Ashton Moss

1 - 8 I changed the film and continued photographing the post, and then I noticed a figure walking down the drive towards me. I stopped photographing. A short squat man, with his hands sunk deep into his pockets approached me. I said "hello". He didn't reply and continued walking towards me. "I was just photographing the post", I said, realising immediately how stupid these words sounded. Still no reply. "I was talking to a young lad down here last week, he was working on that estate, was he your son in law?" I said. The man, rugged, unshaven and dark skinned, looked over me with his piercing eyes and then eventually said "yes". I introduced myself and tried to explain why I was photographing the area. He looked at me suspiciously. I imagine these Market Gardeners suffer a good deal from vandalism and he probably had good reason to wonder what I was up to. He said he'd seen me wandering about the Moss before. Gradually I began to win over his trust, and we began to talk more freely. I looked towards the post, the warm sun was rapidly drying it out, steam was rising from it. "The post's steaming" I said. "It's warm" he replied, just like a spring day", and it was. The words rolled off his tongue in an Italian accent, and then I remembered the fragmented nameboard above his "NO SHOOTING" sign. I looked at it, it read:-

F. VAS

RKET GAR

AYNER LN

SHTON

The conversation moved on. He told me that most of the vegetables he grew would go to markets, Leeds, Bradford and London were all mentioned. I'd presumed the Market Gardeners on the Moss just provided for the local markets. Obviously not. I asked him how far this land extended. He pointed to the cricket club and then drew a line to Albert Hulme's. (Rayner Lane and the railway formed the boundaries on the other two sides). It was a considerable estate. I'd previously thought it was several people's land. What made this all the more remarkable was that he owned all of his land, whereas most of the other Market Gardeners were just tenants and rented their land from the Stamford Estates.

Inevitably the conversation moved onto the motorway. "Would he lose any land to it?" I asked. "No", he said "unfortunately, I wont". When I asked him why he didn't seem unduly concerned about losing any of his land, he simply said "compensation". He explained that the original line of the motorway would have taken a corner off his land, and he'd been told to expect compensation in the region of £300,000. "That would have set me up very nicely", he said. Sadly for him the line of the motorway has now been altered and his land will remain untouched. It's now Albert Hulme's estate that will cop it.

After a while he said "you'd better get on with your work", and he turned and began to walk towards the shed at the bottom of the track. He said those words as though he was stopping me from working, when in reality it was probably the other way around. I took a few more photos of him disappearing down the track, and then one of the track, before moving onto Albert Hulme's.

Looking back on these photographs (which I don't think are particularly successful) I now feel I should have stopped photographing after I'd met the Italian. My concentration had been broken, but I pressed on.

11 - 13 The next two photographs were taken from the side of Albert Hulme's estate (near the Italian's holding) looking towards his greenhouses, already the clouds were beginning to draw in. These are moody photographs, but not particularly good. The lighting and the feel it gives to the photographs detract from the subject matter.

14 - 17 The final three photographs on this film are of the shed that the Italian bloke was working from. I took them from this point primarily because I didn't want to trample across his field, but also because I wanted to include the hedge and ditch in the frame - as a counterbalance to the shed, tree and mast on the right. By now there was virtually complete cloud cover, and the sun had almost gone.

If you look carefully at neg. nos. 14/16 you can see the shadow of my camera (mounted on a tripod) in the ditch. I'm crouching beneath the camera holding the cable release. You can see my hand on neg. no. 14. Not very satisfactory, but I couldn't do much about it.

The position of the radio mast also presented problems here. It almost looks as though it's some kind of elaborate supporting mechanism for the shed.

On a technical note I'm still having a little trouble with the air bubbles down the right-hand side of the film - it's marked most of the negatives. Must rectify this.

Rolleiflex 3.5F.

Agfapan 100 (80 ASA) Rodinal 1:60. 10½ mins at 68°F.

<span class="wrapper"><p>Work Print</p> <p>Negative c7/1/8/1</p> <p>Work Print c7/3/8/1</p> <p>CH: 520 mm</p> <p>Exposure: F22 @ 15s</p> <p>Paper: Gr 2 (G)</p> <p>Comments: I've taken many photographs of this post, but this is probably the best one, although I think the print could do with being smaller. The writing on the signs (which have now gone) could also do with being printed slightly darker to make it more legible.</p> <p>Straight print.</p></span>