Took a blunder down that Essex place t’other day to go and visit St Peters on the wall. Now contrary to popular belief, Essex actually consists of more than Thurrock and its dire Ikea store, and that mind numbing bollox “The only way is Essex” Reality Tv show, which is of the highest order of bum gravy. The countryside in the surrounds of St peters is properly chocolate box, that is if you don’t mind biting in to one of the chocolates and finding an old magnox reactor as a centre, saying that I prefer them to the praline ones. And to be fair as magnox reactors go, the one at Bradwell isn’t too ugly, I’ve seen worse. . . . But then after a few pints I kinda find any nuclear reactor kinda funky, them beer goggles have a lot to answer for! Ho Hum! I digress. . . . The countryside around that part of Essex is fabulously old England with wonderfully quaint olde world villages and hamlets. In fact I am now planning an ale trip to Maldon, the home of several excellent breweries :o)
So myself and my buddy Andriy the Russky and his dog Tamm the unsociable arrived at the the little car park at the top of the track that leads to the chapel, and blunder off in a suitably jaunty fashion. Halfway down the track I noticed that there were two WWII pillboxes either side of of us in the fields. Result! Double Whammey! For those unaware, I have a little photographic project on the go called “killer views” where I hunt out nice warry looking pillboxes and bunkers and photograph them from the outside and then from within through the embrasures (Firing ports) to obtain the afore mentioned “Killer Views”.
So Orft I jolly well hobbled to the nearest one to poke it with sticks
It looked pretty funky up close, the embrasures were a bit overgrown so I swore at the brambles and nettles and gave em a good beating until they lay down giving a clear field of fire.
I then attempted access. Much swearing and cursing, they may have heard me in Kent! Some fecker had half filled the entrance with rubble. I have arthritis and suffer from terminal curmudgeonlyness, the ale takes the edge off but there is no cure. so any strenuous activity such as standing or sitting with out the aid of a cuppa tea brings the worst out in me, so having to crawl through bleedin rubble, well you can imagine. But I eventually got inside and added some more images to the collection. Grumpy, biffed and scraped, covered in burrs and nettle stings . . . But Triumphant! Huzzah! No one quite understands me . . . .
With another pillbox “bagged ” we then set off to st peters. Its a stark looking block of old stone full of foreboding and history, It had been standing for 0ver 330 years when The battle of Maldon took place in 991 and Brithnoth let his sense of fair play get the better of him and he lost to them thar pesky Vikings. It was very bright and getting the shot I wanted involved lots of grumpyness and swearing carefully placed filters, but overall I was pleased with the results.
Even though it was a lovely day with blue skies, and eric the little white cloud, the scene still portrays a sense of the the eerie, which is what I was after. So Results all around. I got the images of St peters that I came for, and bonus images for my killer view project. I shall return though as I think that the place would be even better with dark stormy skies, and this would please me greatly.
It was as we were making our way back to the car that I received the text, ” Would you be interested in photographing ladies in their pants?” Intrigued I pursued the text, After further enquiries I found out that Tanks would be involved as well . . . . Ladies in pants and tanks! A good day out in anyones books. The shoot would be for a company that makes boxer shorts specifically for women. I agreed and eventually I undertook the shoot and had a great time, but thats for a future blog. However, I shall leave you with a taster :o)
EveryDay Paranoid Visions 
That view looking east is def a killer shot. But Tam takes the prize for most handsome shot on the blog.
They look more like bikini shorts than boxers. Small sized men’s boxers normally fit women anyway, and are perfectly acceptable (IMO). Clothes made for women are invariably a) more expensive and b) less long-lasting. I have no idea about FOCX, I add rapidly before anyone suggests suing me for libel.
They are a specialist Lesbian undercracker manufacturer. Boi shorts! Tamm is a beautiful hound but hugely unsociable if she does not know you. Bless her she looks so cute but backs it all up with a snarly barky “STAY AWAY FROM ME I DONT KNOW YOU!” sort of attitude.
I love the idea of ‘Killer Views’ – what a great project!
Ladies in boxers? ….. hmmmm, not my thing really but makes for some quirky pictures 🙂
Yes I can see what you are saying, good experience though, as my experience is limited in working with models as I tend to shoot “real people” ( not meant as derogatory remark to any models) but as it turned out the girls were just as new to this malarky as me so a good day of learning the ropes had by all.
Very much appreciate the tank girls. In fact, I’d like to see a real good hommage to TanGirls, and I think that you’re the best person to do it.
Yes I have plans in the pipeline for a proper silly Tank girl session at some stage. This was a fun shoot but it was for a product, the pants, so i could only really pose the girls for the best placement of that. However there were some very cool results. I shall post them in my next blog. There is also a band shoot with a T-34 planned for the near future :o)
The St Peters shot is fabulous 🙂 I love old stone buildings captured in black and white. It has a very infra red look to it too, so even better.
A beautiful photo of Tam, she looks a lovely dog, ‘stay away from me barking’ is nothing out of the norm for a lot of dogs, but a lovely feeling once we are accepted.
Yes tis a very historic pile of stones, cant wait to get down there when there is a storm brewing :o)
Good pictures, Lee, and – as always – I love your witterings eg “them beer goggles have a lot to answer for!”! They certainly do! Alexander the Great only liked plans of action that sounded good both when he was drunk and when he was sober! Adrian
Every plan seems like a good plan after a few slurps of cider 🙂