On the Medway... Thames estuary. damp and misty late spring day. Air was full of moisture and the huge electric pylons behind me were fizzing with it all... noisy. Beyond this image is a huge landscape of marsh, industry and tidal salt flats. What happens with mist like this is that it brings the place down to what is visible... it makes the place more contained. It is at this point that landscapes become atmospheric... when the place becomes something unto itself... it has its own flavour.
This particular scene has references to Dickensian London which many people talk about when they see it. I like that but it’s also completely natural. Not in a nature/natural way, but in a human way. Nobody has decided that this place should look like this, its is not the product of a bunch of people, a committee. It has just evolved. It is its own thing.
The human aspect of this picture is very important to me. Saltmarsh is a fabulous leveler in more ways than one. Twice a day the forces of tide come in and go out, and no matter what we put in its way, the tide will begin to take charge of it.
For example, all the uprights here are man made, but the tide and the forces of nature are slowly bringing them back to the horizontal.. Aha... but man has a crane. Fear not...we know the tide (nature will bring it all back to the level in the end.
