The landscape of Dungeness must be about as far removed from the landscape of the Midlands as it is possible to get. Breathtakingly beautiful and strangely bleak, one corner all tattoos and 99s other places quite desolate.
I'd read and seen pictures of the garden at Dungeness created by the late Derek Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994), I wasn't sure if it still existed or whether I'd be able to find it if did.
Without exception, everyone I've mentioned this trip to has said, 'I used to work/ live/ holiday/have a relative in or near Dungeness'. I'd never been before and I wasn't disappointed. The shingle spit stretches into the sea, the Nuclear Power Station sits ominously next to wooden shacks. The new lighthouse was built because the power station hid the old one, massive pylons stretch into the distance and there sits a Prospect Cottage.
A small, black. wooden shack with yellow painted windows in a shingle garden with no apparent boundaries. Something so 'right' about the place and we garble on about 'Spirit of Place' and all that. Imagine transporting it to anywhere else and how it wouldn't work, but here it sat comfortably as an old hat.
I enjoy company and I enjoy being alone. Having the luxury of time and no fixed agenda was bliss. Having a camera and calling yourself a photographer allows you wander around pointlessly enjoying the scene in a similar way to going fishing. You probably won't catch anything but having a purpose gives you the excuse to stare at the sea just watching waves.
Wooden boats left abandoned after being hauled ashore for the last time with power station in the background.
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