Not so grim

One of my recent book purchases was The North by John Bulmer.I'd seen the pictures on his website and fancied having them in a tangible form. They are fine examples of their genre and era. Whether it is the era that makes them interesting I'm not sure. There seems to be a lot of work appearing in print from the sixties of late which I put down the age of the current  photographers (entering their old age) and perhaps also that of the publishers and photobook buyers (people who were young, as I was, when the photographs were taken). The nostalgia factor is ever present with photographs as they are always records of their time.

Although I like the photographs I do have a problem with them. The nostalgia I can live with. I can even accept the focus on the cobbled street clichés. The stoic northerners facing up to the declining industry and grime. It existed in the 1960s when the black and white work was made. The same could be said for the 1976 colour work which is touted here as groundbreaking. What was photographed was undeniably there. But what really irked me was reading Bulmer's description of his approach to using colour in the north. He says, rightly, that using colour can lead to confusing pictures while black and white simplifies things to blocks of tones. It's also correct that the north "had been considered a black and white subject." Where my blood pressure rose was when I read that Bulmer chose to shoot in winter, so that he "could soften the images with rain and fog." Because "Northern terraces in bright sunlight just did not seem right" to him. This is plainly a man out to portray the north in a certain, stereotypical way. The sun does shine 'up north', even on the terraces.

The result of this approach might not have been black and white, but it did lean to monochrome. With a handful of exceptions the pictures might as well have been made in black and white. Despite this gripe from a northerner the book is still one I'll look at repeatedly. The pictures are not trying to be clever. They're straightforward, if somewhat biased.

Against my better judgement I spent half an hour at the sandplant yesterday. I was passing by on my way home and called in before the rain arrived. Sometimes a short visit somewhere can produce a worthwhile picture. In many ways this picture brings together many of the sandplant's aspects. The words describe what is supposed to be happening, the fact that the notice has been torn down and burned show the reality, there's sand, concrete, grass and litter, drabness and colour.

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