Page 24 - ALG Issue 1 2019

Artists Corner
Rods, Roots & Rhubarb
Photographic allotment project
by Gary Atkinson
I have been a professional photographer for over twenty years
and an allotment holder for eight. There comes a stage in your allotment life when you know you are a fully-fledged member of the allotment community. Mine was when I realised that the older generation had stopped calling me ‘Young Gary’. I noticed that the word ‘young’ had been dropped.
Over the last couple of years, I have been planning to take environmental portraits of my allotment community, as we have
some great characters. I also wanted to highlight and provoke a conversation about the challenges of allotment holders in the 21st century. I wanted to take the photos from April up until September
on bright overcast days, which is perfect for outdoor portraiture. Unknown to me, in April this was going to be more challenging due to it being the hottest, driest year I’ve ever had in my eight years as an allotment holder. Bright overcast days turned out to be few and far between in the South East of England. It was especially hard trying to combine these days with the days that I was free.
I wanted the photos to be positive and to pose the question of why people have allotments now. It is not just for growing produce but also provides a sense of community, exercise, fresh air, fresh food, aids mental wellbeing and combats loneliness. These are all current issues that we hear about in the media on a regular basis.
This sense of community is the reason that this photographic project works so well. There is always someone over there, whether it’s a young family that have only had their allotment plot for a couple of years or someone that is retired and has had their plot for nearly fifty years. We all have something in common: the allotment. You will always find that you are welcome to join in with conversations and banter (joke) with each other. At our allotment we also get together at least a couple of times a year for a BBQ where everybody from the allotment is welcome.
In this fast-moving society in which we live, allotment holders have to be patient for crops to grow. The project was shot using film, where it has to undergo a process before it is visually seen. This process is akin to the planting of seeds. This enjoyable sense of anticipation is something that modern life is losing. More photos of this project can be found on the information page of my website: www.travelphotos.biz.
website: www.travelphotos.biz
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