What you look hard at seems to look hard at you
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The photographs in this book were taken in and around the A47 in Norfolk. It is the most significant trunk road in a county that has no motorways and few railway lines. It therefore acts as an artery, both economically – by bringing goods and value into and out of the county – and at a personal level, for those like me who live here and use it to reach our destinations in this rural area.
I travelled the A47 making these photographs between 2019 and 2023. I had no preconceptions about what I might find or how the images might ultimately form a narrative. But, over many months of repeated journeys I felt that a story began to reveal itself.
For me, it is a story of ordinary, everyday human existence which has impacted and transformed the land – and still does. Changes to working and economic life, political and religious influences, and the shadows of local culture and folklore, have all left enduring marks. It was these that slowly began to form the story I wanted to tell.
Unexpectedly, I also found the A47 provided way markers for me on a greater journey. I began to think about what I was seeing in terms of what mattered to me individually, to me as one of many, and to our planet. Attempting to look beyond what I found in front of me, I began to specifically seek out and photograph what seemed deep-rooted, living and hopeful, and what I felt and trusted to be positive and lasting. I started to train my eye to look more readily for the cracks through which the light shone, and the edge spaces which I felt often affirmed the life, beauty and harmony I sought.
I also made photographs of some of the obstacles which made this journey personally challenging for me at times. Evidence of attitudes I found difficult to comprehend and values with which I found it hard to sympathise. I felt strongly that these photographs needed to be made too because they also represent what is real.
Overwhelmingly, however, the journey was one of hope. I am hopeful; I remain hopeful. And this is a book of hope.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
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Ongoing Series