Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]While chatting with Bill Clough on IRC #Leica channel, he mentioned that he had been looking at the photograph of a village taken for a picture essay on Literary England that appeared in LIFE Magazine in June, 1943. Bill talked about how it seemed an unlikely time for such a project, how he liked the photograph and even emailed the text that accompanied the piece. It's taken from 'A Shropshire Lad' by A.E. Houseman: Clunton and Clunbury Clungerford and Clun Are the quietest places Under the sun In valleys of springs and rivers By Ony and Teme and Clun The country for easy livers The quietest under the sun We still had sorrows to lighten One could not always be glad.... Whether is was the photograph, the poem, the tranquillity of the scene when war was raging elsewhere, or maybe just Bill's mood at the time, for some reason--in that way that photographs can--it struck a chord with him. Clunbury, the village in the photograph, is 120 miles from my home so I said if I got the chance I would make the trip and take some photographs to show him how it looked today. One thing hadn't changed since 1896 when the poem was written. It is still the quietest place under the sun. I never saw a soul except an occasional car and a couple of bikers. I wandered through the village and around the churchyard in almost total isolation on a glorious sunny day. The cottage that was in the process of being thatched had a 'Marie Celeste' feel about it, almost as if the thatchers had been whisked away somehow in the middle of their work. The only sounds came from a nearby rookery and it added to the slightly eerie atmosphere. David E. Scherman was the photographer in 1943 that so captured Bill Cloughs' imagination and triggered these shots. A fifty nine year self timer, followed by a remote release from Texas, the LUG is a truly wondrous place. http://www.geebeephoto.com/html/clunbury.html Graham http://geebeephoto.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html