As you can see from our drive from Kimmeridge to the Bath & West Show in Shepton Mallett, the weather got decidedly worse!

Read about the flooding in Somerset.

 

Posted in ON THE JOB | Comments Off on FLOODING IN SOMERSET

As a weather-obsessed nation I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to mention it again (along with most of our newspapers who have all run stories this week about the rain-lashed bank holiday).

In a word, it’s been ghastly. I’ve hardly been able to take a photograph since last week and our journey through Devon and Dorset has been a bit of washout. Even Weymouth’s Sea Festival which we tried to attend on Monday was, somewhat ironically, rained off!

After five days of torrential rain, we woke up this morning to yet more depressing weather. This was the view from the motorhome window at our campsite near Kimmerdige Bay, Dorset.

We’re heading up to the Bath & West Agricultural Show tomorrow and the forecast is not much better.

 

Posted in TRIP LOGISTICS | Comments Off on ANOTHER WORD ABOUT THE WEATHER

I rather enjoyed reading this letter in the Telegraph today written by Lucy Anderson-

“Sir – It was a pleasure to hear the author Richard Hamblyn talking about clouds on the radio at the weekend. I enjoyed imagining the different types of sky he described. Mr Hamblyn said that Shropshire was a good place for cloud-spotting, because the hills produced fine examples. Somehow I had generally connected cloudscapes with the big skies one sees above flat countryside. Perhaps my assumption was partly based on the cloud-piled paintings of Constable depicting his native Suffolk. But on looking again at Constable’s cloud paintings on the internet, I find some of his most striking specimens were painted at his London home in Hampstead – a hilly spot. Do other readers find that clouds are more spectacular in some favourite spot?”

And here’s one of Constable’s cloud paintings from Hampstead-

John Constable (1776-1837)
‘Hampstead Heath; Branch Hill Pond’ 1828
Oil on canvas from the V&A Collection

It was an exhibition of photographs by Ansel Adams on display in Yosemite National Park which I saw while on a family holiday when I was 14 that first inspired me to take photographs. I was mesmorised by these sublimely beautiful images of the untouched American wilderness, and I remember being particularly struck by his ability to capture clouds. A feature of the landscape which had, until then, completely passed me by. 

Ansel Adams, Yosemite Valley, 1942

Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, 1942

 

Maybe I’m just a romantic, but I’ve been a fan ever since. Of Adams and clouds. 

For other cloud fans out there, take a look at the Cloud Appreciation Society website.

 

Posted in INSPIRATION | 1 Comment »

On Sunday evening we attended a jazz concert and hog roast in the grounds of Maunsel House, the ancestral seat of the Slade Family and home of Sir Benjamin Slade. The thirteenth century house is where Geoffrey Chaucer allegedly wrote part of the Canterbury Tales.

In an interview in the Daily Mail on the occasion of the house opening to the public for the first time (dated August 26^th 1986) Sir Ben is quoted as saying that he wanted to take the “stuffiness” out of stately home visiting. “Most houses do it on a show-off scale, but the majority of visitors don’t feel relaxed. Here they can do what they want- even grill a streak in the grounds. It’s the unstateliest home in England.”

While Maunsel has been vastly improved, with most of the dry rot and rising damp that greeted visitors twenty years ago now gone, there is still a distinct feeling that this is anything but a museum piece of a stately home. Especially when compared to the experience of visiting a National Trust property like Knightshayes Court, where we’d spent the morning in an attempt to escape the torrential rain.

What’s more interesting, however, is Sir Ben’s quest to find an heir to this £7.5 million country pile. Having no children of his own, this eccentric, right-wing aristocrat has made international headlines thanks to his world-wide hunt for an appropriate Slade to continue his blood-line. No matter if he’s English or not.

It was even suggested last year that he had found a close DNA match in Isaac Slade, singer with Denver-based band The Fray. The 26-year-old has shown no indication of wanting to take on Maunsel, though he has formed an improbable friendship with the baronet.

To find out more about Sir Ben’s quest, read this recent interview in the Independent on Sunday Review by Robert Chalmers.

 

Posted in EVENTS & PASTIMES | Comments Off on AN HEIR FOR ENGLAND’S UNSTATELIEST HOME

There is an interesting tit-for-tat over on Open Democracy between Vron Ware and Paul Kingsnorth.

Kingsnorth writes a critical review of Ware’s book Who Cares About Britishness? Read it here.

And Ware has now responded, setting out the fundamental differences between her approach to national identity and that of Kingsnorth in Real England. She writes:

“I bought Paul Kingsnorth’s book Real England a few weeks ago after reading a positive review of it. I was enthusiastic about his project of bringing an anti-globalisation perspective to the destruction of England’s distinctive environments as I also feel passionately about this. I have been writing about a particular English locality for ten years now, tracking the impact of global forces on every area of life. I’ve also been working on and against racism and nationalism, attentive to the past and future relationships between Britain and England. When I read him I realised that there are differences between us. Now, Kingsnorth’s mean-spirited and inaccurate review of my book commissioned by the British Council, Who Cares About Britishness? A global view of the national identity debate (Arcadia, 2007) suggests that there is little common ground between us. Rather than just respond to his attack I’d like to assess his whole approach.

Kingsnorth employs the well-worn method of identifying the ‘Real England’ by travelling around the country to document a tale of damage, decline and neglect. The portrait of Englishness that he paints conveys a lament for better times, coupled with a reluctance to protest effectively at the destruction of ‘ways of life’ and institutions that once developed out of local, English culture. I thought the book would also bring an added dimension, especially since George Monbiot’s recommendation on the front cover announces that the book ‘helps to shape our view of who we are and who we want to be’……”

Read the rest of her article here.

Posted in RESEARCH | Comments Off on ENGLISHNESS VS BRITISHNESS

Using a 5×4 view camera is a unique experience, quite removed from that of using a Mamiya 7 (my camera of choice for Motherland). Accordingly, I’ve developed a very different method of photographing my subject.

More often than not, I find myself wandering around a landscape looking for a scene that I think could make a photograph. If I see some potential, I’ll often take some digital photographs for reference, almost like a sketchbook. Once I’m happy with my location, I’ll set up the tripod and camera, which normally takes about 2-3 minutes (for the technically minded among you, please see Q Tuan Luong’s step-by-step guide to operating the view camera below) and finally place the film plate onto the camera back. I’ll then wait for the scene to unfold within my frame, taking the photograph at a given moment.

There’s often a lot of patience needed, either waiting for people to enter the landscape, or, because many of the scenes I’m photographing contain large groups of people, a moment when as many people as possible are distributed in an interesting way throughout the landscape. One fact about using a 5×4 plate camera (similarly with a 10×8 camera) is that once you’ve placed the film plate onto the back of the camera, you can no longer see through the lens. You are then relying on memory as to where in the landscape your framing starts and ends.

Having captured what I consider the final photograph from a scene, I now force myself to wait another few minutes to see what else happens, as often something does. This is a result of some frustrating missed opportunities where, having started to pack the camera away, I’ve spotted something happening, and not had time to re-frame and set up the camera to capture it. So I’ll now wait a further seven minutes to make sure. Why seven? Five just seemed too obvious. 

 

A step-by-step guide to operating the view camera by Q. T Luong

Operating the view camera is done in a series of steps, whose order is crucial. Reversing some of the steps will ruin the image. Reversing some other steps will unnecessarily waste time. Although this might seem complicated at first, if you always stick to the same sequence, it will become second nature. You will then be able to concentrate on the subject.

Here is the sequence that I favour in the field.

·       Choose the camera position, approximate orientation, focal length.

·       Set up and level the tripod and camera.

·       Attach the lens and open it to full aperture.

·       Focus roughly using the focussing knob.

·       Adjust precisely the composition while looking at the ground glass.

·       Focus precisely with tilts/swings.

·       Determine the optimal aperture.

·       Re-adjust slightly the composition (optional but recommended).

·       Adjust filters and compendium shade (optional but recommended).

·       Check for vignetting (optional but recommended).

·       Close the lens, cock the shutter, rap and insert the film holder.

·       Determine the shutter speed.

·       Set the aperture and shutter speed.

·       Remove the dark slide.

·       Look at the subject.

·       Fire the shutter with a cable release.

·       Put the darkslide back in.

·       Remove the filmholder.

·       Make a second identical exposure (optional but recommended).

·       Pack and move to the next spot.

 

Posted in ON THE JOB | Comments Off on THE SEVEN MINUTE RULE

Congratulations to Laura Pannack for winning the Next Perspective competition. Laura is a recent graduate of the BA Photography Course at Brighton University and has also been assisting me over the past couple of years

The Next Perspective jury panel consisted of Henry Horenstein from the Rhode Island School of Design, Dr. Juliet Hacking from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London and Clare Freestone from the National Portrait Gallery in London.

 

Posted in MISCELLANEOUS | Comments Off on NEXT PERSPECTIVE

I just wanted to alert people to this Panel Discussion being held at The Photographers’ Gallery entitled ‘Artistic Exchange’. It sounds like it could be an interesting event. I wish I could be there.

The details:

Is it useful to define an exhibition by its nationality? Can cultural distance and proximity both be advantages in the curatorial process?

Join us for a panel discussion (chaired by Dr. Isobel Whitelegg, with Egyptian artist Mahmoud Khaled, exhibiting artist Juan Pablo Echeverri and curator Camilla Brown) on how curators translate artists work.

27 May 2008 19:00

£5.00 / £3.50 concessions.

 

Posted in RESEARCH | Comments Off on ARTISTIC EXCHANGE

Yesterday I was in Weston-Super-Mare photographing a lawn bowls match at Clarence Bowling Club. Having commented on what a plush club house they had, I was told the story of Les Andrews.

Les was a life-long member of the Clarence Bowls Club, having bowled there for 52 years. He was a keen bowler, although in his latter years he would often be seen sitting up at the bar enjoying a drink with other older members of the club. A humble man, he lived in a modest flat in Weston. He didn’t own a car and rarely went on holiday. After his death a few years ago the trustees were shocked to discover he’d left the club £500,000 in his will (with the remaining £500,000 of his estate going to the National Trust). Which was slightly fortuatous as they’d just failed in a bid to secure National Lottery funding (bowling is not deemed ethnically diverse enough). And so was built the Les Andrews Club House. 

Posted in EVENTS & PASTIMES | Comments Off on GOD BLESS LES ANDREWS

Thanks to Aaron for posting this poem by G.K. Chesterton

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,

And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;

But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed

To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,

Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,

The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run

Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?

The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,

But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.

God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear

The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,

But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,

And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Posted in POETRY | 1 Comment »