This image was made one Saturday morning at about 8.30AM. At the time, the southern counties of England experienced three weeks of extreme heat, with temperatures rising to 30C or more during the day.
I wanted make an early trip to the supermarket to buy some basic supplies and then to shelter indoors. Each day my wife and I threw our windows open between 4AM-7AM to get cooling air into the house. When the temperature inside rose by 0.1C, we knew that the house was as cool as it would be that day. We then shut the windows and drew the curtains on the southern side of the home. The cool air inside made the house bearable during the day.
During this walk I decided to take my camera and practice some of the Adams/Archer zone system exposure techniques I had been studying. The heat had meant spending extended periods indoors and I wanted to be outside, even for an hour. Because of the rising heat and burning sun, I sought a route that I knew would give the most shade.
I found myself at the large open area alongside the river that provides recreational space for local people. This heavily shaded area beside the railway line provided an opportunity to puzzle out the enigma that is 35mm SLR exposure – no live view, no histogram, no instant review – just a strip of flashing and glowing LEDs to guide me.
I began to photograph the marked edge between sun and shade, metering back and forth between the shadow and brightly lit scorched grass. It was too hot to be in the sunlight so I worked from the deep shade of the large trees. I made a series of images in this location, trying to balance the extremes of light and dark.
There were very few people about. A handful of dog walkers wandered past, but for a lot of the time I was the only person around. It brought back memories of the pandemic, the deserted streets and parks. A phrase struck me – the politics of deep shade. In a world where our lives may be governed by cycles of extreme heat, those who have access to deep shade and cool air may be able to manage. Individuals trapped in overheating urban areas, without access to deeply shaded areas like this, or where such areas are very limited in extent, may find their world unbearable.
Wooded space – even a row of mature trees beside a railway line – is costed as a luxury in our commercial age. And, as a luxury, wooded space and cool shade is not available to everyone. In a world of extreme heat, these luxuries may be critical to having any semblance of quality of life, or indeed life itself.
Image made on a Centon DF-300 with a wide angle lens using Fomapan 100. The Centon DF-300 is a Minolta X-300 clone.
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All processing and developing by Photo Hippo Lab, Burnley, Lancashire: https://photohippo.co.uk/
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