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Slow exposure times near ditches in Avonmouth.

Making a long exposure meant I noticed things around me. I was committed to making the image and placed hope in my light readings. I couldn't move from that space. The smell of the bio-digester permeated everything and remained in my nose, maybe as an olfactory memory, for an hour after I made the images. It felt heavy, a heavy smell. Nearby I could see the Wessex Water site where in 2020 an explosion killed four people, one of them a 16 year old apprentice, Luke Wheaton. This is a site where biosolids, solid sewage, is treated to remove pathogens, ready to be used in agriculture. The resulting matter is referred to as cake.

In the ditch, the water didn't move. Its stillness felt odd. It was empty.

During one of the exposures, I registered the lack of birdsong present, and started looking for birds. I saw two crows, at the top of a poplar, planted as a wind-break I'm sure, on this very flat landscape. I heard a seagull first, then saw it circling before it was followed by the crows. Then in a hedge, I saw a robin, who seemed to be checking what I was doing. I thoughts about what the robin ate, and how it fed its young when time came to nestling and hatching.

During the last exposure, I noticed how cold I was, my finger-tips especially. Each time I returned to my car to change the paper in the camera in the black changing bag on the passenger seat, I could feel less information about the paper I was handling in the dark.

When I returned to my car in the lay-by where I had parked, the smell of stale piss eclipsed the bio-digester. Nine two litre bottles of old gold liquid were in the brambles. Lorry drivers I think. I wonder how long they had been there and how long they would take to break down.




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