Edward Thompson When thinking of the climate in Britain, it is easy to conjure up images of rain, grey skies, and big red buses going through puddles. Deserts? Not so much. However, readers may be surprised that one small speck of southern England lays claim to be “Britain’s only desert.” Dungeness, a “lonely, bleak, and desolate bank of shingle” that juts into the English Channel off the Kent Coast not only looks like a desert but also has a huge nuclear power plant looming over it.
It has been a draw for photographers and filmmakers seeking an unusual location to shoot in. Nicky Minaj has made a music video there and Pink Floyd used it on an album cover. The power station that looms over Dungeness. However, a party-pooping climate scientist refuted that Dungeness is a desert in 2015 owing to it receiving too much rainfall. But that hasn’t stopped medium format film photographer Edward Thompson documenting the remarkable location. “I’d been working on medium format documentary photo essays for five years before starting this project in 2011,” Thompson, who shot the photos on a Bronica SQ-A, tells PetaPixel.” “I think it’s a really good idea to pick a single camera and grind with it for a while, and if you do it long enough before you realize it you’ve probably made a significant body of work that can be a great photo book purely because you didn’t chop and change between formats/film types, etc.”
Thompson is planning to release his photos of Dungeness as a book via a crowdfunding campaign but has to raise the funds for 500 hardback copies first. “It’s all-or-nothing funding, maybe I won’t make it, but that’s cool. In 24 years as a photographer, I’ve had some very public failures!”
Thompson says that he found the people of Dungeness to be “very inviting and accommodating” but recent trips have felt quieter. “I’m sure a lot has changed. I’ve noticed a difference when I’m out photographing since then, but then maybe that’s my perception of how I used to get received as a baby faced 20 something versus a lumbering 40-year-old dad dork!” Thompson’s Kickstarter campaign for Welcome to Dungeness can be found here. Head over to his Instagram page and YouTube Channel, Pictures on my Mind, to see more of his work. Image credits: Photographs by Edward Thompson.
