Being resident in semi-rural Lancashire has its benefits, as there is always something to photograph nearby. The relatively flat landscape runs away to the edge of the Pennines and the TV transmitter station is clearly visible on remote Winter Hill 20 miles away from my home. Winter weather always provides beautiful vistas, as fog and frost covers the land as the sun edges up over Beacon Hill.
Arable and crop farming have taken place in the area for centuries, with the canal network used to ship out vegetables and crops to Liverpool, returning with ballasts of night soil to be spread on the fields again as fertiliser. As testament to this rich history, the landscape is dotted with relics of a past age - dilapidated farm buildings, rotting husks of greenhouses and in almost every field corner - old farm machinery.
The landscape quickly overruns the relics, covering the old brickwork with moss and ivy and entombing the machines in tibetan balsam and crab grass.
A lot of the old tractors and devices are invariably coloured in a bright scarlet paint, which degrades with weathering to a deep blood red, as rust takes hold.
The dereliction makes ideal habitats for wildlife, from spiders to birds and hedgehogs and the cracks and crevices soon fill up with windblown seeds from nearby fields and weeds.
The colours of the flowers and plants make a great contrast to the reds and ochres of the rusting machines and tumbledown brickwork, so that selecting a particular filter combination to enhance certain shades, results in some striking imagery.
The flat fields lend themselves well to panoramic shots of rainbows, both natural and man made, bringing a gift of colour to a dull landscape.
The machinery is sometimes so huge and complex, that it provides opportunities for more abstract work, picking out sections of the mechanism, or viewing the structures from different angles.
Many of the sites where the machines have been abandoned have an almost post-apocalyptic air - as if they have been arrested in mid-action and stilled prematurely.
