Earlier this month i mentioned that i would be photographing the Mayday events taking place in an English village. I’m glad to say that i did manage to cover the maypole dancing that day even though the weather forecast was less than encouraging.

Twelve people dancing around a Maypole doesn’t sound too difficult to photograph, and most of the time it isn’t, but it does offer the photographer a slight challenge. The weather didn’t help either with dark clouds threatening to soak everyone. Fortunately the rain did not appear and the dark clouds did make a dramatic backdrop to some of the images.

Traditional dancing is a popular spectator event, but it seems that the numbers of people wanting to take part in the dancing itself are dropping. Several local groups are finding it hard to gain new members – one local Morris dancing group closed due to older members retiring and a lack of new recruits joining. Many other groups may meet the same fate.

Even the garland dancers featured in the gallery photographs are finding recruiting very hard. It may be the case that in a number of years, events like this just won’t take place. Once these traditional dance groups go, it will be incredibly difficult to start them up again. Sadly there just doesn’t seem to be the interest in carrying on many of the rural traditions.

I will be photographing the event next year as well as part of a multimedia piece. I’d like to capture the sounds and atmosphere along with the images before they possibly disappear forever. Hopefully I’ll get better light to shoot with too.

More images can be seen at http://www.richardflintphoto.com/portfolio/maypole/

I thought i’d give a glimpse of something I’m working on at the moment. It’s coming to the time of year when people get dressed up and dance around a brightly coloured pole – a Maypole. It’s usually a very popular event and hopefully there will be some acceptable British bank holiday weather – a tall order i know but it could happen!

Next Monday i’ll going along to the Mayday celebrations to photograph the festivities and try and capture some of the atmosphere. The Maypole featured in the photo above is a permanent iconic structure on the local village green, unlike many other village Maypoles that are put up and taken down when required. Most of the year it just stands waiting, waiting patiently for May to arrive when it will become the focus of attention.

The history of the Maypole is fascinating with the practice falling in and out of favour with the ‘authorities’ on many occasions. Probably one of the more amusing descriptions comes from the Long Parliament ordinance of 1644 describing maypoles as “a Heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness.” Plenty to photograph then!

It’s old world clashing into the new, although it could be strongly argued that most village Maypole usage these days has more to do with tourism than any olde world beliefs. One visitor to the local celebrations where i am, is apparently coming all the way from Atlanta!

Look out for a Maypole gallery coming to  the main photography website soon

Giving directions – along the sea front near the pier in Cromer, Norfolk, UK

Seagulls riding the Updraft – Sheringham, Norfolk, UK

The last couple of days have been among of the most painful I’ve ever experienced. Strangely, Grandma’s funeral last Thursday wasn’t the worst part – the emptying of the bungalow she called home the following day takes that honour. Something felt very wrong. It was all very surreal and immensely sad as the furniture was carried away. One of the more common sentiments among many of the village residents present at the funeral and afterwards, was that it was the end of an era for the village community. It certainly felt like the end of something you never thought would end.

I had packed a couple of cameras with me and i’m glad i had them. The day of the funeral started as a bright but foggy morning – perfect for getting some moody, atmospheric shots among the trees and around Thorpe Malsor. To be honest, it was great to have a distraction, but the photography also served a deeper purpose of recording the village that had been part of Flint family life for so long. That relationship, that physical connection, has finally gone. Was the photography a form of therapy? Undoubtedly i’d have to say yes.

I took film cameras rather than the DSLR. I did pack the digital camera but then decided to stick with a 35mm SLR and the 6×6. Later it seemed right to be shooting these final (?) images of the village using film. After all, as a teenager, I’d had great fun going around Thorpe looking for images, armed with my trusty Miranda MS2 (my first SLR camera) loaded with Boots film. Fortunately the light was great during my final stay. I’ll be publishing the 35mm and 6×6 images on the blog very soon.

Finally i come to the image above. My iPhone developed major battery problems so that it could only be used if plugged into a power socket. I would have liked to have posted some images, audioboos and tweeted more as i walked around, but it wasn’t to be. Instead i took this image, using my Nokia, of the snowdrops in the churchyard at Thorpe Malsor. For many years, my Grandparents lived in the house opposite. The proximity of the church, combined with living in a fabulous old country house, made it feel very olde world England. The snowdrops in the photo add a feeling of new life. Renewal. A new start.

It was dark when i left the village. Will i return? Well i prefer to use an au revoir rather than a definite goodbye. If I’m nearby, I’ll stop to remember some childhood memories. When it comes down to it though, the Thorpe Malsor residents were right – it is the end of an era.

I’m about to start on another photography book release via blurb.com that should take me most of the winter to put together. This is going to be a big project and an important landmark book (at least for me!) that completes the first phase of the Norfolk project.

Ten years ago, i decided that i needed a long term photographic project. What began as a loose kind of photography exercise in Norfolk, ended up gathering pace and direction. After ten years, it’s time for a break and some contemplation of where to take it next. I have lots of options open, plenty left to photograph in the county, and after a year or two i’ll return.

Over the next few months I’ll be putting all of the photography  together, around 80 images or possibly more, to make a retrospective book that , I think, will be the perfect way to present the first ten years of work. The majority of the photographs that have been released online have focussed on the landscape side of the project, however, the book will stay true to the original idea with a broad mix of landscape and documentary photography. I aim to release the book on March 21st 2012.

A visitor at the Minack Theatre near Porthcurno in Cornwall takes in the view.

A few refinements have been made to the blog recently. A tidy up. Some you may have noticed already. For a while i was only posting iPhone photographs which was getting a bit repetitive so I’ve decided to be a bit more proactive in submitting photographs to the blog, starting with the current Cornwall photographs.

This blog will, however, be the mobile blog i’ll use to post from my iPhone when out and about. One of the things I’ve had to do is define what the blog is about. What it is for? When i started it i thought i knew. I didn’t. Originally the blog was going to be purely about my b&w landscape photography, hence the title Darker Skies that refers to my landscape skies that are often dark and broody.

The blog has become more than that though. It’s a scrapbook, a mobile blog, a photo blog and a personal journal. The b&w landscapes are just part of that mix. It’s only taken me 18 months to work that out. Better late than never i suppose.

Couple stands in a circle on Porthcurno beach, Cornwall, UK

Remember the conversation Agent Smith has with Morpheus in The Matrix? The Virus speech. I have to admit that he had a good point even if he was a psychotic computer program who enjoyed his job far too much. We humans can be really disrespectful to our surroundings and other humans.

Nothing like a walk down by the river especially if you have a good drink with you. Maybe it was a first date or a walk back home after a night on the town. Whoever it was, they left their calling card. Two shakes left on a step… for someone else to tidy.