If I did the same thing 500 times...

[See this picture in the On Land and The Zone sections of the gallery]

Usual ten points for anyone identifying the post title!

Well, I came to the realisation in the past week that the way I've been approaching my new project isn't going to work out. Given the amount of time and effort I've been putting into it, this was a distressing revelation ... but, after starting the week in despair I've managed to rebound to a position of excitement about a new way of approaching it.

Hopefully it will all come good eventually, but this set-back does mean that it's likely to be a while before I have anything new to put up here. So, I thought I might sporadically post an odd old photo or two - maybe ones that have come to mind recently, or I have have something to say about.

This one is from Chernobyl last September ... and one that gets picked out by a lot of people I show the portfolio to. Honestly, my trip to Ukraine still seems a bit unreal to me - going to Chernobyl and Pripyat would have been a surreal enough experience anyway, but I was so horribly unwell and sleep-deprived the entire time (and, later, zonked out of my skull on military-grade Russian antibiotics) that I wandered through the entire time with my brain lagging a few paces behind. How I managed to work out a half-decent composition for this picture when I was having trouble even staying upright I do not know.

I think it's more obvious from the print than on the screen - but the gas mask in the photo is really tiny: this was in a kindergarten, where there were dozens of them strewn around, mostly covered in thick dust. I have to say though that I can't look at this one anymore without being drawn to the tree outside - I always thought it looked interesting, but now I can't help but see a sinister figure moving off to the left. It inhabits the photograph now.

(Last chance: the Rodchenko exhibition at the Hayward. I was down in London last week, so got to see it - a must for anyone interested in the birth of modern photography and design.)