July 2015 - Home of Shaun Villiers Everett

July 19, 2015

RSPB Wallasea Island Reserve: Update Two

River Crouch from Wallasea Island

I checked out Wallasea Island last week to see how the new extentions to the land were progressing. It’s going to become as wonderful wildlife reserve once all the construction traffic has been removed. I think they are there till 2019, so don’t hold your breath! However, it is still a nice country, or rather sea wall walk, with some fine views. Birds are scarce where the paths are as they are close to the construction traffic. I did see a few waders and possibly some Avocets on the far bank of one of the new lgoons being constructed.

Getting to it is not easy. It’s not signposted until you see ‘Wallasea Island’ some way north of Rochford. The reserve is about 9 miles north of Southend on Sea and 12 miles south of Chelmsford. Best approach from the north is via the A130 and the bridge over the River Crouch at Battlesbridge.

During the winter I suspect there is a good chance of flooding on the approach road. The facilities consist of a shelter, one of the latest eco-shelters. (See photo below). That’s it and the car park is small right now, enough for about twenty cars or so.

More information can be found here

July 16, 2015

RSPB Wallasea Island

Went to Wallasea Island in South Essex today. I will report on the changes at RSPB soon, but here’s a single picture from one of the local creeks.

Wallasea Island, Essex, Shaun Villiers-Everett July 2015

July 13, 2015

What’s Up? From Welling Riots to Scoping!

Absolutely nothing really, it’s just I haven’t been on here in over a year! Time flies so fast, blink and I missed it! I’ve nearly finished an MA dissertation and that has kept me busy for the last three months, but there’s no excuse really, you can always find time to write something.

I’ve discovered Periscope and it has distracted me from my tasks of recent days. I’m wondering where it is all going. Is this the REAL death of photography, not the death I write about in academia. I don’t think so, I believe the lens is as powerful (pun intended) as it was in the days of Hine documentary photographs or the Farm Administration photographers in the 1930s USA. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say it is more powerful, more politically charged right now than at any time in the last 150 years of the photograph’s existence. It just needs manipulation that’s all. Rant over.

I should finish with a photograph I suspect.

I’ve often wondered ‘who is this old soldier?’

This was the Welling riots of late 1993, when the ANL marched on the BNP, then headquartered in Welling, South London. The police, determined to prevent that happening, stopped them in their tracks about 500 metres from their target. It was never going to happen though, the police lines were so rigid and well defended. Several horse charges later and this is what happens in such chaos. All of a sudden from the midst of chaos came this old gent, resolute and determined to have his say. Holocaust survivor maybe? WWI veteran possibly, but I never saw him again that day to ask him his story. But, his story is every reasonably minded citizen’s story isn’t it? The evil of BNP may have left Welling shortly afterwards, but their doctrine never changed. A broken force in 2015 maybe, but another will emerge from the darkness one day to spout the same racist evil, be assured of that.

Do photos have an indexical reality still? Yes, of course they do, you just need to know how to say it, how to read it and how to broadcast it. Periscope has the hallmarks of a powerful tool for the future, let’s see how it pans out (pun intended again!) and let’s not ruin it this time with some art junkie trying to make money for nothing.