Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside
This week’s challenge has given me a great opportunity to travel back in time to 1994. These were part of my days at art college when I was blissfully shut away inside the darkroom, experimenting with abstract photography.
The Black & White photographs were originally shot on Ilford HP5 400 ISO film on my old Praktica, inside the Earth! I don’t think that I would dare to take a modern DSLR underground with me. Too much sensitive technology that could be damaged! The Praktica was such a robust SLR, it really did me proud. I still have it although it’s been a few years since I last used it.
In my teenage years I enjoyed caving, among other outdoor activities, and a bunch of us regularly went to the Mendip Hills in Somerset. These images are from GB Cave, a locked cave (entrance only with the Charterhouse caving club) that is well known for a large Gorge passage, made by an underground river, with a rock bridge that leads into the vast Main Chamber. The impressive stalagmite and stalactite structures here are all part of the largest continuous void under the Mendips.
All these photos are lit only by torches and our head lamps. I loved the way the light glistened on the damp surfaces of the calcite formations. I really felt like I had stepped into the very bowels of the earth! The structures are so organic and fluid that I came to see the caves as a living, breathing entity. The Earth is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the surface!
Taking One Day At A Time 