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Mythology of Place - Homage to James K Baxter - © 1993-94 - Lloyd Godman - Lawrence Jones - Mythology of Place - Book now available

Photographs of the Brighton Coastal Otago World of James K Baxter

Sod Hut on Scroggs Hill Road

Homage to Baxter  Resonance IX - Sod Hut on Scroggs Hill Road, Brighton. 1994

selenium toned silver gelatine print - Lloyd Godman - (Click on image detail to enlarge)

Resonance IX

I had often driven past this hut and it had always caught a glance. A friend of mine who was conceived in it when her parents lived there when they were first married and is also a relation of Baxter. I had to go there several times to get the light right and while earlier in the day the light clipped the front of the hut well, the strong black "axe handle" shadow did not appear until later in the day. At the time of taking the photograph, I spoke to the farmer who said he knew Baxter and often saw him striding past the hut on the way up Scroggs Hill.

Map of Brighton indicating where the image Resonance IX was taken from

enlarge map

 

James K Baxter - Poem references

Ode 1964  CP 305

Burnt black - till the axe of dawn
Rise up from a hidden place
To show our flesh, burnt white
that a furious christ is born...

That the pioneering men
had used as a cattle stall
To the desecrated earth
under hooked lawyer thorn...

 

 

Towards the Scroggs Hill farm
May see a blaze of light
In a sod hut.