Humans modify their landscape—they are compulsive builders. We memorialise our perception of greatness, and such things long outlive their subjects—ask any Pharaoh. But the natural world is oblivious of such things, and competes with the human need to control entropy. Like the need to weed a garden—perhaps the ultimate expression of futility—we erect monuments to last the ages, while nature has a casual disrespect for such notions, in fact is in permanent violation of them. I took this picture in Mowbray Park, Sunderland, in November, 2011, during my fourth UK trip. This statue is of General Sir Henry Havelock, a local, who distinguished himself in India in the early 19th century, and while he may be standing up there in cast bronze, on a stone plinth and surrounded with canons—how many symbols of imperialism can you get into one place at one time?—nature casually mocks such human constructs. It’s the seagull, of course. I shot the statue from several angles and distances, under that glowering, stormy sky, but that bird did not move an inch, and finally, I accepted it as part of the tableau of the moment—embodying the narrative of nature’s obliviousness to human precocity. The man may have been a hero and a figure associated with national and imperial power, but to a bird—nature—he’s just a perch. And that’s a profound observation on human nonsense, really. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.
