Milton
photographs and text by Darcy Gladwin
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I was travelling through the deep South on a music tour. The van I was driving needed to get to Dunedin for the next show. Coming through Milton, a large building and chimney on the left caught my eye . Mental note; come back to Milton. Architecture. Time. Human endeavour. As it happened, I was called to do a gig two weeks later in Wanaka. The day after that, lo, I was deja-vueing my way into Milton, again.
This time I stopped.
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Past the happy face, to a chap standing on the drive, maybe an electrical serviceman. I say hello and ask if it's ok to have a look around. He's not one for words, but seems ok with that. I amble toward the looming structure, seemingly transported backward in time. This feels like Germany, first world war (not that I was there or anything).
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Angles jump out of the stillness, a man-size still-life. Disconnected pipes, doors and windows. A sign cautions "no entry". I enter. I'm a photographer, curious to find out what, who and how.
The stream broiling alongside lifts the mood some. Now it feels like I've stepped into a Biblical scene. Danger.
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The darkness of the building wraps me. I set the camera ISO3200 in attempt to capture the inky interior. Eyes adjust. Flapping sounds - there's maybe 20 pigeons in that chimney, flapping from one tier of girders, upward to the next. Too fast to capture, contrasted wrecked sight.
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Past that horrible digestive machine covered in bird shit, along narrow corridor, listening for voices. Stealing pictures, expecting a body, face any moment.
The camera shutter highlights the soundbed of a low rumble, constantly rising is the smokeyness, in my lungs.
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Majesty and horror - the scene at hand. Fire, iron, slippery railing. Apparatus of a bygone age. Where are the men? What is this inferno? Angles, obtuse and prolific. Hell, this is a cinematographer's wet dream. That's right, Hell. Paranoid senses overcome, not least imagination. The lungs, filling fast with the carcinogenic belch of that prehistoric monster.
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Reel backward, out the back (front) door? Oxygen, outside ! Greeted by a yellow-barreled toxic waste dump. O joy ! The garden of middle England and her merry men. Composure. ISO100 and photographic evidence of half-done tasks. Left for another day, time means little.
Back on the driveway, the chap stands, vacant. I approach him, he hardly moves. I don't bother with pleasantries, I'm back on the road with the smiling face, in my warm car of 1980's piston technology, carcinogenic fumes tucked safely under the bonnet.
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(c) Darcy Gladwin. All rights reserved.
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