The Two Sides of Farming: working collaboratively, Gill Greatorex and Vicki Gardner explore the two sides of farming - the perceived idyll and the hard-edged reality - through a contrast of rural skills and modern technology.

Vicki specialises in macro photography, using colours, patterns and forms in nature. Gill works with willow, cob, recycled and found materials.

We have intermeshed our skills to reflect contrasting aspects of Rocombe Farm: the 'good life' of rolling hillsides, meadow flowers and happy habitats versus the 'man driven' harsher environment of machinery, chemicals and processes.

The tensions and compromises of working collaboratively mirror the choices successive farmers have made in developing the land. Recently, Rocombe Farm has encouraged sustainability through difficult farming times and we explore this, along with playing with scale and how the eye sees images.

Both artists needed to reconsider their working methods to reach consensus. 35mm photography, necessitating chemicals to develop film, strains against the willow from sustainable withy beds - not an easy alliance given what each artist holds sacrosanct in their work: Vicki coming to terms with fine shredding of images; Gill accepting working with non-recycled / unnatural materials.

Along the way we have discovered that animals are a swine to photograph and that each plastic hay bale wrapper comprises over 200ft of black cling film. Given the annual number of bales in the UK, that's a lot of plastic. 3 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced annually in the UK. No wonder it's seen clinging to hedges and trees all over the countryside!

Gill Greatorex 01626 854814    greatrocks@btinternet.com
Vicki Gardner 07766 551067  info@vickigardnerphotography.co.uk
http://www.vickigardnerphotography.co.uk