Orford Ness

Orford Ness is a remote peninsula on the Suffolk coast - access has only been possible in recent years and remains very restricted as for 40 years following World War 2 it was the home of the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment. Now managed by the National Trust the public are able to access, via a ferry, limited parts of the site and occassionally they run a ‘photography’ day for a small number of members to visit a more extensive area of the site - I was fortunate to be on one of these trips recently.

It is a bleak and remote place and only a limited number of paths have been ‘cleared’ and made safe from the hazards of its former use, the remaining buildings are in a perilous state and deemed unsafe to access due to concrete decay and/or asbestos. It is a challlenging place to create interesting images because of the limited colour pallette and virtually flat landscape - we were though blessed with a suitably overcast grey sky to add to the brooding atmosphere and austere character of the location.