Derelict Mirror (Happy-ish New Year)

 

All Images: Central Leicester, New Year's Day, 2024

The festivities are behind us, and it's time to peer trepidatiously into the future. I can't claim this was the most uplifting of Christmas/New Year periods, being largely characterised by yet more school-borne illness and a seemingly endless procession of Atlantic storms. Thankfully, the virus has departed, but each subsequent extreme weather event served to both lower the mood and raise the water levels - to the point where my own neighbourhood here in Leicester was subject to a full-on flood alert for a couple of days. I can only hope the immediate emergency is abated, and that we dodged a bullet here (others have not been so lucky) - not least as moving valuables upstairs and taking midnight walks to gauge nearby river levels is hardly a relaxing or creative way to spend one's precious leisure time.

Nevertheless, the creative life is about adapting to events as they present themselves, not as we would idealise them. Even between seemingly interminable downpours, there have been brief windows of photographic opportunity, and the chance to grab a bit of much-needed two-wheeled exercise. If life gives you economic/political gloom, environmental collapse, climatic catastrophe, illness and despondency - then find an attractively waterlogged bit of waste ground to symbolise the mood - that's my motto. I've passed by this portion of nondescript, derelict vacancy many times, but this time the standing water and briefly atmospheric illumination transformed it into something actually worth documenting.

To be sure, it's the kind of bleak subject-matter to which I'm often drawn, and perhaps captures the exhausted and demoralised mood of this particular nation, in several ways. Nevertheless, there's no denying its obscure beauty and wealth of visual texture. To simply observe and document is at least to engage, and creative endeavour is ultimately its own reward. To extract stimulation from the least promising circumstances is a generator of hope - and thus a political act in its own right.

Who knows? 2024 might even see a (marginally) less dysfunctional government replace the current criminal regime. That's if we can avoid a slide into full-on populist fascism, of course, but for now - let's look on the bright side...