As an image, it also works with a fairly recurring theme ( through lots of my work, even before YoP ) of barriers, boundaries or whatever you might want to call them - walls and hedges in normal English. Thinking in terms of pairing it with another image, perhaps this one could be considered:

Or even one of these:

My current preference is for the first, but of course that could change - no idea what else I will photograph before the end of the project!

Sunday however, was a completely different kettle of fish, and there was blue sky - it was cold, but the rain wouldn’t stop me doing anything. Good job really, because I was quite sufficiently put down by my own creative block. I had set off to take some MF images, so landscape type, and also had another camera with me should some street snapping opportunities arise.

My first port of call was the McDonalds/petrol station I had photographed last weekend - the clearer weather meant that the proximity to the distinctive shape of Pendle Hill could be seen in the background.

Well, just about seen anyway. The photograph is really a little dull - it lacks something that the early morning light had given the week before and just goes to prove it’s all about the light. If I’m going to work this idea the way I’d like to see it, I really need to get back there in the right conditions.

After this, I headed up to the Forest of Bowland and the Whitewell estate. I’m not sure I faired much better here though. I took a small number of photographs with the Hassleblad and I’m suitably impressed with the visual properties of the camera, but I’m not really using it to the best of its abilities. Certainly I need to do something more to warrant the money that was spent on it.

Perhaps it’s the blue sky that is working against me - I’ve not really taken much without plenty of clouds, and it all feels a little too… mundane? No, well, yes maybe, but I like mundane. Clichéd? Probably. Too “biscuit tin”? Again, possibly. Whatever it is, I just feel disappointed. I’ve cropped them down and I’ll put them in the gallery, although I doubt that they’ll get much further. One thing worth noting I thin is that the cropped version of the upper of these two pictures has also had the horizon straightened - the square picture is what it was like as I had the camera properly levelled on the tripod, but it just felt a little odd when cropped down.

I also grabbed a few other shows with the little Fuji, which seemed to behave a little better for me today. Or maybe I just used it more carefully. The first of these two images brings together the urban emptiness I had been talking about with the original theme I had considered of rural sports. Again, in the background there’s Pendle Hill… For what it’s worth.

With the second image I was looking at the contrast of the old, sympathetic country building with the big red brick building behind, a nod I would say to the farming tradition and the lure of the countryside for the commuter in his Range Rover. Not sure I pulled it off in the slightest though.

All in all, a very disappointing foray out with the camera, and one that brings forth again a quote I have on a piece of paper on my desk - I copied it from Street Photography Now (p10), and it’s by Doisneau - “If I knew how to take a good photograph, I’d do it every time.” I guess my confidence is low at the moment, and it’s reflected in the images.

+++UPDATE+++
I’ve subsequently been thinking some more about these images, especially those from the Hasselblad. Firstly, I think they’re perhaps a little “safe”, a little traditional - I still need to put my thoughts down from the reading of Liz Wells’ Land Matters, and perhaps this would help me here. The other thing is that, stylistically and narratively, I feel a little all over the place.

I have to become coherent and concise in what I’m putting forward.