“ The boat burning in Oxford was pretty
exciting... it was serendipity that I
happened to be there on that day”
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The boat burning in Oxford was pretty exciting, partly
because it doesn’t necessarily happen every year.
The college rowing crew that wins the Summer VIII’s
regatta, the university’s internal rowing competition,
parades through the streets with the cox sat on top
of the rowing boat. They arrive at their college in
whichever quadrangle they’re going to position the
boat, then burn it. The scene felt genuinely anarchic,
almost Viking, with echoes of things I’d seen in the
Ghats in Varanasi, so I was particularly excited to
frame that raw spectacle against the backdrop
of this historic English institution. It was serendipity
that I happened to be there on that day.
Another memorable moment was my encounter
with the ship-spotters at Tilbury Ferry Terminal. I
saw these three guys sitting in a shelter on the jetty,
where the ferries come in. They were there day after
day, chatting to each other and jotting things down in
notebooks. Eventually I asked them what they were
doing. I thought that there was something wonderful
about this activity, especially in Tilbury, a place that
had received so many extraordinary boats and
arrivals from overseas. I loved the sight of these men,
keeping their vigil, their curiosity for the ships taking
them to distant shores without actually leaving home.
And you photographed lots of rituals on the river...
On the one hand there are classic religious rituals,
but there are also quieter, private rituals; a man
going every day to the same spot on the
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