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A new phase of my thinking

Rob — 2012-04-22T08:06:40+01:00

After talking with Clive, my thoughts have moved from those originally had with Alan and then Jose, although I realise now that they haven’t moved completely. I’ve just tried a different edit based on the direction I was contemplating with Clive’s words still ringing in my ears, and all I could think was “it’s not working - the split is all wrong”; by this I was meaning that it felt really quite one sided when put in the context of the three-legged proposal discussed with Jose. However, with Clive it was discussed that I should pick the photographs and narrative and then change the words (the proposal) to match it.

The new edit I’ve just tried is predominantly landscape I guess. It’s also a fairly rough edit at the moment, with too many photographs in it ( it’s also possible I’ll be reducing the photo count from 30 down to 20-25 images, not sure yet ). Depending what I get rid of though, this will change one to being either completely landscape ( which I don’t want, well, I don’t think so at the moment anyway ) or more balanced. Slightly more balanced anyway.

I need to contemplate the photographs and the sequencing some more - quite a bit more. Hone it until it feels right for me - it says something about me and my photography, rather than just being about recreating something that’s been before. The original proposal and my approach to fulfil it sought to do this I guess, but I have been pushed back to “me” by my frustrations and confusions along the way. It’s certainly been a difficult journey to this realisation, but it’s been useful to go through.

Coming to this realisation has also made me think a little differently about the book presentation, but I’ll have to think about this some more when I’ve picked my sequence - the idea I have will help the feeling I have about the images, but whether it will work will ultimately depend on those final images. More on this later then…

Foggy morning

Rob — 2012-04-01T08:09:58+01:00

Another quick post.

I thought I’d add this one to the pot - I wasn’t sure originally because it was only taken with my iPhone, but as I won’t be printing it large within the context of a book, I thought it would be suitable. The iPhone camera is 8mp, and really quite shocking when in low light, but this one isn’t so bad.

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!

Gary Penny

Rob — 2012-03-04T05:41:33+00:00

Friday morning I finally managed to speak to the social documentary photographer, Gary Penny. I’d been meaning to do it for a week or two, but other commitments kept me from doing so. Jose pointed me in his direction some time ago, and I purchased a couple of his books - The Quantocks, on English Hills and Mixed Blessings. These collections are from a broadly similar sort of project to mine in that he’s documenting a more rural existence in the area of the Quantocks (the same area as Ravilious), and he’s also contributing towards the Quantock Hills rural archive.

I had wanted to use this chat to pick Gary’s brains for guidance on the approach to formulating the narrative and his curatorial methodology, however the discussion very quickly moved to something far more fundamental. You either are or are not a (social) documentary photographer, with a deep connection with and passionate care for people and an understanding of society and culture, and a desire to use your photography to drive elements of change. I’m not this type of “people person”, and so will never have the type of connection he spoke about. Similarly, Gary isn’t the sort of “New Documentary” type of photographer, which would probably be nearer my “thing” (mundane scenes devoid of people) if I were ever to be considered a documentary photographer, and I really don’t think of myself in that way.

Talking about the subject matter, he spoke of the fetes and festivals as being “fake” - a pseudo-rural façade frequented by townies who wanted a brief experience of the countryside and of cows (but with a handler and some barriers), or for people with an eye of the vintage tractors and cars that also seem to appear at these events. I had fallen into this trap myself, I thought that in going to these events I was experiencing something of the rural life of the region, but it’s only really very superficial. And having spoken to a local farmer a few weeks ago, I can see that the reality of sheep farming and the ceremony of these agricultural shows is quite divorced, although I still see it as a form of celebration of the reality. Gary pointed out that the photographing of the events is something that has been done quite a lot (Martin Parr has done similar for a start), but that rural street photographer is still quite unusual. I can understand why!

The street photography that I would like to pursue just isn’t happening for me at the moment, maybe it’s the wrong time of year or maybe I’m just approaching it wrong, but I’m just not seeing any people (or maybe just no people at that decisive moment), so my images have an urban landscape feel to them. I don’t really want to do some of the things that Gary has done - looking through his books there’s a photograph of the village post-mistress taking in a parcel, and this isn’t for me at all. I’m not saying the photograph is a bad one, or that it has no worth - there will be great worth in the image within the social context in which it was taken. But it just isn’t “me”. How will I get around this? I’m not sure at the moment…

We went on to speak some more about the countryside itself, and how it is becoming a theme park for the rich - a “toy” farm here and there, and I’ve noticed people with a few acres to potter around in a tractor without really doing anything. Not “working” the land. I consider myself to live in the countryside, but most of my neighbours drive 4x4s of the “non-functional” kind - from Mercedes, Porsche or the posh end of the Range Rover marque (my Mini feels like the poor neighbour). Yes, there are working vehicles, there are a few farms, so there has to be, but like me, these expensive car driving people live in the countryside and commute. Whilst we’ve not had the neighbours organising a work share to sweep leaves from the country lanes like Gary has had, there has been discussion about the blocking of views of Pendle by people allowing their hedges to grow too high…

Anyway, speaking with Gary has really confirmed what I’ve been thinking for a little while now; that I’m really doing the wrong project for me. I should have had the courage of my convictions and stuck with my original idea (or reworked it so it would work better) rather than allowing myself to be nudged into what should be a social documentary project. After all, I didn’t want to take the L2 social documentary module for a reason, and that’s because I knew I would really suck at it. Ok, I might have taken a small number of interesting images, but my heart’s not really in it. And without that “heart”, I’m now struggling in terms of inspiration and in terms of interesting images. It’s also having a knock-on effect that photography as a whole is beginning to lose its appeal, but that happens with me every now and then. More of a by-product of being bogged down in what I’m doing and my work/commute situation than photography itself as a whole. I need a mini project to revitalise myself, but I’m conscious of the need to push on too.

So, I’m very grateful to Gary for taking the time, even if it didn’t give me the answers I was hoping for, but gave me questions to ask of myself and my photography. It’s too late to change YoP now, so I’ll just have to work out how I should be doing what I’m doing in order to make it interesting and cohesive, even if it’s not what I really should be doing to suit my strengths and interests as a photographer.

Clarity… (maybe)

Rob — 2012-02-24T16:27:05+00:00

After last week’s post about progress, I’ve had some feedback from Jose and it’s spurred me on, made my brain work in bringing the project together.

I suppose most of what I’ve said before still stands, it’s just the landscape element that is moving a little, and in a direction in keeping with some of my later images. I’m hoping further inspiration will come from Edgelands, a book buy Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks - hopefully I’ll get enough together for the next batch.

Changing weather

Rob — 2012-02-19T15:26:28+00:00

This weekend has been has been one of mixed weather. I originally set off on Saturday to shoot some street images, visiting a few villages before going to one of the two towns in the region, however, after a drive to Pendleton that got progressively wetter, I’d only been out of the car a couple of minutes, grabbed a photo in the car park and then decided that it was too wet to do anything else - there was rain all over my lens, despite my best efforts to keep it dry. I ended up with a single image.

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, probably. 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. I think I need to do a small unrelated project to refresh my thought processes, but at the moment I really don’t know what that should be.

+++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. I still need a mini-project as a distraction/to freshen my photography up though.

Progress?

Rob — 2012-02-16T13:15:58+00:00

It’s fair to say that I’ve become a little lost in where I’m going with this project - when I started off it was maybe 5th choice or something in the list of things I wanted to do, but there was a bit of pressure and I folded far too easy. Having said that, I’ve enjoyed doing the work, and getting to know the area I live in, so lets be positive, even if the idea of street photography is proving difficult. The other thing that has troubled me is how it all works as a coherent whole, and I think I’ve finally found my hook to tie the strands together. I mentioned it in an earlier post, but I’ve been thinking on it some more.

Without a hook, the three threads do tend to stand a little isolated, held loosely together by location. What I hope to do now is show a relationship between the vibrancy (perhaps not the right word, and I’ve been stung by this before) of the rural life and landscape and the comparative void of the more urban spaces that are being taken over by commuters rather than being lived in by those that work the land. I fall into this latter category, so it will be interesting to see what I come up with.

So, what I’ll be looking at will be:

Rural – the festivals and such showing the way people do still come together in some form of celebration of the rural heritage – I don’t mean for these to be all smiling and fun, but to also include a degree of the dogged determination to enjoy this aspect of the area (hence why “vibrancy” will be the wrong word to use before). I’ve probably got this covered with the selection of images taken already but I will hit another show or two in the meantime.

Urban – looking more at the decline of the urban area as a “community” whilst becoming more a place for people to live away from the big cities. I think “a loss of purpose” is what’s feeding my thoughts at the moment. My original thought was for street photography, and yes there may still be elements of this in the more traditional, widely upheld sense – this will still be the more difficult to fathom, but I feel like I’m getting more of a direction now. I’ll be looking some more at Street Photography Now and a few other sources for further inspiration. This does mean that some of the images I have taken to date are pretty unusable though.

Landscape – this will be a mix of the more “natural” landscape (accepting that there is, in truth, very little natural landscape remaining) and also something with the more obvious encroachment of man, be it the building of houses in what would have been green belt until a few years ago. I think I’ll be breaking out the Robert Adams books again too, as this fits in very closely with his take on photography.

I’ll be looking at potential crossovers between the strands, such as the urban landscape in Clitheroe that I snapped with the Fuji (but retaken with more care), which would blur the boundary between the Landscape, the Rural and Urban.

I’ll be trying to pull together the next instalment of the submission over the coming weeks (certainly before the end of March), together with a trial book layout this time.

First outing with the Hassie

Rob — 2012-02-12T09:37:23+00:00

Today I ventured out with the Hasselblad, catching the early light in some photographs slightly reminiscent of the Night Walks series I’ve done before. It was nearly a complete failure: as I was about to head on out with a big bag filled with gear, I noticed the two batteries from the digital back, then noticed the digital back as well! Disaster averted, I had hoped to do quite a bit more whilst I was out, but the medium format camera really slows you down. Which is one of the reasons I want to use it, to be honest.

The location I chose was the same as that visited yesterday with the Fuji compact. I wasn’t really happy with the results from the X10, but to be fair I wasn’t playing to its strengths; it’s not really designed as a “landscape” camera, and it wouldn’t be fair to compare it handheld against the Hasselblad on a tripod. I guess that’s what I’m sort of doing though.

At these scales, there’s not really much in the way of discernible difference, but I wouldn’t be happy printing the Fuji picture much above about an A5 (although I’ve not tried), but the Hasselblad photograph… It could easily go larger.

Yes, unfair to compare, and different focal lengths, ISOs, etc. so not really going to take this much further. The Fuji doesn’t need an expedition pack to use though, unlike the Hasselblad. I can’t remember the last time I took the big bag of bits out with me, but this time I had to.

The Fuji didn’t need any processing to get rid of hot pixels and sensor dirt either - dirt I expected to have to deal with on a semi-regular basis. Hot pixels I’m a little disappointed with to be honest - I’ll look into remapping the sensor later.

And finally, another photograph of the only McDonalds in the Valley:

It looks a little average at this scale, but much better when you see the full image.

I guess I won’t be using these images in their native square format as it would seem a little odd what with all the others being 3:2, but I might crop them down and add them to the galleries later.

Clitheroe

Rob — 2012-02-11T11:37:10+00:00

I made a conscious effort to go out and take some photographs this morning, even though it was bitterly cold compared to what I would like to be used to. To be honest, it probably wasn’t that bad, but certainly in the negative range, but not quite the -10 or so some people have been experiencing. The weather probably did it’s bit in keeping people inside, which led me to do some thinking, more of which later.

On the way to Clitheroe, I go past the only McDonalds in the whole Ribble Valley, something which I think is quite unusual - an area with a single McDonalds “restaurant” whereas there’s maybe 5 in the wider Preston area. This McDonalds restaurant is pretty much in the middle of nowhere too, it’s located at a “services” on the A59 - it’s a bit of a walk for the teens in Clitheroe to get to. Anyway, I thought I’d stop and take some photographs:

I’m not so sure I nailed this the way that I wanted, certainly not at these scales. I was using my Fuji X10 compact, which isn’t quite pushing my buttons at the moment. I’ve not quite gelled with it, which I find disappointing because I like the way the camera looks. Probably the wrong reason to buy I camera, but I’m a sucker for a looker. But anyway, I may have done a better job with my Canon, I’ve been thinking of selling this, which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I think I’ll go back, maybe tomorrow morning with a “bigger” camera. But back to the current photographs.

In the same general area as McDonalds, they’re building some new houses, which would then give McDonalds some new customer potential - has the location been chosen for this reason, or is it just a fact that this is some land that the local councils have decided that it’s now possible to build on? This again ties in to some thoughts…

This sort of reminds me a little of Dewald’s Edge of the City series, but not quite so built up. There is no Suzhou in the Valley!

Anyway, in Clitheroe I was quite taken aback with the lack of people again - it’s not been easy to work in a “traditional” street photography mode. This was something I was perhaps slightly conscious of in the first instance; I knew there was no city in the area, so there would be nothing like when I go to London. But how quiet can a place be? Yes, there’s perhaps one or two people walking around the town centre, but not really that many. To be fair, this morning it was cold, as I mentioned before, and I didn’t hang around too long either. An idea is formulating though. I’ll go into this idea after the next few images.

Now, obviously these don’t follow the same methodology and style as the likes of Cartier-Bresson or the more contemporary Nick Turpin. Some are more akin to landscape photography, but there’s a thread of images that runs through books like Street Photography Now that I could perhaps tap into. What I’ve been thinking about is how the area has only seemed to come to life in the agricultural shows, etc. This ties in with something Gary Penny spoke about in the introduction to Mixed Blessings, of how the rural area is perhaps suffering from the influx of commuters, drawn to the idea of the countryside (“so long as it doesn’t smell badly or make too much noise first thing in the morning” Penny, p5). These commuters perhaps prefer the draw of the nearby larger towns and cities (Blackburn, Preston, even Manchester, etc.) rather than the small scale towns and villages of the region.

What I’m basically picking up on is the emptiness of the towns. It’s almost as if they’ve lost their purpose, and this can be seen in the empty shops, the lack of people in public spaces, etc. I’d like to bring this in to the urban thread, thus presenting the life of the Ribble Valley as being through the agricultural and rural traditions, contrasting with the void of the urban. And then blending the two together with views of the rural landscape. It still sounds a little confused, but these are just initial thoughts. If I do go on with this theme, there is a danger that it becomes urban landscapes, and I’m aware of this, so hopefully it won’t be a problem.

Let’s see where it goes.

Thoughts

Rob — 2012-02-10T15:59:56+00:00

After my feedback from Jose on assignment 3, and specifically about the comment about mixing approaches with the realist and surrealist images from the Rural Gatherings set, I’ve been done some thinking about my style, my approach to photography. This isn’t the first time I’ve taken a pause to think about this, it really is a constant worry for me. You see, I feel a little schizophrenic when it comes to my style, I work in different ways as the mood takes me.

On the one hand, this sometimes feels like my photographic voice is developing. Other times, it’s like I don’t know what my photographic voice is. I suppose this is also muddied by my collecting and looking at photobooks by varied artists, Martin Parr is very different to Moriyama Daido yet they will both exert some form of influence on me. And there’s many other photographers in the mix as well. My most recent acquisition is Korean photographer In Sook Kim’s book Saturday Night, which I was drawn to because, in some ways, it resonates with my Night Walks series. Ok, perhaps not much, but I see something. Will this book push me to develop this series any further, or has it already been consigned to my past? If so, what is my future? How will I tie that in to my current work?

When I first started this portfolio project, I was looking at capturing a mix of landscapes and images from the various festival gatherings within the Ribble Valley. I saw this as my chance to “connect” to the region in a way I hadn’t done previously in the 6 or so years I’d lived there. Yes, I’d been out and taken some photographs within the Ribble Valley, notably with the photographs taken for the Landscape module (Night Walks were all taken in the area, as were some of the roundabouts and the ‘one acre’ selection), but the Ribble Valley was somewhere I lived and commuted out of to work. When I started YOP, I was not working, I was able to step back and look at what actually goes on in the area where I live. I am the type of person that could lead to the disintegration of the Ribble Valley traditions, and I was keen to offset this somehow.

By nature, I’m a very shy person, at least until people get to know me (or I get to know others). This will always make the photography of strangers an anxious experience, and for that reason I sought out the festivals as I was quite sure there would be others there taking photographs; I’d feel far less conspicuous. By attending these festivals and fetes I felt I was taking part in the community that I had largely ignored previously. I took on board the words of Domon Ken (“the ‘absolutely unstaged snapshot’, through the mere tool that is the camera, is a method for connecting oneself directly to a society” - Vartanian) and felt I was indeed connecting, but it’s fairly clear that this isn’t “connecting” in the way that Ravilious or Penny have done. So, I feel now that “observing” would be a better way of phrasing what I have been doing – looking to the area known as the Ribble Valley and photographing what I see.

Whilst I’ve photographed what I have seen, I feel I’ve been pulled in a few different directions. Originally I wanted to photograph the landscapes I saw in a way that was influenced by my readings of Tolkien, who wrote some of his novels whilst visiting his son in the area. This I have done a couple of times, but to be honest I find my view of his “Middle Earth” has been tainted (or maybe just “influenced”) by the films and the majestic scenery of NZ. I will keep this in the back of my mind, but now my focus has changed, as indeed it needed to with the introduction of a third strand to the project.

My intention with the festival strand was always to be a little quirky – “English” if you like – but I’ve also found myself being heavily influenced by what I think people would expect to see (Ravilious, Penny, etc.) rather than what I actually want to photograph. I believe this lead to Jose labelling me as a social documentary photographer; a shock for me to hear. Yes, this is without doubt a documentary project, but would I consider myself a documentary photographer? Never in a million years! Well, not in the sense that I would use the term, which is of course potentially far and away from the usage Jose would give it.

Where is all this leading? Well, I’m going to try and do something more to my own vision, and hopefully this will then become more coherent as my view on my Ribble Valley. I’ve still got 2 more submissions in to the portfolio pool, so there is time for this vision to mature, and it doesn’t mean that everything I’ve done to date is wasted either, just that some of the images will drop away, as they would have done anyway (the clichéd view of the castle and the flag is one of the first to do so).

How will this affect the three strands of the portfolio? Well, they will remain essentially the same (landscape, fetes and street), but will likely begin to interweave more in a manner I’m comfortable with.

With the landscape theme, I’ll be looking to bring in something of the urban and the rural streams. There’s a danger that they will stand alone, and this was originally part of the plan – for the landscapes to be a form of punctuation. However, the landscape is obviously very important to the Ribble Valley – it’s named after the landscape after all – the valley through which the River Ribble flows. The Valley also has a good number of farms, so people make their living from the landscape, and there’s also tourism to the AONB in the Forest of Bowland, and also Pendle Hill and the famous witches from 400 years ago.

The rural festival theme is perhaps pretty wrapped up as this is what I concentrated on in 2011; however I will revisit one or two of the early festivals and get some more images, and see how I can perhaps interweave this into the landscape and urban themes.

The urban (street photography) theme is proving to be quite problematic. The area is not particularly heavily populated, so there’s not always something “going on”, so I’m trying to find interesting things happening that can tie in with the portfolio as a whole. Part of this will no doubt be more of an urban landscape approach, and the quirky things that can be seen in the villages sometimes. There’s also been the village fetes, which ties in with the rural festival theme.

Some of the photographs will perhaps become a little more “mundane” too – I think this is perhaps part of my “thing” – I’m attracted to the recording of the mundane in a way that might make it feel a little less so, whether it be seen as quirky or in some cases dramatic, poetic, just plain prosaic, or whatever. The fact that I didn’t try and sequence the first batch of photographs was perhaps something of a mistake, something I’ve tried to address with the sample “book” which can be found in an earlier post. I’ll do the same with each further instalment of the image pool, drawing on the full selection of images submitted to date, rather than just the latest batch.

I’m not entirely sure all this will work as I intended, but the next few months will surely tell.

Bibliography
Vartanian, I. Hatanaka, A. and Kamabayashi, Y (eds) (2006) Setting Sun: writings by Japanese photographers. New York. Aperture Foundation

Some street… and other things.

Rob — 2012-02-02T20:05:35+00:00

I’m at a strange point at the moment. Something may be changing, as I said in the last post over on the notes section, but I feel a reluctance because I don’t know how it will work with what has gone before - there’s a fear in me. Will everything fall apart? Does it really work as it is at the moment? I’m going to let it go the way it does, I think I’ll either be found out as a bit of a fraud when it comes to my photography, or I’ll be happy that I took the risk.

Having said that, I went out earlier today. it was bitterly cold, but I’m not so sure that comes across in my photographs. It doesn’t really need to, to be honest. What I have done is just let things happen, and not be too concerned with how they work. Let the curation part of things deal with that.

Do I feel happy with the images? I’m still unsure, but that will be as much my state of mind as anything else I think.

On a slightly different note, but the same note really, Jose has said he would try to put me in touch with Gary Penny; he’s done a “similar” thing but down in the Quantocks.

Random images

Rob — 2012-01-22T11:21:38+00:00

Well, ok, maybe they’re not completely random, in that they have all been added to the pdf layout that was in the previous post. I’ll not say much more at the moment, other than to own up to the fact that the first one was actually taken before I started YOP…

The next one wasn’t in there, but it’s a variant of the other one with the chairs.

Another trial

Rob — 2012-01-22T09:21:45+00:00

After further thinking about Jose’s comments, and also looking at the recommended book from Cristobal Hara (An imaginary Spaniard), I’ve rethought the sequencing and approach to the photographs. There’s some photographs in there now that I wouldn’t have been brave enough to include; I’ve been really quite conservative (the OCA Student thread on the subject from last year has just been resurrected, which is good). Anyway, I’ve put together a little low-res Apple book (which I won’t print) that is perhaps a little more like how I feel. There’s more than 30 images there now, which may be a problem - I’ve already gone from 10-20 to 30 so I might be stretching matters here. But it is only a play thing, it’s not the finished piece.

The PDF is here. If you look at it, it needs to be as follows, otherwise there will be spurious blanks and you don’t get the “book” layout.

I’ll add some thoughts on Hara’s book later, but it is really good - provided me with some inspiration which has been a little lacking recently. In another attempt to do something about this lack of inspiration, I’ve also just ordered a Holga lens for my little Lumix. It might not do anything for me, but then again, it might…

Oh, and I’ll also post the images from the book that haven’t been on the blog before later too.

Trial Layout

Rob — 2012-01-08T08:48:09+00:00

Whilst I have conceded that the work submitted for my first instalment of the portfolio will not be the final selection, and that I have not really thought about sequence and narrative, I still thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to think about layout. After all, it’s always been an intention to create a book of the images.

I suppose initially I would have been planning a Blurb book, but I’ve been increasingly thinking about a hand made bespoke offering, and in coming this way there’s so many more things to think about. Sure, with Blurb there’s lots to think about too, but they have some rules that you have to stick to: there’s set sizes for a start, certain cover types and what have you. Having said that, it’s still pretty open.

I’ve considered a few things I suppose, but obviously not everything. I don’t know what “everything” consists of, despite having looked at a reasonable number of books. The format of the page is one of the first things I guess, whether portrait, landscape or square. One of the drivers for this is of course the format of the images to be included in there, and I’ve made a conscious decision that they will all be landscape format. I’ve gone past the idea of a landscape format book though, even though I initially considered full bleed images. I think I’ve pretty much settled on portrait format with plenty of white space, but of course, there’s still time for all this to change. Why have I been thinking this way? It’s an aesthetic thing I like at the moment, and I’m not really sure why, something to do with the image both breathing and being constrained I think. I’ve been having thoughts about captions recently too.

Anyway, these are just a few images from a mock-up, it’s been put into my sketch pad for reference. It will change though, but as a starting point, I don’t think it’s too bad. I’ve not considered binding or anything else yet though, this one is just stapled. I guess that is where things will become more difficult.

First light of the new year

Rob — 2012-01-01T12:00:19+00:00

I normally head out on the first morning of the year, try and catch that first sunrise. This year wasn’t really any different, it’s just that there was no sunrise per se. It just got lighter. Not really a lot to say, but here are some of the images:

A way in…?

Rob — 2011-12-27T17:34:51+00:00

I had hoped to do some street photography today, but as ever my plans have fallen to nothing. That’s not to say the day was a complete failure. I spent an hour or so in the late afternoon helping a local farmer loading sheep into his trailer for transporting to a different field. A contact has been made, maybe later in the year I’ll be able to make something of it, photographically speaking. No guarantees, and not something that would fit within the three legs I’ve been looking at, unless of course he goes to the shows…

We’ll see what happens.

Observing

Rob — 2011-12-26T11:29:48+00:00

More thoughts about my methodology, and I move further away from the more conventional understanding of “connecting” to something that is more aligned with what I was intending - I will be observing the area, in terms of the land, the celebration and the urban environment.

Once again I go back to the Domon quote: “the ‘absolutely unstaged snapshot’, through the mere tool that is the camera, is a method for connecting oneself directly to a society”. By observing I aim to achieve this unstaged snapshot, although connection might not be the result. Will it be more akin to the mass observation that took place in the 1930s in Bolton by Humphrey Spender, not a million miles away from the Ribble Valley (and other places as well). Perhaps it will, although I’ll not be going as far as covering aspects of politics and religion, not overtly anyway - connotations may be drawn from some of the images, especially as it appears that the agricultural festivals only include caucasian subjects (so far anyway), despite the fact that there are significant “ethnic” centres in nearby Blackburn and other towns. Something can perhaps be drawn from this, but it’s in no way intentional on my part.

I’ll think further on this as I continue the project.

Down-selection

Rob — 2011-12-24T09:52:45+00:00

As part of my working method, I’ve printed my photographs off on normal (but heavy-ish) paper at roughly business card size. This is to help me visualise what they look like together, you can quickly shuffle them around and add/remove other photographs to suit the “flow” of the images. So, I’ve put these cards all over my table and done a first pass, essentially pulling out the photographs I like more into a down-selection of 30 images for the first instalment; I’m planning on submitting 30 for each of the last 3 assignments, with the final assignment also having a further down-selection that will be the finished “portfolio”.

Straight-away when doing this, some photographs stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, and they were put back in the pile and an alternative selected. This is purely because of the subject matter, the photograph felt a little isolated from the others, any cohesion was lost. I’ll do this again later - spreading them out further, playing with running order, tweaking here and there. It’s a really difficult process and it would be all to easy to just pick the set of favourite images, but some of those images need to be put back in the pile for the sake of the greater good! Hopefully I’ll make the right decisions…

More thoughts on my direction

Rob — 2011-12-23T08:12:45+00:00

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching recently, trying to refund where I want to be going with the portfolio. My original idea of being a year in Ribble Valley, exploring the festival circuit and interjecting landscape images was dealt a blow by adding a third aspect. I sort of lost my original thread a little. It needs reworking.

What is it I want to put across? I’ve got ideas but how do I explain?

Many documentary projects are very deep, with a clear message and imbued with their own drama and importance. This was never meant to be one of them. It’s not really my style for a start, but it also falls outside my experience of the area. Whilst there might be drug barons and gang war, I really doubt it. If it is there, it’s on a small scale and far from the little hamlet I live in. The drama here comes from people parking their car outside of a neighbour’s house rather than their own! It’s a farming community in essence, and whilst the chap who used to live next door to me was a writer for Emmerdale, I’ve not seen a plane crash on the village or anything like that. No, it’s not like they show on the telly. It’s fairly rare that anyone walks down the lane I live on - sometimes you get the odd rambler, but they’re probably lost or just being nosey.

No, I don’t want soap opera drama, but rather I’m thinking of a little quirkiness, a little mundane and a little of the damp beauty of the place. “It’s grim up north” is something I’ve often heard, and yes it can be lacking in the excitement of the big city, even in the towns of the Valley, but that’s not what I want to capture. I need to get across that mundane, odd, stoic impression that I get from wandering around the Valley.

I don’t want to capture the day to day struggle of a sheep farmer either - it’s been done before and I’ll be honest and say I just don’t have the time, especially now I’m living away from the area during the week. I also want my lie-in ’til 7am at the weekends… Part of this is also a worry that I would never do it justice, not in the way that Neal Andrews nailed it, and I’m not too keen to produce a Ravilious tile offering either - I want something more contemporary. That’s why I chose street photography as my third leg.

Street photography? Hah, I think this may have misfired for me. Nothing seems to be happening there, not in the way I had hoped anyway. To be fair, I’ve not spent enough time with it yet, my opportunities have been fairly limited. I had hoped to get out before Christmas, but this is beginning to look more and more unlikely - days spent in waiting for last minute packages to arrive is the major reason for this. If todays delivery turns up early enough, maybe I’ll venture into the last minute crowds.

For the third assignment, I still have to finish the essay I started months ago. It’s sat there for a while now, pretty much untouched. I re-read it a couple of weeks ago and I know where I want to make changes, so I’ll sort that over the Christmas break, in between all of the other stuff that I need to be doing. I’m also looking at getting my little contact prints together and working out how to put together this jumble of thoughts I have in my head into some kind of cohesive form. I’ll need some more street to bolster it too. My hope is to have it done before I go back to work in the New Year. A tall order? Maybe, but that’s the plan…

Oh, and I need to look at my paper learning log again. It’s been neglected and certainly doesn’t live up to the one I produced for PaP.

Narration

Rob — 2011-12-17T07:25:56+00:00

I’ve been pondering the actual narrative that I want to present with my project again. I always assumed that I could start taking photographs on a general theme and the more specific theme would come to me in time, which I guess is a dangerous game to play. To be honest, I still don’t have a clear idea of what all this photography means. I don’t think I have anyway, not one I can put into words.

I spoke of “connecting” a little while ago, and it’s obvious that my thoughts on what this meant are not in line with Jose’s. Thinking on this, Jose will have the more widely accepted view on what it meant, and that my use was non-standard, so I need to reformulate what I actually meant so that I can communicate clearly. And communication is the crux of this post I suppose. If I’m not communicating clearly in written English, and I’m not yet completely sure what (or how) I want to communicate with my photographs, I think I’m struggling. As this is the final level of the degree, clearly this is a problem for me.

So, where am I going with this? One thing I am pretty sure about is that I don’t really want this to be a “grand” narrative, painting a picture of the struggle of the people of the Ribble Valley against the hardships of living in the NW of England, or whatever. I’d prefer it to be a little lighter, there’s so much documentary style photography out there that is a little grim and I think that in these difficult times of recession and what have you, there does need to be something lighter, which is why some of my photographs (the cow and the portaloo for example) are a little surreal. It’s also why I can be drawn to the idea of the street photography.

I had been thinking about some start black and white landscape images to punctuate the others, but this would work against the idea of keeping it lighter. I might still throw some in for the next assignment, with explanatory notes, but yeah, I’m beginning to veer back to a full colour set of images though. The safer option overall!

I’ve not been keeping up with printing my business card size “contacts”, so I’ve not played with sequencing recently. This will have to be something I do over the Christmas break, and in doing this a narrative might begin to emerge again, much as it did with the “raining” set I put together a while ago. I could probably do with trawling through some of the books I have on the subject too - “Context and narrative”, “The contest of meaning”, “Land matters” and a few others.

A touch of snow...

Rob — 2011-12-16T10:17:41+00:00

I wasn’t planning on going out to do any photography this morning, too many other things to do, but we had some snowfall (only a little) and some fog, so I thought why not - the accounts and what have you can wait. So I grabbed two cameras - the Fuji X10 that I bought recently and the Lumix GF1 I’ve had for a while and taken quite a few of the portfolio images with, just to see how they compare together.

I didn’t stay out long, but grabbed a few images and must say that the X10 impressed me, it seemed a little more... I’m not sure “capable” is the right word, but the pictures seem better. More pleasing. To me and my eye anyway, so that’s a good thing. I’ve put a comparison of the detail between the cameras from one particular view later on. Sure, neither are perfect, but they’re jpgs and they’re not expensive DSLRs. Now I just need to become more familiar with the X10.

Anyway, the images:

I’m not so sure about the use of the narrower crop for the bottom image yet, maybe it just won’t “fit” with the rest of the project. it feels a little different in terms of colour as well. This is one thing I’ll have to come back and address at some point - when I have my final set of images I will more than likely need to tweak a few to ensure they feel right together - I don’t want any sore thumbs apart from the intended ones.

Anyway, here’s the jpg comparison from the middle image. The file from the X10 is at the top, the GF1 at the bottom:

Aside from the slight difference in white balance, the effect of the fancy Fuji EXR sensor can do things with regard to the dynamic range and things that a standard Bayer sensor just can’t. Maybe I need to bring a little black back into the Fuji version, but that’s just fine-tuning.

+++UPDATE+++
First of all, I’ve learned a quick lesson with Rapidweaver - it doesn’t rename images like iWeb, so it got a little confused with the photographs briefly pasted above. I’d obviously restarted the numbering with the Fuji, and the file name of the bottom image was obviously the same as a previous one meaning the server got confused. All sorted now though.

I also popped out again and took some more photographs, which are included below:

Clitheroe

Rob — 2011-11-20T14:22:32+00:00

I’ve just received my Fuji X10 and wanted to see how it fared in a street environment, so off I went to Clitheroe to see what was going on. As it happened, not really a lot, but then again, maybe I was not looking properly...

I did manage to take a few photographs though, and for what they’re worth, they’re posted below. I’m not saying I’m completely happy with this, but it’s a (re)start as far as street is concerned.

These were all taken from the jpg files - I shot raw & jpg just to see what the in-camera colour processing came back with and also because I’ve heard that the benefits of raw are reduced with smaller sensor cameras. As it happens, the Fuji raw format isn’t supported by Aperture or Adobe Camera Raw at the moment, and it’s unlikely to be supported by Aperture in the future either as it’s not a Bayer type sensor. I guess I’ll have to dig the software out of the box and load it on to my Mac (I assume there’s a Mac version on there...).

Anyway, to the photographs. I think the first is probably as a result of looking at Eggleston recently, although I have taken dogs in this project previously, and also dogs in windows (although not connected to the Ribble Valley project - this one below was in London) ...

... the second image is perhaps more “landscapey” with a figure in there - I’m not sure I’m totally happy with the colours and what-have-you here, some of the shadows are overly purple, and the castle seems washed out. Maybe I’ll report after looking at the raw image?

The last one is a little more significant to me personally, as that’s one of my Night Walk images on the gallery wall, and yes, there is a little red dot next to the number 41... There’s people on it, so I’ve included it, and yes, it’s also in the Ribble Valley. I’m guessing it won’t make the cut when it gets edited down though.

I need to get to grips with the camera, and also the processing side of things soon, otherwise I might be losing out on opportunities.

Further wanderings with landscape in mind...

Rob — 2011-11-13T14:18:13+00:00

Saturday didn’t start out that way though - when I set off in the car, I thought I’d visit a number of the Ribble villages and see if there was anything happening with a view to capturing some street type images. I dropped in to a number of them and all was depressingly quiet - a few people walking down the street, but not the sort of thing I’d consider an “interesting” scene. These were only small villages though, and I guess the sort of place where you have to hang around for quite a while, and be quite lucky, for the planets to align and a picture emerge. I’ll try some of the larger ones, or maybe Clitheroe or Longridge next time... Either that or look more at the work of Kate Kirkwood and here “rural street”.

The day was not completely lost though, as I made the decision to look at more landscape images instead. There was some blue sky and sun, which has made a change to recent days, so these photographs have a different feel to them than those others taken so far (you can probably count blue sky on the fingers of one hand). How this means they will fit in, I don’t know - do I want to give the impression that it’s always dull, fitting in with the stereotypical idea of the north of England? You know, I’m not sure yet... (I did a small set of brolly type images previously).

Here’s some of the photographs:

How do I feel about these? I’m not sure - they feel a little “traditional”. I’m certainly not bubbling over with enthusiasm at the moment, but then again, if everything I took was exactly what I wanted, I’d be an anomaly in photographic terms: in a recent article on the Magnum Contact Sheets book, Bruce Gilden is noted as saying “I can go as many as 50 rolls without getting a good photo.” - I took the equivalent of 2 rolls yesterday, so I guess somewhere in the next couple of thousand images, I should get a good one. And this is something echoed many times by other photographers as well. I’m probably being overly hard on myself because of the limited time I have at the moment. Patience is needed.

Rural photography

Rob — 2011-11-06T14:16:17+00:00

In recent months, I’ve been looking at the work of a number of photographers working in rural areas of the UK to get a feel for the type of thing that has been done before, deciding whether or not it will inform my own take on the subject. In this looking, I’ve taken in books by the likes of James Ravilious (An English eye), Andy Biggs (An English river), Gus Wylie (The Hebrideans) and Gary Penny (Mixed blessings and The Quantocks). All of these seem superficially similar - no, maybe that’s not true, as Andy Biggs is a somewhat different in his approach to people. They have all worked in black and white though, and I find that quite interesting.

I suppose the reason for some of this work being black and white is due to the period the work was taken, and certainly this will be the case for Ravilious and some of Wylie’s photographs as they date to the 70s when documentary was almost exclusively black and white, especially serious documentary - colour work would have lacked authority: colour film was still for snapshots in the family album. The influence of Shore and Eggleston was still not percolating over here - the first colour cover of Creative Camera appeared in 1984, the publication even announced in December 1985 that “From today black and white is dead” (Brittain, 1999, p14), although obviously this was not the case. Colour was being taken seriously though. For Biggs and Penny though, the use of black and white was a conscious choice, and this is something I also wrestled with in the early days of this portfolio. Black and white certainly has a certain character, but do the images all begin to feel a little “samey”? Harsh, but maybe they do a little, at least at a superficial level.

Removing Biggs from the quartet of photographers (I’ll talk about him separately later), there’s a general feel to the other three. They use the same general approach, and similar types of photographs in their books. For Ravilious and Penny, they have photographed similar areas (the Quantock hills), so some similarity can maybe be expected. Wylie has a slightly different feel to some of his photographs, due in part I believe to his use of a faster/more contrasty film stock. Basically, the books combine several threads of images, including scenes, people working the land, environmental portraits and scenes of celebration or social gathering. Basically, with the exception of the environmental portraits and the working of the land, it’s what I’m doing. It might be considered that I’m skimming the non-interactive parts of the subject matter, which I suppose flies in the face of my idea that I’m integrating into the community, and I believe I’ve mentioned this before (it’s more in keeping with what I believe is “my photography” though). I’m not really worried about this at the moment... (who knows what the future brings?)

Gus Wylie includes far more environmental portraits than the other two, and I find these images a little unusual although I’m not 100% sure why. Perhaps it’s because the people sometimes appear a little lower in the frame than I would expect - the image on the cover of the version of the book I have is an example of this (see here) - there’s a few like this. For me, there’s a little tension, and this is actually a good thing as it is actually making me look at the photographs more in an attempt to get to grips with them, rather than looking, seeing it’s another example of similar sorts of images, and moving on.

Andy Biggs is a little different. The book I have follows the course of the River Wyre, not far from the River Ribble that flows through the Ribble Valley (both rivers are in Lancashire). His photographs are predominantly landscape too, although he does feature people as the river winds it’s way through urban areas, bringing in the Great Eccleston Show (not unlike the ones I shot in Longridge or Chipping) and also Fleetwood on Tram Sunday. There are certainly no environmental portraits, no people posing for the camera. This then is quite similar to how I envisage my portfolio to “feel”, just with less emphasis on landscape. His images are a little more poetic than I would take as well, certainly with some of his landscapes. With regards to my portfolio, I’m yet to get to grips with the street section, and it may well be this that pulls me further away from Biggs. We’ll see.

Finally, in the introduction to Penny’s The Quantocks: on English hills, there’s a statement made that I suppose mirrors some of my thoughts, and the thoughts of the others that have taken a British rural community as their subject, which was: “The value of an archive like this is not in the dramatic or the picturesque, but in those small, and sometimes unnoticed parts of our ordinary daily lives which help to define who we are.” (Penny, 2004, p6).

Bibliography
Brittain, D ed (1999) Creative Camera: 30 years of writing. Manchester. Manchester University Press
Penny, GJ (2004). The Quantocks: on English hills. Tiverton. Somerset Books

A wander around

Rob — 2011-10-30T13:39:57+00:00

I really had to get out and take some photographs today, but I wasn’t sure of what or where I would end up, so decided to just jump in the car and see where I ended up. Perhaps not the best plan, but at least I got out there and took some photographs - it’s been difficult recently.

Anyway, I set off originally in the direction of Pendle Hill and Sabden to find that all the lay-by parking had been cordoned off for some reason - no idea why but not a big issue, I managed to pull up on a verge, pulled the boots on and wandered off to see what I could see. Not a huge amount as it happened, or at least not a huge amount that I found greatly rewarding, although I did bag a few shots that will go into the image pool - not sure they’re fully up there, but sometimes I need to rest on them first.

After Pendle I moved around and drove off towards the general direction of Dunsop Bridge, not quite sure why as it’s the opposite end of the Valley, and I didn’t stop there when I got there. I did jump out of the car around Whitewell though, and a few other random places along the way.

Anyway, not clear plan and some random shots and not the results I would have wanted, but kind of as I expected. It was good to get some air though, and that shutter finger was firing again...

Ribble Valley

Rob — 2011-10-30T13:38:28+00:00

I just thought that I’d put something on here to explain where Ribble Valley is - the map has been pulled from Google Maps, and the border drawn on as an approximation based on what I know. The map doesn’t show all of the villages scattered around, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I’m off to photograph some landscapes, and maybe some street...

Finally moving forward

Rob — 2011-10-16T13:34:49+01:00

Yeah, that’s right. I’m finally moving forward. A little.

I’ve not taken any more photographs for the portfolio, but I have finally settled on the third leg. It’s going to be some street photography in the urbanised areas within the Ribble Valley. This gives me the three image streams of:

1: Rural gatherings - the festivals that I’ve been photographing in the rural settings.
2: Landscape - images of the Ribble Valley, not done much of this.
3: Urban life - photographs from the towns and villages.

Just to give an idea of what this means, here’s some examples of what I’m thinking, the following would (sequentially) fall into the above categories:

The rural gatherings stream will quieten down a little over the winter months, so it will give me chance to look at doing something for the other two sections. One thing I’m aware of though is that my timescales will have to drag out a bit further than intended due to the fact that I’ve been a little idle recently, in terms of photography. I will be using the most of any opportunities to start looking at street photography again - Street Photography Now will be one place to start, but there’s also things like England, my England and some of the In-Public publications I have scattered around, not to mention the work of Tony Ray-Jones and others...

Migrated comments:

Thinking time...

Rob — 2011-10-09T13:28:09+01:00

A few days ago I bust one of my ribs. I’m not exactly sure how I did it, or how badly. I know it’s not broken and posing a risk of puncturing my lung/skin, so all that can be done is a course of pain-killers. The instructions say take one or two - one doesn’t begin to take the edge off, taking two works really well, but I must say my brain feels a little fuzzy. I’ll probably notice this post being a little less coherent when I look back in a week or two. Anyway, what’s the point of this introduction? Just setting the stage for explaining that I’e started moving forward with my thoughts on the third leg, yes, even if my thoughts have been fuzzy, I have had some time to think.

A week or two ago I emailed Jose about the possibility of incorporating one of my Advanced elements into YOP, and then rethinking Advanced altogether (there had been concern they were too similar anyway). This has led to a bit of confusion, I think perhaps Jose misunderstood what I meant, and I misunderstood his reply, but we’re getting there now, and I’ve sent him 3 possibilities with regards the 3rd leg of the project. I’ll see what his thoughts are this coming week, then rework my proposal accordingly.

The three options were:

Some street photography. What I mean is to be looking in the villages and recording things there in an unscripted way. When I had the Skype discussion with Jose, he was very interested in me accessing gate-keepers and working inside the community, and I’m not really sure this is “me”. Yes, I’m sure I could do it, but it would be massively outside my comfort zone and a little alien in terms of my photography. I’m just not so sure, but maybe it’s just my preconceived ideas that are “off”. So, what I was thinking is that I could record life in the villages and towns - a more urban slant on what I’ve been doing, more day-to-day I suppose.

I think this would then tie in fairly seamlessly, with photographs of people going about their lives in the towns, at the festivals and then some “landscape” images of the setting that all this takes place, the three legs would be talking with each other. I’ve been looking at the work of James Ravilious, and I can see this in his work, although he also adds the posed images. There’s some links to Ravilious’ work below to show what I mean:

The festival - Parading the Whitsun garland.

The urban scene - Tree lined street with riders.

The landscape - Oak tree (after Mondrian).

And the posed images I want to avoid - Archie Parkhouse.

Now, there’s better examples of what I mean in the book An English eye, but there’s a limited online gallery, so these will do for now. I think you can see how the photographs I have so far will work in this framework, and how it could be compared to Ravilious’ book with the posed images missing. Obviously there’s work to do, and you need to bear in mind that when I say “similar”, I don’t mean “the same as” - I’m talking broad brushstrokes here.

The “problem” I see with this option is the fact that it doesn’t require that integration that perhaps I’ve been looking at, or at least it doesn’t have that managed integration. It will force me to go out and observe the community - I’d be connecting on my own terms, rather than as others might expect. I’m having trouble to explain myself here...

Artisan study. This would be the part of Advanced I’d consider bringing over. Again, I’m not so sure it would make use of “gate-keepers” per se, but would force me down the path of behind the scenes engagement. What I would be thinking of here is a study of a few artisan workers, whilst they are carrying out their chosen task, whether it be making cheese or building dry stone walls or whatever. A documentary of their day, if you like. I wouldn’t really want to do the August Sander type portrait thing, as despite one of my portrait images being used to advertise PaP, and the fact I’ve used portraits in assignment 2, I feel I have really limited portrait skills. I’m not a “people person”, and I guess this is the main reason I prefer option 1... Anyway, I’m thinking photographs of the person at work, their tools, their hands doing. That sort of thing.

A problem I have with this option is the fact that it would not sit well in the cadre of the portfolio as a whole - a bit of a sore thumb if you like. Whilst I might actually take good photographs, I think there might be a loss of cohesion - festivals, landscape and artisan workers. I don’t know, it feels a bit random, so I’m not sure why I suggested it.

Forestry study. I mentioned this before, and it’s never really gone away. Would it be possible to get in with the Forestry Commission for a few weekends to photograph what they get up to in the Bowland AONB? This would certainly involve gate-keepers within the commission, but thinking about it, wouldn’t really get me involved in the community as such. I’m also very conscious that I couldn’t devote quite so much time to this, and then maybe it would also be a bit of an odd one in the context of the portfolio as a whole, although it would of course fit in with the landscape side of things. Perhaps it would be the agricultural show side of things that would be at odds...

More thought is needed, and I also need some input from Jose, which hopefully I should get Monday/Tuesday this coming week. Personally, I prefer the first option, and this is perhaps obvious by the amount I’ve written too. Maybe I should push more on this...

Whatever I do, I’ll have to put something down as a formal extension of the proposal soon. I’ll also add some notes on Ravilious and Penny - I’ve been threatening to do it for some time now.

When man meets beast

Rob — 2011-10-05T13:26:58+01:00

A little while ago, Penny (Marmalade) blogged a link from the BBC website called When man meets beast at a country show (see here). There’s some truly humorous photographs on there from Paul Russell, a British street photographer whose work I’ve looked at in the past alongside Nick Turpin and the in-public collective.

Anyway, I’ll not go into it too much here, I’ll just use this as a marker for inspiration every now and again.

Hodder Valley Agricultural Show

Rob — 2011-09-10T12:00:47+01:00

Saturday was the Hodder Valley Agricultural Show, near Dunsop Bridge - so-called centre of the Kingdom (geographical centre, but I guess that depends on your definition of “the Kingdom”). The weather held off, and I duly turned up, but I’m not particularly enthralled by the set of photographs I brought back. A lack of (personal) focus and not enough thought about how I want to approach the subject will be the issue here I guess.

I don’t know what it is with me really, well, I guess I can probably take a punt, but that won’t really help. I need to refocus, and I guess clearing the decks with some of the other stuff that’s ongoing will help - I’ve still not finished assignment 2 for example, with one of the exercises beginning to bug me a little. A change of tack may be required here as well, but I’ll put some notes on the other arm of the blog for that, once I’ve considered it some more. I also to consider the third leg of the portfolio too, which I haven’t done yet either. I feel it slipping away, and I’m not fighting enough to keep it at the moment. Work taking it’s toll I guess.

Anyway, enough of all that, and back to the agricultural show. I’ve taken a hundred or so photographs, but none of them are really speaking to me at the moment. I’ll let them lie for a week and come back to them I think - I’ve processed two in a somewhat half-hearted fashion, which are included below...

As I say, somewhat half-hearted at the moment!

I’ve also had a little play with a landscape image, but I ended up turning that to a monochrome one, and as such it’s not really in keeping with the rest of the project (although I know I’ve been going on about mixing colour and mono images in the past). Again, here it is - not sure it overly excites me at the moment, but that might just be my current (tired) frame of mind and will pass.

+++UPDATE+++
I’ve been through the photographs again and pulled out a couple more from the show and another landscape taken on the way there:

Finally, the black and white image from above, reprocessed in colour and a different crop:

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A spot of reflection, critique and planning...

Rob — 2011-08-27T11:59:43+01:00

Well, I started working again just under a month ago, so what better time to go on holiday? Actually, perhaps holiday is the wrong term, but I was visiting family in France, so I guess it will do. The time has given me the opportunity to do some further research for my essay (more on the other arm of the blog, when I get around to writing it), but also some time to reflect about what I’ve been up to.

As an idea, the Ribble Valley festival thing keeps on changing slightly, but not significantly - more a matter of the direction of the curation than anything else, and I’m willing to let that slide for a little time further, rather than pinning it down to a hard and fast idea now. There’s still a good 6 months to go before concluding the year, plenty of time for something new to catch my eye as being the real way forward. I know I do need to get some of my landscape photographs though...

I also need to be thinking more about this “third leg” that Jose spoke of. I’m not sure yet what to do with this - I think Jose was pushing for a more traditional documentary style set of images, but this really is not something I’m interested in doing. Not at all. I’ve been looking at the work of Gary Penny he suggested, and there’s really two types of photographs there - the posed and the unposed. I don’t want to do posed, and I’ve mentioned this before and (mis)used a quote by Domon Ken to illustrate this (I’m a little clearer on what he was talking about now, his context was not exactly my usage of the quote, but the words fit perfectly). I need to get to grips with the idea pretty soon though, otherwise it will just be drifting away - something that is a danger with the structure of this module, my approach and my new working schedule.

On the other hand, perhaps the lack of desire for a “traditional” documentary is just a lack of desire for the preconceived idea I have, and that actually, my idea of what I want to do (whatever form that takes) is another persons traditional documentary. Further clarity of thought is needed here.

I’ve also been thinking about the photographs I’ve already taken. Are they really cutting the mustard? I believe some of them are exactly what I want, but others are now looking further away from the direction I want to follow than perhaps they once were. However, as mentioned above, my direction is being massaged by time and other influences so I’ll leave them there for the moment, just in case I take a wild u-turn somewhere...

One thing I’m really noticing in my work is that I’m not necessarily bothered by technical perfection. Once, I would have dismissed a photograph for a bit of blur, or whatever. Now I can see that the story telling is more important, so if the image is technically flawed but communicates the necessary message, for this type of project it is perfectly acceptable. Horses for courses, as they say. I guess part of this will be due to my exposure to the Provoke era photography, and also the work of Klein, Van Der Elsken and others. It’s something I’ll have to work on though, and to this end I’ve bought a couple of books on the narrative issue, including the one mentioned by a post by Jose on weareoca - Context and Narrative. I’m yet to look through this yet though. No doubt it will lead to some further notes on here as I do.

Creative Camera

Rob — 2011-08-10T11:57:43+01:00

At the suggestion of Clive (for the Advanced course, now on hold), I started looking into Creative Camera, the old photography magazine and managed to find a collection of essays called Creative Camera: 30 years of writing second hand. It’s a collection of 50 texts from the magazine, and the authors include some quite well known names - Barthes and Berger amongst them. I’ve only read a few of the essays so far - time is at somewhat of a period to be honest, but in amongst these first few are one concerning HCB, and an interview with Paul Graham that I feel are relevant here, which is why I’m writing here, rather than in the Other Stuff section.

The piece about Cartier-Bresson compares his decisive moments with the posed work of artists such as Wall and diCorcia. The latter is described as “cinematographic” - a construction that contains everything: there is nothing outside the boundaries of the photograph. It’s self-contained. This then is reminiscent of pre-photography era painting, when the artist ensured everything was within the scene, and only after the introduction of the camera did the edge of the frame start to cut through people; take the ballerina painting by Degas as an example - and I’m talking Western art here, it’s always been different in the Far East... Cartier-Bresson on the other hand is much more spontaneous, with people cutting the frame hinting at life outside the boundaries of the image. Life goes on. The photographs are also unposed, from the “temporal flux” and “chance encounter in the surreal sense”. The posed and the chance encounters are not related.

This is something I’m more interested in with this course: the chance encounter. It’s also tied in with the quote from Domon that I put forward back in June. I really don’t want to emulate the painting, either literally with the application of faux filters within photoshop, or more importantly, with the way the photograph is constructed - carefully posed and everything within the frame. I want the project to be more reminiscent of real life, as it happens... Chance encounters and presented in a pure fashion. Does this make the project any less of a documentary? No, I believe it doesn’t, but as I have said before, I do need to be careful about what and how I shoot it to carry the feelings I have but find hard to articulate.

Bibliography
Brittain, D ed (1999) Creative Camera: 30 years of writing. Manchester. Manchester University Press

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Rationale and evolution

Rob — 2011-07-24T11:55:32+01:00

When I spoke to Jose last week, I was asked to explain my proposal. I started off talking about the Ribble Valley, explaining the rurality of the location, with it’s complement of 2 market towns, 44 villages and various hamlets and such like. This is the geographical constraint for the project, it makes for a more intimate and perhaps cohesive study - for the actual cohesion we will have to see how I curate the project. But why chose this location?

The simple answer is that it’s where I live. It’s my community, and has been for a few years now. However, whilst I’ve always lived in Lancashire, I originally come from the busier seaside town of Blackpool, a far cry from the countryside, what with the “kiss me quick” hats and nightclub lifestyle. I lived in Blackpool for a long time, over 30 years, and this postmodern, low culture town has left its mark on me and I guess this will be what has pushed me to photograph in the way I have chosen, rather than the monochrome style I often defer to as a form throwback to thoughts of escapism (Doisneau’s images of Paris were a release from thoughts of Blackpool when younger).

Anyway, in coming to the Ribble Valley I am still somewhat of an outsider, and what I have wanted to do is somehow make a connection with the larger community (rather than just the hamlet in which I live), whilst also photographing the community with something of an outsider’s eye. The photographs will likely contain some tension from this outsider on the inside sort of affairs, although I’m not yet fully on the inside, just approaching that position. Slowly.

I’m going to repeat a quote from an earlier post here, one from Domon Ken that I read in Setting Sun:

“Realism, or the ‘absolutely unstaged snapshot’, through the mere tool that is the camera, is a method for connecting oneself directly to a society; it is a way of life that is fully engaged.” (Vartanian et al, p27).

I look at some of the work of Ravilious, and the photographs are staged (perhaps “posed” would be a better word), and whilst this work is from the inside, and perhaps the type of work I should be perhaps looking at expanding the project with (a third leg that was discussed with Jose), I’m not so sure that I want to work that way at this point. I very much prefer working with the way things are, rather than with how I make them - perhaps constructing the photograph will make it less authentic - my outsider sentimentalities come through stronger. I’ll consider this some more before I decide how I will develop this extra image stream. I’ll also look at the work of Gary Penny, when it turns up.

One thing that is tickling at the back of my mind though is how I might be able to do something with the Forest of Bowland. Is there some work that the Forestry Commission does for example? But also with this I’m very conscious that this would have to be weekend only work, so it might be difficult. More thoughts and considerations needed before I start down a track I can’t continue on...

Bibliography
Vartanian, I. Hatanaka, A. and Kamabayashi, Y (eds) (2006) Setting Sun: writings by Japanese photographers. New York. Aperture Foundation

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It's always raining in the North...

Rob — 2011-07-23T11:49:40+01:00

During the Skype chat with Jose yesterday, I mentioned something that was beginning to appear with the photographs taken at the events so far - the weather. I’ve been to a slack handful of festivals so far, and the weather has been, at best, drizzly, overcast with some sunny spells but at worst, downright miserable. You don’t have to look far for the signs of rain - muddy fields and umbrellas, etc.

Despite this bad weather, for the most part people are stepping outside to enjoy the festivals. I see this as a sign of the rural community, especially when it’s the agricultural type show. These farming/outdoor lifestyle people will need to go about their business whatever the weather - the fields still need to be worked and the animals tended even if it’s raining, so why should the rain stop the more enjoyable activities such as the festivals? The one exception would be the Roman re-enactments when few people turned up in the rain, but I think that this is perhaps because it’s not a traditional “rural” event, rather it’s historical and perhaps aimed at a different section of the populace. The re-enactors are from ‘darn sarf” as well....

I like this attitude to the weather, although I’m yet to fully adopt this train of thought; whilst I might get out to the shows, the rain puts a real damper on my photography and the lens is a real pig to keep dry especially with the larger Canon. I do tend to work with my Lumix if it’s raining because the surface of the lens is smaller, and the hood seems to do a better job (it’s not quite so wide an angle, so it’s comparatively larger).

Anyway, adding another variable that I have zero control over would be overdoing it, but I thought I’d put together a short sample of images that show this “bad weather” aspect. They’re not like Martin Parr’s early black and white work - I’ve not used flash, but they do give a certain “feeling”. Here’s a few of them (including a couple of landscape type images):

Finally, I thought I’d just add a quick snap of the cards I’ve printed up for playing with different sequences - there’s all of the photographs I’ve posted in the gallery there in the pile, so I can shuffle around with different photographs and ideas. They’re nothing special, just 3x2 prints on thickish paper that have come from either the laser printer or from the cheaper inkjet. Needless to say, the sequence above is a subset of that one I was working on below...

Tutor chat

Rob — 2011-07-22T11:48:18+01:00

Earlier I had a really good Skype chat with Jose. Now, this was a first for me, and apparently for Jose too and I must say, it’s been very useful. E-mail communications is fine, and so is using the telephone, but we’re all visual people, so the added element was good. Much more like an old-fashioned face to face conversation - you can see the reaction, the body language. But most of all, you bounce ideas back and forth in real time.

It also made me think more when it came to explaining my proposal - initially I was asked for no more than a sheet of A4, and in doing this I left out some of the rationale that lay behind my proposal, in talking freely, that rationale came across. So yes, it was an excellent experience. I know OCA are pushing the use of video conference for the MA, but it would be good if they could push the use at lower levels too, although I know there may be problems for some of the overseas students because of time zones, etc.

Anyway, back from the virtues of skype and on to the important stuff - what we talked about. Well, first of all there was a brief discussion about the job offer I received and running both YoP and Advanced in tandem. When I signed up for Advanced, I was planning on working on the two courses full time, something that will not be possible should I start working (highly probable, but a few things to iron out first). The job will mean 14 hour days when travel time is taken into account, so there won’t be any chance of doing anything on the courses in that time (maybe half an hour reading at lunch), so it will leave just the weekends. The result of this is that I’ve decided to park Advanced for a while. I’ll still be thinking about it, doing a bit of reading, etc. And there’s one of the projects I’ve decided to do which is time bound to Halloween, so that will have to be taken into account. But yes, my concentration will be with YoP.

When asked to explain the project, I delivered the words that came to my mind there and then, and I was told I’d put it very eloquently, and that (as mentioned before) this was missing. He knew the geographical constraints of the project, the idea of what I wanted to photograph, but not the why. The reason I had chosen this, the rationale behind it. This is something I need to address and I’ll do it in a subsequent post - with hindsight I’ve also touched on it in an earlier one too. I will need to expand on this though - the formal proposal has been and gone with what was written for assignment 1, but now there’s the natural maturation and evolution of the project to keep tabs on.

Talking of evolution, I was considering dropping the proposed landscape part of the project and concentrating on the festivals, but Jose was of the opinion that I should keep my options open for the moment, which is fair enough. So, at some point, I’ll get out there and take some more photographs of Pendle, the villages and actually haul my backside over to the Forest of Bowland. Also, rather than confining my work, the question was asked as to whether it would be possible to open it up slightly further? I’ll discuss this on the blog as I’m expanding the rationale - they would seem to go together well.

During the conversation, the name James Ravilious came up.’ Now this would have to be put into context, as I believe his work is very traditional and perhaps not suited to the way I have been working. But, it’s more his manner of working and subject matter that is interesting, rather than his printed work - at least with reference to this project. What I mean to say is that I’m not going back to look at a black and white presentation. Another name was mentioned, that of Gary Penny and I’ve since jumped on to Amazon and ordered a couple of books for little more than a few pence. We’ll see what they come back as...

There’s a slight worry with some of this though, and that’s because some of this work looks to be posed. Not all of it, that’s for sure, but I really don’t want to be going down that avenue at the moment. Maybe I’ll change my mind, but I want the photographs to be more fluid than this, yes, and maybe more candid, but without feeling like they’re newspaper journalism - something I have thought about in the past - it has started looking a little that way from time to time, and they will need to be edited out. I’ll have to consider how and if I can make these various streams work together.

Another thing that was mentioned was that it might be worthwhile approaching some organisations/groups or individuals in the area for support and to act as “gatekeepers” - I’d heard of this from the Partake seminar I went to some time ago, specifically with the guy who was documenting the Manchester Jews. The gatekeeper allowed him access to things that those from outside the community would not normally manage. If it’s an organisation, it might also open doors for exhibition, etc.

Conscious that the post might be getting a little long (there’s been discussion on this on the OCA Forum), I’ll leave it at that for now. Specific things will be brought up in future posts though.

Pleasures of the immediate

Rob — 2011-07-19T11:47:18+01:00

Whilst I’m waiting to see what Friday and my skype chat with Jose brings, today on the Independent website was an article on Martin Parr and the “Pleasures of the immediate” exhibition he will be doing at Port Eliot this weekend.

He’s photographing the festival and then displaying it on the same day so that the people at the festival will see themselves (potentially) in the exhibition. This is sort of akin to what I was ultimately hoping to do with the portfolio series of images from the various festivals in Ribble Valley - exhibit them within the Ribble Valley so that people from the area might see themselves, or people they know, in the photographs. I think it would be interesting this way...

Possible change in direction...

Rob — 2011-07-18T11:46:34+01:00

After a change of tutor and with Jose now looking at my proposal, it’s possible that I might have to change tack with my project. Worrying? Most certainly!!

How much of a change will be discussed later this week - hopefully not much, but in the meantime I guess I’m left on tenterhooks. It also means that I’m not going to attempt any move forward with the portfolio (adding more succinct notes was something I was looking at doing this week). Perhaps I’ll be able to do something with the second assignment instead?

Roman military display

Rob — 2011-07-17T11:44:02+01:00

This weekend was the Roman military display at Ribchester. It was also really quite wet.

I arrived about half an hour after the “doors” opened, and there was already one or two people there! Yes, only one or two. A few more turned up, including a TV camera team, and within about an hour there were maybe a couple of dozen people looking at what was going on. Unfortunately, the bad weather meant that it was too dangerous for some of the re-enactment activities, so this was reduced to the more informative discussions about the clothes, weapons and the like rather than the simulated combat.

The photographs aren’t really what I had anticipated, but they still fit in with the general feeling from my photographs that has been developing: that of bad weather and some resilience to that weather - it’s very much part of day to day life, so people still soldier on regardless... (ouch, bad pun!)

Interim selection

Rob — 2011-07-15T11:41:41+01:00

I’ve put together another quick slideshow of an interim selection of images based upon the last 3 months or so of following the festivals in the Ribble Valley. The narrative flow of these images isn’t chronological, it actually jumps between different festivals and places, but this has a better feel to the flow for me. Ok, chronological also works for me, but I guess that’s because I know the chronological order of the images, but the viewer would not necessarily have that knowledge. Is changing the order “ethical”? Am I trying to present an alternative and false reality? Well, I would put places and dates next to the images in a book for example, now that might make it feel a little like they’re flitting back and forth, but I’ll consider that further in due course.

Anyway, here’s the slideshow: Ribble Valley Video

The reasoning for this ordering is quite subjective, and I’m not really sure what I’ve based it on. As I’ve mentioned in the past on this blog, as I’ve been taking the photographs, I’ve been printing out small (3x2) versions so that I can see how they work with each other, and for the most part this seems to work for me. Sure, I’m aware that with a bit of feedback it could be improved, but what I’m quite certain of is that it feels much tighter, much more considered, than the gallery which just features all of the images I’ve chosen to post on the blog.

Something to add here is that this sequence does not include any “landscape” images - just a couple of, for want of another term, “views” without people. I’m growing more aware that this is perhaps the direction I should be heading, at least for the portfolio of 20 images. For a longer project, i.e. the book I hope to produce, then the landscapes may indeed have their place. Perhaps a chat with Jose is required?

Another thing that I’m becoming aware of is that I’m perhaps not putting enough of my thoughts down on this blog. Some have gone in my note book because I specifically didn’t want them on here, but I’ll be making an effort over the coming weeks to do something about that...

Side project

Rob — 2011-07-12T11:36:40+01:00

No real definitive purpose for this selection, other than in response to an observation I’d made in my notepad that I’m taking a few dog photographs. So, I thought why not put together a collection of images on the topic of dogs? Not quite Elliot Erwitt, but it just goes to show that I’m getting a healthy selection of images from these events in the Ribble Valley, and I could create a number of different narratives for different reasons.

I’m not so sure they all work individually, and I’m pretty sure that with some extra tinkering the order could be improved - I’ve done this on the computer as my printer is unavailable for the moment, so I can’t print out the samples and shuffle them. Perhaps I’ll come back and play with this again, or I might just decide that it’s not really worth the bother...

The project progresses

Rob — 2011-07-10T11:35:01+01:00

Ok, so the year long festival project is progressing - I’m shooting all the fairs that I’m aware of that that are falling within the Ribble Valley. I am however falling waaaaay behind with the landscape/scenery/no people side of thing that I was wanting to counterbalance these fairs with. Apart from a signpost, a bus stop and telephone box, it feels like months since I’ve done anything else. Things aren’t going to get any easier either as time will become more of a premium with the Advanced module running along side it. I’ll manage though...

The other thing I’m wondering about is how I’m going to curate these down. Are there any “great” photographs in there? I know there’s some poorer ones that I will take out, but are there any that make me sit up and go “yeah, I like that”? I don’t know. Maybe I’m doing my usual thing of being too self-critical. Maybe it’s some of the negative vibe I’ve been feeling coming through. Do I need to re-think my approach? Perhaps rather than landscapes, it should be the “scenes” from the fairs that I include, those without people...?

Do I need to change my style? Maybe not change, but refine it? Make it more consistent for one, as I feel that some of the images look like they could come from different photographers - it may be that they come from different cameras on different days, but they do sometimes feel very different, and sometimes they’ve come from the same shoot! To say I feel a little uncomfortable with this is an understatement. Because of the subject matter (the English), I could easily imagine myself going all “Martin Parr” (or similar), but I don’t want to. I’m not Parr for one, and I would rather be myself. I will happily admit to being influenced by Parr though, it’s almost like his work taps in to my feeling of Englishness. The same goes for a number of others, especially some of the street photographers that are growing in popularity, I use Parr as an example because he’s well known. Maybe it’s the use of colour that’s making me feel this way, and I really don’t want to get into that debate with myself.

I guess what I’m feeling at the moment is a slight wamble, a feeling of uncertainty that I need to get my head around. Maybe I should look at some other stuff for a week or two - I’ve certainly got some of the exercise stuff to be getting on with.

Goosnargh & Longridge Show

Rob — 2011-07-10T11:27:54+01:00

Saturday was the Goosnargh and Longridge Agricultural Show, advertised as a fabulous family day out. And to be fair, there was plenty of stuff to look at, especially if you like animals.

Photographically speaking, I was wanting to continue in the same ‘quirky’ British style that I’d been using (and I must say, sometimes straying from), so yes, I still intended to take the odd photograph of people from behind, just like Parr, the Caravan Gallery and others...

Anyway, here’s a selection of images (no particular order), showing a little of the British fondness of animals, and also something of the rural pride in their livestock. And yes, there was some more vintage tractors - some of them seen before.

Trying to find my way again...

Rob — 2011-07-05T11:21:54+01:00

Apart from reading loads of stuffafor the essay on Japan, and playing with the subject of change, as far as my ongoing look into Ribble Valley life and landscape has been going, I’ve felt like I’ve lost my way a little bit. Mostly with the landscape side of things, but I guess also with the rest of it to because of some really quite negative feedback.

I’m getting my head around the feedback, and am reconciling myself with the thoughts that we were coming from different parts of the photographic spectrum, and that I will actually make the photographs I want to make, rather than some “National Geographic” type photo essay. I’ll need to discuss this further, hopefully before I go to the Longridge Agricultural Show this weekend.

Anyway, I set off this morning to take some photographs that might fit in with the Landscape side of my project - I’ve really been neglecting this. Unfortunately, today was no exception as no sooner had I stopped to take a couple of detail photographs, I received a phone call and really needed to get home to sort some bits and pieces. Anyway, I did manage a very small number of images, all in the same location and not really anything much like what I was hoping for - I was going to do the Tolkien Trail around Hurst Green. But here they are anyway.

These are all very “square”, but they weren’t all like that.

We’ll see what the rest of the week might offer in terms of the prospect of , I’m not too confident though. Perhaps a tutor chat and me just getting my head back in order will help.

Curation attempt

Rob — 2011-06-26T11:07:14+01:00

Some time ago now I ran off a bunch of 3x2 prints just so that I could play with the curation and narrative aspects of what will eventually be a good number of photographs that will need to be whittled down to 20 for the final portfolio. Even now, with only a couple of months having passed, I’m finding it really difficult. Some images just aren’t as strong as others, or maybe don’t quite fit for one reason or another, so these tend to drop out quite quickly. However, in the back of the mind there’s always the thought that maybe one of these could be a good linking image.

The thing I’m finding really quite hard to ignore is the linear aspect of time and the events themselves. As the project is based on a year’s passage, it would make sense to keep chronological order, but then sometimes the flow doesn’t work quite so well. The narrative becomes disjointed. Even with the help of the cards, and the ability to move them around easily on the tabletop, this is a hard task, and I guess it will likely become harder...

Anyway, here’s a first stab at putting something on here. I’m not fully convinced with it, but it’s a start. By the time the year is over, I’d really like a thoroughly convincing set of images...

Video: Curation

A word of caution...

Rob — 2011-06-14T10:58:16+01:00

Whilst I’m moving forward with the project, there’s a word of caution that I have to take heed of - I’ve not to let this move into the realms of the local news journo! Perhaps a couple of images may be moving that way, and to be honest the thought passed through my mind last weekend. Hopefully the end result will be more reminiscent of the contemporary British documentary that I’m aiming for...

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Slaidburn Vintage Day

Rob — 2011-06-12T10:54:46+01:00

On Sunday, it was raining, although is stopped for an hour or so before starting to rain again, which curtailed my photographic activities because I couldn’t keep the end of the lens dry - rain drops isn’t the look I’m going for.

The vintage day was a much smaller affair than the others I’ve been to recently, little more than a few tractors and old cars in the pub car park to be honest, but there was a good atmosphere despite the inclement weather.

Here’s a handful of pictures, and I’ll think about adding some notes about how the narratives will be coming along soon...

Yeah, I really do need to start thinking about narrative and a more consistent style, and also where I might be going with this!

Longridge Field Day

Rob — 2011-06-12T10:47:43+01:00

On Saturday, it looked like it was going to rain again, and in the morning it did, but whilst I was at Longridge for the field day, the rain held off meaning I could use my 5D2 rather than the GF1 (the large lens on the Canon attracts the rain and I’m forever wiping it off).

Anyway, I caught the procession and spent an hour at the fair before having to leave, so I managed to bag a good number of photographs, far more than at the previous events. Some of them feel “at odds” with some of those I’ve taken previously, others fit in well feeling more consistent in terms of style, etc. I’ll have to keep an eye on this.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the first batch I’ve processed:

I’ll be having another trawl through later to see if there’s anything I missed first time around, but right now I’ve to get ready to go to the Slaidburn Vintage Display at the Hark at Bounty...

Connecting...

Rob — 2011-06-09T10:45:29+01:00

I’ve been reading Setting Sun recently, and really enjoying what these Japanese photographers have written. OK, I’ve not read that much of the book yet, but there’s a certain something (Japanese-ness?) about what I’ve read so far that is very distant to some of things I’ve read by Western photographers (Jeff Wall, for example). As I say, I’ve not read that much, so maybe someone like Araki may change this perception...

Anyway, Domon Ken’s Photographic Realism and the Salon Picture has a sentence that really resonated with me:

“Realism, or the ‘absolutely unstaged snapshot’, through the mere tool that is the camera, is a method for connecting oneself directly to a society; it is a way of life that is fully engaged.” (Vartanian et al, p27).

It was the comment on connecting with society specifically that struck the chord - this is exactly what I’m doing (or trying to do) with this project. I am connecting myself with the Ribble Valley society to which I have become a part of. I live very much on the periphery of the physical boundary of the area, but also on the periphery of the societal, human boundaries that exist in the area. By taking on this project, in the first instance I’m forcing myself to step into areas that I’ve not experienced before, sheep and steam engine festivals that form part of the experience of living in a rural community.

I also see that I’m producing a record of that community, something I can give back and that hopefully the people of the community will get to see (either through the www.iamrobtm.co.uk blog, or through the self-published book and exhibition I’m hoping to stage). I’m hoping to engage the community in my work, and myself within that community.

I’m not sure I’ve managed to fully explain myself here, but at least I know what I mean, and this self-understanding should also mean something to me in the taking, editing and curating of my images. Hopefully.

Bibliography
Vartanian, I. Hatanaka, A. and Kamabayashi, Y (eds) (2006) Setting Sun: writings by Japanese photographers. New York. Aperture Foundation

A bit of a snag...

Rob — 2011-06-05T10:44:30+01:00

But not a major one really.

As part of my submission, I’d come up with the idea of an e-book for the iPhone, submitting it for assessment with an old iPhone. Sounds good, but some research has highlighted that you need to be a registered developer (costs money), this, that and the other. In short, what I thought might be a bit of fun will end up being a major piece of work in its own right. So, unless someone offers to create it for me free, it’s not going to happen...

I’ll just stick with the other stuff I’ve got planned.

Chipping Steam Festival

Rob — 2011-05-30T10:34:16+01:00

Bank holiday weekend had the potential to be a good one for my project, with a farmer’s market and a steam festival on the calendar. Unfortunately, the farmer’s market was a bit of a wash out, and whilst I went, the couple of photographs I took did not fill me with any feelings of interest. A little disappointing, but there will be others.

Chipping steam festival was better. Still very wet, and yes this will have affected the crowds which is, in itself, a shame. It does however mean that the photographs are potentially a little more quirky, showing a certain English resilience and character in dealing with the rain. I got something of this from the previous Sheep Fest photographs too. I haven’t intended for this to be a feature of the series, but if it is, then a guess that might be a bonus. There’s not too much blue sky on show - only in a single image so far, so it might have to be curated out of the set if it remains this way for the remainder of the year.

I’ve only processed these photographs in colour for the time being, for the moment at least I’ve made the decision that the series will be in colour. Always time for a change later...

I’ve noticed that the “people” side of this is dominating at the moment, so I will need to go for a few walks for the landscape side of things. Stonyhurst might be worth a visit in the next week or two. I guess I’ve been waiting for the weather to improve, certainly it’s been a little too windy in the last week - I’ve been wanting to go out and take some night shots for the colour project but figure the wind would be too much for the tripod to keep the camera still.

I will come back and give some thoughts of the way I’m feeling about the project in the next few days (over on the “Notes” section of this YOP blog) - it feels like I’ve been really busy with things lately.

A bit of forward planning

Rob — 2011-05-22T10:24:59+01:00

If I’m going to document the life of the Ribble Valley for the next year, it’s fair to say I need to know what’s going on. And beyond knowing what’s going on, I need to gather a rough plan of what needs to go into my selection of photographs. And so this is what I’ve just been doing.

The first place I’ve looked is the Visit Lancashire and Visit Ribble Valley websites for their listings of upcoming events. From these, I’ve got a reasonable list of things going on that might prove interesting for the next three months or so, and a couple a little further in the future. Here it is:

29th May: Samlesbury Farmer’s Market. Whilst Samlesbury Hall is just outside the Ribble Valley area, there will be representatives from the valley present, so I see this as more of a “getting to know people” visit. I might find out about some other future events, or even manage to get access to things that are not events - life on a farm, or in cheese making place (a “cheesery”?), or whatever. There may also be things going on that are interesting in themselves, I don’t want to limit myself to just this project...

30th May: Chipping Steam Fair. This originally started off as a one time event to raise funds for the village hall. Funds for the village hall, or the church roof, always seems like a cliché but it’s obviously something that has to be done in these rural communities. There should be all sorts of vintage vehicles there - steam tractors and rollers, military vehicles, classic cars, etc. I’m also expecting other stuff normally associated with fairs too. I’ve never been to this before, so it will be an experience and I’ll drag my girlfriend round with me. Maybe we should go in the 2CV?

11th June: Longridge Field Day. I was told about this by a friend the other day, although she expected it to be a little earlier in the month. There will be floats, a parade and morris dancing. The website describes it as “all that is good about England and its village communities”, so I’m hoping for something special...

11/12th June: Slaidburn Vintage Vehicle Display. Perhaps this will be quite similar to the Chipping Fair, but I quite like the history here - it started when a local enthusiast parked his roller outside the Hark to Bounty Inn (an inn I have heard things about, and sounds to be worth the visit in its own right). Again, any funds are for the local community (the school. the brownies and the playgroup). Community spirit is one of those things I’m keen to capture.

25th June: Backridge Summer Daze. It’s summer, so I’m hoping there will be some nice weather for a BBQ at a local farm. There’s also a craft market, workshops and a few other bits and pieces. OK, maybe this is an excuse for a nice burger and a beer, but can you blame me?

9th July: Longridge Show. A celebration of farming, food and rural living. Or so the website tells me. There’s cattle, sheep, horses and more vintage machinery. A “grand day out, come rain or shine”, rain is not uncommon here, so no worries, I’m used to that. Hopefully there will be some sun though.

16/17th July: Ribchester Roman re-enactments. Ribchester is the site of an old roman fortification (Brementennacum), so every year the Roman Re-enactment group come for a 2 day display. I’ve contacted the group for details of what’s going on, so hopefully I should be able to plan my visit properly, as last time I went (3 years ago?) it was in the “downtime” of the display, and as it was a brief visit, I missed everything!

27th August: Chipping Agricultural Show. This will be the 84th show held in Chipping, and is reported to feature sheep, cattle, horses and the ubiquitous vintage vehicles. There’s also a dog show, cheese, handicrafts and cakes! All this is situated in the Bowland AONB, so it should be an interesting day.

OK, so that’s the “special” days in the next few months calendar, but I’m also interested in the landscape and the “everyday” of the area, so I’ll be planning some trips into the local villages for a mooch around, looking at what makes these places tick. I’ll wander over Pendle and the Forest of Bowland too. All in all, what I want is to capture the “feel” of the place and the people. It is obvious to me that this is a rural place, and hopefully that’s coming over in the events and also the photographs I’ve put over in the Ribble Gallery selection so far.

I’ve also been thinking a little more about presentation. I guess I’ve been doing this since the start of this module, but the recent videos added on the OCA website on assessment has triggered more thought. Leaving aside the matter of colour or black & white, there’s two parts to what I’m doing here - the greater collection of images and the pared down portfolio. We will have to see what makes it into that final 20 images, but I like the idea of the greater collection. I currently see this manifesting in a number of ways, the obvious 2 being an exhibition and a book (although, depending on space, the exhibition could just be the portfolio...). I’ve also got another couple of ideas as well, but I don’t want to give too much away at the moment. I’d like to think about them some more before putting it into writing. One of them certainly has something of a logistical problem associated with it...

Anyway, enough of this for a few days now, I need to actually start taking some “proper” photographs for the projects! (rather than just ‘tinkering’)

Sheep Fest: mono

Rob — 2011-05-07T10:19:01+01:00

I’ve been thinking since my last post. Never a good sign...

Black and white could be the answer. It’s generally how I feel at the moment, what with all this Japanese photography I’ve been looking at. So here goes - a selection of images from day 1 of Sheep Fest, all processed in black and white:

It’s working better for me at the moment, I think the reason is that, because it was overcast, the ISO was pushed all the way to 200 and, being compact/micro 4/3 cameras, the noise increased. I like grain (quite a lot), but colour noise I find quite unpleasant. Fair to say I haven’t tried Noise Ninja though... I might keep the colour side of things for Advanced, or I might succumb to the call of the mono. Or not. I think I might be a little undecided on my leanings in the colour vs b&w debate!

So anyway, that’s a flavour of the festival/fete side of things, and I’ll intersperse this type of thing with landscape images of the area, of the type seen in the previous blog entries. It feels like I’ve started now. I have to say though, there’s not really much in the way of “telling” moments, although I do like the fact that, despite the rain, some people have turned out, and especially with the Morris dancing, they’re laughing and smiling under their umbrellas.

Oh, and before I go, I’ve had a thought. It probably explains why I’m leaning towards black & white, even before the issue of noise came in. The area I’m photographing is a traditional, rural one. I think perhaps I’m feeling that it should be treated in a traditional photographic style, i.e. black and white. That literally just came up from my unconscious mind as I was typing

That probably means I should do it colour! Aaaaaaaagh!

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Sheep Fest (day 1)

Rob — 2011-05-07T10:03:03+01:00

Well, I’ve been soaked quite thoroughly at Sheep Fest and I have a few images, not too sure they’re really what I want though. I think perhaps these first few outings will be more of a trial to gauge for myself if I’m working in the way I want to. Ranging shots if you like.

I think the weather has kept the crowds down, especially after the previous few weeks, which I’m told have been lovely. It certainly was in France, and today was the first time I’ve worn a coat for a few weeks (was that our summer???). There were still quite a few people around though, considering this is one of the two towns in the area, and not a particularly big one (less than 15000 people I reckon).

Sheep Fest is advertised as an action packed day (although I believe it’s 2 days), and features sheep shearing, morris dancing and some busking, together with some decorated sheep. Not quite the cow parade that has travelled the world - I saw it in Berlin several years ago, but then again they’re decorated by local schools rather than by artists, etc.

Anyway, here’s some of the photographs I’ve taken. I’m not completely convinced with them in my own mind, and although I’ve thought I’d like to shoot colour, I keep on thinking of black & white. I’m going to have to get a small body of work together and see what I think.

And finally, a few in black & white:

I’m hoping the weather will be a bit better tomorrow, and if so I’ll go back for more.

+++UPDATE+++
The weather was better on day 2, but day 2 didn’t actually happen - the ‘sheep parade’ was still around, albeit moved to different locations, but there was nothing else on. No matter, I grabbed a small handful of landscape type images and scoped out the Steward’s Gallery again for a possible exhibition. There was a selection of photographs from the Ribblesdale photographic society there (varied stuff), together with a collection by John Harrison: Oak, Bracken and Bramble. These were woodland shots that had been HDR processed. Not really my cup of tea to be honest and I don’t intend to give a detailed review, but it was good to see the space and the presentation style (pale wooden frames, off white wrinkled mount), etc.

Balderstone

Rob — 2011-04-13T09:49:35+01:00

Another day, another village...

Ribchester

Rob — 2011-04-12T09:27:53+01:00

I needed to get out of the house for a while, away from reading and still life. So, it was off to one of the local villages in the Ribble Valley to see what I could see, perhaps take a few “filler” images that aren’t of specific events. I plan to include these filler images in the portfolio to break up the overall flow: to slow it down or to act as a transition between events or whatever.

Well, Ribchester was certainly quiet today, barely a soul to be seen so it was all going to be snatches of landscape and details. I did get stopped by a chap in a car though, wondering what I was up to, so it was a chance to gauge the reaction, and he seemed fairly interested...

Anyway, no particular order to these, and to be honest I’m not entirely sure they’ll even feature in the greater collection when I’ve finished. I’m not even sure about the processing at the moment, although I am inching ever closer to the full thing being in black & white rather than colour - if only I had the courage to work in both like Engström, but I’ve been bitten by that before, and it smarted!

Browsholme farmer's market

Rob — 2011-04-03T09:23:49+01:00

I tried to get into the spirit of my YOP assignment today, visiting a farmer’s market to see what was going on. As it happened, not a great deal as I think the threat of inclement weather kept some people at bay.

I went out with my GF1, but the inside of the event proved to be too much for it to handle and my DSLR would have been far more forgiving. It’s a lesson I have had to learn though - I already knew it would be the case though, and I guess I just wanted to use my new toy from Focus...

Anyway, it’s a start and I’ll have to actually give the proposal to Alan before too long... (still soldiering on with the essay for UVC, and not taken the gestalt photo’s yet either).

+++UPDATE+++
I thought I’d upload the colour as well, Birdy Brow looks ok (the hill, just in case you were wondering), but then looking at the stall, the girl in pink reminded me why I dropped in to black & white....

She certainly draws the eye!

Major project

Rob — 2011-03-31T09:18:22+01:00

This is just a quick entry: it’s acting as a distraction from writing an essay from UVC. I’ve decided where I’m going with the major project for YOP: a year in the Ribble Valley. The Ribble Valley is a rural area of Lancashire - no cities, only 2 market towns and a host of villages and hamlets, so I hope to capture this “rurality” with the photographs I take.

What I'd like to do is some soc doc style photographs from various events throughout the year: the farmer's market, the Roman re-enaction, club days, etc. and intersperse it with some landscape photography, perhaps inspired by my readings of Tolkien (i.e. not quite like the films...). In all likelihood, I'll end up with more than 20 photographs, so I will cut it back to this for the formal portfolio, but I'm interested in also making a book, so might actually include this at assessment time too (that's a might at the moment). I'm also interested in exploring the commercial possibilities of this, perhaps with the local press and in actually exhibiting.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering where the Tolkien reference comes in, the Ribble Valley is reported to be where he got his inspiration from for Middle Earth (and he wrote it at Stonyhurst college, a few miles from where I live). So not New Zealand after all....

I still need to take the Gestalt photographs and do some more writing, but this will have to wait until after my UVC essay.

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Boring Postcards

Rob — 2011-03-15T09:08:48+00:00

I’ve realised that the Boring Postcard might not be as viable as previously imagined, and that my first trial met with limited success. However, I feel that I should put forward my reasoning behind it so that my tutor might understand my thinking.

It all started last year whilst studying the Landscape module and my Roundabouts series, my tutor mentioned the book of postcards by Parr which I purchased shortly afterwards. When I looked through the book it is immediately apparent that these photographs from what looks to be the 50’s and 60’s are indeed mundane, however photographing the mundane is a not insignificant part of contemporary photography (take the photograph of the step in the Düsseldorf blog entry as an example). There were even a few photographs that reminded me of the work of other photographers, the two examples below are quite remarkable to me.

The Fast Reactor, Dounreay, Caithness

The Tourist Information Centre, Fort William

The first postcard is an industrial structure, so immediately reminds me of the work of the Becher’s. Sure, it’s not a replica of one of their images, and it could never be directly mistaken for one of theirs - the format is wrong, and we’ll not get into the quality side of the discussion, but as a general aesthetic and feeling, I can see the link. I’m not taking a leap too far here...

Becher, B & H (1997) Watertowers [photograph]
http://www.bridgemaneducation.com/ImageView.aspx?result=3&balid=323863

Similarly, the Fort William photograph gives me a sense of ‘Stephen Shore’. Again, I’m not saying it looks like Shore took the photograph, there’s all sorts of differences between a Shore and the postcard, not least the technical side of things. However, I do find it quite telling that Shore also did his own series of postcards, and I assume he was buying into the zeitgeist - there’s a book of American Boring Postcards too - maybe something to look into at some point.

It was this representation of the mundane and everyday that I wanted to work with rather than the postcards per se, after all it does seem like a natural progression for me, and something I tend to work with. Perhaps I’m just going about it the wrong way. Enough of that....

What I have done in the meantime is look at some of the postcards of images in the North West and appropriate them in a Street View style. This has been done quite a lot recently, but it saves me the cost of the petrol...

Here’s some examples (in no particular order):

Bridle Road, Eastham

Cheshire College of Education, Alsager

The Leisure Centre, Sale

Forton service area, M6 Motorway

National Giro Centre, Bootle

New Shopping Centre, Towngate, Leyland

The New Bus Station, Preston

Fortes, M6 Motorway, Charnock Richard

In addition to the photographing of the mundane, I figured there would also be some historical interest in what has happened in the intervening period, not to mention what may be about to happen - for one, Preston Bus Station, once the largest in Europe, is now threatened with demolition. Whilst some scenes are relatively unchanged (Blackburn Tech), others show signs of change or even complete redevelopment in the case of Tesco taking over Towngate shopping centre.

One thing I need to point out is that the Street View reproductions (photographed from the screen) are the best approximation I could manage.

Bibliography
Parr, M (1999) Boring postcards. London. Phaidon Press Ltd

Fingertip search - Boring Postcards

Rob — 2011-03-13T09:01:05+00:00

I’ve been thinking about my proposal for the portfolio, which currently looks like it might be a re-imagining of Parr’s Boring Postcards, or at least a few of them. Before I launch headlong into a project that might not actually be as interesting as I’m hoping it will be, or even as viable as I hope it will be, there’s a need to play with the idea a little, much as I have with the rural sports theme (which isn’t completely dead yet, it’s still waiting in the wings).

Just to recap my idea, I’m looking at revisiting the locations of some of the Boring Postcards, primarily those in the North West in order to save money, but this wouldn’t be a hard and fast rule. I’m thinking of coming at the project in a two-fold way, the first to rephotograph the scene to provide a historical document, so that the passage of time between the original postcard and today can be seen, and more importantly to photograph the scene in a contemporary manner so that it might actually be shown in a more interesting light. Now, whether this is actually achieved is another matter, or indeed whether it is actually achievable, but bearing in mind what the Becher’s did for their typologies, there’s hope...

Having looked through the book of postcards, there’s maybe a couple of dozen or so that are in a more local area, but to do my initial “fingertip search” I’ve just picked one that’s probably the closest to where I am: Blackburn Technical College. This has potential to be a tricky subject to make interesting, and initial postcard image is shown below:

New Technical College, Blackburn from the book Boring Postcards by Martin Parr. Image reproduced by permission of Martin Parr.

As part of the research, I thought I’d jump in on the whole Street View appropriation thing and photograph my computer monitor with the same general scene:

Perhaps there’s not a huge amount of change in the scene from a historical point of view, not in this particular one anyway - there certainly is in some. If you take the New Shopping Centre, Preston postcard, it’s now actually got a roof...

The next step will be to go out and photograph the college first hand, both as above and also if I can get something more interesting. I’ve been looking at the Düsseldorf School, John Davies’ book Cities on the edge and the American colour photographers for inspiration in terms of an approach, but as this is on an urban street, there may be limited options. My trip down there later will include some general survey shots (i.e. not “arty” ones, just for information). We’ll see - this could be make or break time for this option.

+++UPDATE+++
Well, judging by the first tentative research, the project is a non-starter.

Earlier today I have been to the site of this first postcard to take some exploratory photographs and it is not a good start. There has been development in the time since the Street View can visited the area, and there is now a multi-storey car park opposite the college in place of the open car park that can be seen in the bottom right corner. This, together with existing buildings means that I can not get the distance from the site in order for the coverage I would want. See the images below:

(cropped to the same height as the postcard)

The second of the photographs shows the building from the opposite side of the road, hard up against the property line so I could not get back further without introducing visual barriers into the scene (railings, etc). These photographs were all taken with a 14mm lens and a GF1, so I could get a little more field of view from my Canon, but not significantly more. As can be seen, to get the roof we lose the lower floor, or to get the floor, we lose the top of the building. For this location it’s just not going to work, well not in a way to make it more interesting - I can still replicate the original photograph to show the historical effects of the passage of time, but this is not enough for what I wanted to achieve.

Yes, there are plenty of other sites that I could visit from the Boring Postcards book, but to be honest, I’m not so sure there’s enough within a close enough distance to me to make it financially viable at the moment. Maybe giving up at the first hurdle is being a little bit defeatist, but I have to be sure I can actually achieve something before I give in my proposal. This was exactly the reason I tried this preliminary trial...

So, back to the drawing board for now.

I might still continue this as a side project though, just to see how I get on.

+++UPDATE+++
I posted a version of my postcard image on Flickr and received a confusing comment from CliveW:

“You were obviously going in the wrong direction Rob; the thought should have been 'even more boring'.
Hahahaha”

At first I took it on the chin that the project was effectively dead (as I posted earlier) and whilst I might continue to follow the idea in my own time, a new idea for the portfolio is required. Then I was pointed in the direction of Allan Grainger, and now I don’t know what to think!

I’ll be speaking to Alan later this week to see if I can make any sense of what I’ve been thinking recently.

Bibliography
Parr, M (1999) Boring postcards. London. Phaidon Press Ltd

Idea put forward for comment

Rob — 2011-03-03T08:57:32+00:00

I’ve put forward my first idea to my tutor for comment on whether he believes it might be suitable for progressing in terms of this module. The jury is out, so I guess we’ll see at some point soon.

Basically, my idea concerns Martin Parr’s book of Boring Postcards. I’ve mentioned this in the past when it struck me that some of these boring postcards are not actually that far removed from what I consider to be contemporary photography. There’s a few examples I can mention, such as the postcard of the Dounreay fast reactor being similar to photographs by the Bechers. Or the Fort William tourist information office reminding me of the photographs by Stephen Shore. There’s others too.

What I was thinking was that it would be interesting to take some of these views and revisit the locations, photographing them in a contemporary style that might then not be quite so ‘boring’ in terms of modern photographic practice. Maybe part of the exercise could be to recreate the image (in compositional terms), thus creating a record of how the scene has changed during the intervening 50 years or so.

Is this suitable for this third year project? As I say, the jury is out and my tutor is putting my initial thoughts forward for a vote, but even if the answer is a “no”, I’m actually quite interested in doing this anyway. I’ve even written to Martin Parr to see what he thinks...

+++UPDATED+++
I’ve just had an e-mail back from Martin Parr, and he’s given me permission to reproduce the Boring Postcards book and wants to be kept updated on how the project pans out. Now I just need to see what my tutor has to say and see if we can actually take it forward for the purposes of YOP.

+++UPDATED+++
I’ve been given the green light to work on the idea as my major project, so over the next few weeks I’ll be fleshing it out for assignment 1 and the formal proposal, doing a trial image just to see if it meets my expectations.

Unless of course I come up with another idea...

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Inception

Rob — 2011-03-02T08:56:55+00:00

I don’t mean the film though.

I’ve had an idea about a possible project, and to be honest it excites me more than anything else I’ve thought about so far. I won’t go into too many details at the moment as I need to do a bit of research on the practicality of carrying out the project - it might just prove too expensive to do. Basically though it expands upon an observation I made in my Landscape scrap book on attitudes to contemporary art photography and British culture, although it may also be possible to do with American or German subjects... (not that I will, at least not now).

As I say, more research is required...

Rural Sport

Rob — 2011-03-01T08:54:44+00:00

I stopped by at a local rugby field today and took a few photographs. I know I mentioned football the other day, but I thought I’d take a look at rugby as well. There was no real purpose to this, other than seeing how I felt afterwards, and to be honest I’m not too sure about it. It certainly doesn’t interest me like the others I’ve taken of the football field have done.

Anyway, the last few photographs I’ve taken for this idea had been colour, but this one worked better in black and white, so I thought I’d give the mono treatment to one of my previous images.

It looks ok, but I think I prefer the colour version (here), perhaps it is this that has set my mind back a little: the previous photographs I’ve liked have quite a muted colour palette, but the rugby ground today isn’t and therefore that’s why I’m thinking to put it in monochrome. That certainly wasn’t my original intention, so not a particularly good start...

Now, I’m not sure if this will be the death of the project, or whether it’s just something to make me stop and think. I know I need to think anyway - I kind of like the idea of doing a still life set, but what of and how are still eluding me. To be honest, the whole final portfolio subject is eluding me, but it’s still early days and I’ve got loads of time to think about it, so I will do. It will come to me, I’m confident of that.

Throwing ideas out and seeing what sticks...

Rob — 2011-02-26T08:50:31+00:00

The main drive of this course is towards a portfolio of work consisting of 10-20 photographs. What this portfolio is about is completely open, so I have to think about what will be worthwhile, what will be interesting to commit so many hours towards (approx. 360 based upon the course notes).

Based on the previous course, 360 hours seems a phenomenal amount of hours to put into 20 photographs: 18 hours per image! Of course, there’s research to do as well, and this will take up a lot of this time, I guess it depends on what type of subject I choose. Then there’s processing, presentation and all that type of stuff. Perhaps it’s not so much time after all. Maybe I just spent more time than I thought at the previous levels...

I’ve known this has been coming for a while now, and I’ve been thinking about subject for the last few months. My Landscape tutor has stated that he would like me to continue the roundabout study I did during that course, for example. Now, I think that might be an idea for some personal work, and I know that should I do it (and I probably will) it does need some further thought and work to make it more cohesive but I don’t think I will choose to do that now. At least the experience of the Landscape seasons portfolio has shown me that the initial thought phase needs to be quite thorough, otherwise it becomes harder to produce the body of work in a way that I can be happy with (I wanted to change the style of the images part way through the year, but this would mean that the photographs felt like two different bodies of work).

Something else that I am very interested in pursuing is that of documenting rural football grounds in the Lancashire area. I live in a small village, and a few miles away the next small village has a couple of football grounds where teams come on a Sunday and play. These are far from the fancy facilities that are sometimes available in the cities, and it has lead me to think that it might actually make an interesting subject: how isolated communities can be brought together by football, but when the games are not being played, how lonely the area feels. As a concept it needs work, but I’ve already taken a few “test” photographs.

Rural Sport

Another subject I wouldn’t mind looking at is a still life study. This isn’t something I’ve particularly looked at in the past, so it might be quite daunting. Crushed cans placed in a studio environment is an option listed in the course notes, so that immediately becomes a no-no due to the lack of imagination involved, although I might still have a go at it just for fun. What might be more interesting and relevant to me is a study of diabetes - both my girlfriend and I are diabetic, as was my father and ultimately it lead to his death. I’m not sure how I would approach this, what would I photograph? A comparison of “good” and “bad” food? The trappings of a diabetic? I don’t really want to do this as a social documentary, so this would rule out some options.

I have already stated an interest in doing a series of “vague” portraits after reading the first chapter of Train your gaze. Based on my initial thoughts, this would be a set of 16 images in a square. I like the idea, but I’m not so sure I could spin it out to last 360 hours...

I need to think up more ideas obviously, I can’t just jump in feet first to the first idea that I think of otherwise I would regret it at some point. I am very interested in the Rural Sport theme though. I also need to think what would suit my own personal way of looking at things, and I’m aware that this has a habit of flitting about from one thing to the next quite frequently; if I was the type, I’d say it was because I was a Gemini...

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