On Tap

This is from a quick visit to an abandoned bleach factory last week - fascinating and spooky place to explore. I'm going to have to return there with a tripod so I can get some shots of the darker recesses of the works, but in the meantime I'll put up some photos from my first foray in the Empty Places section of the gallery (when I get a spare minute).

Just had two fun days photographing nine-year old kids visiting Manchester University - they got to do fun stuff like assemble models of the brain, extract DNA from bananas, and even take part in a mock graduation ceremony (which was much more fun than my own real one by virtue of the chocolates being handed out instead of degrees...). I ended up shooting the whole thing on colour film, which was quite fun as I hadn't shot anything but black and white for the past few years. Was good though, seeing things in a slightly different way than I would usually, plus it was quite pleasant to be able to hand over the pile of rolls at the end of the session for someone else to develop!

Revisit Retry Renew

Sorry there hasn't been much in the way of new work posted lately - mainly due to the effects of the lovely Manchester winter; constant rain and wind, and light that starts to fade shortly after lunch, aren't really conducive to getting out and about. What little film I have shot is waiting to be developed - but I'm doing a couple of days of photography for the university next week, so that should force me to mix up some developer and clear the backlog...

In the meantime, this is an old picture that I've just reprinted - it's interesting how prints from the same negative can change and develop over time. The main trend with my own printing seems to be that everything's getting steadily darker...

Traces

Inside an abandoned shack at Dungeness... little fragments of life soon to be gone for ever...

Whilst we're considering the past I should point you here - an exhibition of colour photographs from 1939-43, a fascinating addition to the famous black and white FSA images. Interesting really how little photographic technology has moved on in the sixty years since - check out that image of the shepherd on horseback and tell me that a digicam shot of the same scene would be that much better! Also, the sorts of high-end pro digi SLRs we have now are considerably bigger, clumsier, more expensive and all round less elegant than the Leicas and Contaxes that I imagine these images were shot with... (plus you could still go out and shoot Kodachrome with one of those today!).

Time Enough

So, 2006. A nice rounded figure, numerically speaking, only one little straight line.

Must admit I'm tired of the unnormality that comes from having birthday, christmas, and new years in quick succession - I'm ready for some uneventful averageness now, please. The unholy troika of anniversary-type events also can get you on a mental track of considering the passing of time in unhelpful ways ... and in honour of that thought I've posted a picture from my last trip to Dungeness.

Time acts quicker here, and everytime I go the abandoned fishermen's shacks on the shingle are edging closer to oblivion - this time one had gone completely, just a pile of planks and rusted metal, another one had lost its door and will probably go soon now the wind and rain can enter, another continued to lean over at an even crazier angle than on my last visit.

For a more traditional appraisal of time's arrows flight though 2005 (a number with three straight lines and a right-angle!) here are a few of my favourite cultural thingamagigs from a year that was politically and otherwise externally fantastically unpleasant. Best photo show: Carl De Keyzer's Zona in York. Best photo book: Larry Towell's No Man's Land. Best film: Joss Whedon's Serenity. Best TV: HBO's The Wire. Best record(s): The Fall's Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 boxset, and also 50ft Wave's Golden Ocean. Best novel: Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.