Monday 24 March 2008

The absurd

In the photographs of the artist Richard Wentworth he observes our daily eccentricities in and about the streets of London and beyond. His Making Do and Getting By study looks at ordinary things that suddenly become quirky or much more odder, now that they are turned into photographs. They are singular gestures such as propping up an old flaky window with a coffee mug or placing a polystyrene cup on a spiky railing.

Although his work has informed me about our strange ways, the type of photographs that I am taking tends to be within the region I live in Lancashire in the North West. The information I want to gather is similar in visual tones but the messages are slightly different and more to do with the ridiculous than the sublime, and more with absurdity than resourcefulness and making-do.

Sometimes the surrealism leans in too. This is an area where many photographers of the past can be aligned. Surrealism has been suggested into Eugene Atget’s photography, Andre Kertesz’s, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s and dozens of others throughout the 20th Century. It’s a deeper subject that swamps the darker recesses of reality and too sprawling for me to be a master of its text but its also personal and viewed through a camera can create some strange and mixed communications.

Weird images may be strange but does that mean the photographer is strange? For instance, the Shop Window taken in Southport is, in part, an unconscious array of gifts gathered to sell. But as an image it doesn’t really make me want to buy, apart from not being an Alsatian, Elvis or Victorian scary doll fan. It’s the combination of these things, well that and the dog’s tongue, that make it darkly comic. Ironically, it’s probably not a photograph you’d want on your wall either.

Saturday 22 March 2008

Photography is a strange world I love to be lost in. An ever-evolving medium in terms of technical aspects but unchanged in its status of seeing: an image of time, of life.

Friday 21 March 2008

Eyelevel and No borders Photography

Photography started a long time ago for me when the world seemed like it had started in black & white; Family photos, the NME, The Face magazine, record sleeves and world photojournalist and documentary features in magazine supplements, all helped to steer me into taking pictures and go for a degree (in 2006). 

Locked gates

Locked gates

Bridge at Vernon's

Bridge at Vernon's

Percy St, Preston

Percy St, Preston
Once: a social club

Church St tiled walls

Church St tiled walls

Wasteland

Wasteland