National Allotment Week Episode 1

This week has been National Allotment Week, a celebration of all that is good about ‘grow your own’, connecting with mother nature and going back to basics. Allotments are not just a place for back-breaking toil, they’re often a place of tranquil retreat for many people. There’s also a strong sense of community, with allotmenteers freely swapping seeds, cuttings and age-old tips for mazimising their harvest.

As a photographer I’m fascinated by the characters I meet on the allotments and by the way different gardeners personalise their plots. Some plots are well manicured, some are ramshackle and in need of a bit of t.l.c., but each one has it’s own unique character and personality.

As part of an ongoing project I pay occasional visits to my local allotments to chat to the allotmenteers and capture a few images each time. I’ll be returning to the allotment theme as my project develops, but in the meantime here are a few colour images images to set the scene….

Look out for a follow-up post featuring some vintage-style black and white.

Michael.

Kaz, aka LottiePlot21a to those of you on Twitter, has her own allotment – you can follow the progress of Lottie Plot 21a on Facebook. Here’s an atmospheric late evening i-Phone shot of Kaz’s. As they say in the old Westerns, as the sun slowly sinks on Lottie Plot 21a….