The Modern Mudlark

On a cold and windy day in October I came across a woman knee-deep in the Thames scavenging and removing what the rest of us leave behind. Not treasures from past centuries, but instead plastic from past days, weeks, months and years. I came across the modern mudlark.

She didn’t want to be named nor have her portrait taken. She only wanted to leave her footprints and take the rubbish we all leave. Nothing else, ‘no validation needed’. Instead, she let me take her portrait through her footprints; her trace. Soon to be washed away anyway.