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PETER CORR

Artist and Photographer

PeterCorr@hotmail.com
+44 (0)1353 610 280
Cambridgeshire, England

Contemporary Art Blog

The Cambridgeshire Fenlands during the Winter of 2020/21, at the height of the COVID -19 pandemic.

Apr 1, 2021

The Cambridgeshire Fenlands during the Winter of 2020/21, at the height of the COVID -19 pandemic.

Fenland By Peter M Corr Book Preview Followers of this blog will have an idea about the number of photographs I have taken of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands. I had many images on this theme and collated them in a book using the Bookwright software. What you will find here is an edited collection and some of these shots you may have already seen. Most of the captures included were taken during the Winter of 2020/21 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; maybe that is why they ar

The Ouse Washes

Jan 27, 2021

The Ouse Washes

The Ouse Washes in Flood ‘The Ouse Washes are part of a flood defense system. They are an uninhabited area of nearly six thousand acres that provides storage for floodwater that the River Great Ouse cannot discharge directly into the sea (at Kings Lynn) without overflowing its banks. The excess waters are held within the washes until tides and river flows allow discharge back into the river and thence the sea. This can take a few days or several weeks’. ‘Unfortunately, this e

The House at Southery

Jan 20, 2021

The House at Southery

A House on the outskirts of Southery, Norfolk In the Fenlands, a house is a mute record, a repository of thoughts, memories, and lives lived. Inside, random collections of discarded objects lounge in neglected corners, like careless tenants. Torn curtains in upstairs windows, become props in a witness protection program, scanning the horizon for potential interlopers. A polyurethane oil tank cements the incongruity as the telegraph poles transmit on forgotten frequencies. #ho

An American Road Movie in Monochrome

Jan 19, 2021

An American Road Movie in Monochrome

This is an archetypal Fenland landscape, just near Gold Hill, close to the Old Bedford River. There are no physical hills in the Fenlands even though fanciful hills are declared in abundance. It is either stoic irony or wishful thinking, or both. The flat road stretches towards the horizon like a low budget American road movie, neither the weather nor a distant mountain range conspire to underpin this popular genre. With squatters’ rights, the dark, opaque sky occupies the

Telegraph Pole and Tree

Jan 18, 2021

Telegraph Pole and Tree

The Fenland landscape belongs to Winter. In football terms, Summer relegates the Fenlands to the third division or possibly a non-league team. How do you compete with the beauty of the English Lakes, the peak district and Dartmoor? There is nothing of the traditional picturesque here but there is something elemental and prosaic. This is a functional world of telegraph poles, dykes, rivers, drainage ditches, tree lines, and flat open fields. Winter strips away all delusions an

Fenland Fog and digital imaging technology

Dec 12, 2020

Fenland Fog and digital imaging technology

Fenland Trees, White House Road, Little Ouse Modern technology insists on ever-higher pixel counts as if the weight of detail was the most essential component in a photograph. If only we could witness more, ‘capture’ more, encompass more, our desire for evidence would finally be sated. The tsunami of information swamps us, flooding every nook and cranny of our lives, absorbing and occupying our natural capacity. The increasingly futile quest to record the minutiae of the visi

Winter Trees in The Fenlands…’a country walk less picturesque could hardly be found in E

Dec 7, 2020

Winter Trees in The Fenlands…’a country walk less picturesque could hardly be found in E

At first sight, this looks like a mirror image, but it is a photograph of one of the arrow-straight tree lines seen across the Fenlands. Why there are two rows of trees planted side by side, I really don’t know; it is unlikely to be an aesthetic decision because it is so difficult to walk between them. Anthony Trollope (1815 -1882) writes about the Fen landscape and he says, ‘a country walk less picturesque could hardly be found in England’. Trollope was familiar with the fen

The ‘Ship of The Fens’, shrouded in fog.

Nov 28, 2020

The ‘Ship of The Fens’, shrouded in fog.

Ely Cathedral is an architectural treasure and you certainly should make a special journey to see it. I have looked at the Cathedral in every imaginable quality of light and in all seasons, but nothing reveals the grandeur of this magnificent Gothic structure better than early morning mist in Winter. The detail vanishes in the half-light like one of Monet’s evocative depictions of Rouen Cathedral; individual elements are secondary to the ultimate power and presence of the bui

Vintage Cars are just beautiful.1931 Austin Seven Swallow.

Oct 31, 2020

Vintage Cars are just beautiful.1931 Austin Seven Swallow.

1931 Austin Seven Swallow National Motor Museum Beaulieu, Hampshire I don’t have a story about this one, I just love photographing Vintage cars… you can see me paying homage, reflected in the chrome detailing. The sad irony about the automobile is that something so aesthetically pleasing and genuinely ‘liberating’ has created so many problems for our planet. In 1927, William Lyons, co-founder of the Swallow Sidecar Company, saw the commercial potential of producing a re-bodi

My First Car

Oct 31, 2020

My First Car

1938 Hillman Minx Magnificent at Beaulieu motor museum A pastel blue Hillman Minx 66 Deluxe was my first car, and I remember I spent a couple of days painting the headlight surround -and other perforated areas – with bright red anti-rust paint. It cost £100, but the engine had problems; a pall of thick black smoke coming from the exhaust shrouded any cars following us. I later discovered that the lovely individual who sold it to me had poured a well-known additive into the en

Prose and Passion, The Art of Living in Milan.

Oct 26, 2020

Prose and Passion, The Art of Living in Milan.

Statues in Milano, Italy If you believe access to Art is an essential component of a life well-lived – assuming basic critical needs have been met – then you might decide to live in the Northern city of Milan. Architectural beauty exists on almost every street corner in the city centre of this commercial metropolis, and it is a visual and spiritual delight. When you also factor in the high probability of coming across sculptures of this quality, adorning a facade or the entra

Power, Dynamism and Energy, a sculpture by the French artist, Bartoldi.

Oct 25, 2020

Power, Dynamism and Energy, a sculpture by the French artist, Bartoldi.

Place des Terreaux 1st arrondissement of Lyon The man who created the Statue of Liberty in New York also created this powerful sculpture in the centre of the city of Lyon. This is just one of the horses sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and is part of La Fontaine Bartholdi. I have photographed this fountain from every conceivable angle and there is always a new configuration of shapes to record. This shot is vignetted to draw attention to the overwhelming sense of drama

Graveyard, Holy Trinity Church, Haddenham

Sep 20, 2020

Graveyard, Holy Trinity Church, Haddenham

I think we are all fascinated by graveyards and the stone memorials, particularly those attached to churches dating back hundreds of years. According to local records, the cemetery at the Holy Trinity church in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire has existed since the early 13th Century. Just to reassure you, this isn’t a morbid preoccupation of mine, I just like the sculptural qualities of the headstones and the often delicate engravings and relief carvings that accompany them. In the

Stone tombs, St Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden

Aug 31, 2020

Stone tombs, St Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden

I don’t really know why we honour the dead with such austere architectural forms but here in the UK, we certainly do just that. There is something deeply ironic about the contrast between the solidity and permanence of these cold hard stone blocks and the transience and fragility of the human lives they commemorate. #death #cemetery #photographer #tombs #grave #transcience #photography #saffronwalden #tomb #blackampwhite #churchyard #life #gothic #monochrome

Black Windows

Nov 11, 2018

Black Windows

The late afternoon sun transforms an ordinary scene. Windows and doorways become dark rectangular shapes and intense sunlight reflects from plaster walls. In these images of geometry and order I see echoes of the surrealist Magritte, the mysterious city streets of the Italian artist Giorgio De Chirico and the cool detachment of the American painter, Joseph Albers. For those of you also interested in the technical aspects of photography this image was taken on a Fuji X100s usi

The Lune Estuary

Sep 29, 2018

The Lune Estuary

#wreck #photography #boat #shipwreck #riverLune #UK #blackandwhite #LuneEstuary #monochrome #MorecambeBay

Saint Bartholomew: Don’t Look Now

May 8, 2018

Saint Bartholomew: Don’t Look Now

Saint Bartholomew (Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14, Acts 1:13) never set foot in Milan but his statue has been the talk of the town for the past four and a half centuries. Just ask Mark Twain. Then again, the tradition of Bartholomew, which purports that he was skinned alive and beheaded in Albanopolis, Armenia (modern-day Turkey), is the stuff of legends. Bartholomew, now the patron saint of tanners, is usually depicted with a large knife and holding his own skin. In many

New Forest Residency: The Forge

Apr 14, 2018

New Forest Residency: The Forge

My residency in the New Forest is in one of the most amazing places, I will be working above a blacksmiths workshop alongside skilled craftsmen who produce some of the most wonderful and beautifully designed metal work. From an artists point of view, the machinery in the workshop is an absolute treasure trove of hard edged shapes , structures and surfaces. Now I have a problem, do I continue to focus on the forest and nature or try to incorporate elements of the machine and t

Inadvertent Christo

Mar 9, 2018

Inadvertent Christo

I stumbled across this ready-made Christo in the grounds of Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge. I think they would be delighted. ‘When Christo began to wrap objects in 1958, he used everyday objects such as shoes, telephones and empty paint cans to make his sculptures. Once wrapped, the objects would take on a new identity. By wrapping them, he would reveal some of the most basic features and proportions of the object by concealing the actual item. Christo and Jeanne-Claude later

Coveney Road

Feb 11, 2018

Coveney Road

Coveney is a village north of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire in the UK. It is part of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands, an extensive flat terrain of fertile agricultural land once flooded but systematically reclaimed with the help of Dutch drainage engineers. I frequently cycle along these narrow and uneven roads, avoiding the pools of water and stretches of mud churned up by fleets of farm vehicles that criss cross the fens at this time of year. When I see something of interest, I

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