Ed Gold's fascinating and beautifully shot depictions of rural Essex life

The self-taught photographer’s work is going on show this month at Colchester’s First Site gallery, in a show entitled Ed Gold: Other Worlds. The exhibition is made up of 100 photographs taken over the past 30 years, selected from his personal archive, with much of the work showing his fascination with shooting "isolated communities", both geographic and social.

I couldn’t help but fall in love with the series Country Folk, an amalgamation of three bodies of work shot in Essex, Wales, and Scotland. The series includes some of Gold’s earliest photographs, shot in Essex from 1988 onwards. "Many of these depict men and women who work on the land – as Gold did himself while taking these photos," says the gallery, "capturing a way of life little changed in 100 years."

The characters and moments in time shine through the frame of each snapshot; telling a thousand stories from when Gold was working on the land in Essex. Shot on 35mm film, they showcase a way of life which seems remarkably unchanged over decades of farm life.