Seamus Murphy
Seamus Murphy began photographing Afghanistan in 1994, and his new book A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan, is a classic on the rise of the Taliban and...
Read more ›The Colour of the Earth
on 07 December 2011Over the next twelve days we will be featuring a new music video
featuring PJ Harvey by Seamus Murphy daily. The accompanying text
by Seamus will give an insight into his thoughts about making the
videos. ENJOY!
I asked PJ and the band to do an impromptu rendition of 'The
Colour Of The Earth'. I shot it in the middle of the road in front
of the pub where we had just eaten lunch. It's near the church
where the album was recorded in a remote corner of Dorset. They
started to tap their feet to keep time and off they went. We had to
stop once because of traffic - one car. It was freezing, so to keep
the mood jovial it was all done in a hurry and I didn't fiddle with
proper microphones, using the one that is in the camera. It was
almost an afterthought to tack it on at the beginning of this film;
we had already put together the rest of it before we thought of it.
Sometimes with deadlines, and whatever else on the day editing, you
sacrifice something, but it seemed a precious little piece of time
and film to waste. Glad we didn't lose it. The main film features
more from John Diment's farm in Dorset, the man who introduced 'Let
England Shake'. These are 2 of his sons who work the farm. There's
additional footage of a farm in Norfolk, dead game in Ludlow in
Shropshire, the horse was shot from the loo window of a house in
Lincolnshire I had visited. The owner of the house was a collector
of military things and had a fighter jet parked on his front lawn,
but the horse proved more exciting. The moon and the boughs was
from some eerie place in the West Country, can't exactly remember
where, but it still sends shivers down my spine when I think of
it.
PJ Harvey Web Site
England Photo Essay by Seamus Murphy