One of the last quarries we visited contained an unexpected gem – the beginning of the Fossils collection.
This site had been turned into a make-shift dumping ground for locals. Piles of neatly sorted rubbish spread throughout the space. Everything from vending machines to paint cans, exercise equipment to road signs, tools to tires, birdcages to picture frames – you name it and it was probably represented there.
We rummaged through these discarded items and found something new to draw our attention at every turn.
And then…
A page here, another one there. We started gathering them up. Square pages with dark borders and badly damaged square images.
Then we found the source. Many such pages still bound together – soaked to the core.
The single pages were scratched and bleached from the sun, but the book was different. As we started opening it we saw brilliant colours and emulsion turned gelatinous.
Stop.
I need my camera.
We found a discarded fridge and placed our newfound prize carefully on it.
For hours, in the rain, David turned the pages, his hands covered in dark dirt, as I learned over the book and photographed each page and details within each page. I didn’t want to let a single thing escape my lens. Who knew how long the effect of the water would last. How long would the colours remain so vibrant?
We kept the book, brought it home under the driver's seat in our rental car. But we were right to capture it on the scene. As the book dried, the colours faded. Each page only a brown shadow of what we captured in that damp, dumping-ground, treasure-trove of a quarry.