Stephen Lamprell

‘For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches – and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing, ….’ , - Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 1980.

The Greenwich meridian, the line of zero degrees longitude, was first established in the mid 18th century. However, unlike the equator (zero degrees latitude) this line is completely arbitrary, a man-made construct, and not fixed to any geographical feature of the world. Yet, since 1884 this has been recognised as the demarcation line for time zones and for mapping and surveying the world.

I therefore decided to walk the line of zero degrees longitude through England from Peacehaven on the south coast, to Withernsea on the northern coast, to photograph the landscape and people I met along the way, to document the country, and to question our own fixation with ordering and measuring time and space.