Words and pictures, pictures or words

I'm beginning to think that this blog is morphing from being a photography blog to a visual diary of my roamings around the area where I live. It's certainly reflecting my shift in interest in photography from making stand alone pictures which aspire to be what could loosely pass for art to pictures which record what things look like and what goes on.

Listening to Alec Soth's recent talks about words and pictures on Youtube I found myelf almost at the opposite end of the spectrum to his seeming desire for pictures to convey something beyond what they show wntirely without words. the concept of the photobook is losing its appeal to me. I've mentioned this before but I don't have much patience with the poetic approach to photography, even though I do make photographs and zines which could be read that way. They're too much like hard work for me to read and interpret. Then again I could just look at teh pictures and let them wash over me in the way that music does. maybe that's the better way to approach them?

I'm coming round to thinking that the way I want to sue my photographs is equally balanced with text in a documentary manner. the pictures, however, being more than illustration of what the text says and the text being more than a description of what the pictures show. Something like that!

Then I go and take a photograph like the one below. On its own it has some mystery to it and doesn't appear 'documentary'. Indeed I made it as a picture to represent what I saw in the way I saw it.

If I explain that it's a view through a hole in the door of an old church closed up during the Covid pandemic does it's meaning change?

Would it work in a set of pictures of the church and churchyard without that explanation?

This is probably far too much thinking than is good for me! So does this picture of a cultivated field scattered with potatoes need an explanatory caption?

Then there's this photograph of some apparently dumped vegetables for which I have no words. The were just there in a ditch. Why? How? Those are the questions which prompted me to make the photograph. Poetic or just plain odd? It's probably up to whoever looks at the picture to decide.

Same goes for this red tray in a hedge.

There are some pictures which are self-explanatory.

Others which are obvious, and to some extent visually interesting as formal compositions.

Is it changed when paired with another picture of a related subject?

Sometimes I'm attracted to how things look, the forms of objects, or how the light plays on a subject.

In isolation that's all the above pictures are. Exercises in picture construction. Put them together with a text about the potato industry and they become illustration that maybe provides a sense of place which text alone does not.

A simple composition of harmonious bands of colour. What's going on though? If a viewer is familiar with farming maybe the picture means something different to a committed urbanite?

 

Without words this is just an arrangement of shape and colour. The inclusion of text in a picture can alleviate the need for explanation. But not in this case.

Another visit to the old pump house saw the site drastically altered. The pictures I took were made to go along with earlier ones to illustrate the changes. Even so I attempted to give them a composition which both showed clearly what had been going on and to make a single frames which could stand alone as both pictures and story.

To me it's plain that this rusty horseshoe had been found during ditch clearing work. Whether the picture makes it obvious to anyone else I don't know.

Are pictures of tractors being followed by seagulls understood by everyone? Would a town dweller think this was ploughing instead of sowing?

My head's starting to hurt with all this thinking. The zine project I'm hoping to get finished in time for the swap is very much in the wordless category. It could be accompanied by an explanatory text, but that would defeat what I have in mind. I want it to make people think for themselves.

If I were to undertake a concerted project about sheep farming, say, then I would rather do it using texts and pictures in a longer book form than a zine. I think that would give a fuller understanding of the subject than a photobook of un-captioned pictures of sometimes obtuse meaning which is how many photobooks seem to be done these days. 

No doubt the photobook cognoscenti wouldn't think it was a photobook and would dismiss it even if the photographs were great (greater than I'm likely to manage that is).  I take heart in this from books by Fay Godwin and Daniel Meadows which have used text and photographs. They, too, might not be photobooks, but they're the kind of books I find myself returning to. The same goes for the farming books by the Forders. All three have produced books in which the pictures are more than illustrations, making the books more than the usual 'guide to' somewhere or something in which the photographs are formulaic in an editorial way.

Oh well. enough of this nonsense for now. I've been out and taken some photographs which I think will find a place in some of my project files. Mostly without pondering too much on theory and stuff. Sometimes I see something and rattle off a frame or two without thinking too much about framing too!

---

The democratic medium?

Before I get into my 'thought piece' some photos. The weather this past week has been wetter than ever, so I haven't been out much - with or without a camera. Thursday I drove round my most frequent walking route on the moss to see what was what as I didn't want to get caught in one of the frequent showers. I parked up and walked back to take some photos and before I reached where I wanted to take pictures I got hit by yet another load of rain. 

The downpours had made a significant impact on land that I hadn't seen so wet before.

 

Today the rain had gone and the sun was shining, although the sun did its usual disappearing act when I went out in the late afternoon. I'd put my wellies on because the field path had been under more water than I'd ever seen on Thursday. When I got to the field the wellies were more than sufficient s the water level had dropped back to below the ditch top. It was the same on the moss with the water being mostly back in the ditches. What a difference a day made.

Sunset is getting noticeably later now making it possible to get work done and still manage an hour or more wandering with the camera. This wood often attracts my attention at this time of year when teh sun sets behind, or almost behind, it. This evening  the glow from the low sun and the towering clouds made it look as if the wood were on fire. Or maybe I just have a vivid imagination?
 

Next to no photographs, certainly none with any great utility, and loads of rain. A dismal week all round.

Having been put in a miserable mood I got all gloomy an started pondering, for the umpteenth time, who is it that looks at zines and photobooks. Who are the people making these publications making them for? Given the limited print runs of most zines and books, and let's face it anything under tens of thousands is limited, I can only conclude that the audience is predominantly (if not entirely) other photographers plus those involved in the photo-world - gallerists, collectors, curators. this most democratic of media is making publications for an elite.

If that wasn't bad enough when I look at the price of photobooks these days they are creeping up beyond what I can justify paying. I grudgingly coughed up £45 for a copy of the reprint of Paul Graham's A1 because it was a book I had wanted for some time. Okay, so it was cheaper than buying a first edition, but compared to some other books I've bought it was a bit pricey. This week I saw that his Beyond Caring is to be reissued at the same price. Another book I'd like to have on my shelves but this time I'm wavering over the price. Almost a ton for two books. I could buy a whole library of zines for that kind of cash. I'd get a load more photos to look at that way. If I'm feeling flush when the release date nears I'll probably pull the trigger. However, Beyond Caring is scheduled to be the second of a trilogy of reprints over three years, the third being Troubled Land. This one doesn't interest me. I've never been a completist so not having 'the full set' wouldn't bother me at all. No doubt the publisher's hope if that most people aren't like me and will have to buy the hat trick.

I'm sure that the collecting of sets instinct, which I admit is tempting, works for a number of small zine publishers who produce publications which are uniform in cover design. I don't really have a problem with that as zines are still pretty affordable. Although buying them on a regular basis can soon put a dent in the bank balance.

Perhaps perversely, while I'll happily cough up a tenner for a small zine I am loathe to hand a similar sum over each month for a magazine like the BJP. When it was in the region of six quid I bought it fairly regularly, but when it got into double figures (despite it's increased heft) it had to have a lot of content which interested me to part me from my cash. Eventually I gave up on it altogether. Way back when I remember (perhaps wrongly) that the BJP was very much aimed at commercial photographers. More recently it seems to be aimed at the photo-art world. Another example of catering for an elite?

If a tenner is getting into the realms of putting off a pleb like me then what to make of something flagged up on The Online Photographer? At first glance a print magazine of photojournalism would be my kind of thing. especially one harking back to the days of Life, Picture Post, and the likes of the Sunday Times Magazine's long form photo features. Even though it was US based I had to check out The Curious Society. Particularly as it is fronted by Kenneth Jarecke.

Great photography about important stories in a well produced magazine. What's not to like? How about $300 for four issues? Again I ask; Who is it for? It can only be fore photoworld insiders and middle class elites. It makes £45 for a book look like excellent value.

Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I'm misjudging the average disposable income. It still doesn't seem to me that it's a good way to get photojournalism out to the masses. Which surely is what photojournalism used to do. If the venture succeeds with it's business model then it might succeed in its aim to pay photographers properly, as they used to be paid before print media began to be squeezed by the internet. But is that enough? I don't think so. Pictures like that need to be seen by millions, not thousands. I can't see it expanding the audience, just as I don't see worth projects like Small Town Inertia making a difference when it's audience is, once again as far as I can see, predominantly that photoworld elite.

Naturally I can't put forward a better way of doing any of this, but it does all seem a little futile and incestuous to me.

The struggle continues

As Lockdown 2 kicks in the frustration regarding attending events to take photographs grows stronger. This is compounded by being busy with work limiting  my free time during the decreasing hours of usable daylight as we head for the midwinter solstice. That's why I've been out and about after dark again. This time reverting to the 28mm view having found anything shorter restricting. It needs a bit more weather thought to make the kind of pictures I have in mind, even though everything looks different under artificial light in black and white.

When I have managed to get out during daylight hours it's been to head to different flat farming land, still within five miles or fewer of home. First off was a walk around the old marsh, hopping to see sheep if I'm honest, but settling for veg and other random stuff. The prime aim of the walk was to get acquainted with a new-to-me lens which I'm hoping will wean me off the 28-300.

 

Saturday was another sunny morning of work which I managed to get boxed off before lunch and headed out hoping there'd be some misty on the mere. There was. not much though and facing away from the sun you'd have been hard pressed to spot it. Lots of water still on some of the fields though. So more sodden land pictures added to the files.

 

 

 

Today work was taking longer  so by two I gave up and went to look for the sheep I'd found close to home on the moss. They were well out of camera range... There were a couple of unexpected beef cattle grazing another patch of land close by but not in a position which could have made a picture. I thought of retracing my steps as there didn't appear to be anything changed along the usual circuit, but I carried on regardless and stumbled upon some onions. The pictures I made could come in handy should this meanygate/moss project ever come to anything.

The same might apply to this picture of crates which I made because the arrangement of shapes took my fancy.

As can be seen, it is a struggle at the moment to come up with anything. There might be something to be found from visiting the mere and the marsh. Perhaps this isn't the best time of year for that though. The night time pictures are looking most likely to lead something which can be pulled together. It might be a case of keeping on bashing away at it until it begins to take shape.

As for the 'new' lens. It's too early to tell. So far I'm not missing the extra reach at the long end of the 28-300 or the wider angle at 28mm. And I am liking the much reduced curvature of the horizon at all focal lengths. More playing around with it still required. Which is as good an excuse as any to pop out for an hour now and then.

---

Sun, rain, sun

Summer has settled in with the usual unsettled weather. When I saw a break in the thunder showers promising light in the right direction for a return top the lettuce harvester I broke the habit of a lifetime and went for a second look. Not much had moved and the light was almost perfect. The pictures were an improvement on the back lit efforts.

On my way there I paused to photograph some stacked drainage pipes which caught my eye ages ago but never looked quite right. A mundane subject photographed in a mundane manner, perhaps. But I like it.

As things grow and the light alters what was pictorially uninteresting can change. The cultivated ground surrounded, I know not why, by cereal crop has sprung potatoes. The contrast in textures makes for a picture of sorts.

The aftermath of harvesting continues to pose a problem as far as picturing it goes. So I keep trying different approaches.

 Is it waste when the remains of a crop get ploughed back?

The rain we've had has come in heavy showers and longer periods of lighter rain. Most of the ditches which were dry are now flowing and the fields are holding water in places.

Gone is the blowing dust collecting on the tracks and in comes muddy deposits from tractor tyres. The soil looks darker and crops fresher. Work continues no matter the weather.

Once in a while a single frame is all that's needed. I'd watched this farmer setting up his bird scaring kite, biding my time. I dropped lucky with the kite turning 'face on' to me as I made the one exposure before it was raised too high and I had to turn the camera on its side. A minor crop to re-frame and that was it.

Yesterday, during the rain, I thought it was time I made a print of at least one picture from this project. I selected one of the 'geometric' farmingscapes to print and mount. I didn't want to make a big print as the ink in my printer is running low, so I found some  10" x 8" mounts and cropped one to fit. This revealed an advantage of putting subjects central in the frame - cropping  to other aspect ratios can often work without altering the impact of the picture too much. As always seems to be the case, putting a mount  round a picture and placing that in a frame changes a picture for the better. It always seems to make pictures look more 'serious' somehow.

I could imagine a wall or two of these pictures all nicely mounted and frames making a cohesive presentation. While they have a consistent look I do feel that pictures with people in them have more interest, hold the attention longer, even if they are distant and small in the frame. Things going on are more interesting to look at than things. A mix of the two sorts of picture is what I think works best in a long term project like this one. Must make more effort to get people in pictures.

Round and round

As it's not New Year quite yet I have been ignoring my resolution and photographing the same old stuff in the same old places. Wet fields and a sheep dog trial.

I guess it's the old story of hoping to get a picture or two which are improvements on, or different to, pictures already in the files. Slim pickings so far.

It was a cold and miserable day at the trial and I was almost on autopilot. After a longish shower the standard zoom stopped auto-focussing. I went back to my car to change lenses in the dry and discern if it was the lens or the camera that was goosed. It was the lens which wasn't working. That meant I was stuck with 35mm on that body. Actually it makes a good companion for the 70-200mm.

As ever I found the people more interesting subjects than the dogs in action. My hierarchy of subject matter has people doing something at the top and landscapes devoid of people, animals or signs of human activity way down at the bottom.

The trouble is that when I have lots of spare time and nowhere to photograph people it's the landscape that is always available. Today I fought my battle with the landscape and ended up doing what I've done before with my quarry pictures - find a vertical, or near vertical, surface and photograph it head on to emphasise the two dimensionality. I had no tripod and had to up the ISO. However, this did ensure a shutter speed which froze the dripping water. The question now is whether to wander further down this avenue, or make more of a concerted effort to photograph people.

---