Thames log / Chloe Dewe Mathews ; Marina Warner.

British documentary photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews spent half a decade documenting the activities and rituals that take place in and along the River Thames, from source to sea. In 'Thames Log', the river becomes the protagonist in a series of ceremonies and practices that range from boat-burning in Oxford to birthday celebrations for the Hindu god Ganesh; from mudlarking to commuting, ship-spotting to ash-scattering.

"Thames Log by British photographer & film-maker Chloe Dewe Mathews examines the ever-changing nature of our relationship to water, from ancient pagan festivities through to the rituals of modern life. Dewe Mathews spent five years photographing up and down the River Thames, from its puddling source to its great estuarial mouth. She focuses her attention on lives that overlap with the river but whose activities often go unnoticed, like ship-spotters, who log the continual stream of vessels that pass through Tilbury, and mudlarks, who comb the city sludge fro Roman and Saxon treasure. Above the tidal Thames, which transforms the landscape twice daily, the young river meanders gently through the verdant countryside. There, Dewe Mathews encounters neopagan rituals, eccentric coracle builders, and the custodians of royal swans. Far from holding a fixed identity, the Thames becomes a protagonist in a series of ceremonies and practices that flow seamlessly downstream, from boat burning in Oxford to evening prayer in Southend; from mass baptisms to teenage rites of passage. Like much of Dewe Mathews' work, Thames Log pits documentary photography's tendency to categorise and classify against the mystery and poetry of daily life. Organized geographically across rolling, French-folded pages, Thames Log not only records events across the spectrum of significance but also the exact GPS coordinates, dates, tides, and weather of each. Dewe Mathews invokes an anthropology of everyday life, whilst reflecting back on the process of recording and gathering visual data along the river, disclosing the personal photographic ritual that evolved."--The publisher

[London] : Loose Joints Publishing & Martin Parr Foundation, [2021]

1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 30 cm

First edition.

"14/08/2011, 11.45 am - 21/07/2016, 2.00 pm"--Back cover and spine

Includes bibliographical references.