East Stoke Level Crossing and Edward Hopper

When I look at the paintings of Edward Hopper, I have always felt that I was looking at a still from a movie - when I stare at those men and women standing in dark streets, by gas stations, or in bare bedrooms - I can sense that something very significant is going to happen - 

I know that what will happen, in the next moment - beyond the time captured by the painting - will be something perhaps strange or terrible - but I have no idea of what will happen - 

It seems to me that there is a dreamlike quality to the movie I am looking at - there is something too intense, too hpyerreal about the light, the colours, the forms of the buildings, the figures, the dark trees - 

I wonder what the men and women in Edward Hopper's paintings are thinking and saying - I wonder what emotions their faces hide - 

Richard once said that the level crossing gates at East Stoke reminded him of an Edward Hopper painting - we lurched down the lane towards the crossing, after drinking too much - you could see the red lamps, set upon the white wooden gates - beyond the gates were the water meadows and the smooth river - 

I took these photographs a few days ago - it was half an hour or so after sun set - there was a thin crescent moon in the darkening blue black sky - the railway lines glimmered with silvery light - 

I thought that any moment, all that I saw would ripple like a curtain - that something momentous might happen -