Cheshire England, January 2012 copyright Douglas Stockdale
I continue to be intrigued by the various facets of memory and one that seems the most futile and vexing is the preservation of a memory. Sometimes no matter how hard I attempt to hold on to it, a memory can be elusive and like the fog, slips too easily through my fingers.
Cheers!
Singular Images 
I saw the picture before I saw or even read any words and straight away I thought “that’s England!” You have managed to capture something that contains so much information in an intrinsic way. I don’t know whether it’s the hedgerow, the colours, the tones in the sky or what. It makes me wonder how you feel about it too, for whilst it fits into your series of similar images, it doesn’t in so much that it’s geographic location imparts quite a different feel to it. It does however say a lot about your ability to capture the spirit of a place.
Colin, thanks for your insight and you have also touched on somethng that I am only now becoming aware of regarding this project: most if not all of the roadside memorials are photographed on sunny days usually with clear skies, athough that is very common in the Southwest and Southern California. Similar to the above photograph is the equally “moody” environmental roadside memorial I captured in Italy the week before. Photographing found objects incorporates a fair amount of serindipity and chance, such as the weather in Norther England was a bunch of rain and with expectant pauses. Even this was captured in very slight misty drizzle, which is very appealing for me. I am trying to connect with the moodiness and not “fix” it with photoshop, but explore this aspect even more.
Although different, there is enough consistency and the differences you see does creates more ambugity in the project, which I find to be a good thing. So I have just printed off four photographs from three days of passing by this memorial and I will now work on how they fit in the book dummy I am developing.