Spring fed side stream in Cottons
One warm evening in early July, we went to look for a fish to catch and padded along the river banks talking quietly until the light had gone and we felt our way back with our hands on the grasses. I came back to the spot with the camera before anyone was awake the next morning and there was absolute stillness over the water meadows. There was red in the light as the sun rose and it caught the tops of the tall curling grasses and reeds beside a small brook that leads into the Candover river . It was all so clear, so unique; such a beginning that the sense of prospect was embodied in the light itself. This was the start of a day.
I pushed through the soft mud of the reed beds and set up the camera in cold knee deep water looking upstream through thin mist. It was a moment of intense tranquility, when you wish the camera could do more and drink in the whole morning; gently play back those quiet, liquid sounds of the birds moving in the willows and put out the rich blended scent of the stirred up bog and crushed leaves of spear mint.
