Shingle Street is a small remote coastal hamlet at the mouth of Orford Ness, connected via Hollesley village situated between the ancient town of Orford and the small manor town of Bawdsey.

Shingle Street itself consists of a row of cottages of varying age in a minimalist and haunting shingle landscape. It was established as a community of fishing families and river pilots for the River Ore in the early 19th century. The four Martello towers south of Shingle Street were built in 1808-1809. Coastguard cottages at the North end of the beach housed coastguards who worked as pilots, lifeboatmen and excise men to control the smuggling. In the 1930s it became an important place for remote tourism when several of the houses remaining today were built. During World War II this area of the coast was one of the main lines of defence and several buildings were destroyed, including the Lifeboat Inn, the hamlet’s only pub.

The settlement is part of a very fragile and unique coastal strip. The beach is a designated SSI because of its rare vegetated shingle, little terns, saline lagoons and geology. A report from October 2004 suggested that Shingle Street is at risk from the sea and could disappear by 2024 if sea defences are not erected. North Sea windfarms can be seen in the distance on a fine days. Current proposed development of the area around nuclear power at Sizewell and the current Freeport proposals for Felixstowe and Harwich also mean that the whole area will change significantly in the coming years.

Today many of the cottages are picturesque but quite expensive holiday lets. An important feature is the Shell Line artwork created by two friends who visited during recovery from cancer. It has since been continually maintained as a prominent local landmark. The settlement has also inspired music and poetry. There are also a number of historical and environmental books by local people, and a Facebook page for people who visit regularly – discussing issue like fishing, local developments etc.

Edges Shifting present a subjective creative exploration of the details as well as ‘bigger picture’ issues that have shaped my own shifting feelings about staying as an outsider in a place quite close to home, but so very different.

Cracks in the Edge: a  photobook from from a week stay in one of the holiday cottages along the shingle in the first week of October 2022. I was unable to walk very far because of an ankle and hip problem. This book takes a journey of imagination inspired by abstracted photographs of edges and reflections on objects inside the cottage.

Through the Window Pane: a photobook from the same stay in  the first week of October 2022. This second book documents the ever changing light, weather and views from the window. Contrasting the complete economic and political turmoil in the world beyond the shingle that I watched on the TV screen and reported in the local press.

Shingle Song (forthcoming March 2023): a book of poetry written in and about Shingle Street and illustrated by sketches using tools from the beach and abstract gelli-plate monoprints. Based on sketchbooks, photography, video and notes 2020-2022. To be added to and developed during a further visit to Shingle Street March 2023.

Colours of Shingle: documentary and creative photography from psychogeography photography and video ‘derives’ around Shingle Street 2021-2023.

Portfolio Links On SMUGMUG

Through the Window Pane
Through the Window Pane: a photobook from the same stay in  the first week of October 2022. This second book documents the ever changing light, weather and views from the window. Contrasting the complete economic and political turmoil in the world beyond the shingle that I watched on the TV screen and reported in the local press.

Click to open SMUGMUG Photobook and Image Gallery on
https://www.zemniimages.com/Tales-from-the-Edge/Shingle-Street-Suffolk-Coast/Through-the-Window-Pane
Cracks in the Edge
Cracks in the Edge: a  photobook from from a week stay in one of the holiday cottages along the shingle in the first week of October 2022. I was unable to walk very far because of an ankle and hip problem. This book takes a journey of imagination inspired by abstracted photographs of edges and reflections on objects inside the cottage.
Click to open SMUGMUG Photobook and Image Gallery on
https://www.zemniimages.com/Tales-from-the-Edge/Shingle-Street-Suffolk-Coast/Cracks-in-the-Edge
Shingle Song
Shingle Song (forthcoming March 2023): a book of poetry written in and about Shingle Street and illustrated by sketches using tools from the beach and abstract gelli-plate monoprints. Based on sketchbooks, photography, video and notes 2020-2022. To be added to and developed during a further visit to Shingle Street March 2023.

Click to open SMUGMUG Photobook and Image Gallery on
https://www.zemniimages.com/Tales-from-the-Edge/Shingle-Street-Suffolk-Coast/Shingle-Song
‘Colours of Shingle’:
Exhibition Gallery
Colours of Shingle: documentary and creative photography from psychogeography photography and video ‘derives’ around Shingle Street 2021-2023.

Click to open SMUGMUG Photobook and Image Gallery on
https://www.zemniimages.com/Tales-from-the-Edge/Shingle-Street-Suffolk-Coast/Colours-of-Shingle

 

Made with Padlet

 

Outsider on the Edge: Photobook Evolution

My understanding of the place has changed and deepened since my first visit in January 2020 on the eve of Brexit. My first very bleak impressions in my dark mood of post-Brexit alienation from anything English – heightened by the multiple Union Jacks on the deserted brown grey shingle where the only features were the shrivelled pillars of mullein. But on repeat visits at different times of the year I have come to really feel at home in the constantly changing environment where colours change dramatically with the seasons – flower cycles that transform the landscape, bird migrations and bird song and favourite times for colourful kites as holiday-makers join local people. The subsequent Covid-19 pandemic seriously limited my ability to pursue the sort of documentary work around economic and political views of local people – not only for my protection but because many are retired and older than me. But this is an ongoing project and going forward I look forward to developing further work in consultation with people living in the area, as well as other visitors like myself.

‘Outsider on the Edge’ is a largely textless photobook documentary photobook of my first impressions of Shingle Street 30th January 2020, the day before Brexit. It was a moody cloud/sun day coloured by heightened gloomy emotions surrounding the whole Brexit process that made me feel I no longer wished to be British, certainly have nothing to do with England. In true flaneur fashion I wandered around taking photographs of things I noticed and thought indicated something significant or interesting about the place. Mostly grey and melancholy signs, Union Jacks and seas/shinglescapes, reinforcing my feeling of alienation from ‘English’ surroundings where the majority of the population voted for Brexit, and also for Tory MP Theresa Coffey. As former Environment Minister and now Work and Pensions minister, she opposes gay rights, most environmental and social protection legislation, and welfare and housing benefits.

Photographs of the landscapes in and around Shingle Street digitally processed in different photographic styles for a tourist and/or fine art market in response to audience feedback.

Discussion of moods

Focusing on colour, I continue to explore the range of effects of digital processing in Lightroom, Photoshop and DxO FX filters on interpretations of images. I include consideration of individual images, collage and photomontage and approaches to text.

  • how do different media affect how people interprete messages
  • how do different media affect how we see and interprete things
  • How does mood affect what we see and how we use media
  • How do our expectations about audience perceptions affect what we communicate and how

Discovering Shingle Street:
Research and Inspiration

 

Made with Padlet

 

Despite the feeling of alienation, I found Shingle Street intriguing. After a week of intensive on-line investigation following Google and Facebook chains, and links from ‘The Shell Line’, I decided there were more than enough interesting angles on this one location for the whole project – including other photographers, artists and writers as well as active Facebook page and website for the local magazine ‘Village Voices’. And that I would learn much more from following up on the different angles and potential audiences and purposes than covering too many locations in a more superficial way.

Media Experiments

Skylarks in the Wind:
moving image

Made with Padlet

Slowing Down Time:
Sketchbooks

Made with Padlet