Category Archives: Assignment One

Assignment One – Feedback

I received Clive’s feedback on Assignment One yesterday, which is positive and supportive, so now it’s a case of onwards and upwards with the various strands of my Body of Work. The feedback on my key question of scope is to maintain this breadth, which has the potential to ensure I fulfil requirements, then maybe narrow things later as time/interest develops.

Within the Studio Projects, I’ll continue to look at all the various strands with which I’ve been experimenting. Clive seems to have picked up on the provocative/subversive aspects, noting that using Photoshop crudely is “… in direct opposition to the accepted polite ‘application’ …”, which can make it “… problematic for people to accept.” He also points me in the direction of Elad Lassry, who certainly seems to approach photography in a provocative manner e.g. in this interview – The Photographic Problem. That short piece certainly poses some challenging questions, which are worthy of further thought.

The Self-portraits are also fully supported. On further reading of the feedback just prior to writing this note, I have picked up a reference to a ‘form of return’ (read, in addition, ‘to the past’) and there is a comparison to autobiography. I understand where that comes from, but it makes me reflect that, whilst I have in mind to use the old Newsbook as a kind of prompt, I do not see the project as in any way ‘looking back’, and certainly not as autobiographical. I regard it as a work of fiction that is perhaps closer to Cindy Sherman’s images of ‘Self’ – photographically constructed versions of fictional persona, which just happen to feature my body. Of course, I also recognise that it is difficult to imagine that there can be no ‘me’ in the Body of Work; just as one could argue that there is Cindy Sherman, the artist, in her work. But that is, maybe, something of a truism and doesn’t say anything helpful about the work itself. Food for thought, also.

Assignment One Submission

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My first Assignment submission has just gone off to Clive. It sets out my proposal for the Body of Work and submits some images that indicate the direction it’s going. This quote from the accompanying notes summarises my intentions.

My proposal, now, is to pursue two main directions:

1. ‘Studio-based’ image-making that uses collage, montage, still-life and digital manipulation to explore the layers of meaning and disruption that are imposed in the creation of digital photographic images. I anticipate that this exploration will include images that respond to events and news, as well as more generic still-life constructs.

2. A series of self-portraits that create alternative identities (alter-egos) that I might have been, ideally shot in a variety of styles which relate to the context of those identities. Prompted, to an extent, by the pages of an old Newsbook created when I was a child, the series should examine the ways in which photographic images create persona and construct narratives that may or may not bear relation to truth.

The images submitted have all appeared elsewhere in this blog, with two exceptions that I include here for completeness. The first is another in the trial self-portrait series – Farmer Stan, photographed in the style of a magazine article illustration that uses fill-flash to illuminate the subject.

The second is a new ‘still life’ construct, based around a Cezanne painting (appropriated and printed), to which I have added, through photography, collage and digital manipulation, a mandolin, a pewter vase, and a roll of electrical tape. On the one level it is , hopefully, an attractive and mildly amusing image, but on another, it raises questions about the layers of influence and disruption to truth that have ben applied in its construction; and hopefully, questions about the nature of digital photographic images as a whole.

I won’t repeat the other images that have gone off; but all of them are, in a sense, sketches at this stage, intended to indicate my proposed direction. I need feedback before going further – not least to take a ‘reality check’ on whether my proposed projects are too little, too much, or about right.

A Personal Journey – back where I started!

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A deliberately ambiguous headline! On Wednesday of this week, I took a trip back to some old haunts from my childhood. Searching out a few of the locations that featured in the Newsbook provided some focus, but it was also intended as an open-ended/open-minded exploration of the place I grew up, with the potential to hit some emotional buttons and lead who knows where. Actually, I don’t feel that it has lead me anywhere – other than back to the conclusion that I don’t do emotional, personal journeys! As briefly as I can, this is the story – starting out with the revisited locations.

The book itself was created, nearly 60 years ago, behind the two tall arched windows to the right of the building shown in the top right image – my old primary & junior school. The location featuring most frequently, with the narrative “I went to church on Sunday”, is a very small country church – St Marks at Eagland Hill. It is still there, little changed, and judging by the drawing & photo (second row down), the weather on Wednesday was similar to October 1955! Another frequent piece of ‘news’ was that I went to my ‘Granny’s’ (or on one, more pretentious, occasion, ‘Grandma’s’!). The third pair of images shows that ‘Clocky Hill Cottage’ has changed significantly. It was always attached to another property on the left, even though my 1955 drawing suggests otherwise; but the smaller, older whitewashed part of the property (known to my mother’s family as “Th’owd end”) has been replaced with a new extension. My mother was born there nearly 100 years ago, and the last of her family only left the cottage in the 1980s. St Marks Church and Clocky Hill are both in the hamlet of Eagland Hill, but my childhood was more associated with the neighbouring village of Pilling, where I lived. The school is there, and so is the graveyard that featured in my Newsbook – between two other village churches shown in the fourth photograph down. I couldn’t seem to locate my grandparents’ grave and the ground was too sodden to tramp around in. But I did go off in search of the cinema at Knott End – a few miles away – where “I went to the pictures” in January 1956. I knew very well that the cinema was no more, but the building remains – as a squash club named ‘The Squash’!!

So, what to make of that aspect of my trip? It’s at least twenty years since I last saw some of these locations – but no surprises, really. And, apart from a recognition that the locations exist in some form or other, and could possibly provide locations for some of the self-portraits, no inspiration either. I could use them, but they don’t have anything distinctive to offer. Which is pretty much my reaction to much of my ‘Personal Journey’. I don’t believe that the ‘place’ that is Pilling – or Wyre Borough, as the district is now known – ever had much impact on me. In fact, as I’ve looked back, I’ve always suspected that it’s greatest effect was probably a stifling one and Wednesday left me with the same idea.

Interesting to note that the institutions – the churches & schools – have barely changed at all in 60 years. I have brothers living a few miles away, but I know no one in the village, and so I wondered whether the people and their lives have changed much. They will have, of course, through technology and communications if in no other way. Then I notice the names of Churchwardens in the Parish Church illustrated above. One of them is called Ben Shepherd and, remarkably, when I attended this church regularly, maybe 45 years ago, one of the Churchwardens was called Ben Shepherd!! And, at St Marks Eagland Hill, I popped into the church porch, where a flower rota was displayed. My late mother’s name was Dorothy. It’s not that common a name these days – but here is the St Marks flower rota for 2013-14! Crikey, Mum, not still doing it, surely!

That’s what I mean by stifling. I was only in the area for a few hours, but I felt the past crowding in on me. I may sound ungrateful – to an area that looked after me well enough; to a loving family & friends; to a harmless and enjoyable childhood – but I’m not. I went off to University in the centre of London when I was eighteen and hated the wrench from this comfortable country village life – understandably. But a few years later, much as I loved to come back and see my family, I would always get that stifling sensation within a day or two – and it’s perhaps the most striking emotion, maybe the only one, that I felt on this visit.

And so, I began making pictures that looked outward. Pilling & Knott End are on the Southern edges of Morecambe Bay; and my eye and my camera began to wander in that direction.

‘Looking upwards and outwards’ is a good principle to work with, I think; looking to the present and the future, not towards the past. I had thought that the self-portrait project should be about ‘now’ – a serious but light-hearted reflection on where one might be now rather than any notions of regret or nostalgia – and I now know that that is correct. There is a slight hint of melancholy in the way those four images above have headed; and part of me does wish I was more emotional, more naturally open about my feelings, but whenever I’ve tried to go that way with my photography, the result has been angst and frustration, so I’m certainly not going to make that mistake again. Mind you, if I believed in Divine Intervention, I might have been moved by what happened just a few moments after the last of those four images …

I left those churches and associated beliefs behind a long, long time ago – but maybe they’re still after me!! It’s just light, of course, like all photographic images! It was the light that was changing, not my mood, honestly!

So I made my personal journey, back to my roots, and I took 80-90 photographs, of which a handful have something to say about where I go with my Body of Work project. I first came up with the idea for the Newsbook project when I was reading BJP. It was an article about a young photographer who was making a series of images that related to a narrative around communication with his mother, who had died when he was a child. Not for the first time, I thought “… no deep emotional trauma has ever happened to me, and maybe that’s a shortcoming when it comes to being creative …”. Then came the idea of creating different narratives, different versions of me – maybe using the Newsbook, the five-year-old’s story as the trigger. If life isn’t interesting, create an interesting life – more than one, maybe!

The journey back to my roots has also taken me back to the beginning with the project. It will be a contemporary, post-modern project in the ‘now’. It is not about me or my personal journey, because the author is dead. Abigail Solomon-Godeau, in the concluding paragraph to her essay ‘Playing in the Fields of the Image‘, in ‘Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices‘ (page 102), says:

“The photographer’s personal vision, sensibility, or capacity for self-expression is assumed to be of interest only to his or her friends, families, lovers, or analysts. While the aesthetics of consumption (photographic or otherwise) requires a heroicised myth of the (male) artist, the exemplary practice of the player-off of codes requires only an operator, a producer, a scriptor, or a pasticheur.”

I am a producer, a scriptor or a pasticheur and, happily, can dispense with the angst!

Studio Self Portraits – Trying out some ‘in the style of’

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Thinking about the proposal to produce a series of self-portraits, I have been trying out some ‘in the style’ of ideas. I was partly prompted by a Sky Arts documentary about the current David Bailey exhibition, ‘Stardust‘, at the National Portrait Gallery. Listening to Bailey and viewing many of his portraits – from back in the Sixties, right up to date, with some produced specially for the exhibition – I was inspired to try creating a Bailey-style self-portrait. It could be, for example, that one of the alter-egos has been photographed by him! I did a little bit of online research, too, to ascertain as far as I could what his typical lighting arrangement might be; and to soak up the grainy, high contrast black & white look. One of his own, recent self-portraits, featured in this article about the exhibition, provided a useful reference point.

In simple terms, there is a strong, raised light source from front left of camera, with a brightly lit white background to ensure strong contrast. Whilst that isn’t necessarily the universal pattern for his portraits, it is certainly typical. So that wasn’t too hard to replicate. I don’t have a pure white background but I illuminated it with a second light shining from behind be onto the off-white background, to ensure that much of it might blow-out in the portrait. (It was also creased, so there are a few marks that got through to the final version! Well spotted by Clive when I shared it on Flickr!) I worked with quite a shallow depth of field – F5.6 – to try and ensure that the background was out of focus (limited space available to create distance), which did mean that the portrait itself was less sharp at the edges than it might have been. I imagine Bailey using a fast shutter speed, from his fashion work, and I wanted to get some graininess in the final version, so I went for 1/250th at ISO1600, with a 50mm prime lens. I used one of Lightroom’s preset Black & White conversions as a starting point, and then tweaked further to get a little extra contrast, as well as cropping square, Bailey-style. This is what I ended up with. Bailey would be watching his subject, looking for the pose and expression he wanted. That is certainly one of the challenges of the self-portrait; and I did take a few, from which this was my preferred selection.

Feeling reasonably pleased with that first shot, I moved on to try the ‘style of’ another contemporary portrait photographer, Nadav Kander. He has taken portraits of some highly influential people, of course, and once again I did some internet research first. There is quite a selection on his website, here http://www.nadavkander.com/nadav_kander_main.html. I articularly noticed one of the Prince of Wales, using backlighting, and decided to have a go at recreating that one. He frequently has his subjects looking off camera, to the right of frame, often with a staring expression & sometimes open-mouthed. It’s an
odd, almost mystical look, which I’ve tried to replicate here.

There is a light low to my left and slightly behind me, creating the edge-lighting highlight; then a second, reflected light to my front right, and much further away, which is filling in to ensure some detail is visible in the front shaded area. I like that this is such a contrast with the Bailey-like image; a very different mood. If the Bailey image makes me a rock star, this might work for the bishop, for example! Imagine me in a dark jacket, purple bishop’s shirt front, vicar’s collar, maybe a cross around my neck – I could see that working!

There are certain generic portrait styles that crop up again and again in magazine articles. One that is a regular in the Times Magazine – maybe elsewhere, too – it to have the subject standing, facing to the right of camera, at a slight angle, shot full-length against a white background. The subject might be adopting a quirky attitude or giving the camera a defiant look. There is a hint of shadow somewhere, to give the image some depth, but it always looks to me as though it has been added later, in a kind of painterly fashion. So, that’s what I’ve done with this one. Simple front on lighting, though through a diffusing umbrella, then a hint of shadow added (not all that professionally!) in Photoshop. The background I used wasn’t that white, but I’ve selected my image and put it on a pure white background before brushing in that hint of shadow.

Finally, I’ve gone back to a portrait style that I used a few times myself, when completing the People & Place module – a deadpan portrait, in the style of the images of friends and fellow students taken by Thomas Ruff back in the Seventies. The style and the lighting is OK, but I’m a
hell of a lot older than the subjects in Ruff’s series !!

They were deliberately expressionless portraits, with very neutral lighting and a very plain background, always shot as head and shoulders and always in a 4:3 ratio.

It’s been an interesting exercise that, if nothing else, has got me into the process of photographing myself. The project will involve location work, too, of course, but there’s some useful groundwork on studio styles here.

Thinking With – Responding to Events

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I’ve titled this part of my experimentation ‘Responding to Events’, for want of something better; it stems from the final assignment of my last Level 2 module, where I constructed images of cricket in response to a brief to photograph an event. I am, I feel, likely to continue, as part of my Level Three ‘Body of Work, to explore the potential for using appropriation and ‘studio-based’ work to respond to ‘events’. I suppose I might say, in the manner of documentary photography. Last week I read Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s essay ‘Who Is Speaking Thus? Some Questions about Documentary Photography’, from ‘Photography at the Dock’ (University of Minnesota Press 1991), in which she refers to Bertolt Brecht & Walter Benjamin’s insistence that “… reproductions of reality were powerless to say anything about that reality …” and that political photographic practice must be “set up” and “constructed”; in which context she uses the photomontages of John Heartfield as an example. There’s nothing new, as they say, and I guess what I’m doing here certainly falls within this tradition of photomontage, albeit with a contemporary digital twist to it.

A word or two about the production of this image, to begin with; there is probably at least three days work in it, maybe more than four. That doesn’t make it good or worthwhile, of course, but it does suggest I’m serious about it! I have recorded the actual process elsewhere in a notebook and won’t repeat all the detail here, but it has involved:

researching and sourcing images online (both initially and then subsequently to complete the composition as it developed);
shooting one part myself and sourcing another from within my own images;
since these images came in all manner of sizes and resolutions, resizing and adjusting as necessary to bring them to a standard (resolution of 150 ppi in this case, as it happens);
selection of people, buildings etc in Photoshop to create a ‘digital sketch’ of the idea – below;

print and cut-out with craft knife, then assemble a ‘physical version’;
re-photograph that physical montage, experimenting as necessary with lighting (of which I could have done more, maybe), but arriving at this version;

more research to add additional elements, followed by further digital processing and manipulation to arrive at the final version at the top of this post (and there are subtleties in the detail of, for example, the sky, which are designed to confuse the eye as to how the image has been constructed).

That’s a lot of work; these images are certainly not the same as popping out and taking a few photographs! There might even be questions about whether or not they are valid images within the context of a photography degree. I don’t have any problems with a strong ‘yes’ in response to such a question; and I’m hoping that this one works on a number of levels:

The subject matter itself, for example; questions about what these people are doing & where they’re all going; and why it matters; and how we know about it; and just what is the media’s role.
Then, perhaps, questions about documentary photography in the 21st century & the ways in which photographers/artists might respond to events; questions around appropriation and the significance of constructed work versus photographing the ‘real’.
Maybe also, some questions about what constitutes a photographic image in the digital/internet age; the layers of meaning that I have constructed through the various stages of the process;
And it also occurs to me that there are issues around the single image versus a series of images – whilst this could certainly form part of a series that more thoroughly explores some of the above issues, I’m also seeking, I think, to make it work as a single image. That isn’t always the case with contemporary photography.

This is part of the experimentation and the process of ‘Thinking With’. It will probably form part of my Assignment One submission and is something that I’m sure I will continue to work with in my Body of Work.

“Autofocus: the self-portrait in contemporary photography” – Susan Bright

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Just read this – Susan Bright – “Autofocus: the self portrait in contemporary photography” (Thames & Hudson, London, 2010). First point to make is that it’s my first ‘borrow’ from the Huddersfield University Library, having joined for £25 pa, as a Public Member. It’s a good scheme; Huddersfield runs a Photography degree, so reasonably well stocked with relevant books and I can borrow up to five books at a time, for two weeks, with online access to their search facility (from home) and the facility to renew/reserve online, should I wish.

This book is on the extended reading list for Level Three modules, but I specifically looked at it as a possible source of context and ideas for the notion of a major project based along the lines discussed at the end of this earlier post – here. To some extent, ‘context’ is for Contextual Studies, and the confirmed guidelines are that there must be a clear distinction between the two modules when it comes to Assessment, so any detailed discussion, should it be relevant, will come there. But I’m sure I can, at least, say that this is a very useful ‘survey’ of the use of the self-portrait by contemporary photographically-based artists, with a little bit of history thrown in for context, and a reasonably broad definition of what constitutes a self-portrait. She sub-divides the ‘genre’ into five headings – Autobiography; Body; Masquerade; Studio & Album; and Performance – but there is inevitable overlap and flexibility. It has certainly introduced me to several artists/work that I had not seen before, some using ‘Masquerade’ & ‘Studio & Album’ in interesting ways, such as Aneta Grzeszykowska, Tomoko Sawada‘ and Yasumasa Morimura; as well as some that I already knew of, such as Joan Foncuberta & Gillian Wearing.

Reading this book, and reflecting on my idea for a project stemming from the ‘Newsbook, has fired my imagination in all sorts of directions as to what this project could be. What if I ‘invent’ a number of alternative, present day persona, directly related to pages from the ‘Newsbook’ and then create a series of contemporary self-portraits of me as those persona? [Bishop Stanley Dickinson; Stan the farmer worker, who stayed in the village (and who might be deceased!); Stan the radical left-wing activist; Stan the forgotten pop lyricist; and so on!]. What if I then construct, through images or whatever, the back story for those persona? What if those back stories all take different forms? A newspaper article about the Bishop; a family album and/or Facebook page about the farm worker; a police file about the activist; a blog about the lost lyricist; and so on … The possibilities for such a project are considerable, which excites me a lot.

Then back to feet on the ground and what might be achievable! I think I’m approaching a point where I need to formalise a few ideas ‘on paper’ to share with Clive before moving much further forward. At the moment, my thinking is best summarised along these lines:

I remain committed to the idea that my work will explore the boundaries and potential of digital image-making;
Extending the still-life exploration also interests me – with the added possibilities associated with the first bullet point above;
There is, I feel sure, good potential in looking at ways of extending the use of found images, collages, studio constructs etc, to respond to ‘events’ – as I began to do in my final Level Two assignment;
And now, I can see lots of opportunity to create work that explores photography’s ability to construct narrative and identity – initiated by the Newsbook, but then brought up to date with some form of self-portraiture.

I wonder whether, actually, these points can define my way forward. I need to share and seek input from my tutor.

‘Thinking With’ – My Photography – Progress Report 3

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There may be ways of combining different aspects of my interests with an element of personal project. My final PwDP assignment used a sort of still life/collage/archive mish-mash to respond to an event – a sporting event, ‘The Ashes’. I have thought about exploring the potential to use what I might call ‘studio constructs’ to respond to real life events – studio documentary? Might this be possible/important/relevant, with the supposed demise of traditional photo-journalism?

My final People & Place assignment involved portraits of people holding a possession that they had had since childhood, and this image sort of combines elements of all of that.

The notion of holding something that we/others held in the past; I find that interesting … a physical connection that can unleash all sorts of emotional responses. There are different references to ‘holding’ in this very personal image … and I have held all the objects in the image in the last few days, when I put them together. And the traditional idea of a photograph as something to ‘hold’ – that has particular meaning today. There isn’t a lot of thought gone into the actual assembly and composition here – but there is a notion with scope for further investigation.

Holding a possession from the past links directly to this final group of images. Between May 2nd 1955 and March 19th 1956, when I was aged 5-6, I kept (like all fellow pupils in my primary school infant class) a News Book. It was done every Monday and tended to report what had happened over the weekend (often not much!). My late mother hung on to it and now I still have it – 35 pages, each with a wax crayon drawing and some words in pencil, recording events in my life over that ten month period, getting on for sixty years ago.

I can’t help but feel some odd sensations, all these years later, holding the book in my hands and thinking about that child who made it – the little me (literally – I have pictures to prove it).

The events aren’t particularly impressive in themselves; and my drawing wasn’t up to much; but I can vaguely remember doing it, and even vaguely recall some of the events. I’ve actually photographed the whole book and turned it into a 3 minute slideshow, as part of my ‘Thinking With’. It’s here, on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40GdctbOOg0

This object – document, perhaps – has opened up other thoughts about personal projects. The module notes identify a genre referred to as ‘Personal Journeys’ and I do intend, perhaps in the next few weeks, to go back to some of the places featured in the News Book and photograph them as they are now; some I will not have seen for year and years.

But then there is a much bigger idea that is developing in my mind – a challenging, genre-hopping project that might just be the basis for a significant Body of Work. There are no clues in the pages of the News Book that point to the person I have become. There’s evidence of a good Christian upbringing – long forgotten, in truth, but hopefully helping to for a ‘decent bloke’ – but not a lot more. So – what if I were to take some of these pages as starting points for the construction of a series of fictional (largely image-based, of course) narratives of different versions of me – alternative ‘Stan Dickinson’s, that never happened? … and on that bombshell… as Alan Partridge might say!

‘Thinking With’ – My Photography – Progress Report 2

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I said that Christmas intervened in my thinking with. Inevitably, it involved some family fun and some family photos. There can often be something quite surreal about these Christmas get-togethers. So some of the photos of the photos have a touch of surreal ambiguity about them.

Photographs can certainly tell stories but they can also ask questions! And trying to answer the questions can raise new ones and make the whole thing even more complicated … Or is this the ‘decisive moment’?

Which brings me and my ‘Thinking With’ indoors. Into this ‘stream of consciousness’ approach to image making comes an impromptu self portrait.

I’m not sure this approach is clarifying anything! And something photographed ‘to see what it looked like photographed’ (thank you Gary).

Which brings me to the matter of ‘Still Life’. That artistic genre led me through the latter stages of Level Two and I am well aware that I am not likely to drop it anytime soon. Time to do some thinking with it. I like a flat, even, subtle light (see most of the landscapes above); so some experimentation with my ‘studio lights’, designed to achieve the subtlety one might associate with a still life painting.

The differences are subtle – but the top one works best for me – a single 500 watt bulb, turned upwards and away, then diffused with a hand-held diffusing ring. It could, perhaps, be brightened a little, but I approve of the soft, even feel – some important, subtle judgements in trying to get this sort of thing just right.

The contemporary ‘still-lifers’ that I studied for my Level Two essay – Lucas Blalock, for example – like to experiment with ordinary objects, rather than the traditional still life ‘matter’. This is some colourful electrical tape, with a cleaning cloth.

And, like all good, thrifty still-lifers, I can combine, re-use, and experiment with familiar, easy-to-hand objects.

But my real interest in digital still life lies in the scope to experiment further and test the boundaries. I’ve said that one of my objectives in my ‘Body of Work‘ module is to explore and exploit the potential of digital image-making. I’m interested asking ‘What can we actually do with this process? and ‘What does that look like?’. The words that occur to me are “disruption and subversion”. What happens when we blatantly use the power that digital processes give us and disrupt the normal flow, subverting the genre.

What happens when we subvert the very idea of ‘still’ still life. (cf. – Ori Gersht & Sam Taylor-Wood, who have produced moving still lifes). This following type of image really interests me.

I find it visually attractive, slightly intimidating … it challenges me to try and decide what it is. I could print it big & beautiful, and hang it on a gallery wall – in which case it would definitely be ‘real’. But what is it an image of, and why do I find it attractive. I do feel the need to explore more of this within my Body of Work. I am, though, as mentioned right at the start of this blog, very wary of getting too far up my own backside with intellectualising. That still troubles me and I wonder whether I should be looking at a more personal project.

‘Thinking With’ – My Photography – Progress Report 1

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Six weeks since my conversation with Clive; about five since my early reflections on ‘Genres’ & ‘Thinking With’ rather than ‘About’; some posts about research on Genres (Thinking About!); Christmas has intervened; but no photographs! What’s been going on? Actually, I’ve had those words in my mind, a mantra to which I’ve kept returning; and I have been taking photographs/making images, some of which I’ve shared with fellow students on Flickr. Mostly, from mid-December, I’ve tried to free up my mind & take photographs, just to see whether themes/ideas/concepts/purposes/meanings emerged. In the last 24 hours, I’ve poured out a stream on consciousness into my notebook, exploring what might be going on. I’m not going to repeat all thoughts in this blog, but communicating my thinking is going to take three or four posts, of which this is the first.

To start with a photograph – I took this one about a month ago …

“Out of Nowhere”

Out for a walk on my own; had picked up the camera, hoping to do some ‘thinking with’ … letting my mind relax; opening my eyes to see what I see; just photograph what I want … regardless. I called it “Out of Nowhere” (later, when reflecting) – the wish to photograph it came out of nowhere; the tree is growing out of nowhere; and out of nowhere I was away, taking some pictures. Why photograph it? It made me think of an explosion, actually, but I needed to be careful not to start thinking ‘about’. THINK WITH … take photographs & think afterwards!

“It’s complicated”

It isn’t easy! Six years of studying and learning to think ‘about’ gets in the way; it almost gets easier to think and not photograph. What made me take photographs when it didn’t matter? Seeing abstract shapes, forms colours, patterns, textures in the landscape … Not being a painter or drawer. photography gave me the means to record and communicate these things.

Sometimes, the strangest connections just happen …

There is no connection at all, of course, other than a sort of accidental, formal one, in my own mind; a convenient one that I choose to make. Like …

“Homage to Usain”

It’s more than three years now since I completed the OCA Landscape module. My last assignment involved many visits to a particular site, where I had found resonance with Joel Meyerowitz’s photos of the 9/11 site. It hasn’t changed much in three and a half years …

I took a version of this next image on a Level One module – Introduction to Digital Photography. It was a more colourful, blue sky and autumnal version, but I think I prefer this one … still surreal, though, in a quite weird way.

John Stezaker began his collages and film stills series (which I wrote about here) when he had a print of a film still upside down for years. It had a reflection of a woman’s face in the shiny top of a grand piano. I wonder what would happen if I turned this one upside down?