Corn Flower Field

These images are of a corn flower field that is on a farm at the edge of our village. The land is owned by Legal and General and they have called time on the farmer who's farm the land sits on. Next to the village and the farm is Cardiff airport. This is a failing airport, mainly due to the cost the airport charge for operators to land there and as a result, has been bailed out several times by the Welsh government to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. Planning has been put in and Legal and General want to evict the farmer off the land and to sell the land to the Welsh government, then flatten it and tarmac over the whole site. We're talking a space probably a mile long, maybe more and a good half mile wide. It's home to many wild animals and one field, when ploughed and it rains, can bring up to 30 buzzards there which is a sight to see when they're all in the field together. An ancient woodland sits in the middle of the land also and plans saw it gone, then they went through it, then...who knows. We the residents have objected to this travesty and every time the local authority amend the planning, resubmit and we restart with objections all over again, I think the plan is for them to keep going until people lose interest and the objections become less and less.

So I was very grateful when the farmer, Rhys, let me onto the land to photograph them, a sight we'll soon lose. He also has a field of poppies coming up I can also shoot as well. I've listed these for sale on my website with half the profits going to him and his family and hopefully I can shoot him at work in a more documentary style for future generations to see what we had, and what we lost.

All Pentax K1. The day time shots with the more painterly look and limited DOF are with the DA* 60-250mm wide open and the sunsets either with the D FA 24-70mm or Irix 15mm. A 3 stop ND grad from Formatt Hitech was used to control the sky and balance exposure but I also shot2 images were foreground and sky and blended in Photoshop.

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

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Corn Flower Field by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

Thanks everyone. They're gaining traction on social media with all the local and surrounding groups with more and more signing to object.

One thing was Legal and General had to sign some of the land at the rear of the site to the local authority as it borders a county park before they consider changing the land from agricultural to industrial. Rumour has it that's now taken place so you wouldn't do that if you didn't know the change of land ownership was going to happen.

111 acres of pasture land going.

The airport is a joke. The Welsh government are desperate to make it work. They bought it for 52 million and its currently valued at 15 million. In total with grants and debts written off, the tax payer has bailed it out to the tune of 115 million pounds.

More importantly, the land the farm sits on is green belt land. Down the road, 5 minutes or less is a huge brown belt area. All tarmac and empty, ready to be used!

Sense?!

Anyway, thanks for the replies

I'm with Steve.

It angers me when governments and companies pay lip service to zero carbon targets and conservation but push on regardless with dinosaur transport projects - we have the HS2 travesty nearby. Check out the Legal and General Sustainability and Inclusive Capitalism Report and see how tarmacing over this land for high carbon aviation compares (clue: it doesn’t). Can I suggest the local or national Welsh press would love to run a feature on this with your excellent photos and join forces with a non-political conservation group like the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales. Maximum embarrassment and negative publicity for L&G might have more results than a government justifying everything with economic arguments. Beware though, they will probably push for “sustainable” housing instead. Your photos could make more difference than thousands of words.