Saltmarsh

All the images in this exhibition were taken on a film camera from a small aeroplane and then handprinted in a traditional darkroom by the artist Rachel Spender. The process of making these photographs may be decidedly old-fashioned but the results are stunning.

The vulnerability of the salt marsh cannot be overemphasised. It has perhaps taken thousands of years to form these natural intricate meandering growth patters we see from the air and within one day they can be destroyed by man. The extraction from our fresh water rivers has given rise to the silting up of our saltwater estuaries, and the what we believe is a misguided notion of digging up silted rivers and depositing the soil onto eroding shores, thus negating the whole natural process of change and decay. Some of the photographs in the exhibition explore the juxtaposition of man-made, imposed structures in the form of the…