View allAll Photos Tagged Mudding
Not that I'm bitter about missing Glastonbury this year or anything. I was supposed to be working there but just couldn't afford to take the time away for it so had to drop out. To make myself feel better, I've dug out the 1997 photos.
Anyway, it was thoroughly miserable. We had seen Aphex Twin had play a great set that morning and seen Beck present a moving target in a white cowboy suit. The mud was everywhere. It was sticky. It took infeasible amounts of energy to get anywhere, and on top of that you had to walk ridiculously long routes everywhere due to flooding. By the Saturday afternoon we were pretty fed up with it.
We retired to the tent to cook some beans. We sat watching people trudging by as our food gentle simmered, a light drizzle replacing the steam coming off of it. (We had tried in-tent cooking the previous day but I'd set fire to my jumper.) There was some shouting coming from a large tent of crusties just across the "road" from us but that had been going on must of the weekend. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a syringe full of blood and scag lands in the mud between us and our lunch. Both our heads swing in the direction it came from to see two junkies running for it, pushing as they went, like rugby players after a stray ball.
One of them grabs it and they start to wrestle for it. Our gas is quickly extinguished and we retreat into the apparent safety of the tent and listen to the fighting just outside. They fall into the side of our tent, causing a partial collapse, which removes the last illusion of a safe hideaway. As we escape they tear through it, stabbing at each other with the syringe and spraying blood over all our stuff and our neighbours tent.
We go and find a security guard in the corner of the field. He claims he can't see anything and won't get involved. When we return everything has been flattened. A few items are salvaged and returned to the car, everything else is left to fester, to be trodden over and buried in the mud like the blood on a battle field.
At the farm house we are offered space in the barn along with several hundred other people (this was the year of the tent thefts). We decline and decide we will head home at the end of the day. We catch the end of Reprazent's two-hour set and then a great Chemical Brothers performance. When we head for the car we have to pass the front of the pyramid stage, in the middle of what later came to be regarded as Radiohead's greatest performance. I just cussed "fucking Radiohead" to myself and I fought my way through their fans. We have a surreal experience when we stop to watch some opera for a couple of minutes and chat to Stephen Frost, who seems just as bamboozled as we are. The drive home to Bristol was unusually quiet.
I swore I'd never go again after this. That lasted until the fence went up. I think I've been four more times since. It was my brother's first festival and I think he's only been to one other since.
I have 2 mud cloth sets & this is my favorite. It was made by a Senegalese friend's sister back home in Africa. His family actually manufactures many clothing goods & his sales here help support his family, here & in Senegal.
About Mud Cloth (if interested):
Bogolanfini (“Bo-ho-lahn-FEE-nee”), which translates as “mud cloth” is a long established tradition among the Bamana, a Mande speaking people who inhabit a large area to the east and north of Bamako in Mali. The origin of this cloth is believed to lie in the Beledougou region of central Mali. Hand woven and hand-dyed mud cloth uses a centuries old process using numerous applications of various plant juices/teas and mud to dye hand woven cotton cloth.
Traditionally, Bamana women made the mud cloth. Bogolonfin, for Bamana women, has always been an essential component in the marking of major life transitions, such as birth, marriage, and death. Bogolanfini is a living art form, with techniques and motifs passed down from generations of mothers to daughters. Bamana hunters also wear Bogolanfini in the form of red mud cloth laden with leather amulets, forceful visual symbols of the supernatural powers believed necessary for successful hunters to possess. Each piece of mud cloth tells a story. No two pieces are alike and each pattern and color combination has a meaning. The symbols, arrangements, color as well as shape of the mud cloth reveal secrets. The mud cloth is also used to define a person’s social status, character or occupation. Bogolanfini is an expression of Malian national identity and a symbol of belonging to African culture. (source)
Strobist Info: 1 sb 600 @ 1/4 shot through white umbrella pointed at the subject.
Mud pots are hard to photograph.
This shot gives a better sense of the mud's texture than many of my attempts, though.
Cross country relay in Bangor in wet and muddy conditions and this ladyfrom the Dromore club had a fall in the mud
Right after finding the cave I walked alone the stream for a bit and found where the spring bubbles up into the mud. I walked another 5 feet or so and found fresh Mountain Lion tracks at the edge of the stream in the mud. Really, really fresh. That was the end of exploring that little canyon.
Cracked mud near Harmony Borax Works in very hot and dry Death Valley. Annual precipitation in Death Valley over the last fifty years has averaged 2.2 inches. The greatest number of consecutive days with a maximum temperature of 100° F, or above, was 160 days in the summer of 2001. The summer of 1996 had 40 days over 120° F, and 105 days over 110° F. The highest ground temperature recorded was 201° F at Furnace Creek in July 1972. The maximum air temperature on that day was 128° F.
For more information, see "Get-Yur-Motor-Runnin" Road Trip: RiverBear Photo Blog