Unquiet Thames, Photographs by Crispin Hughes
1 February to 4 June 2006
Unquiet: Marked by unrest, disturbance, or disorder Of persons, emotions, restless, active, turbulent Perturbed, anxious, not at ease.
Exploring the mysterious and foreboding world hidden beneath London’s bridges and quays, documentary photographer Crispin Hughes captures the unseen landscape between the tides - an empty, wild place in the heart of bustling London.
His beautiful, eerie panoramas are on show in Unquiet Thames, an exhibition at the Museum in Docklands from 1 February to 4 June 2006. The vast pictures, each over two metres wide and taking in 3600, capture the play of shadow and light, the massive drowned structures revealed by the ebbing tide and the sense of expectation and foreboding that the river carries with it.
Each panoramic image was created using innovative digital photography techniques to stitch together eight separate images.
The Thames foreshore is literally Unquiet. Beneath the jetties and bridges the wakes of boats boom and echo among the discarded ironwork mingling with the roar of the city above. Further downstream thousands of tiny fragments of eroded glass tinkle delicately as the water laps against the foreshore.
These sounds have been brought into the gallery with a soundtrack by Walking Pictures. They visited the sites of some of the photographs, at both low and high tide, and were able to record some of these noises to create an atmospheric and evocative oral accompaniment to the exhibition.
Inspired by the rich literary heritage that surrounds the Thames, as well as every Londoner’s proximity to the river, Crispin has created an astounding set of images that display a hidden, feral side to the capital.
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