No matter where you live or where you visit, everywhere has vibes, be they good, bad or indifferent.
Being a visitor in a place as opposed to living in a place always offers up a different viewpoint , perspective or impression. Well it does for me if not you.
I live in a town centre and Mrs O is very much a ‘townie’ whereas I can quite happily submerge myself in the edgelands, badlands and remote areas at least for short spells.
Our week away the other week meant we were transported into a place, a place that I would not want to visit at any other time than in an ‘in-between season’ – just after the anglers have packed up, and just before the grockles arrive.
We have been there before at the end of the angling season and I find that navigating around countless floats is annoying especially when they have dropped the mud weights in prime spots for observing Kingfishers.
Wroxham is I believe, the gateway to the Broads. It is a marvel of space planning with all the crammed in houses and chalets but the town centre architecture is utterly grim and in some cases redolent of the ‘new towns’ that popped up during the 60’s. I can recall the brutalist architecture of Kirkby, where ‘Z cars’ was filmed and it is Kirkby that I see when I look at the Wroxham Hotel and associated shopping centre.
At least Wroxham seems to offer plenty of employment in servicing holiday lets and boat hire and in some respects photographing some of these locations is a logical extension of my Edgelands series. In that extension I am making images of agridustrial buildings that are relevant to the indigenous industry of East Anglia which in the main is agricultural but if we look further afield there is shipping and holidaying that is catered for on vast scales.
We have rented places here off and on for many years but it was only this year that I realised there was gap in my pictorial story making as my prime purpose was a place to sleep and eat after having spent countless cold hours on a boat searching for Kingfishers.
Just as with my Edgelands work though, there is something of the winter months that offer a different insight to what is going on in these parts that would not be visible in high season. I think I’ll stick to low season. It has many benefits.
Wroxham Road Bridge was one long stream of traffic hustling away and through the place when I made the panorama picture in this post which was in total contrast to the river traffic which is the way I like it but I dare say not as the hirers would like it.