Stray Light Foto

Moving moving moving

2010-04-01T18:58:00.002+01:00

Sorry for any inconvenience, but this blog will from now on be found at:

http://straylightfoto.wordpress.com/

You can also get there via the "Blog" link on www.stray-light.co.uk

Please update your bookmarks and blog readers, and see you on the other side.

Sloe Learner

2010-01-08T17:43:00.003Z

Just a digi-snap of what it looks like out the back of my house at the moment. -18C last night, and quite a shock for these usually temperate parts! You know something unusual is happening when people are building igloos in South Manchester...

Being snowbound - and the turn of the year, natch - tends to induce reflection about the year just gone. And, for me, the biggest thing about 2009 was upping sticks and moving to my new house. It's been strange to move much closer to the centre of Manchester, and simultaneously feel like I can have a quasi-rural experience thanks to the huge areas of open country, woods and river just out my back door... One of the products of this has been sloe gin:

A lot of people had bottles of this for Christmas from me this year! As well as the sloes that grow everywhere I've also been able to pick - either growing wild or at communal orchards - apples, pears, blackberries, gooseberries, plums, damsons, cherries and hazelnuts. Hopefully there'll be lots more of this in 2010...

And, as for the whole photography thing... I know 2009 has been, for various reasons, a bit lean in terms of new work, but this year will definitely see a conclusion to the Radium Street project, and at some point some pictures from new series that I'm working on starting to appear here.

Gayn Gone

2009-12-21T13:57:00.003Z

Goodbye to science lady and model extraordinaire Gaynor - Manchester will be that little bit more gray in your absence.

PS/ thanks to all the bands and everyone who braved the weather and came to the Stray Light. It was a good night.

Xmas Invite

2009-12-04T00:12:00.001Z

Dark

2009-11-12T14:21:00.002Z

Capitalism Run Amok

2009-10-24T17:35:00.002+01:00

Kat recently noticed that our 2002 album, Careers, is currently going for more than £40 on Amazon. Can I just point out that it is still available for just £6 from here, and there are still quite a few copies ... unlike the last one, Waves Broken, which is well on the way to selling out.

While I'm on the band thing. We're in the middle of writing new material at the moment (going very well) so not much going on otherwise, but we will be playing at The Bay Horse in Manchester on November 19th, and then on December 19th everyone is invited to the Stray Light festive event at The King's Arms. We'll be playing some new stuff, alongside sets from Fat Elvis, Satnam's Tash and Serpentine Pad - and the first 50 people through the door will get a free mince pie baked by my mum!

Photography content = zero

2009-10-11T16:37:00.002+01:00

I've just finished reading Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, Inherent Vice. It's actually a nice, quick, light read - like having a scoop of melon sorbet after the four-course banquet of hulking great metanarratives like his previous one, Against the Day (which I'm now reading for the second time and having a whale of a time with).

Anyway, what I've been finding interesting is Pynchon seeming to break his cover a little bit more these days. First it became known that he personally wrote the Amazon blurb for Against the Day, and now he's actually narrating promo videos like the one above. Of course the strangeness of this is kept in perspective by his - and, yes, that is really Pynchon - appearance on The Simpsons:

Two things about this really. Firstly, although - yes - I was fascinated to hear Pynchon's voice, I don't particuarly WANT to know anything about him. These days it's de rigeur for authors, artists, directors to do endless interviews - and I do think sometimes it becomes an intrusion on your experience of books, art, films &c to have this authorial presence looming over the whole thing. To be topical for a moment, does it affect your appreciation of a Polanski film to know that the person who made it went on the lam after molesting a child? In contrast, when I first read Gravity's Rainbow it might as well have dropped from the sky, and I was able to enjoy it wholly as a thing in itself (and, later, as part of a body of work) because the author was, at most, a spectral figure on the margins. I don't think it would have added anything to my experience to know what ol' Tom dresses like, who he votes for, whether he likes Mexican food, or anything at all about his personal life. Maybe the puppeteer should remain behind the curtain.

The second thing is really about people who are very concerned with the opposite of that last point. There are a few articles and films around that - rather creepily - are obsessed with Finding Pynchon. As if he was lost somehow, rather than just someone who doesn't like to do interviews very much. And so, in the absence of an external way of gauging the author's intent you end up with people earnestly suggesting that Pynchon IS JD Salinger, or - very popular at the time - that Pynchon IS the Unabomber.

Anyway, my point - to the extent that I have one - isn't that we should view art as totally abstracted from the people who make it, but just that if, say, you like my photographs it shouldn't perhaps matter too much if it turns out that I'm a jerk in real life...

Black Page

2009-08-31T19:20:00.002+01:00

I can - a bit belatedly - report that a good time was had at Rhubarb. There was a bit of a feeling of deja vu about it - it did seem like mostly the same faces from last year, and a lot of the same work too. I thought it was quieter too, probably reflecting the state of the photography market at the moment ... and certainly the American contingent was notably lacking this year. I did still manage to go to the pub before the portfolio promenade with photographers from Korea, Holland, Hong Kong, Belgium and Israel though!

After a peculiar - and often horrible - first half of this year, I have been getting down to some more serious work lately. Hopefully Radium Street will feel like its complete shortly, and I'll start to show some work from the new series that is just getting going. Musically things are moving apace too ... although for some reason all the new songs we have at the moment are lumbered with working titles like: 'Voice of the Lebanese Snow Tortoise', 'Toad Mafia', 'Saudi Copyright Infringement', etc... What this says about us I really can't imagine...

...And Custard

2009-07-31T14:49:00.002+01:00

Well I've finally got myself installed and settled in the new house ... just in time to get things ready for the Rhubarb festival this weekend. Just thought I'd post something from the past week's print making and portfolio sequencing - which, as you can see, has mainly been taking place on my new living room floor...

Hopefully I'll see a few familiar faces in Birmingham this weekend (even if you're not attending the review you can still come to the Portfolio Promenade on Saturday night), and then back to more regular updates and suchlike from next week.

Just to...

2009-07-04T11:01:00.001+01:00

..keep this sucker ticking over...

For Radium Street.

Rock And/Or Roll

2009-06-21T12:03:00.002+01:00

Friday night - a pub in Salford - walking back from the bar with a glass of Black Cat past two men in an embrace:

"It's difficult. Really difficult though."
"But, your brother - he'd want you to live."

Off I go to play out-of-whack guitar noise, never to know what that conversation was all about.

Ps / There's a picture of mine in the new issue (#104) of Shots.

Rock Action

2009-06-18T15:12:00.002+01:00

Mired in some pretty unfortunate stuff at the moment, but here's something a little bit distracting. Aiming to get back to normal business by July...

My New House

2009-05-15T11:36:00.001+01:00

I'm sorry for the lack of updates - I do actually have some new photos to post, but I'll let Mr Mark Edward Smith explain what's been occupying me:

Completely OT

2009-04-11T21:33:00.001+01:00

Nothing whatsoever to do with photography, but I think everyone should read this.

Cat's Cradle

2009-03-26T13:42:00.003Z

Leaving aside the snow forecast for this coming weekend, it seems that the worst of the winter is now behind us ... but there are still some photos coming like the above and this one that feel particularly wintery to me. In the middle of summer I do sometimes find myself missing the shape of bare tree branches, or the soft acoustics of a frosty morning. Something to do with my northern European heritage I suppose. Or just being loopy.

I'm still engrossed in the house thing - all been a bit trickier than planned, and still not all resolved yet. So, not a lot of exciting photo stuff to report on - but I will mention that the Imagine show in Los Angeles is on for another week, and there's a closing party on the 4th April.

Just a quick note...

2009-02-27T23:09:00.003Z

The snow has melted, crocuses are poking their heads through the soil, green buds are starting to appear on branches - at times like these a young man's thoughts naturally turn to ... the exhibition of fine-art photography. Ahem. So:

'Imagine' at the Deborah Martin Gallery, Los Angeles from March 11th to April 4th.

'Mind's Eye' at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins CO. from May 29th to June 20th.

I have pics from Radium Street in each of these (thanks to Chris Rauschenberg and Susan Burnstine!) so it's nice that the series is starting to get an airing, even if it's still not really finished.

Did notice, when pricing the prints for sale, that since the value of the pound collapsed it's become much more affordable for overseas buyers to purchase my prints. In US dollars it's nearly a third cheaper than just a year or two ago. Take advantage of the UK's economic malaise!

All Change

2009-02-15T15:31:00.002Z

After a few weeks of moderately stressful negotiations it has been confirmed - I appear to have bought a house. Crikey. This may turn out to be a bad move if things don't pick up economy-wise, but for the moment I'm just enjoying the prospect of more room to work and wallspace to hang pictures. And, of course, the freedom to strut around the place in my undercrackers if I so choose.

Seems to be the season for changes, as I also have to report that the band's next gig (in Chorlton on the 28th) will be our last with our current drummer. Danny and I started the band - oh so many years ago - so whatever comes next is bound to be a big transition...

Rendezvous

2009-02-01T21:36:00.002Z

OK, so the "be more active on the blog" thing hasn't really been working out. So far 2009 has been divided up into alternating periods of being overly busy and overly unwell. I'm trying to move house too, which isn't exactly a help...

But, anyway, I shall try to do better!

I was at the Chinese New Year celebrations in Manchester's Chinatown today, and stood watching dragon dancers, next to some people eating a Massamun curry with chips, while snow came down in powdery, gusty sheets. The combination seemed very Mancunian, and is something I'll remember from this winter, which is what bought the above photo to mind. This was another winter morning - G and I were on a hillside, not long after sunrise, looking down on the city, but only seeing the tops of the CIS and Beetham towers sticking up through the freezing fog. Up on the hill, though, it was crystal clear, so cold, so still, frozen grass crunching beneath our feet...

Waves Broken

2009-01-08T21:01:00.002Z

Well, the limited edition hand-made-packaging version of the new Stray Light record is now available. Pre-orders have already been sent out, so get in quick to order your copy - they won't last forever! Only £6, including delivery from Doubtful Sound Records.

I'm feeling a bit behind with 2009 already - partly because I was ill between Christmas and the new year - but there's lots going on, and I'll try to be a bit more active on the blog this year.

At least one interesting thing did happen while I was ill. There were 4 or 5 days when I didn't eat anything (which as a foodie / glutton was kind of unusual in itself...), and I had absolutely no appetite, and yet I found myself reading several food books. Freed of the elements of hunger or greed, this seemed like a very pure aesthetic experience somehow... I was able to disinterestedly appreciate the culture of food and the whole mix of sensations that make up the practice of good cooking and eating. It helped that I had Fuchsia Dunlop's books to hand though - her guides to Hunanese and Sichuanese cooking, and her memoir Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper are fantastic, and highly recommeded.

Errata

2008-12-14T16:44:00.002Z

I'm up to my neck in unprinted negs at the moment, but wanted to take a second to mention the arrival of the first "Books on Books" from Errata Editions. I'm particularly excited about the Chris Killip In Flagrante volume, as this is a book I've always wanted but been unable to afford. The other three in the initial releases are classics by Walker Evans and Eugene Atget, and Fait by Sophie Ristelhueber which I admit I didn't know beforehand.

The bulk of each book is an exquisitely printed reproduction of the original book, yellowing pages et al in the case of Atget's Photographe de Paris. (It's worth reading Jeffrey Ladd's excellent 5B4 for some interesting blog entries on travelling to China to oversee the printing process.) Also included are the original essays - translated where necessary - plus new essays and information on the photographers and book.

The excitement for me though, is in seeing the amazing work by Killip from 1980s England. This is the England that I was born into, and grew up in, and that seems so distant now. This book captures not only what that place and time looked like, but what it felt like.

Unexpected Events

2008-11-14T15:13:00.002Z

I've been meaning to mention a bit of band news... We've decided to do a sort of bonus limited edition release of the new record "Waves Broken" - there'll be 200 numbered CDs, with packaging hand-made by the band. I've already been using a very antique letterpress set to do the text down the slipcase spine, and I'm now learning how to screenprint. There'll also be some other individual and unique touches on each CD package, which will come in a sleeve made from recycled card.

And, just so this hasn't been totally off-topic, the plan is that each one will contain a miniature photo that I'm going to do. Also, the process for making the screenprinting stencil does involve coating and exposing a light-sensitive emulsion, so that's virtually photography anyway!

I feel 8 years younger

2008-11-05T17:08:00.003Z

Well done America. And thanks.

Interrupted

2008-10-19T18:02:00.002+01:00

Christina Falise was good enough to send me this picture of my print (it's this one) at the opening of the After Life show at the Watson Gallery in Texas, so I thought I'd post it.

Sorry that I've not updated for a while. I've been pretty busy, but I'm working through a lot of new photos now, so should be posting a bit more soon.

In the meantime, I can highly recommend getting hold of the new Jonathan Meades Collection DVD set. It was originally billed as a complete works boxset, but for some reason ended up as a seemingly random selection from Abroad, Abroad Again etc... For those of you not familiar with Meades ... well, I could try and describe his programmes by saying something like "intelligent discussion of the built environment combined with surreal humour", but you'd probably be best off heading over to The Meades Shrine on YouTube where you can see practically his entire TV output...

Sunday Ramblings

2008-09-21T21:20:00.002+01:00

Just a couple of quick notes...

First, I should mention that I have a photo in the new issue (#101) of Shots. Once again joined by some fellow Filmwasters: Rebecca Pendel, Aline Smithson, and Susan Burnstine.

And while I’m talking about things in print, I also wanted to mention a book I found recently called “The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon” by David Sylvester. It’s out of print, but seems fairly widely available. Regardless of what you think of Bacon’s paintings this is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in art – of whatever kind – and, more importantly I think, the nature of the creative process.

This last point is something I started to think a lot about through playing music, and particularly when doing a lot of improvisation. Often when improvising things happen that seem to arrive from nowhere – and often things emerge that you can’t possibly imagine doing or having thought of. And, yet you did do them…

In photography I have tended – at least recently – to have some very clear ideas of what I was trying to achieve, and yet often it’s the random events in the process of making them that seem most significant. I’ve also often been struck by the idea for trying something that, if I stopped to consciously analyse what I was doing, would seem probably very silly, and yet after the fact it’s these things that seem right somehow, and tell me more about what I was trying to do than anything I had really actively planned. I don’t have any answers or grand theories about any of this, but it does fascinate me.

(As an aside, when I googled for more info on the book I found it recommended by Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame…)

Also, I plan to see the new Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain next month, so I’ll report back on that.

I’ll also briefly recommend Dr Ben Goldacre’s new book “Bad Science” – not only for its frequently hilarious debunking of various popular health scares and pseudo-scientific charlatans – but also for its excellent chapters on the placebo effect (which is weirder and more interesting than anything new age lunatics can dream up) and statistics. Not the most exciting sounding, that last one, but I tend to think that if as a citizen in the modern world you don’t understand the rudiments of the scientific method and how numbers are used and abused you’re leaving yourself wide open to all sorts of exploitation and bullshit…

Reflect this Evil

2008-09-08T14:53:00.002+01:00

This is one of those pictures that I wasn't sure anyone else would get. It's all about symbols and inference ... and it's personal. Strangely enough though it got picked out by several reviewers at Rhubarb as being particularly strong... It is - I'm sure you're fed up with me saying - much better as a print.

(There's a little video about Rhubarb up here by the way - you can see about half of me for around a second. Thrilling!)

I was very happy to hear that one of my pictures (this one in fact) is to be included in an exhibition entitled After Life at the Watson Studio Gallery in Texas. Also delighted to hear that my fellow Filmwasters Phil Bebbington (a.k.a. Terrorkitten) and Becky Ramotowski are in the show too. It runs from September 27th to November 22nd.

Belgian Vertigo

2008-08-26T15:48:00.002+01:00

Been a bit quiet lately due to being struck down by the dreaded lurgy - this is one sorry coughing, sneezing, sore throaty, headachy, blurry visioned shambles of a chap here. I'll also blame this for my decision to go with "Belgium" as a theme for the above flyer...

Anyway, aside from coming to the gig, y'all should certainly be heading here to watch a video about the inestimable and ineffable Susan Burnstine. Proof that bedroom scenes can be creatively justified in Hollywood! (Sorry Susan!)

I'm also interested to see that David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new collaboration coming out - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - their first since My Life in the Bush of Ghosts nearly 30 years ago... Since Bush of Ghosts is quite possibly my favourite record ever I'm quite intrigued, but I think I'll wait for my head to return to normal equilibrium before sampling it...

Blogging 1665

2008-08-16T18:34:00.002+01:00

I know that I periodically go on about this, but I have to once again recommend the blog version of Samuel Pepys' 17th century diary, just because today's entry is - as they often are - so wonderful.

(You'll notice that I say "today" - reading the diary an entry a day does give a sense that the events are happening in real-time...)

At this point in the diary the plague is sweeping through London, well on its way to killing about a fifth of London's population, and indeed Pepys reports finding "a dead corps of the plague" on the street on his way home. However, it's his description of his recent dream - "the best that ever was dreamt" - that I loved so much:

"...and then dreamt that this could not be awake, but that it was only a dream; but that since it was a dream, and that I took so much real pleasure in it, what a happy thing it would be if when we are in our graves (as Shakespeere resembles it) we could dream, and dream but such dreams as this, that then we should not need to be so fearful of death, as we are this plague time."

While I'm getting all historical, I might also mention that today is the anniversary of the Peterloo massacre here in Manchester. Worth remembering the price paid for freedoms and rights that we're too often blasé about today.

(Back to things at least tangentially related to photography soon.)

Strange Echoes

2008-08-08T17:47:00.002+01:00

I just got the new book of Josef Koudelka's pictures from the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 - "Invasion 68" - and found myself reading about Russian tanks rolling over borders in an Olympic year... No parallels with 2008 then...

There are some sample pages from the book here. Reading it is actually something like watching a really good documentary - the photos are chronological and interspersed with eyewitness reports, government communiques, extracts from the ad hoc anti-invasion press, and timelines. You really do get a sense of the momentum of those few days, like a fevered dream. A lot of the images are extraordinary too. I also liked the collections of anti-Soviet graffiti: mostly clever, pointed and bitterly funny, somewhat reminiscent of the Paris commune. It must be said that, whatever you might think of their various causes, 1968 was a golden year for rapid, witty sloganising.

One gripe though - a few images are ruined by having key details disappear into the book's gutter. Something that inexplicably often happens in photo books... Highly recommended though, both for the photographs and the reminded of how often history eats its own tail.

One Second Away

2008-08-05T22:01:00.002+01:00

I was at the Rhubarb International Festival and Review on Saturday - a very intense and generally very positive experience. I highly recommend it to anyone serious about this photography thing.

Big thanks to the Rhubarb team, reviewers, portfolio promenade attendees, and all the photographers I talked to for making it a really pleasant and supportive event. My anxiety dreams were entirely in vain!

Sleep Tangled

2008-07-21T18:05:00.001+01:00

Two incidents from the past week:

- Taking my glasses off last night, and somehow managing to jab my finger hard into my eyeball. Kind of baffling (and painfully squishy).

- In a timewarp pub after the gig, drinking hand-pulled Old Stockport beneath a picture of the Queen that had apparently been in situ since the coronation slowly absorbing generations of inebriates’ smoke and booze fumes, getting into a random discussion about Jacques Derrida.

I mention these as they seem somehow to be emblematic of bits of my life, and that’s sort of what I think I need to explain about the new pictures I’ve been putting up here lately.

All these pictures are things that really happened, but I’m trying to use the camera to catch moments that seem to have a symbolic quality. In some cases it can just be that the image suggests a story, of which we’re only seeing a mysterious or even surreal fragment, but I’m generally trying to find something that has a kind of, well, resonance that goes a bit beyond my personal involvement with the situations in the photos.

Given my profound, and very British I suppose, dislike of anything approaching self-aggrandisement or pretentiousness these aren’t things you’ll often hear me say … but I do find myself really visually and emotionally engaged with this new work, quite beyond the underlying intent. Maybe it’s just all squishingly baffling to everyone else though!

The Key

2008-07-12T20:03:00.002+01:00

I love this picture - taken through 140 year old glass.

For any Manchester folk: my band at The Castle, Northern Quarter, Weds 16th July. We also - amazingly enough given the difficulty of ever getting us all in the same place at the same time - have gigs lined up in August, September, October and November. Maybe after 10 years we're getting our act together?

Within

2008-06-30T20:58:00.002+01:00

Is a dry ice factory really a good place to get some thinking done?

Waiting

2008-06-21T12:50:00.000+01:00

White Road

2008-06-11T21:11:00.002+01:00

Probably not the most summery picture I could have chosen to post...

Facts are useless in emergencies

2008-05-23T13:37:00.002+01:00

This is one of those pictures where you hope it's clear what's going on ... but not too clear.

Talking of things that risk defying explanation, my band seem to have written a song with the working title Steve Vai's Legal High ("Steve Vai" being a general sort of term of abuse we like to use), which joins the Stray Light pantheon alongside the magnificent Peter Falk's False Eye, and the enigmatic Leonard Nimoy Did It. Not currently available at your local record store.

Sort of in honour of this, I'll nominate as my song of the week:

Let's Save Tony Orlando's House, by Yo La Tengo.

Home is where the heart lies

2008-05-15T21:27:00.005+01:00

Full of significances only apparent to myself. (I'm quite full of bullshit this evening).

ETA: I was a bit hasty in putting this up - I've just (Sunday evening) replaced it with a better print. I may even take another crack and do so again... Too full of impatience as well as the aforementioned cow cakes.

The Sanctuary

2008-04-26T20:32:00.002+01:00

[See this picture in the On Land section of the gallery.]

Well, things are slowly moving in the right direction on my new project, but for the meantime here's another golden(ish) oldie(ish). Or, at least, a random pic that I happen to have a few things to say about.

I didn't print this shot for a really long time because it reminded me of that day - mostly spent sitting in my car on Dungeness hoping that the torrential rain would stop. It didn't. The clouds just descended further until they were scudding along at treetop height - ah, the British summer!

This is a shot that I wanted to get though - thinking as I was at the time about Power and what that meant - the tiny chapel and huge lumbering nuclear power plant in the distance. I grabbed one shot, dried my camera off and decided to sod it and go for fish and chips at the Pilot Inn. You can't even tell it's raining in the final print.

But, anyway, there's another sort of power here that I wasn't even aware of at the time. It turns out that the church is a fake - built during WW2 to conceal a pumping station for Operation Pluto, secretly transporting fuel under the channel to France. After the war the station was abandoned, and the handful of people who live out on the Ness renamed it The Sanctuary, and started using it as a sort of social hall, and even for the purpose it had been pretending to have.

Of course, none of this is apparent from looking at the photograph - and that's really the only thing you're supposed to do with it.

(Less aimless jibber jabber and more new pictures soon, hopefully.)

Mornington Crescent No More

2008-04-26T20:22:00.002+01:00

Incredibly sad to hear about the death of Humphrey Lyttelton. Perhaps best known in recent years for somehow getting away with transmitting the most incredible double entrendres into homes across the UK as host on ISIHAC, he was also once described by Louis Armstrong as, "that cat in England who swings his ass off." Few of us can aspire to such an astonishing appraisal.

"As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication."

Humphrey Lyttelton, 1921-2008.

If I did the same thing 500 times...

2008-04-10T15:19:00.002+01:00

[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.)

Ojos para volar

2008-03-16T17:13:00.002Z

I'm happy to (belatedly) note that Graciela Iturbide has won this year's Hasselblad Award. Click the link for some photos and a little video about her work.

She's been one of my favourite photographers for years, and I'm glad to see she's receiving some much deserved recognition.

A little flesh, a little breath...

2008-03-11T14:35:00.002Z

I'm in the midst of experimenting with a very different way of presenting pictures at the moment, so you'll have to take anything I post as very provisional for the time being!

Ten points to anyone who can identify the source of this post's title. Googling it ist verboten.

This week's listening: Milk Man by Deerhoof, reading: A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Schulman by Joseph Rosa, and watching: the final conclusion to The Wire, the greatest TV show ever made.

Mega-Doodle

2008-02-18T17:55:00.002Z

Keep me on hold, will you?

Proper new pics later this week.

Off Topic

2008-01-22T17:06:00.000Z

Okay, so I’ve never wanted to have one of those blogs where I ramble on about whatever happens to be flitting across my brainpan every few minutes, but I think I might start to occasionally break my own rules and put up some interesting things only tangentially related to photography. Particularly in weeks like this one where – aside from some commercial work – I’ve not actually taken any photos.

Anyway, who needs my pics when the real world is dealing up stuff like this:

Hopefully this won’t be the start of a slippery slope – but just in case, please feel free to come round and duff me up should I start posting in l33t speak and linking to Lasagna Cat. Oh.

Anyway, I’ve become a bit obsessed recently with Modernist typography and graphic design – for instance, the work of Abram Games, pictured here with the logo he designed for the BBC:

He’s probably best known for his wartime poster design, such as this striking image:

And also a series of less famous, but extremely interesting from a social history viewpoint, visions of what post-war Britain would become. (It’s intriguing that propaganda posters like this would encourage people to fight not for Britain, as such, but rather a vision of what Britain could be. No wonder Churchill was so unceremoniously dumped once the war ended.)

I suppose the point of all this is me trying to figure out why I’m so drawn to Modernism (despite being personally sympathetic to postmodernism...) and particularly the art and design of the 1920s-30s; part of the answer, I think, being the balance of form and function you see very clearly in Games’ posters. When I look through – for instance – books covering the history of photography, I can find lots of interest in the Victorian practitioners and pictorialism, but then I get to the mid-twenties, the Modernists come in, and – bang – everything just looks right suddenly. The best part of a century later this stuff still looks, well, modern.

It wasn’t just in art that there was this burst of early c20th creativity. The BBC ran a great series called Atom recently and, although I was aware of most of the content, I hadn’t realised how quickly things were moving in the first few decades of the c20th. We went from millennia of uncertainty about atoms even existing, to Rutherford opening up the sub-atomic world (here in Manchester, fact fans), to the foundations of Quantum Theory in just a few years. Has there ever been anything approaching this level of tumultuous change and discovery in any other period?

And, of course, all this was happening in a world that was teetering from war, to economic meltdown, to the rise of totalitarianism, and to war again. Look no further than the Bauhaus designed banknotes for the hyperinflationary failing Weimar State to see the ultimate example of modern, rational, beautiful design existing alongside a world in chaos. It maybe isn't a happy question to ask, but: does the one need the other?

Two Thousand and Late

2008-01-09T21:30:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the gallery.]

Well, not only did I lie in my last posting, but I'm starting 2008 with a total cliche! (I might even post my Ansel Adams Manzanar knock-off later if you're all terribly lucky.) In my defence I'll just say I've been very busy starting the overdue overhaul of the gallery - you'll notice I'm finally deigning to work in series now - and getting my portfolio together for a review later this week. Also, I really think that this is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, so it's worth looking at for that reason alone.

I am very behind though. There are still pics from Chernobyl that I need to deal with for pity's sake. And, in fact, I just spent some time finally getting a good print from a 2004 negative. Cripes.

While we're looking back like this - I did think about doing some sort of round-up of photo books and what-not from 2007, but the moment does seem to have passed now. Not to mention that the last year seems like a blur now, and I'm unlikely to accurately remember anything much. I will plug the coffee from Steve at Has Bean though, responsible for getting my brain up to the - admittedly still minimal - speed necessary to get anything at all done. And Zomba white tea from Malawi for carrying me through the endless rain and cold of the 2007 non-summer. I don't think the importance of tea to the English photographer can be overstated really.

Anyway, before this turns into some awful Mancunian version of Proust, I'm going to kick off 2008 by starting a new project. Unusually for me it's going to completely consist of pictures of people - and, not so unusually, I can't really explain it at all yet. I think it has something to do with symbolism, but really this is going to be about getting things that are currently residing in my brainpan out into the world. It may require some more tea.

Mortality, Madness and Merry Christmas.

2007-12-18T20:07:00.000Z

It occurred to me after the last post that a lot of religions emerged from the desert. Maybe because it's a place where death is just a little bit closer than usual:

Of course there are other responses, like crazy dancing!:

I'm planning a big overhaul of my website in the coming few weeks, so all the rest of the SW pics will be up then, and we'll likely be away from the sun-baked desert and back to rain-soaked Manchester for the next blog postings!

A Recent Religious History of the Southwest in Four Pictures

2007-12-12T16:16:00.000Z

Cracked World

2007-11-29T18:46:00.000Z

"You're touchingly, deeply confused" - Kristin Hersh, Slippershell

Confusion

2007-11-21T13:48:00.000Z

Am I going the right way?

Do patterns mean anything?

Where is my mind?

Spot the Photog

2007-11-11T22:33:00.000Z

Well I've been back from the US for a little while now, but I've been busy getting back up to speed with home life, and also up to my knees in Xtol whenever I've had a spare moment trying to make a dent in the large pile of rolls I bought back from my trip.

Will post lots more about the SW soon, but for now I'll just say thanks to Susan for her hospitality and putting up with me during the babbly phase of my jetlag. And also that, when the pitchfork-wielding mob comes to run me out of town, I'll seriously consider relocating to northern New Mexico.

Until then I thought I'd show you this photo that Tom Wright sent me, taken on his camera by our guide in Chernobyl, Yuri Tatarchuck. This was right at the end of the day as we were leaving, so about the only point I didn't have a brace of cameras and a lightmeter around my neck, and meaning those of you who haven't met me can have the fun of guessing which one I am in the line-up! Answers on a postcard please.

(As I think I mentioned before, I was horribly unwell at this point, so that might give you a clue. Also, I will add that there's some sort of weird slope in this shot - all four of us were about the same height really!)

SW shots soon.

New Skies

2007-10-08T15:24:00.000+01:00

So I'll be up ludicrously early tomorrow morning, and off to the sunnier climes of the SW USA for three weeks.

To keep you all out of trouble until then, can I recommend a few aural treats:

-the new Filmwasters podcast.
-new series of In Our Time, covering Antimatter and Socrates so far.
-some samples from the new Stray Light album (more will be streaming on the Myspace page soon). A much too diverse affair to give any sort of representative selection...

See you all in November!

Three Men and a Sarcophagus

2007-10-04T22:46:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Zone section of the gallery.]

Okay, so here's what caused all the trouble - Reactor 4 at Chernobyl nuclear plant. This is a worrying place - the concrete sarcophagus was built extremely hastily after the accident and has been slowly crumbling ever since. Collapse is probably inevitable at some point, and the construction of the huge new enclosure (starting with that gantry you can see at the front) is years behind schedule and constantly running out of funding... After this we drove out of Chernobyl through the Red Forest, with radiation dosimeters going cuckoo. Fun times.

[See this picture at a larger size in the Zone section of the gallery.]

Overall, I preferred the slightly less petrifying confines of Pripyat - and photographically it's these abstract little bits of business that have most pleased me.

As you can see, I've started putting everything up on the site in The Zone section, there's still a little bit more to come, and there are also a few Kiev pics going up here and there.

Pop picks this week: A very good bootleg of Rachel's live in LA, October 2005. Also, David Lynch's song, Ghost of Love, from the Inland Empire OST.

Kiev Hi-Fi, or The Trouble With Comrade Vladimir

2007-09-23T22:29:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the People section of the gallery]

I loved staying in Kiev (or Kyiv if you prefer), although I didn't get a huge amount of time to look around. Some parts seemed quite familiar to anyone used to modern Western cities, but there were enough surprises round every corner to remind you of the Soviet past, or just that you were in a place that works differently to western Europe. Golden Orthodox church domes on the skyline, monolithic Stalinist blocks, chestnut and apple trees everywhere, bad coffee but good beer!

[See this picture at a larger size in The Zone section of the gallery]

I can't blame the beer for the slight camera shake in this picture, but I will mention that it was dark in here (Pripyat central hospital), I wasn't able to bring a tripod, and that at this point I hadn't slept for 3 days... I hope it works as a small print, at least, as this one does a good job of capturing the sepulchral feel of Pripyat. I imagine there aren't too many other hospitals left with Lenin portraits still hanging in the waiting rooms...

Back in the USSR

2007-09-18T21:45:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Zone section of the gallery]

Well, I can - for once - promise regular-ish updates for a while as I delve through the rolls from my recent trip to Ukraine. Most are (like this one) from the abandoned city of Pripyat, evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster and left as a late-Soviet era timecapsule. Oddest place I've ever been, I can assure you, and that's up against some stiff competition.

More soon!

Listening this week: Erewhon by David Thomas & Two Pale Boys.

Public Service Announcement

2007-08-17T22:06:00.000+01:00

Impressions Gallery - one of the very few contemporary photography venues in northern England - reopens this weekend after a nearly two year long closure during which they've moved from the old building in York to a brand new purpose-built home in Bradford's Centenary Square.

Doors open at noon tomorrow (Saturday 18th) and free events continue throughout the weekend. I actually really liked the creaky old York building, and saw some fantastic shows there, but I'm looking forward immensely to seeing the new premises. I'd urge anyone who can to get there and support a great - and sadly rare - asset to photography in the UK.

(And, if you're in the area, you can always come and see Stray Light play in Bolton on Sunday night!)

(Must also apologise again for lack of new photos - I have a little pile of rolls waiting to be developed, but life and music have been getting in the way. Spent the first half of this week in the studio (hello Tom!) mixing the new record - didn't quite get it all done in the available time, so we're going back to finish it next month, but there'll be some tasters posted soon...)

(Sorry.)

Downed Tools

2007-07-22T18:35:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling pretty bad about the inactivity here - partly due to the constant rain we've been having the last few months, not being well for a bit, being occupied with other things ... and, yes, partly due also to yours truly being an idle sod.

Anyway - I can assure you that I've got quite a lot of interesting things lined up for the rest of the year, so there should be something to get your teeth into a bit more regularly here. In the meantime, I'm still plugging away on the abstract series - here's one from this last week:

Although my favourite is still this one from a few weeks back.

Completely randomly - I think that this might be one of the strangest pop songs ever (although Animals from the same record maybe beats it ... and there are a couple on the new Stray Light record that go to weird places!). The whole concert is up there and well worth watching as an adjunct to Stop Making Sense, the best music film ever made.

My thanks to Gregg Arnold - creator of Giganticus Headicus out in Kingman, Arizona - who emailed me this week to say he liked my photo of the big fella. Nifty!

Sneak Peek

2007-06-25T16:56:00.000+01:00

...a glimpse of something strange in a Lincolnshire field. More about this soon...

I can't believe I'm sitting here in late June having to wear a winter sweater and drinking endless cups of white tea to keep warm, watching driving rain lashing the windows and my chili plants getting knocked over by the wind... I swear I saw hailstones this morning.

And, um, with my very English gambit of complaining about the weather used up, I find I don't have much else to say. Oh.

Except: recommended photo book: Good Girls by Maya Goded.

Back to the real world...

2007-06-15T16:54:00.001+01:00

...with a bump this week. This, of course, being the same real world in which most of my photos are rubbish. So, just for a change I thought I'd post some of my also-rans and near-misses from the last week.

I do actually like this next one (and, in the immortal words of Rolf Harris, "can you tell what it is yet?"), but it loses too much as a small jpeg...

I've been fascinated this week by the start of David Milch's new HBO series John from Cincinnati. My interest in his work stems mostly from my abiding love of the English language, and all who sail in her, rather than any particular predilection for detectives, Gold Rush barkeeps, or professional surfers - and, while this new series doesn't have the utterly glorious "Shakespeare on crack in the Wild West" quality of Deadwood's dialogue*, Milch's voice and love of words shines through. It actually reminds me a lot of the way characters talk in Don DeLillo's novels - a sort of studied, stylised realism.

* - I still occasionally chuckle to myself at Swearengen's plans to open a "a small joint in Manchester, England catering to the specialists exclusive - to let them know they're amongst their own maybe I'll operate from the corner hanging upside down like a fucking bat."

Rock o' Clock

2007-06-11T13:59:00.000+01:00

Now, I'm fairly sure that everyone reading this is either coming already, or much too far away, but anyways...

Back to, like y'know, photographs soon.

More Smoke, More Mirrors

2007-06-02T21:42:00.000+01:00

There'll be a gallery of these up soon...

I've just got back from Photo London 07 ... pretty disappointing really. I'm not even sure what it's trying to be - a showcase of new work? a trade fair for galleries? a viewing opportunity for wealthy collectors? Certainly they seemed to be trying to make it very "exclusive" - it was at a posh venue in the City, with uniformed doormen, and an exorbitant admission fee… not really ideal for this struggling photographer.

Contents-wise: I was very happy to see some new colour work by Graciela Iturbide, and some (well, two…) lovely prints by Hiroshi Sugimoto, but otherwise there wasn’t a huge amount that caught my eye. The whole New Objectivism/Düsseldorf thing seems to be still in full swing, and there was some rather unfortunate video art.

In contrast – I also went to see How We Are: Photographing Britain at Tate Britain which is incredibly straightforward in what it’s trying to do, viz. showing the story of British photography from its inception to the present day. Masses of really fantastic work – an absolute delight. A revelation for me was the quality of some of the images from only a few decades after photography was invented. A Roger Fenton print from c. 1860 could have been made yesterday. Some astonishing colour images from the 1940s really stood out for me too … but there’s too much for me to list here. Go and see it if you can.

Smoke & Mirrors

2007-05-22T22:17:00.000+01:00

So, here's something a bit different. These are from a new series of abstracts I've started recently.

The idea for these popped into being pretty much fully formed, which is fairly unusual for me - typically I have to drag anything new out of my head bloodied and screaming. At the same time I'm suspicious of the whole thing, and I've been really clueless as to what anyone would make of this series.

Having had six 12x12 prints tacked up on my wall for the last week though, I've come to the profound realisation that I, well, sorta like 'em.

Away from photography for a sec here - getting the new Stray Light record finished has been a bit more like my usual experience of the creative process, i.e. a long hard slog, akin to pushing a boulder uphill. It is (really) almost there now though, and it's even acquired a name now - Waves Broken - which seems like a big step towards completeness...

Distracting me from, like, making things has been the fine chap who has put the entire series of The Larry Sanders Show up on YouTube. Just fantastic stuff.

This week: reading, Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England 1600-1770 by Emily Cockayne (a good addition to my daily dose of Pepys' Diary) and looking at Alex Webb's new photobook, Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names. Listening, Wire's 154 and pretty much anything by Pere Ubu.

Frozen Borderline

2007-05-08T18:10:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

Well, I must say that reading back through my recent postings I can't help but notice I've strayed somewhat from the stated purpose of this blog ... However, this would all be a lot quieter without my digressions into book club style ramblings, song recommendations, etc... so I feel I should warn you there's likely to be more of that to come...

In fact let me continue by pointing out that the great Chris Morris satire from 1997, Brass Eye, is now available to watch in its entirety on Google Video:

Animals.
Drugs.
Science.
Sex.
Crime.
Decline.

It's a bit shocking seeing John Major in the credits - he seems like a figure from the ancient past now - but otherwise the series holds up remarkably well. It's the use of language that tends to draw me back in - how can you resist phrases like "the twisted brain-wrong of a one-off man-mental"? Or Noel Edmonds (light entertainment b-lister with a strange connection with fatal accidents, for the benefit of our non-UK readers) solemnly telling us that Cake - the (entirely fictional) "superdrug from Prague" - affects the part of the brain known as "Shatner's bassoon"?

And, while I'm doing links, let me also point you to the video for John Cooper Clarke's Evidently Chickentown which bizarrely featured in one of the new episodes of The Sopranos. I'm not particularly a JCC fan, but you can't help but be aware of him as a constant presence on the Manchester scene for the last 30 years, and it seemed stunningly incongruous after watching an hour of New Jersey mobsters to suddenly hear a broad Salford accent intoning about cold chips!

This week's listening (a mile or two away from The Bard of Salford): Arvo Part, Orient & Occident (as performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, on ECM).

Into the Woods

2007-04-29T11:07:00.000+01:00

So, my little Welsh trip in one word? Wet. In three slightly Irish words? Very feckin' wet. So, very few photos to show for myself, but I suppose on the plus side I did finally work out how to correctly pronounce "Betws-y-Coed"...

Trees seem to haunting me lately. I've been listening to Jimmy Scott sing "Sycamore Trees" on the Twin Peaks soundtrack - something you can see in situ about 4 minutes into this clip. That whole final episode genuinely scared me when I first saw it many years ago, and I still find it incredibly perturbing in a way that simultaneously makes perfect sense and no sense whatsoever...

It also looks like one of my photos might be used for a book cover with a tree connection - but I'll post more about that later when it's all confirmed.

Song of the week: the aforementioned Sycamore Trees. Album of the week: The Marble Index by Nico. A record that doesn't work at all when the sun is in the sky.

Broken Face

2007-04-22T17:22:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery.]

Sorry for the lack of posting lately - it's just been one of those periods when things haven't been working out quite as well as they might as far as new work goes. 2007 also seems to be establishing itself as a year for me to stumble from one catastrophe to another in my personal life, which tends to slow things down a bit. Aaanyway, this ain't Livejournal, so I'll leave the whinging there!

A bit of a lifesaver recently has been discovering the archives of In Our Time, which has managed to keep my brain from totally seizing up during recent lengthy bouts of scanning and photoshop time. I love how old-fashioned the format is - a topic is announced (Wittgenstein, black holes, the siege of Constantinople), some experts are introduced, and then they just have an erudite discussion about it until time runs out. Enough to make me forgive Radio 4 for The Archers ... just ...

And, while we're talking brain fodder, can I just recommend (a bit belatedly) David Lynch's new film Inland Empire - I'm still thinking it through now, several weeks after seeing it, which must be a sign of something in it beyond simple mentalness. Oh, and it has talking bunnies in it too.

Right, well I'm off to beautiful Snowdonia for a few days now. I'll try to step things up a gear blogwise once I get back ... and maybe think of some things actually connected to photography to talk about too!

Song (and I use the term loosely) of the week: New Puritan by The Fall.

So It Goes

2007-04-12T11:24:00.000+01:00

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP.

Three Trees

2007-03-14T22:50:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

I'm not sure how much I like this one really ... but, anyway ...

A couple of bits of business:

-My little show at Kro is finally coming down. It was never supposed to be up for anywhere near this long, but there was some sort of issue with whatever was supposed to follow it, and then a change in management at Kro, etc etc. Hope people enjoyed it.

-Postcards! Buy them now! They're like small prints really - I know a couple of people have framed them, which looks just swell. With each purchase you will receive - free! - the amusing mental image of me covered with Indian ink trying to clumsily apply the imprint to the back of each card with an ancient rubber stamp.

Song of the week: 'Ping Pong Affair' by The Slits.

Grand Emptiness

2007-02-27T19:44:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

I'm starting to think I should have called this blog "Stray Light Foto(s that look better as prints, honest)" ... but, hey, I like this one even in its diminished state. It sort of looks like the desert, but this is in fact the seabed on the two mile walk out to Hilbre Island off the Wirral coast ... feels like a bit of an adventure going out there, in this landscape temporarily vacated by the water. Huge feeling of openness and space ... and hardly a soul to be seen on the blustery day I went out, except for the two lovely Polish lasses I met in the abandoned lifeboat station on Hilbre who shared their thermos of tea - cheers ladies!

Listening this week: the new Do Make Say Think LP - they were fantastic when my band played with them several years ago, and they seem to be continuing in their all-round greatness with this new record.

Unfettered Capitalism

2007-02-14T15:53:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the gallery and the shop.]

As some of you might have already noticed, I've added a shop page to my site - and up now are a first few platinum / palladium prints. After a lot of experimenting I've decided to be very selective about which pictures I offer in platinum - partly because it's a lot of work making them (!!), but mostly as I think it's best to only do only those that really benefit from the particular look that pt/pd offers.

I'll be adding some more to the page over the weekend - I'm going to try and write a little background info for each picture I select as well.

Pynchon progress update:- there's a very fine chapter early on in Against the Day about photography around 1890/1900 - plates, pyrogallic, magnesium flash lamps, the lot - and there's a line ("redeeming light from the inertia of precious metals") that I keep coming back to as I play around with my tiny brown glass bottles of sodium chloropalladite...

Kekulé's Serpent

2007-01-29T22:40:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery.]

Okay, so in lieu of anything properly new here’s a variant of the shot from a few posts back, from a stray roll just discovered at the bottom of my bag. Think I prefer this one.

Now, onto important things – a few words about Thomas Pynchon (“oh here he goes again” cry people who know me too well). Here’s the most recent sighting.

I’ve just started on Against the Day, which the lovely Katherine gave me for Xmas – a slightly daunting prospect, not just because this is a long book even compared to Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, but because entering a Pynchon novel is like going on an expedition to the foothills of an unknown land. Luckily this time I have the Pynchon Wiki as a guide – wish such a thing had existed 10 years ago when M&D came out!

And if that wasn’t enough – out recently is Zak Smith’s illustrated Gravity’s Rainbow, due to a legal dispute now rather amusingly called Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow – catchy! 750 illustrations, paintings and (look – on topic!) photographs – a colossal undertaking. (See it online here). They’re often verging on the abstract, but just turning through a few pages now I spot: the banana breakfast (pg.10) at which “it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off”, the Pavlovian dogs (pg. 78), Grigori the Octopus (pg. 113), Mrs. Quoad’s Disgusting English Candy Drill (pg. 118) and so on and so on. I’ll probably have to re-read GR again now…

Heavy Metal

2007-01-23T15:40:00.000Z

It occurred to me recently that I don't have many photos that I'm happy with from around Manchester - don't know why this should be really, I do find the place constantly stimulating, but maybe just too visually familiar...

I'm also aware how badly I'm doing with keeping the blog up to date, working on new pictures, etc ... mainly due to my platinum printing adventures. It's all turned out to be quite the challenge (or the digital negative portion of it at least) and I must admit to becoming a tad obsessive about cracking the problem. I've probably had a few too many late nights peering into trays of potassium oxalate now.

More posts & more pictures soon - honest.

No Danger

2007-01-02T00:03:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

This is a photo that I thought was a bit of a throwaway really … but it seems to have stuck in my mind, so here it is. I think I quite like the starkness of it.

Anyway, I hope everyone managed to suck every last bit of marrow from the bones of 2006, and all your heads aren’t throbbing too much in the tender dawn of ’07.

Future / Past

2006-12-20T21:29:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery]

Well, it's another in my occasional series of photos that don't work very well at web sizes...

As an early present to myself I've just got the new Graciela Iturbide book, Eyes To Fly With, I'm a huge fan of her work so I was really excited to hear about it, and I'm happy to report it lives up to my high expectations. If you're looking for somewhere to start with her though, I'd suggest the Aperture monograph Images of the Spirit, which is widely available and often very cheap. A side effect of the book was to get me thinking of matters Latin American, and hence some readers of this are probably going to find García Márquez novels in their Christmas stockings!

I'm sorta hoping for David Maisel's Oblivion in mine, although nowt is going to top my recently acquired Susan Burnstine print, to continue my lapse into dialect, dead chuffed about that!

I shall try to get in a posting before the end of December, so I'll leave off any ruminations about the year soon to pass for now. May yet have something to say about the platinum prints, and also some handmade postcard series I'm playing around with. For now though, all best festive wishes to everyone.

Westerly

2006-12-06T15:52:00.000Z

From a very windy day up on the moors - posted because I thought I'd continue my (initially unintentional) recent trend of pictures with pathways leading through them...

I was lucky enough to find a reasonably priced copy of Rocky Schenck's Photographs recently - someone first pointed out to me by Susan because we had both taken pictures of the same spot in New Mexico (mine titled No Picnic, and Schenck's Picnic). Anyway, it's a great book, which pushes photos to the point of being abstract and painterly - the reference points being artists like Hopper and Munch, and a few shots looking like lost frames from Eraserhead...

Low Winter Sun

2006-11-16T22:25:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the People section of the gallery.]

Midday at West Kirby ... this picture is really all about the people on the horizon. Who you can't see at this size on the web. Oh.

As a bit of a project to occupy myself during the long dark winter days ahead I'm in the process of learning to make digital negatives for platinum / palladium printing ... weirdly attracted to the idea of using a digital route to get to a 19th century chemical process print. It's also the sort of thing that I just like learning how to do, although I have to restrain myself often from delving into anything that comes along ... curiosity would be a much better character trait if you didn't have to sleep.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on.

Or, if it's a complete disaster, never mention it again.

Parallel Lines

2006-11-08T16:08:00.000Z

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

I'm only really posting this as Susan's blog from yesterday reminded me of it, and it seemed like a weird adjunct. Just swap the Mojave desert for the Yorkshire Moors.

For anyone in NW England, this is the last week to see the big Rene Burri retrospective at the Manchester Art Gallery. Free entry and highly recommended.

I've managed to shoot quite a lot in the last week or two, so I think I'll leave it there and go and deal with the backlog of film!

Dark Path

2006-10-27T13:00:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery]

Sorry I've been rubbish at posting recently - not so much due to lack of pictures, but more a general feeling of not having much to say. Maybe it's a bit of figurative - as well as literal - gloom from the shortening of the days...

Anyway, I thought it was at least worth a post to mention the release of the second volume of Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's The Photobook: A History - an absolute must-have for anyone with an interest in the medium. As this volume brings us up to the present day it stops being purely a historical overview and - by necessity - gets embroiled in various current controversies and arguments where the critical dust has yet to settle. Consequently I actually found it more interesting than Vol.1, and it has some very intelligent things to say about movements like New Objectivism (or what Parr and Badger term "the Dusseldorf Tendency") and New Colour Documentary, about which I have quite mixed feelings.

Totally unrelated and off-topic: can I just put in a plug for Firefox 2.0? Thanks.

And again: a song which seems to mean something particular to me at the moment, A Strange Form of Life by Bonnie Prince Billy.

With A View

2006-10-16T17:44:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the West section of the gallery]

Just a quick post with this image because: 1) It's Ellen's favourite from this series, and 2) It's part of a guest gallery that's now up at Filmwasters. Many thanks to Susan for the invitation!

In Vino Veritas

2006-09-29T18:52:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery]

So, I meant to mention last time about the best comment I've heard about my band. We played in Nottingham some time ago, and afterwards Ellen overheard someone in the pub talking about us: "I didn't stay to see them play - they didn't even look like a band!"

I think that's our new motto.

Anyway, this is a pic from a quick trip to Northwest Wales - I mainly wanted to go in order to visit Portmeirion, about which I'll probably post something later, but also visited some of the old slate mining towns in the hills of Snowdonia. At times it did remind me of some of the old Gold Rush settlements I saw in the US, but a big difference was the extent to which the landscape had been altered - around Blaenau Ffestiniog in particular every hill was covered with shattered slate scree, all directions mined out. Seeing the abandoned slate workings - with workbenches and tools signed by the last people to work there in the 1960s - was very atmospheric and melancholy.

Also had a little time to explore the Llŷn peninsula, which is truly beautiful - just as much so as the much better known Gower in South Wales which I visited a while back. It's one of the bastions of the Welsh language too, which I do love to hear but really have a hard time wrapping my tongue around.

Looking Through

2006-09-19T20:33:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the People section of the gallery.]

A couple of bits of news for those of you who might be following my extra-curricular activities - there's been a bit of movement on the long-awaited (by a couple of people at least!) new Stray Light record. It's still a way off, but is at least visible on the horizon now rather than scuttling around in the dark undergrowth...

More immediately, we (or Ellen more specifically) have arranged, and are playing at, a charity gig for Oxfam next month - details on the SL site.

Back on topic - I'm in the process of renewing my relationship with the Art Surgery gallery up in the (what's inevitably prefixed with "Manchester's trendy...") Northern Quarter. So, there'll be lots of my photos available through them shortly with options for canvas prints and unusual framing options.

I'm continuing to do quite well at finding secondhand photo books at the moment - best catch lately is Richard Misrach's Crimes and Splendors, an overview of his fantastic desert pictures from late 70s to mid 90s, quite important work I think, even if I am feeling a bit burnt out the current ubiquity of large-format colour work. Not sure about Misrach's organisation of pictures into 'Cantos' though - I have a low threshold of tolerance for that sort of artistic conceit, plus it makes me think of Ezra Pound going mad in a cage, which I'm not sure is a good thing.

Lay of the Land

2006-09-12T15:29:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Empty Places section of the gallery.]

I've just found a lovely copy of Roger Ballen's book Outland - fascinating, dark stuff. I was already familiar with his more recent work (as in Shadow Chamber) which comprises people and animals in constructed, almost sculptural, environments but Outland covers the more photojournalistic start of his career covering rural South Africa (and stylistically owing quite a bit to Diane Arbus) and then segues into his current mode. This actually makes it all the more disturbing as the line between the real and the staged is really not as clear as you might expect, and equally bizarre on both sides. Recommended, but perhaps not right before bedtime.

In contrast, just got the new Yo La Tengo CD and it's giving me a happy. As is the new series of The Wire - as I may have mentioned before: best TV ever.

Few other bits of foto ephemera: Alec Soth has a blog. The new Shots is just out, featuring Susan, Gordon and others - as good as ever.

I'll be away from home and internetless for a few days starting tomorrow, will be back to catch up with things over the weekend.

EDIT: Just noticed that Gayla agrees with me about The Wire!

Sorry for the digital...

2006-09-07T15:38:00.000+01:00

...but thought I'd post a quick snap from this morning, hanging the Kro pictures. Note Matt here demonstrating his masterful left-handed mirror plate technique - well done that man!

Aside from not being very sure about those lights it all went smoothly, and the pictures are available for your Mancunian viewing pleasure as from today.

Floating

2006-08-30T17:01:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the West section of the gallery]

Okay, here we go:

West at Kro (in the conservatory area), 325 Oxford Road, Manchester from Thursday 7th September.

And whilst we're at it:

A Day In The Life at The Norwich Playhouse from Saturday 2nd September.

Hope some of you get the chance to check out one or the other.

Tickling Fate

2006-08-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

I almost didn't post this as it's a bit "pretty but so what?" - however it reminds me of a nice day walking on the Yorkshire Moors and picking wild bilberries with El Gato, which is good enough. I also like the tree, hippie that I am.

(And it's a nice bit of synchronicity that Susan's post today was arboreal in nature too!).

I'd been holding off posting as I'd expected to have the final details about the Kro show by now, but I somehow seem to think that, having waited for a while, going ahead now will somehow prompt that to happen sooner... Pity me and my addled logically-challenged brain.

Currently reading Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's epochal The Photobook: A History volume I - hugely recommended - I've already pre-ordered Volume 2, which has been delayed for some time but is due soon. Review and sample pages here.

Okay, so if my fate-teasing plan worked you'll see show details appear here very shortly, but even if not there'll be some fun stuff from my Wales trip (which was magnificent by the way) soon enough. Hold on to your cravats!

Working for the Man

2006-08-08T16:34:00.000+01:00

Just a slightly surreal looking moment from a job last week ... somewhere between a Talking Heads video and 1984 (as much of life is...).

I still seem to be plugging away at things without getting anywhere at the moment, but at least after going to Cardiff this coming weekend for a job I'm going to get the opportunity to spend a few days exploring the South Wales coast, and hopefully get a sidetrip to Dungeness in too. Aside from a few forays into nearby bits of the north coast I've not seen much of Wales, so I'm looking forward to hearing some cymraeg and tackling some laver bread - Hwyl Fawr for now!

Small Steps

2006-07-20T16:53:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the People section of the gallery]

Just some small updates to share - it's been a slow summer so far, not so much as in a lack of activity but in getting things finished.

I still don't have a date for the Kro exhibition - although it WILL happen eventually. And since I've had quite a lot more time than I'd envisaged it has now morphed into a selection of recent US pics.

And on that note - I still haven't quite got there with all the trip pictures, but there's a preview of the gallery here if you want to take a peek. I'll probably be changing that selection a fair bit before it goes properly live. Those of you who followed my route will notice the lack of Tehachapi photos - they will be appearing elsewhere shortly!

I'll try to have some more interesting things to say for the next update.

Odds and Ends

2006-06-28T17:52:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the West section of the gallery]

Some random thoughts this afternoon...

Just got back from a brief trip to London - saw the Rinko Kawauchi show at the Photographer's Gallery, which I liked quite a lot despite not really knowing why. Her light, translucent tones and colours are a long way from my own work, which made it aesthetically refreshing ... in fact I was inspired afterwards to have a sushi lunch and thought the photos were the visual equivalent of the gari inbetween the maki, if you follow my drift.

Something possibly even more interesting is that the Photographer's Gallery bookstore has a lot of interesting Japanese photography books to accompany the exhibition - many of which are usually very hard to obtain, and extremely interesting to look through.

I've carried a Moleskine notebook everywhere with me for many years now, but wasn't really aware of their cult following - check out moleskinerie.com if you don't believe me. Some of the stuff on there does make me feel rather inadequate for just plain writing in mine though...

The photo this entry is from Salvation Mountain - a vast piece of devotional folk art near the Salton Sea in California, built by one man over several decades. There'll be a few more photos from here when I finally get the web gallery up - it's coming. Honest.

Monomania

2006-06-15T16:44:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the West section of the gallery]

So, my life is entirely revolving around photography in one way or another – work and pleasure, night and day. When I’m not working on my own pictures, I’m looking at photographer’s blogs and web galleries, reading monographs and biographies, and lately watching photography DVDs – about which a few words:

-“Keith Carter”, the first in a new series of DVDs about photographers from Anthropy Arts. A really nice, straightforward overview of Carter’s work, mostly told via an interview with the photographer and his own pictures. There are a few sections showing him working, both in his studio and on location in Texas, which I found interesting – largely because I always work alone and don’t really know any local photogs, so it was quite a novelty to observe how someone else goes about these things. The DVD is made, though, by Carter himself, who is consistently personable and very open about his methods and motivations – without any self-aggrandisement or conceptual bullshit.

-In contrast the next two films are defined by complexity and what isn’t being said. “William Eggleston in the Real World” by Michael Almereyda is an intensely strange documentary – apparently intentionally mundane and verging on the tedious, with the slight same Lynchian edge that Eggleston’s photos have. Long (long!) sections of the film show Eggleston wandering around anonymous American streets and alleys, in silence, occasionally stopping for a second to snap some signage or storefronts or everything else he has consistently photographed for the past several decades. After a while of this any mystery or excitement about the creative process has totally evaporated, if it had gone on much longer the desire to start chewing on the furniture would likely become irresistible. When Eggleston – who look and sounds like a cross between Williams Faulkner and Burroughs – finally does speak it’s in such a low volume drawl that he’s consistently subtitled, and worse, he has absolutely nothing to say. Towards the end of the film, in what feels like the filmmakers attempt to force some sort of conclusion to proceedings, Eggleston in questioned from behind the camera about his methods and intentions – rejecting any of the proffered philosophies or explanations, all he can say is that pictures and words don’t have anything much to do with one another.

A DVD extra is footage of Eggleston waiting in silence for the start of a BBC radio interview which then doesn’t happen due to technical problems. It seems fitting.

-Finally, Christian Frei’s film “War Photographer” about James Nachtwey. Given his apocalyptic subject matter – war, famine, disease – this was never going to be light viewing, but what becomes most interesting about it is the character of Nachtwey himself. After all, here is a man who not only photographs the most brutal warfare and appalling suffering, but usually produces frankly gorgeous pictures of them. He comes across as taciturn, stoic, focused and somewhat distant – a man with few friends or close attachments – and the polar opposite of the stereotypical thrill-seeking gung-ho war photog. Disturbing, enigmatic, and highly recommended.

(Picture is from White Sands, New Mexico – a totally surreal place. You can’t really tell from the photo, but I was there on the worst possible day – high winds meant a few seconds out in the open left skin feeling sand-blasted, eyes and camera full of fine gypsum…)

Saguaro

2006-06-02T15:45:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the West section of the gallery]

Okay, so this is a lot later than I'd planned for an update ... apologies to anyone who'd begun to suspect I'd fallen down a mineshaft in Nevada or been eaten by coyotes in the Mojave.

I've been back about 3 weeks now, and only had sporadic opportunities to clear the 50 rolls I brought back ... things are starting to calm down slightly now though and some new things should start to filter through in the next few weeks. In the meantime here's a Saguaro cactus for y'all - my favourite desert plantlife after the Joshua tree. There might be one or two (dozen) pictures of those yet to come...

Unfortunately I haven't got a definite date for the show I mentioned way back in my last entry - problems with the venue - but I can tell you it will be at Kro in Manchester, some time in the next few weeks, and will be pictures of Dungeness. More info when I have it!

America is Waiting

2006-04-13T20:27:00.000+01:00

Just a quick one from Edinburgh last week - the trip went very well, nice to see Gaynor and Phil at the exhibition, and I enjoyed very much the chance of seeing more of the city, even if I did knacker my legs walking much too far on the first day...

And now I'm just about to set off again, to the US this time, so this will be my last posting until sometime in May - should return with lots of lovely new pictures to show you all though! Also, will have some news to share on my return about a non-sciencey exhibition in Manchester. Be seeing you.

You hear voices?

2006-04-03T11:18:00.000+01:00

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery]

You hear them, so you are possessed.

Mind thoroughly warped this last week by the reissue of Byrne and Eno's 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' - the idea of a world haunted by voices carried by EM waves seeming just as resonant today as it did 25 years ago when the record first came out. Plus, experimental music with a bit of danceable funk? No bad thing.

It was also easily my busiest working week as a photographer ever - with a somewhat predictable last minute panic over getting the pictures for Edinburgh finished and delivered, plus several jobs including a session of portraiture which I decided to do on the streets of the Northern Quarter in Manchester, and turned out to be huge fun. Used my one day off from photography to, erm, go and see some photography - Elliott Erwitt at the NMPFT. A total joy, and providing the rarity of genuine laughter in a gallery, along with many deeper moments.

So, main news for this week is the opening of the Edinburgh exhibition at The Hub this Wednesday - I'll be there this weekend, and there's a meet 'n' greet session on Sunday evening. The Manchester exhibition at Kro has also been extended - will now be up until the end of the month.

A Question of Tone

2006-03-26T12:24:00.000+01:00

Okay, so this is an old picture to illustrate a problem. I've been making the prints for the Edinburgh exhibition and getting a bit dismayed at how much better (and different) they look compared to the versions on the web. Partly this is the inevitable difference between looking at a nice 12x12 and a small jpeg on a screen, but it's also to do with reproducing tone properly - in fact, up to now, without being able to make and scan prints of every picture, I haven't really attempted it, and all b&w images on my site are just grayscales.

(And lets not even get started on the fact that not many people ever calibrate their monitors, and the same image can look hugely different on someone else's computer...)

Anyway, the above is my attempt to recreate the look and tone of the actual print in photoshop - and here is the original untoned grayscale version for comparison. What do you all think? Is it worth the extra effort to try and reproduce the look of the print on screen, or are grayscales sufficient given the limitations of web viewing?

Catching Up

2006-03-21T20:00:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of postings lately - been far too busy, and increasingly gnawed at by stress.

Anyway, this is a picture from my brief trip up to Edinburgh last week for sciencey photo fun. Big thanks to Gaynor and company who were very welcoming, and gave me a really good impression of the city even though I didn't have time to see anything much of it! Looking forward even more now to returning next month; should have time then for a wander around, get some photos, and find a vegetarian haggis to bring back for Kat...

More immediately, my anxiety levels should be much reduced next week, so I'm going to have time to go and see the new Elliott Erwitt exhibition at the NMPFT in Bradford. Love his work and looking forward to it very much, although sadly I'm not going to be around for his talk.

Other news: issues of Shots and Lightleaks are out now for vicarious photo gratification. Filmwasters is the place to be.

On Show (Update)

2006-03-05T20:49:00.000Z

Okay, so after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing (and arranging to install additional lighting!) the Kro Bar exhibition is on, as planned, from this Friday (10th March). It's going to be up in the room between the bar and rear garden - take a look if you're in the area.

On Show

2006-02-22T16:36:00.000Z

Just thought it was worth posting an update on forthcoming exhibitions of the Science project. The major show is in Edinburgh (at The Hub) from the 5th to 16th of April as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival - this will feature photos of the four scientists seen in the previous exhibition, plus two more who I should be photographing in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to my first visit to Edinburgh (and indeed Scotland) very much...

Before then there's going to be a smaller show (just two subjects probably) at the Kro Bar on Oxford Road here in Manchester (and what is it with all the punning bar names in M'cr?) from the 10th to 19th March. I might have to post more details about that later as I was at Kro today and it wasn't clear exactly where the photos would be hanging, and the spot which seemed most likely didn't have any proper lighting installed as yet...

Technicolor

2006-02-07T16:42:00.000Z

Okay, so not the most exciting picture ever, but I thought it would be nice to put something up from working at the university last week, and also for the novelty value of a colour shot on this blog!

This is somewhat relevant at the moment - at a portfolio critique yesterday the person looking over my work at one point said I should shoot colour rather than b&w, which wasn't something I was really expecting to hear. I told Kat from my band that it was a bit like being told your songs are great, but would sound better if played with banjos rather than guitars...

So, I didn't really know how to respond to that (or some of the other suggestions, which came down to matters of personal taste really), but I might as well set out the reasons why I do shoot in mono for my personal work. Firstly I should say that I've nothing against colour photography - in fact some of my favourite photographers shoot exclusively in colour (to name a few, Alex Webb, Miguel Rio Branco, Carl de Keyzer...), in fact part of the problem when I started taking pictures was that I was trying to use colour and b&w at the same time - meaning that I was carrying (at least) two cameras with me at all times, plus all the extra paraphenalia. What I noticed as this continued was that there was an inverse relationship between the amount of equipment carried and the number of (good) photographs made - you miss things if you're changing cameras, or trying to decide which to use in a given situation - and you do more if you have less.

I suppose I'm both a bit of a minimalist, and also someone who believes you work best when you understand the limits of the options open to you. So anyway, I made a conscious decision to focus exclusively on b&w, and although I do have "grass is greener" moments when I see great colour work, I haven't really regretted that decision...

On Tap

2006-01-27T10:49:00.000Z

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

2006-01-18T12:46:00.000Z

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

2006-01-06T16:17:00.000Z

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

2006-01-01T20:25:00.000Z

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.

Félicitations!

2005-12-19T13:00:00.000Z

Happy birthday Katherine.

Muses

2005-12-17T13:23:00.000Z

This is another one from Embankment, slightly more impressionistic than the last...

Main reason I wanted to post today is to draw attention to the new free release by Kristin Hersh's band 50 Foot Wave - the new EP is available both as MP3s and lossless FLACs via Throwing Music, and also various bittorrent sites such as the formidable Dimeadozen.

Kristin's music - in Throwing Muses, solo, and now as 50 Foot Wave - has meant a huge amount to me for many years, and I'm totally in agreement with her aims of circumventing traditional music marketing approaches - as the EP says, Free Music!