A good photowalk is occasionally quite a surprising exercise.
It lets you learn about an area in the same intuitive way that taking wildlife pictures seems to eventually get you inside the mind of your animal subjects – without really knowing how it happens.
Visiting Bramley with a camera was a reminder that any area is really just made up of people and that humans are a very varied and occasionally fascinating bunch.
Looking at the images in the Flickr group ‘Bramleydom’ gives an accurate overview of the area. Small details of the day though are what the images trigger in my memory. A viewer will hopefully see a pleasingly interesting aesthetic of some of the objects and vistas of the area. The differences between my own views and theirs will be small. To give an idea of the degree I’m thinking of, the earth curves at the tiny rate of 8 inches per mile. It’s a great deal flatter than it is round and so people could be forgiven for believing it to be totally flat. Such people could be forgiven for making similarly inaccurate assumptions about Bramley.
There is (of course) evidence of poverty – not the increasingly distant academic notion of ‘below the average wage’ but of nicked and half discarded charity clothing bags and other childlike untidiness in the environment, of warning signs on the church and lots of rusty bars on windows, of too much cheap alcohol far too early in the day on the breath of one or two locals. It’s the poverty of mind and vision that poor civic planning appears to cunningly trick people into to believing they’re only just worthy of – seemingly so those ‘in charge’ can keep them as their unquestioning subjects to the end of time.
Waiting outside the popular Jack’s Snacks café for other photographers to arrive gets you in touch with what the local white van man and other vehicle-centric tradespeople feel about a conspicuous group of camera-toting visitors in their midst – in an obliquely humorous way. And the inside of the café was full of interesting and accommodating characters on both sides of the counter too.
The allotments are a heavily fortified island of methodically arranged new growth. The occasional independent shops in the Warsaw Bloc age, utilitarian-style shopping area are tenanted by engaged and engaging proprietors of a type that you don’t usually find in the more usual generic chain shops. And it’s at the least the character, haggle and banter you’re surely looking for if you’re going to bother using an offline purchase method these days, isn’t it?
The process of asking permissions to photograph public properties and hearing the decision making processes tells you a lot about the experiences local people will have when dealing with the occasionally delightfully ‘above and beyond’ authority figures in these places.
I came away with the feeling that Bramley is a bit of a puzzle without a pattern. A solar system without a sun, a community that hasn’t yet coalesced and it feels like it was designed that way under some happily forgotten communist empire that has long since expired leaving the area to an unknown and uncared-about fate.
But all the parts for a great community are clearly there, it just needs something to happen to start that transformation. From the day’s visit I could clearly see the first few shoots of spring and – with all the effort that’s being put in by some truly dedicated people who obviously care about the place – how a considerably more pleasant summer may well be on the way for those who want it.
All images © Mark Jaffe 2011. All Rights Reserved. You can see a full set of his photowalk images on Flickr.
The photo walk Mark describes above is the Weekend Coffee Break delivered as part of Looking Good, Bramley – a community photography project for the area. Other images from the photo walk can be seen in the Bramleydom flickr group.
Related articles:
