Old Cob Wall by C.Fox Smith

I popped in to see John Tizehurst the other day (he plays the accordion in my photofilm Memories of a house). I wanted to show him the pictures of him lighting the Jubilee Beacon from back in June. He's not been so well lately and I thought they might cheer him up. We had a lovely chat about this and that and as I was leaving he gave me a copy of this poem. Spoken in the old Devon way it sounds really lovely.

Old cob wall

    Have fell at last:

Us knowed he might

    A good while past.

Great-grandad he

   Built thicky wall

With maiden earth

   And oaten strawl

He built en in

   The good old way.

And there he've stood

   Until today

But wind and rain

   And frost and snow

Have all combined

   To lay en low.

Us propped en up

   With stones and 'ood

Us done our best,

  But tweren't no good.

He gived a bit

  And then a lot,

And at the finish

  Down he squat.

And now, since barns

  Has got to be,

Us'll build another

'Stead of he.

But not the same

  He was afore,

'Cos no one builds

  Cob walls no more.

Marking time

At the end of the last Hinterlands workshop we tried and failed to leave Devon. Busy planning and then running the workshop I'd forgotten to make plans for the Jubilee and it kind of crept up on me. So Mike and I decided we would stay and not make the mass exodus to London. On the Monday, me, Mike, Big Tom and my family all went up to Blackborough Beacon to see it set alight. John Tizehurst who featured in my piece Memories of a house (playing the accordion) is one of the oldest residents in the village and he set the Beacon ablaze. 

We all stood and watched the pile of wood burn. There's something very comforting and wild about watching fire and as we watched ours we looked out on the horizon to see all the other beacons blazing. It felt we were part of the history of these beacons being burned throughout time, firstly as a tool of communication to alert people to the approach of the Spanish Armada and now part of the spirit of smaller rural communities. It marked our own ending to our time in Devon and the next day we packed our things and headed back to Bristol to plan for the next workshop. All good things must come to an end.

The Hinterlands workshop gets underway

We've got a lovely group of people here on this year's Hinterlands photofilm workshop and the weather has been gorgeous so far.  The workshop has kicked off in a very relaxed fashion with some beer and cider tasting and a lazing getting to know each other session yesterday. Today participants are hard at it in the training session with Benjamin and off to their stories tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will hold and it will continue to be a glorious week here in Devon.

The new Hinterlands website is now up and running.

After a lot of hard work, countless conversations and some very late nights, the new Hinterlands website is now up and running. Take a look if you're interested in finding out more about duckrabbit's photofilm workshop, or a photographic immersion workshop with Brenda Ann Kenneally. All the dates and prices are on the site, but feel free to get in touch with any questions via email at rebecca@thehinterlands if you think theres something we've missed.

The Hinterlands - Brenda Ann Kenneally workshop

The Hinterlands Brenda Ann Kenneally workshop will run from Sunday 24th - Friday 29th June and will cost £850.00 including all food and accommodation. It will be an intimate workshop with only 10 places available and will be held at the beautiful site of Blackdown Yurts in Devon. We are working hard to finish the new website and all the details will be available very soon. In the meantime if you want to get in touch or reserve a place email rebecca@thehinterlands.co.uk or follow us on twitter @the_hinterlands.

Brenda Ann Kenneally at The Hinterlands in June

Coming soon in June 2012 - Brenda Ann Kenneally's first UK workshop!

I'm very excited to announce The Hinterlands will be hosting acclaimed American photographer and visual journalist Brenda Ann Kenneally for a new inspiring workshop this summer. The details haven't been finalised yet but expect to be bowled over by Brenda's enthusiasm, tenacity and immersive style of working - and if Brenda has anything to do with it lots of strong cups of coffee.

For more details follow @the_hinterlands

Brenda Ann Kenneally is a mother, activist, and visual journalist who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her long-term projects are intimate portraits of social issues that intersect where the personal is political. Brenda's own involvement in the criminal justice system when she was a child has given her an insight and commitment to projects that reveal the human cost of misguided public policies in The United States.

The result of a decade of reporting, Kenneally’s book and web publication MONEY, POWER, RESPECT; Pictures of My Neighborhood have received numerous awards: The W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, a Soros Criminal Justice Fellowship, The Mother Jones Documentary Photography Award, and The International Prize for Photojournalism in Gijon Spain. Kenneally was among the earliest to embrace multi -platform media. Her independent collective pioneered in making and distributing serialized reporting via the web. In 2006 the multimedia component of Money, Power, Respect, won the Best of Photojournalism Award for overall Best Use of the Web by the National Press Photographers Association. Kenneally is working to push the boundaries of the social document, using the web as a tool to expand and contextualize her Gonzo-immersion style of reporting.

In this spirit Kenneally and independent producer Laura Lo Forti founded The Raw File, a digital theatre dedicated to providing a space for provocative open-ended media.

In 2004, Kenneally began reporting on the lives of an extended family of teenagers who would come of age in the iconic post- industrial City of Troy, New York. The ongoing project Upstate Girls; Unraveling Collar City aims deep into the emotional and psychological cycle of poverty from a women’s eye view. The project has been supported to date, by a Nikon Sabbatical Grant, The Alicia Patterson Foundation, and The Cannon Female Photojournalism Grant. Getty Grant for Editorial Photography and an Open Society Distribution Grant, A New York State Council for The Arts Individual Artist Grant and a print acquisition form The United States Library of Congress. The project was awarded The Pictures of The Year International Community Awareness Award and First Place for Daily Life Stories at World Press International. The project is ongoing and has been exhibited through out the United States, Europe and Latin America.

The Legendary Dougie Wallace

Shame this is black and white - that pink wig was gorgeous!