or a million years. It’s inevitable that it will happen one day. Perhaps it’s a fatalistic view that drives me to photograph the inconsequential, the bizarre, and the seemingly unimportant. Perhaps that’s what living in Lincolnshire is… I need a drink!

Meet the creator of these marvelous objects. Maybe it’s the need to escape reality that drives us to create our own worlds. I could be generalising but, one thing I notice about gardens such as these is that the creators are always friendly, they have a love of nature and often a greater understanding of nature than most people. 

A sink used as a convenient receptacle for plant cuttings complete with its own water supply and drainage. Or perhaps an unwittingly created metaphor for life… I definitely need that drink?

Happy new year and welcome to Brexitland.

A selection of flags from around Lincolnshire…

Click images to enlarge…

I have finally got around to covering North Lincolnshire, west of the River Trent…

Looking toward Goole Fields this area is probably more sparsely populated than the fens. Apparently, ideal for land based wind farms and horses.

I have photographed similar attempts by land owners all over Lincolnshire to capitalise on the ‘fun farm’ – There’s not a lot else to do round here unless you like shooting things.

 

I love the location of John Wesley‘s statue in Epworth. No grand plinth in the town square, this location is fitting given his views though, I guess the idea of being idolised at all would be anathema.

In Owston Ferry, there is a feeling of desolation and the sense of a faded community that existed before the television, mobile phones and the internet. I actually like what is has become, melancholic, a place that has forgotten what it is. The phone box has no phone inside it. What was the ‘Albion Hall’? Who was Frances Sandres, she gifted the clock tower in 1866? Modern tractors hauling potatoes roar through the square at the same speed as cars, not a single soul on the street. Who knows, with global warming we may have to start thinking more locally again and perhaps these former community areas will be revitalised with markets and other social activities… in my dreams perhaps!

The Plough at Potterhanworth Booths now itself as nostalgic as the technology it displays.

…and more garages, this is starting to get a bit like trainspotting!

So it looks like I have another Jerusalem spin-off simmering away in the background.

The rise in MPG and reliability of modern cars has spelled disaster for a lot of rural garages. Tie this in with the current trend for electric vehicles and these garages will soon be contributing to the demise of rural communities in the same way as the near extinction of post offices, schools, pubs, village shops and chapels.