Episode 8: Penny Green and Ivan De Klee @ Knepp Wildlands
“Its scary because you might not be able to predict exactly what’s going to happen, and you can’t promise certain things, you can’t promise certain species, but therein lies part of the adventure”
Ivan De Klee - going for the moody look
“[the book, Wilding] ... is giving a lot of people hope”
Penny Green - principal ecologist at Knepp and welly boot model!
“Rewilding is... ecosystem restoration and ecosystem resilience, and actually providing an amazing habitat for wildlife to thriving and going forwards .. providing a buffer for climate change”
Ivan and Penny enjoying a ‘hero pose’
A more sensible photo!
“Rewilding is returning land to nature, but using natural processes, using large herbivores, using nature to do it rather than using human intervention”
This is the long awaited Part 2 of my case-studies from Knepp. I have been to the estate four times at last count, and this case study includes photos from November 2020 and July 2021. The November visit was when I made the portraits above, some of the photos below, and also when I also interviewed Penny and Ivan - see below for links to the podcast (which was great fun!)
Penny and Ivan are at the 'coal face' of rewilding, in Penny's case particularly with the safari customers, and with Ivan, his role with other farms in a local cluster means that he is very tuned into the farming community. They are both very knowledgable, clearly love their jobs and have so much to say about Knepp and rewilding so rather than say any more here, please do listen to the podcast.
In a bit of a break with tradition, this rest of this case study is going to be ‘text-lite’ and image-heavy. Episode 7 has a lot about how Knepp works, and also photos of the herbivores and landscapes, so consider this going a little bit off-piste.
Podcast
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Rewilding reconsidered
So instead of the more traditional and ‘straight’ colour photos of landscapes, people and animals, the work below was attempting to look at Knepp and rewilding in general in a slightly different way.
It is attempting to provoke a more emotional response, and challenge the viewer with an untraditional view of nature, or views of unexpected subjects or situations. The aesthetic is black and white, relatively dark, and with some graininess depending on the time of day.
Most of the work is at early dawn or dusk, and I am trying to engender a feeling a little as though we are intruding, taking space in nature where we do not belong, seeing things that perhaps we don’t normally get to see as a casual bystander.
The first set of images are from a very misty summer dawn, with deer and pigs (and spiders) making their presence known in the scrub. Some of the images also show the odd, almost unreal shapes that are created by the grazing and browsing of the thorny scrub.
The second batch of images below shows some of the ‘distorted’ trees that have grown in this way due to the deer’s browsing regime. Because of the deer they are not ‘allowed’ to grow up peacefully and undisturbed, so they grow in any way they can to survive, often then appearing to us as damaged.
In fact they are equally as important for biodiversity, possibly more-so because they are part of that mosaic of habitats at different levels in the ecosystem that promotes life. I have also shown a couple of the perfectly ‘manicured’ bramble mounds which provide shelter and protection for young trees coming through - often planted by the Jays (Penny explains this in the podcast).
These images were all made at dusk, using a moderate flash so as to bring out the texture and shapes that might not be so obvious in a landscape of green and brown. In photography theory terms, some of these might be seen as ‘uncanny’ as they resemble limbs, they are a little disturbing or show familiar in an unfamiliar way.
From my perspective the importance of this work is all about showing that nature doesn’t have to conform to the societally expected norms of what is ‘beautiful’, to be important.
Penny and Ivan talk about the numbers, variety and abundance of species found at Knepp after they have allowed nature to take charge, and these bramble mounds and twisted trees are every bit as important for biodiversity - possibly even more so - as the grand old Oaks that are scattered around the estate.
Although not black and white, the short - but slightly mesmerising - drone clip below, taken on that misty July morning also gives that feeling of intruding into an abundant and self-willed nature, not something I would expect to feel in West Sussex.
To finish this case study, and to show a contrast, the following image is also black and white, but is much more upbeat and positive representation of the scrublands - with the big skies and savanna grasses rendering it much more akin to the Serengeti. It also shows that it is possible to make the same space look very different under different conditions and using different techniques. In terms of making the photograph in the first place, the starting point should be the intention - what do I want to portray? What I am showing in the image below is very different to meaning I am hoping you get from the images and film above.
I hope you like the photos and the interview. My thanks to Penny and Ivan for their time, expertise and good humour. Also to Issy and Charlie, and the Knepp staff for putting up with my loitering. My thanks to you for listening and looking - please sign up to my email list here, and add a comment below if you wish. Drop me a note with any questions.
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