JUNE 2025: PAUL HUTSON
MAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF A: RELIC
THE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
From Paul Hutson: “A relic, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is an object surviving from an earlier time, especially one of historical interest, or something now considered outmoded. These objects are all around us, scattered through villages, towns and countryside. This month, the one-word photo challenge is to look beyond the modern clutter and photograph a true relic in an interesting way. It might take a bit of seeking out, hidden in the undergrowth, tucked behind a building, but these items often carry remarkable stories. Dig a little deeper, and perhaps also Google what you find, as there could be interesting history attached to your find waiting to be rediscovered and shared through your lens.”
HOW TO ENTER. IMPORTANT NOTES ON FILE SIZE AND ENTRIES
Send your entry to stories@photowalk.show. Your picture should be 2,500 pixels wide, if possible, for online optimisation. Or send the full-resolution photo, which we will optimise. Feel free to provide text as well if you think it will help explain the location, context, etc. Please don’t add borders or watermarks, and be sure to send FULL URL links to your websites and socials so that we can link to your work on this assignment page. We’ll use a selection of photos you submit on our Photowalk Instagram to showcase your work to our community and help build connections.
Entries are shown below. Good luck!
Neale
GARY WILLIAMS
This wind-powered pump stands on the marsh near the seaside town of Southwold, on England’s east coast. Built in the late 1800s, it was designed to help pump water from the cow pastures during the summer months, returning it to the River Blyth. A local competition was held to design the structure, but once built, it only ran for two years. On one particularly windy day, the shaft jammed and the blades were torn off. After that, it was never used again. In 2002, a local conservation group carried out basic repairs to preserve the structure, though not to restore it to working order.
See Paul’s series on Relics here.
CRAIG WILSON
Here's my entry for the assignment. A half-sunken boat surrounded by fog, which took away all the distractions.
BILL MARRIOTT
Relics on the Horizon.
When I saw the prompt for this month’s one-word photo challenge—"relics"—my mind immediately drifted back to an image I’d captured not long ago: the charred and skeletal remains of the old Bethlehem Steel mill on the southern edge of Buffalo, New York. It’s a haunting photograph. The twisted beams and crumbled stacks rise like ghosts against the sky, a brutal monument to an era that once defined not only my former hometown, but much of America’s industrial backbone.
To those of us who grew up in Buffalo during the waning days of its industrial prime, that image is more than just rusted steel and burnt concrete. It holds a whole era of memories—of fathers coming home with soot-streaked faces, of high school classmates who dreamed of staying close to home but found themselves slowly pushed away by vanishing jobs and fading futures. We left for a variety of reasons; but in part, we left because the horizon offered little else.
Buffalo wasn’t alone. Cities across the Rust Belt—Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit—shared a similar fate. Once proud and productive hubs of steel, coal, and manufacturing, these places were slowly gutted when industry leaders took what they could from the land and the labor and then moved on. What they left behind were relics—both physical and emotional. Hollowed-out buildings, broken unions, and a generation of people with few options and fewer hopes for the future .
But here’s what I didn’t fully understand at the time: a relic is not necessarily a ruin. It can also be a reminder—a preserved piece of history that challenges us to see not just what was lost, but what might still be reclaimed or reimagined.
In recent years, cities like Buffalo have started to turn the page. Tech startups now rise near old silos. Restaurants galleries and microbreweries have moved into former warehouses. Wind turbines dot the Lake Erie shore not far from where toxic smoke rose from the blast furnaces that once roared. The people who stayed—along with newcomers drawn by affordable living, grit, and untapped potential—have begun weaving a new kind of community fabric. One rooted in the past, but not stuck there.
This renaissance isn’t flashy. It’s not about shiny skyscrapers or overnight transformation. It’s about resilience. It’s about taking pride not just in what a city once was, but in what it can still become. It's the quiet triumph of people choosing to build, again, on land once labeled as spent.
When I look at the relics on Buffalo’s southern horizon now, I don’t just see decay. I see a warning—and a reminder. A warning not to place too much faith in the permanence of any one era, industry, or identity. And a reminder to honor the people and places that made us, even as we evolve into something new.
We should never forget where we came from. But we should also resist the temptation to live only in the shadow of what used to be. The future is always moving, always reshaping. The challenge—and the opportunity—is to move with it, to shape it ourselves, and to leave behind relics worth remembering.
See more of Bill’s work on Instagram.
ANTONY HIBBLE
I was lucky to spend last weekend in Brighton, a place I love visiting for it's cool, modern feel. However in contrast to this, the one spot I am always drawn to the decaying remains of the old West Pier.
Once a vibrant centre for entertainment and leisure, it now stands as a haunting silhouette on the sea. Opened just over 150 years it was officially closed in the 1970s then tragically destroyed by fire in 2003. Looking across the sea, I can just imagine the ornate Victorian structure jetting out into the sea with the buzz and excitement of people flocking across for a dance in the concert halls. Now, all that remains is the metal frame standing alone in the sea with two wooden support posts left standing on the beach to show where the grand entrance would have been.
Each year, the sea mercilessly steals more and more of the grade 1 listed building and it is said that in about 30 years it will most likely to be all swallowed up and a forgotten memory at the bottom of the sea.
See more of Antony’s work on Instagram.
RICK SMITH
While recently strolling around Greenmead Historical Park in Livonia, Michigan, I peeked in a barn and saw this Rube Goldberg-looking machine manufactured by The Birdsell. Mfg. Co in 1892.
I looked it up on Google and found that the machine measures seven feet 11 inches high, seven feet two inches wide, and 21 feet seven inches long without tongue. The Birdsell Alfalfa/Clover Huller was the only machine made especially for hulling and cleaning alfalfa seed, a small seed weighing only l/30th as much as a grain of wheat. Many farmers often boasted of retrieving 16 bushels and 28 pounds of seed using the huller, as compared to nine bushels from a grain separator with a hulling attachment.
HARRIET LANGRIDGE
My relic picture for this month. And my version of a Black Isle lyric to go with: “The Lion, built in 1932, already becoming a relic due to the internal combustion engine.”
Late Friday night at the steam rally, and The Lion comes in. It's a 1932 Fowler 10HP B6 Showman's engine, to be seen outside the beer tent on Saturday night, generating light and ambience.
GRAHAM AYLARD-POXON
I've seen this old, destroyed boat in a number of photographs and paintings by local artists in Kent, and it took me quite a while to track down its actual location. It lies in the River Swale — a tidal channel just south of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.
To reach it, you’ll need to go through the village of Teynham. Follow the road out of the village as far as your vehicle will allow. Eventually, it turns into an unmade track, riddled with deep potholes and ruts carved out by passing four-by-fours. Encroaching hedgerows make the last stretch challenging, so you'll likely need to complete the final mile on foot. Once you reach the sea wall and climb to the top, this haunting view reveals itself.
The wreck is believed to be that of an old ferry that once transported people — and possibly troops — between the Isle of Sheppey and the mainland, operating in the early 1900s. It is said to have played a part in ferrying military personnel, likely during or around the First World War. Service eventually ended with the construction of a wooden bridge between Teynham and Harty (or so I believe). However, the bridge was short-lived; a series of violent storms destroyed it beyond repair. Those same storms also took their toll on this vessel, leaving it to rot in the shallows.
Setting up my tripod for a slow exposure and taken on my old Nikon D7000 edited in Lightroom and Photoshop on the iPad.
RJ CAMPBELL
Where do I find a Relic? After churning this around in my mind for a while, it occurred to me that I am a walking relic. So, I had to set up a shot that shows what Relic really means to me.
The photo contains a leather bomber jacket that goes back to the 80s, which I still wear from time to time. There is a fantastic personal story with it, and my father, who has been gone for over 35 years. On the jacket are my everyday carry items that are "relics" to most people.
My Nikon D750 DSLR is always in my car, just in case. My knife, because dads and grandfathers always find a need for that. My journal and my pen are never away from my back pocket. And last, by a good old analogue diver's watch.
All items from my era are still visible, but most have been replaced by digital alternatives or deemed outdated.
These are probably not what your guest was thinking when he recommended "relics"...but they are my daily relics.
I'm not very good about posting regularly on social media, but some of my photos can be found on Instagram.
ALLIN SORENSON
I’ve been fascinated with railroads since I was a child and grew up near tracks that would have trains day and night. We would comment that after a time we wouldn’t notice them until there was a change in the schedule and the train was absent. Abandoned tracks are a common sight in the Midwest and they make wonderful subjects for photos. These are part of the Jordan Valley Park in the downtown area of Springfield, Missouri. Springfield was a major hub for railroad operations, particularly for theSt. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co. (Frisco), which played a dominant role in the region's economic growth. The presence of the railroad tracks within or adjacent to the park serves as a reminder of the area's industrial heritage.
See more of Allin’s work on his Flickr page.
CHRISTOPHER KARNES
Earlier this month I passed through the smallest town in the state of West Virginia: Thurmond, WV. During the 1920s and 1930s this town served as an essential supply stop for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. At its peak, the town was home to 400 residents, two hotels, and two banks. Today, the town's population stands at 5. Towering amidst the railroad tracks and small downtown area is a coaling tower that was used to load coal into the steam locomotives of the day. On the ground floor, covered in graffiti, still sits this electric motor, presumably used to haul coal to the top of the tower in preparation for the next steam engine to pass through.
DAVID HORNE
OVERTON MERC. CO - 119 year old relic.
Traveling east on US Highway 60 in New Mexico I came across the ghost town of Yeso. The town, named for the creek that it borders was established in 1906 by the Santa Fe Townsite Company.
The Santa Fe Townsite Company was a part of the larger Santa Fe Railway. The railway company used it to facilitate land development and colonization along its expanding rail line during the early days of the Santa Fe Railway. With Yeso Creek following the same path as the railroad, it became the perfect spot for the steam locomotives to take on water and to form a town.
The town prospered and grew until the demise of the steam locomotive. When diesel locomotives replaced them, there was no longer any need to stop in Yeso. As a result the town started to evaporate into thin air, just like the steam of the locomotive engine.
Buildings such as the one pictured above suffered the ravages of time. Overton Merc. Co. is one of only few structures left standing.
See more of David’s work on VERO.
EDMUND ZUBER
As you mentioned, the one-word assignment “relic”, it was clear that Angkor Wat in Cambodia is “my relic” for 2025. We had the blessing to fly to Cambodia this March, and even more, we had the good fortune to be led by a very skilled, knowledgeable, and open-minded guide who guided us through the massive temples by quantity and size. We had been dreaming for many years of travelling to Angkor Wat and were overwhelmed spending three days there.
Of course, I shot many of the famous views you find on every postcard. In parallel to the process of selecting an appropriate image, your Photowalk Episode with Sean Tucker about “Are your photos good enough?”. This guides to the attached selection. It shows a worker in one area of Angkor carefully cleaning relics and supporting the conservation. Without those utterly empathic, calm and friendly people of Cambodia with an incredible barbarous history, the breathtaking Angkor Wat would have probably vanished.
MARILYN DAVIES
When I heard the subject for this month's assignment, I thought of this old hat of my father's, which can make a great photographic subject. Combined with my husband's grey beard, it fits the subject matter perfectly. Tony even liked the fact that he could be referred to as a relic!
See more of Marilyn’s work on her website and YouTube channel.
CHRISTOPHER GRAY
I was out on a photo ride yesterday looking for a perfect representation of this month's assignment. Living in Germany, this could be an easy assignment given this country is full of statues and other representations of the past, but I wanted to look for something truly worn and old. After traveling for the afternoon I finally found what I was looking for on the side of the road near an old train depot just sitting there on display. This motorcycle not only represents its age but I feel it represents its use. Some classics can be fully restored or kept in perfect condition, but this motorcycle has been run down and stripped, basically how some of us who are up there in age might feel. Like a beat up rundown relic.
See more of Chris’ work on his website.
KELLY MITCHELL
Sharples Alberta.
Something that is slowly disappearing from the prairie landscape. Once very prevalent, approximately 6 miles apart from each other, because that was as far as a team of horses pulling a wagonload of grain could travel before having to change teams. The once-proud grain elevators are disappearing and being replaced by huge grain terminals across the Canadian Prairies.
In 1923, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) built a spur line from Drumheller through Knee Hills Creek Valley to Carbon, and Sharples is approximately at the halfway point between the two. The Parrish & Heinbecker (P&H) Grain Elevator was built in 1923, and a second Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator was built in 1927 along with other important buildings. In the 1940s, Sharples experienced a boom, with the elevators handling 100,000 bushels of grain per year, and a handful of small homes appeared for the area's workers. Not only did this line move grain, but also coal, and over time, the coal started to dry up, and in 1982, the trains stopped coming. The Wheat Pool Elevator was torn down along with the railway tracks being removed, the only evidence of any train being there is a cement pillars, where the track ran across the Knee Hills Creek.
The P&H Grain Elevator survived for 41 years and has become a well-photographed and loved view of a not-so-ancient past. It is just a little over 100 years old and is on the Alberta Register of Historic Places. Unfortunately, the elevator has been deemed dangerous and the possibility of it being demolished is in its future if someone doesn’t step up to look after the elevator.
MARTIN PENDRY
What do you get when you cross naked cyclists, horse-drawn carriages, and a relic stitched from grief and love? Apparently, my Saturday in London.
I’d slipped out of work with one mission: to see the HIV/AIDS Quilt Project at the Tate Modern. But the South Bank had other ideas. On my left, the tail end of the World Naked Bike Ride flashed by, in more than one way; on my right, a line of travellers on their carriage clattered past. The American tourists beside me looked baffled. I just kept walking, angling for a moment of quiet.
From the Turbine Hall Bridge, I saw it: three long rivers of colour flowing through the Turbine Hall. Panels, organisations, names, lives.
The word relic means “an object surviving from an earlier time, especially one of historical interest.” But this quilt is more than just a historical artefact. It breathes. It aches. It remembers.
In 1989, I started volunteering at London Lighthouse when fear clung to every HIV headline. I was spat at and had rocks thrown at me just for walking through the doors. I was almost arrested during protests, and I shook hands with Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor. It was a time when Silence = Death, and we chose not to be silent.
Back then, we helped people die with dignity because medicine had no better offer. Today, we have life-saving treatments and a national plan to end new HIV transmissions by 2030. That’s a miracle.
But grief doesn’t obey progress. Some of the names I saw today are still saved in my phone—I’m not ready to delete them.
Among the quilts, I met a stranger whose loss mirrored mine. We hugged in quiet solidarity, holding memory like fabric between our fingers. Then the London Gay Men’s Chorus began to sing—joyful, devastating, and utterly alive.
Only London could serve up naked activists, horse drawn transport, and raw queer truth in one afternoon.
The quilt is a relic not because the past is gone, but because we are still holding on to it. Still stitched to it. Still remembering.
And in its presence, we’re asked: who will we remember—and how loudly will we refuse to forget?
See more of Martin’s work on Instagram.
VIRGINIA GORDON
It's June 10th, 1944 in Oradour-sur-Glane, near Limoges in France. The village is quiet. It's lunchtime, work has stopped and the children have come home from school. The sound of the village drum summons everyone out on to the village green. Unsuspectingly, they come and what follows over the next few hours is a systematic massacre by the Waffen SS in reprisal for action by the Resistance in the area. In all, 642 men, women and children are shot and burned alive in their homes, on the streets and in the church .
Since that day the entire village has been left to stand as a memorial, a permanent reminder of the terrible events of that day. Even in the sunshine there is a melancholy air everywhere you look. A bicycle waits for its owner, propped against a wall. Signs for the hairdresser, the tailor, the bootmaker, a garage and the Girls' School remain by empty doorways. Walls, partially collapsed, have empty windows, cars rust where they stood and a sewing machine, a spare wheel and a child's cart lie drunkenly on the ground. The tram tracks go nowhere.
Eighty-one years on from this terrible day, the relics remain to carry their own memories and sadness. For us today, they say: Souviens-toi - Remember.
GRAHAM HARRIES
Please find attached a photo for the theme of relic. This lovely old tractor has been sitting alone in a forgotten corner of a farmers field for many, many years. The field & tractor is on the side of a much ignored public footpath, so this gem is truly hidden in plain sight!
The tractor is part of my on-going Lost Wales photo project: https://www.instagram.com/lost_wales/
TOM WEBER
Greetings from Ohio in the USA. I so enjoy spending time with you on The Photowalk each weekend. Your style and presentation bring such a welcome escape from the day to day, and bring inspiration to all photographers who listen, providing very interesting discussions with outstanding guests.
This past weekend on the show with Sean Tucker, you and Barney were walking a towpath trail which took me right back to my younger years back in my home town of Canal Fulton, Ohio. Canal Fulton is located right on the Ohio-Erie Canal which is a canal that was built to connect Lake Erie in the North of the state and The Ohio River in the South of the state for the purposes of moving product up and down the canal in the mid-1800's. When the word "relic" came up for this month's assignment, coupled with the fact that you were on a towpath trail next to a canal, I had to go back "home" and snap a photo of the old canal boat, The St. Helena II, which was the canal boat in Canal Fulton that was on the canal, drawn by horses down the Ohio-Erie Canal, providing canal boat rides for all who wanted to partake and soak in the memories of yesteryear in this authentic ride.
Well, as you can see in the photo, The St. Helena II was taken out of the water due to age and deterioration in 1988. Oh how I remember those quaint and quiet rides on our canal boat back in "the day" while I was growing up.... perhaps that makes me a relic too? The St. Helena III was put in the water in 1994 and still to this day takes folks up and down the canal in a relaxed and peaceful horse-drawn experience, slowing down and quieting the noise of the modern day. But, my canal boat remains a relic for all to see and remember those great days of our history.
VICTORIA ROBB
The red phone box is a British institution which is now a relic of those times when mobile phones were far less prevalent - but one that gets a lot of attention still, certainly around Westminster where I work. In summer there can be queues to get a photograph next to or in one of the multiple phone boxes that have been spaced along the wide pavement to cater for this popularity, even though they no longer have phones in them. In London at least. So up in Aldwych on Saturday I waited not long for people to walk past on their mobile phones. I selected this one as there is phone box red in her dress as well as on part of the adjacent building.
RIMAS MIKNEV
Here's a photo that i took this morning. It's an old truck that has somehow found its way from active duty in Saskatchewan, Canadaland, to retirement here in Ontario. I have no further information, other than I saw it on the roadside near the town of Aylmer, Ontario.
See more of Rimas’ work on Flickr.
KELVIN BROWN
Here’s my submission for the June assignment. As you've mentioned on the show before, these pillboxes are scattered across the east of England, positioned in locations thought likely to be landing zones for paratroopers or gliders during World War II.
This particular defensive emplacement sits on the bank of a fenland drain just outside the village of Benwick, Cambridgeshire. As you can see, the background is remarkably flat, and to underline the passage of time, there’s a wind turbine on the left.
JADE LEE
This photo is of our local Country Women’s Association (CWA) Hall. When I was younger, I used to think of the CWA as a group of little old ladies baking scones and doing crafts. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realise they do so much more. They’re still a vital part of life here in Australia, supporting communities in regional and rural areas. And yet, in a world that’s increasingly lived online, they can feel a bit like a relic.
I recently dusted off my Ricoh GR II and took this shot early one morning, just as the light was catching the side of the building. I used the Hi-Contrast B&W setting—it felt right for what I was trying to say about old and new ways. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure the new way is always ‘in the light,’ so to speak.
See more of Jade’s work on her website.
MIKE MILLER
This is an old snow plow that has sat in this farmer's field north of Huntsville, Ontario for over a decade. Over the years, we have watched it continue to rust while the trees around it grow tall and engulf the vehicle.
JOHN JENNINGS
The relatively short lived Francisican mission at Quarai, New Mexico USA is photographed here. The church and convent were established in 1626 by Fray Juan Gutierrez de la Chica, and construction was completed six years later. Part of the colonization of the Southwest by Spain, this and other missions were outposts that eventually failed after Apache raids, disease, famine, and drought. Abandoned in 1678, brave settlers re-established Quarai in the early 1800s. This mostly stone and adobe relic is part of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in north central New Mexico. All three Missions that comprise the monument are evocative, majestic, and continue to hold spiritual significance to native people and visitors alike.
See more of John’s work on his website.
NEALE JAMES
Each week on my photowalk along the Kennet and Avon Canal in Berkshire, I pass this boat, half sunk, quietly surrendering to the water. I don’t know how old it is, or how long it’s been there, but nature seems to be claiming it faster than any authority ever will.
The ropes are loose, the cover is torn, and the canal itself is slowly folding it back into the landscape. And that got me thinking about the word relic, something left behind, no longer serving its original purpose, yet still telling a story.
This boat, in its stillness and decay, has become a kind of relic. A reminder not just of travel and leisure, but of time, neglect, and the quiet way water always wins.
