Brownstone Battery is one of the few surviving Second World War coastal defence positions. Hidden amongst the trees you'll come across a collection of fascinating buildings, including the gun and searchlight positions.
Defending the coastline
With the threat of a German land invasion, gun batteries were placed strategically along the south coast. Brownstone Battery was built in 1940 to protect the Dart Estuary and nearby beaches Slapton and Blackpool Sands. The Battery was manned by up to 300 soldiers. Their time was spent training and waiting for an invasion that never happened.
Gun position
The Battery has two gun positions. Each housed a six-inch gun, taken from a First World War battleship. The guns had a range of over 14 miles, and 13 men were needed to operate each gun. The men worked on a shift system.
The shells containing high explosives were propelled from the guns by 'charges.' These were either cordite, a silk bag filled with smaller bags of explosive, or a cartridge, a brass cylinder filled with explosive.
Searchlight position
There are two searchlight positions at the battery. The reinforced concrete buildings housed powerful searchlights which scanned the sea for enemy ships. Five men operated each searchlight, working on shifts. Below the searchlights, the whole cliff area was covered in barbed wire.
After the war
The Battery was decommissioned in the late 1950s, and came to the National Trust in 1981. By this time many of the original buildings had been removed or damaged. Over the years, scrub spread over the site. The team of rangers work to keep the scrub at bay and create a good habitat for wildflowers, butterflies and rare birds such as cirl buntings. Sheep and pony grazing help with this. The large generator store has been colonised by lesser horseshoe bats.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/brownstone-and-coleton-camp/features/brownstone-battery
This is one of the most preserved sites along the coastline that is close to home. It is a space that I have walked past many times but one that I have not explored as much as I should have done. I know the site a little bit and have seen how much the land has taken back. The buildings at the top of the battery are beginning to get lost in the growth of the natural land around it. I think it is interesting how the National Trust has preserved these buildings for bats and other wildlife to call their homes. It brings a strong message to me that mother nature is far more supreme, powerful and sustainable than the concrete buildings that were placed along our South Coast in case the Germans invaded us during the second world war. To me this points towards the superficiality of war, it does not matter what we humans do to each other, nor the planet, as nature is much more powerful than us. It makes me questions why we don’t we find all of our answers to our problems from mother nature.
Shoot Plan
I plan on shooting this location first thing in the morning, just before and as the sun comes up. The sun rises along the south coast so this will able me to capture the site in the best light possible. I also want the blue, cold tones in my photographs as I want to try and make my viewer feel slightly uncomfortable when they are viewing my images. I am going to take my Sony A7 and Mamiya 7 out with me. This is the first shoot of the project where I am shooting film, so I would like to support this by shooting digitally as well. Other kit I will take will be a tripod as some of my exposures might need to be longer than 1/60.
Medium Format film Contact sheet
Kodak Portra 160
Digital Edits
Film Edit's
There is quite a difference between my film shots and digital ones. I prefer the images that I shot on film for a couple of reason. The first being the depth that I have captured on the Mamiya 7. I shot with a large aperture, F/4- F5.6 which confines the focus point, usually to the centre of the photograph where I have composed my subject. This creates a feeling of observation which is what I was feeling when I was shooting these photographs. I was the only person around the site at 7am in the morning which allowed me to get into my own head and think carefully about the compositions that I was making. I had a feeling of discomfort running through my body when I was walking around the site. A feeling of worry and pain, I felt an energy that I have not felt before when taking photographs, a feeling of overlooking a period of time that resembled pain and horror. I wanted to do my best to capture this in my photographs which I think I have achieved more so in the images shot on film. This is because the digital shots are quite straight and flat. The depth and perception of size has not been captured as well in these images. I think that when I am shooting on digital I am never thinking about the picture making process as much as when I am shooting on film. Over the rest of the project, I want to begin to leave the digital camera in the bag and just focus on capturing a few but more considered photographs on film.
These two photographs are a good example of how the film photographs have come out slightly better with the larger aperture. I also prefer the colours that the Kodak Portra has given me compared to the edit that I have done on the digital image. I think if I am going to work with digital photography more in this project then I will need to work on the colours that I am editing onto my photographs. However, saying this, I think that from now on the photographs are all going to be shot on film as I prefer the slow process when working on projects. I am also developing the film myself so I am feeling completely connected to the whole picture making process which is quite a good feeling. There is quite a bit of purple on the film shots, I have a feeling that this is because the chemicals that I used to develop are becoming exhausted so I will be mixing a fresh batch when I develop my next set of rolls.
The two photographs here are shot with slightly different compositions. I think that the higher up composition which I shot on the digital camera does not capture the perception of size as much as the film shot. I lied on my stomach to capture the film shot so I could have not got the camera any lower to the ground. I think that this technique captures the size of the gun station at the bottom of the slope in a more accurate way compared to the digital image. I also think that the soft-focus leading to the gun station points the viewer’s attention into it with more emphasis. It gives the feeling that you are looking through the trees and bushes to the concrete building at the bottom of the slope which enforces the ideas that I have mentioned in the writing above and below.
I think that this is my favorite photograph from the shoot because it captures the way that I was feeling when walking around the site. Most of the paths that take you around the site are small and narrow where the land has started to build up around it. I felt rather small when walking around it and almost as if I was walking around a maze. I shot this image when looking down/ through one of these paths towards one of the large gun stations that is on the site. It looks rather small in the photograph and the greenness of nature is far more prolific than the block of concrete at the bottom of the path. For me, this resembles the point that I am beginning to think about. Nature is far more powerful on this land than we are, it takes over and overtime hides the mistakes of mankind. The gun station is now just a block of concrete that the plants are taking control of. Yes, the war may have changed political history and the way in which the western world is run but what does that really mean? The land is what supplies us with the necessary elements we need in order to stay alive, it is the land in which we should look for our answers and not the superficiality of politics. This photograph speaks a lot to me and I would like to work out how I can create a series of photographs that convey these points that I am trying to make about humanity.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of this shoot and I think I am beginning to learn about the direction that I really want to push this project towards. Capturing my exploration and feelings that I am gathering when going to this site is something that I will carry through the body of work. I want to make a statement about the history of the second world war, about the buildings that were constructed yet never saw action and now that mother nature has begun to take back what humanity has left after fighting each other.