Beyond the Single Image - Ian Wright ARPS

from RPS The Decisive Moment - Edition 23 - September 2021

by Documentary Group, Royal Photographic Society

Beyond the Single Image - Lorraine Poole LRPS

Ian Wright ARPS, ‘Rooted’ June 2020

This is the title image from my on-going project on rural life on the Lincolnshire Wolds, begun in September 2019. The image portrays one of the central features of rural culture - the close relationship farmers have with their working dogs - against a landscape typical of the area. The ancient drainage ditches are a prominent element of the landscape and in autumn and winter the mist commonly descends on the rolling hills – it’s a myth that Lincolnshire is uniformly flat. This is a very English area with traditional patterns of life and values; big fields; small hamlets and market towns in existence for a thousand years or more. Mark – the subject of my portrait and one of the characters through which I tell my story – manages 6,000 acres spread over several farms.

Projects, the four ‘Rs’ and…

I’m usually working on several photographic projects at any one time. I don’t have any ambitions for my images – the process is enough. The feedback I want comes from those I collaborate with, my subjects. ‘Rooted’ has an episodic structure; self-contained, but inter-connected, resulting in separate photo essays on: game shooters, hunts, the race-horse fraternity, eventing, ploughing contests, clay-pigeon shooting, fishing, open garden events, country fairs and shows, market days in small country towns on the Wolds, farmhouse architecture and country weddings. All to be amalgamated into a broader study of rural life.

My documentary photography is the ‘other side of the coin’ to my academic background, teaching Modern History and Politics; both have a similar methodology and structure. My 4 ‘Rs’ are: researching (the context); revealing (the ‘facts’ as I find them in the fieldwork), reflecting (on how I analyse, explain, understand), and relating (organising text, and images in the case of photo essays, to communicate what I have learnt; my ‘message’). A photo essay demands sequencing, variety, balance, the wider viewpoint and close detail, mood and activity, characters and ‘decisive moments’. A photo essay is quite different from a ‘panel’, which is an arrangement based, primarily, on the aesthetics of a set of images.

The process is much more instinctive than it may sound, and it’s not a linear process, but I find it useful to break projects down in this way because it gives me ‘anchors’ to go back to. ‘Research’ often means just observing, talking with, and listening to, my ‘subjects’ but it also involves book work – in this case, getting a grip on developments in farming and village history over a thousand years or more, but especially in the last 100 years.

Much of my photography has been overseas, but there’s a great deal to be said for photography on the doorstep. My photography is bound up with the craving for first-hand experience. So much of our information today comes ‘mediated’ for us –simply ‘being there’, is quite different.

Context and Access

In my framework, photographing rural life means recording the working lives and leisure activities of a small minority of the UK population, together with the landscape and environment in which they live. Less than 1% of the UK population have occupations in agriculture, while over 70% of the land area is used for agriculture. It also implies trying to come to some conclusions about their culture – in an area which is very conservative. The demographic of the area in which my study is taking place is dominated by WASP identity – White Anglo- Saxon Protestants.

I have personal reasons for being interested. I was born and raised in North Lincolnshire but spent my career in the West Country before my wife and I returned ‘home’ to rural Lincolnshire in 2016. We live in one of the many villages ending in ‘by’, indicating a Scandinavian origin, at least 1200 years ago, situated on the cusp of the flat-as-a-snooker-table marshlands, and the rolling hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds. There were 7 working farms in the village as recently as 1970. I live in one of the farmhouses. None remain.

Our village has been well-served by local historians over two or three generations and we have a wealth of archive material. In parallel with my ‘Rooted’ investigations, I’ve been involved in editing and compiling publications gathering together many of these resources. The village makes a great ‘case study’ of what has happened to villages, and farming since the middle of the nineteenth century.

I have strong personal connections with agriculture and the area. My maternal grandfather was an agricultural labourer and, as a child, I had spent lots of time with my grandparents in their remote tied cottage. As a teenager, I worked on farms in the school holidays and was a ‘bush-beater’ on shoots. In North Devon – James Ravilious country – I had already done a long-term project on a livestock market. So, an investigation of rural life in the area around us seemed an obvious documentary project to undertake.

Access has not proved difficult, even though some of the subject matter I’ve photographed is quite sensitive, I’ve generally found, that people are happy to be photographed if you spend time and express a genuine interest in their lives. People here tend to be very open and welcoming, especially if you have the appropriate ‘credentials’ which qualify you, in Mik Critchlow’s phrase, as ‘one of the tribe’. Living in the area; involved in community activities in the village; sufficient rural background (and a retained Lincolnshire accent) to pass off as a local; and experience from the North Devon project (including a self-published book) were all very helpful. Once I got underway and contributed images to the websites or Facebook pages of the groups, it was straightforward to become an ‘insider’ observer, with people talking freely (there’s lots of standing around at country events).

It was luck that kicked things off - a chance meeting in the village square, with someone who ran a game shoot - and when the season began, early in October 2019, I started photographing them until the season ended in February. Contacts there got me invites to another shoot and access to a local hunt (there’s a lot of crossover relationships). With this foundation, a phone call to Market Rasen racecourse, secured passes to the race meetings. More photography was in the pipeline when Covid struck and I’ve recently been able to pick up the threads, photographing clay pigeon shooting.

Photographing Rural Life

While text has an important role in a photo essay, the images themselves must carry the weight. Technically and practically, photographing rural life poses few problems. Activities are held in wide open spaces with opportunities to show the wider context as well as detail, environmental portraits, and action. Game shoots and hunts last 5, 6 or 7 hours – and involve different locations. There’s a good deal of relatively static time when it’s possible to work yourself into different viewpoints and compositions – and, crucially, to create ‘connections’.

There’s time to build relationships with those involved – and conversations and questioning when travelling to different ‘stands’ for shooting or different phases of a hunt (all within the law, of course). There’s wind-down time at the end. At the same time, there’s many opportunities to capture action. Mostly, I’ve photographed within 20 miles of home, most often less than 10, and can go back, and back, again.

I don’t use long lenses, working with a Canon 5Diii and 24-70 f2.8 and a Fuji XT-1 with a 14mm (20mm equivalent) wide angle. Predominantly I shoot at f8, ISO 800. Occasionally, I use an 85mm f1.2 for portraiture.

What’s the Message?

The hypothesis is in the title – the people of this area are ‘rooted’. In the main, they have deep ancestral roots in the location. Secondly, they have a secure sense of who they are, where they’ve come from, what their identity is, what they are for, what they are against. Thirdly, they are a tiny minority group and becoming more of a minority as time passes; their values – and pursuits they enjoy – in many ways, reflect a by-gone age. It would not be unfair to use the term insular.

Yet, this is much too simple. The farming community is not homogeneous and contains a great variety of farms, occupations, and social groups. Many of the country life pursuits I’ve photographed, or plan to, are not things I would wish to do myself – but I’m conflicted and see the importance of the social bonds these activities build.

These are not unthinking people – and certainly not bigots or ‘red-necks’, in fact, country people tend to be very soft-spoken. There’s great expertise here – it’s been fascinating to listen in on the discussions about the right time to sow or harvest or the merits of this or that piece of machinery. The machinery and technology in use is incredible. I’ve had intriguing conversations with a young agro-economist about the ethical dilemmas of game shoots – originally designed for the farm workers to put meat on the table but increasing an activity which sees rather wealthy people shoot (a typical day is at least £300), and the local workers paid to be ‘beaters’.

I’ve probably embarked on a project without end, as one thing naturally leads into another, a happenchance meeting or a web of social connections, leads to another episode.