Working in an unpredictable and fluid industry, I'm never sure what to expect from the day or week ahead. Anything can change at a moment's notice- often to the detriment of a social life! Sometimes, a day or week can turn out to be a real highlight as something enjoyable comes along.
This was not one of those weeks. It has been one of the coldest winters in living memory, and unfortunately this week I was witness to two incidents of dead bodies being pulled out from icy waters. Spending the day at the scene of a search can be draining- not knowing what will be found or where, and ultimately hoping that the missing person will show up alive.
The first was at Brightwell Lakes near Northampton where two bodies, of friends on a fishing trip, were found on 21/12/2009.
Picture of police divers published on the front of The Daily Mirror the following morning.
Boxing Day was extremely grim. I was on my way to photograph a staple of British eccentricity- Barrel Rolling, in a small Cambridgeshire village. A call came in from the office "A 13 year old boy has gone missing from Bishops Stortford on Christmas Eve, so can you do some shots of the site he went missing from on the way to the Barrel Rolling?" Having taken those pictures, I then stuck around to photograph the search teams whilst talking to locals and trying to find out more about the missing boy- Jordan Trowsdale.
Numerous hours later, with the boy's friends gathered together and his mother wandering distraught around the park, police divers found a body half a mile down the river and everybody's worst fears were confirmed. The young boy had drunk a few cans of cider with his friends, and then walked home alone- slipping on the frozen path next to the river. Being party to the process made it a difficult experience to 'leave at work'.
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