Perfect Imperfection: Folkestone Warren
Photographer Ady Kerry creates an exhibition using a Pinhole camera
In its Edwardian hey-day Folkestone Warren had its own rail halt, cafes, playgrounds and a very popular beach… much has changed. The landscape is wild, the seafront battered by the waves from the English Channel which were the portent of its demise.
Cliff falls have been frequent and the worst, in 1915, buried the Folkestone to Dover railway. No-one was injured but repairs took many years. All the trappings of its past have gone, and while the railway still runs along the coast, the trains don’t stop.
After WWII the concrete aprons and groynes were added to defend the cliffs from further erosion but the relentless sea is undermining the defences once again.
Some of the concrete walls at the eastern end are exposed, the wooden sleepers used to protect them have been ripped away. At the western end the concrete aprons seem to have fared better but in between, the lines of groynes are now broken, twisted and far from effective.
Time and tide are ravaging the beach once more. It won’t be long until the groynes are gone, a faded memory like the tourists that flocked to the now deserted beach.
Freelance editorial photographer Ady Kerry has created an exhibition using pinhole photography.
His personal work is exclusively shot on film using a variety of camera formats and predominantly in black and white which is hand processed.
All the imagery was taken using a LeRouge66 medium format film pinhole camera. Stripping photography back to almost its most basic, the pinhole camera employs no glass to focus the image, just a tiny hole drilled in the front with a mechanical shutter operated by hand. The angle of view and aperture are governed by the size of the drilled hole, in this case, 0.2mm hole equates to a 30mm focal length, 100° angle of view and with an aperture of f150.
WHERE: Samphire Hoe Visitor Centre
WHEN: 10th – 30th April 2020, open from 11am – 3pm daily.
INFO: 07973 286863 / Adykerry.akpictures@gmail.com