Saltsick / Lament
12 Days Mapping the Thames Estuary
Guy Dickinson
"slinking
the tidal susurrus beckons
radial traceries subside
in dusks dim glow
a lace recital
silt hoard
alluvium echoes
below,
encrusted murmurs
laminated in the murk
waiting"
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Words and images © Guy Dickinson
Jason Orton was kind enough to introduce me to Guy's fascinating work, which includes the above series on the Thames Estuary. The photographs are of an intriguing abstractness – satellite images, cross sections through the riverbed, lichen growing on concrete seawalls, all come to mind, but it's almost the closer one tries to examine the images for clues, the further they retreat. Paired with the highly evocative estuarine place names images and words conjure up a world of their own, below the surface of the immediately visible.
His website tracing silence features more of his work, sometimes similarly abstract, sometimes more representational, but all atmospherically very dense, including a fascinating series on moor mill pits.