Whimsical Musings of a Loon

Tentatively stepping past the strange woods where trees marry metal fences, the overgrown grass submerges the concrete pathway underneath my feet. Suddenly autumn has been switched onto 11, the leaves are golden and raining delicately around me, yet the sun is shouting down creating gorgeous colour pallets. Every now and then, you hear movement, but it never shows. The brambles shake, a voice worms through the air. It's that sensation you are being monitored. A small glacial ripple slithers across my skin. As I continue forwards, the branches part reluctantly like unveiling the curtain to the red and yellow bricked beauty that lies beneath. There it stands. Just. The red roofs and towers still tall, the distinctive 19th century architecture crumbling but still standing. Just. It is hard to imagine Heino Schmieden, the famous German architect, seeing his creation now. Watching his magnificent construction, once proud and grand, now decaying and withering away. The corr...

Auschwitz   The gate of iron, the outrageous lies; That work sets free, yet in truth? All dies. Endless horizon, eyes become sore; Claws of barbed wire, for ever more. Red brick, red brick; a sickening trick. Row after row, all the same; Horrifically normal; even mundane. Reality hits, slapped out of slumber. Terror, fear; it’s more than a number. Mountainous items- bags, clothes, a bowl; Each different shoe, belonged to a soul; A life that sang, laughed and cried; A life so taken, cruelly, and died. Wrong indeed, and without cover- To believe one life, more value than another. Cannot un-see; it won’t be rid; Tattooed right into, your closed eyelid. But atrocities we, cannot spurn; Even though it seems, we never learn. I recently visited Auschwitz and here are the photos I took:   I am still processing the experience. It was unlike any other. Something in the pit of my stomach was gnawing the whole time; I think the place surprised me in ways...

There are a few places in the world that just by name, conjure evocative reactions. Often these are areas where, unfortunately, tragedy has struck - places where events unravelled that have sent tremor waves of shock felt across the globe. One such location has been a fascination of mine for a long time. And that place is Chernobyl. Photographing decaying and derelict buildings has long been an obsession of mine, something I've written and blathered on about many times. I yearn for it. I crave the ability to traipse through stale, dank crooked structures; rotten walls, peeling paint. Their ghostly existence crying out to be photographed - the documentation of manmade decline as nature engulfs it. Photography lends itself so well to capture these haunting scenes, the emptiness, the decay - which never stops, never pauses - only within the four walls of the photograph. Visiting Chernobyl had become a dream of mine. I had dreamed of seeing Pripyat, the city near the Chernoby...

Iceland. A mystical country that has intrigued me for years. When I stepped off the plane at Reykjavik airport in August, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Beautiful clear blue skies, and blindingly strong sun. Not weather you always associate with the coldly named country. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting iceberg arctic conditions, and to be greeted by a north face clad penguin to collect my bags, but still. As the bus from the airport took me to Reykjavik, I was struck by the volcanic landscape. Similar to the canaries, the land looked almost desolately lunar. It is an odd view, with its black, almost dead sensation, and yet not without it's own special kind of beauty. I was also struck by how sparse things felt - maybe too conditioned to the UK and in particular the city claustrophobic feel, where buildings are squidged next to other buildings to exploit as much millimetre of the space as possible. Reaching Reykjavik itself in glorious sunshine, I could almost ad...