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Hi, hot and sweaty and butterfled gan bothered here, Though a "rural" photograph >usually includes elements of "industrial" (and consequently urban???) >intrusion in the form of tractors, metal silos, steel fence posts >and so on. And an old wagon wheel. And a decaying stone house. Those with whom i worked on various rural arts projects during the 1980s (oral reminiscence projects, photographic communities, village hall murals - that kind of thing) were often adamant about being 'rural, not rustic'. Their view was of the 'countryside' - all those aesthetically pleasing ploughed fields - of being a massive factory for production, that would have been paved over decades agao were it not for its wealth producing earth. As such, talk of contamination has me asking "from what?" in every interpretation. Or maybe i'm simply missing the point here. Highly likely. Let's not push under the carpet, the poverty that Wordsworth ignored in his idealised gad about Tintern Abbey. Pastoral is, as Pope put it, simulation - 'the imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character'. I can't resist the suggestion of Christian spells being woven here. Then there's the issue of incomers and urban flight (often but not exclusively white) back to idyll. Isn't this a fictionalising Lacanian swoon for a romanticised forgotten / lost? Nowadays i'd contend these are no more than lifestyle choices. love and love cris %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%