FILM PHOTOGRAPHY WORDS
Professional photographer, independent filmmaker, occasional writer and picture editor for Fallon’s Angler magazine.
The Shop on Holy Street - Fallon's Angler
The Outsider - The story of Del Harding
Little Shit - Director Richard Gorodecky - film stills
From the Gloaming - Fishing the River Test
St Blaines Via Tor Mor - A guided walk - The Great Outdoors Magazine
...The path continued though this pleasant lowland landscape of stone walls, cattle, sheep and gorse until a scattered group of mature trees indicated the site of St Blane’s, a 12th century church and the remnants of a sixth century monastery, located below dark jagged cliffs in a natural basin. The mood of medieval Britain was intensified as rooks squawked and hovered over St Blane’s as I explored this atmospheric site, I sensed how a community driven by faith could have thrived for hundreds of years, tucked away in this quiet corner of the Isle of Bute.
With the rooks echoing behind me I rejoined the path and headed north and soon started to climb onto a clearly visible ridge that took me on a southeastern direction, I traversed several peaks up to 149m until I reached the final peak of Tor Mor (146m). From Tor Mor I could clearly see the Isle of Arran to the southwest as well as panoramic views of Bute to the north...
Mr Green Rod - Chris Yates returns to the Sussex Levels after sixty years
Sweets of Usk - Fallon's Angler
Ashmead - Fishing for carp on the Somerset Levels
Along the Hackney Canal by Freya Najade - Hoxton Mini Press
a review for Caught by the River
The Lea and Hackney marshes in East London always had an air of uncertainty: a place that has never been defined, a hinterland of neglect, a place that is neither urban, industrial, suburban nor open country, a place on the fringe. Over a millennium there has been a constant ebb and flow between nature and human intervention. Where other places in London have lost their natural identity, the Lower Lea area can still claim a sense of wilderness, however in the past the marshes have been darkened. The underbelly of East London had taken refuge here. Using the isolated location and its remote hostelries, these interlopers could lie low, seeking sanctuary amongst the gypsies and the workers on the cut. Today, this common ground no longer harbors such troubled souls, but the area still retains an air of the unruly, a world on the edge of normality, where ghosts are still present - in the woods, over the marshland and on the towpath.
Freya Naiade has compiled a photographic essay that explores the subtle contrast of the area through a collection of landscape and detailed images that are personal, ethereal and occasionally gothic. Often, the landscapes are shrouded in mist, the horizon unseen. The viewer can never experience the whole vista: a mystery unfolds but there is this sense of uncertainty. Throughout there are images which are impressionistic, soft light and tones of colour replicating the touch of Degas’s brush as he would have painted a ballerina’s tutu. Najade creates beauty from conflict; an Iceland plastic bag is caught suspended in mid flow, an eyesore turned into something sublime.
Along the Canal shows us how unique these spaces are: there are no obvious rules set here by local authorities, no signs, no closing times. This is not a municipal park or nature reserve, kept and ordered. This is a place to discover with few boundaries. A place that represents freedom. For the inquisitive it is a place of liberation and exploration. Najade seeks out the Hackney cut and marshes without fully exposing them; she explores the layers but still leaves a ghostly reminder of this area’s rich and varied history. She offers us the opportunity to consider the fringes, and savor their stillness and space.
A film inspired by The Glass Aisle written and performed
by poet Paul Henry
From the pages of Fallon's Angler
'The latest issue of Fallon’s Angler arrived at the weekend and it really is a treat. The design quality keeps improving and credit must go to Nick Fallowfield–Cooper’s contribution as picture editor'
