I’ve been shooting Sheppey for coming up to three years (working title ‘Mud’). Like all long term projects, I tend to deal with it in fits and starts.
I feel energised and excited, then disheartened and exhausted, and the cycle repeats each year. Recently I’m feeling like I’m breaking the back of it, coming close to getting a body of work that I feel is conclusive.
During that time I’ve not ventured out much onto the mud flats. Sheppey sits in the Estuary, meaning large flood plains that extend for miles during low tide. I can’t deal with the feeling of mud oozing through the toes, so ventured out in walking boots, surprisingly not that deep.
Pair of boys (probably men, but I’m getting on so everyone looks young to me) we’re walking back to shore disappointed, having assumed they could swim. After wading out for a couple fo hundred yards I think they realised that it wasn’t going to get any deeper. I snapped a quick shot of their feet, sinking into the ooze.
I wouldn’t call Sheppey pretty, but there’s a stark and harsh beauty to it, it’s place that is shaped by wind and tide and occasionally it delivers a few spectacles, mud flats included.
