Field Diary - Year One

The work
in progress

Founder Mash Bonigala
Field Producer Bhavani Bonigala
Year One began March 2026
Current Phase Foundation
Field Work Opens May 2026
Regions Active 8 of 8
Subjects in Outreach 90+
Date-Locked Events 17
Next Locked Date 10 Apr 2026

Entries - Most Recent First

FieldMakers

A portrait without a name

Thames Valley - Chertsey

A photograph of a yard worker at Dennett Boat Builders, Laleham, taken on the morning of 23 April 2026, that I cannot caption properly because I did not catch his name. A vignette on what the documentary act owes the person on the other side of the camera.

FieldKeepers

Welcomed at Holy Trinity

East Anglia - Long Melford

The Rector of Holy Trinity, Rev’d Matthew Lawson, came out of the church on the morning of a wedding to welcome us. A one-line joke, an English parish welcome, and a frame of the archive being made.

FieldMakersGatherers

Dispatch 1: the archive begins

East Anglia - Norfolk Broads

One day, two millwrights. Paul Kemp at Toft Monks Mill and Richard Seago at South Walsham. The archive has its first subjects and, unexpectedly, its sixth category.

FoundationFieldMakers

Phase 1.3: the first shoots are locked

London - Project HQ

The outreach wave has settled into something concrete. Five shoots confirmed. Advisory circle forming. Institutional partnerships locked. The book proposal is ready.

FoundationField

Phase 1.2: the replies are coming in

London - Project HQ

The Spring Equinox was the first date-locked event of the year. The week that followed was less quiet. Homer Sykes, Graham Lubbock, the CLA, POST Hove, the Countryside Alliance - the outreach picture has moved considerably.

Foundation

Phase 1.1: foundation window open

London - Project HQ

Field work doesn't begin until May. Bhavani is recovering from surgery, and the project is patient enough to wait for her. Outreach across all eight regions simultaneously. Seventy-four contacts drafted and ready to send.

FieldMakers

First shoot: the coppice worker, Cotswolds

Cotswolds, Gloucestershire

The first Makers shoot of Year One. James Carpenter manages coppice woodland in the Cotswolds - one of fewer than a handful of working coppice workers left in the region.