A trip to Eastbourne Reference Library yesterday failed to reveal anything of significance or major interest beyond a short piece on the reopening of the camera obscura on May 30, 2003 in the riveting Piers (The Journal of the National Pier Society). The camera obscura had been closed since a fire started deliberately by an employee of the night club underneath way back in 1970 made the entire structure unsafe. I’ve been trawling newspaper archives to find out more about the arson attack, with a view to finding the culprit and doing a portrait of him (I think it was a him) standing on the pier. Newspaper archives so far have drawn little beyond a few amusing stories about drunks, nudes and others getting rescued from the water around the pier after jumping off for a wide range of reasons including suicide, mental illness and (in the case of the kid who tried tombstoning off the pier a couple of months ago), idiocy. It’s interesting how the stories feed the photographs and the photographs feed the stories. My working method’s always been to give space within a project to allow happy accidents to penetrate the concrete visions I have. I’m at last putting together the first proper list of pictures and subjects for the backs of the postcards and starting the process of editing everything together. I’ve by no means finished taking photographs and will visit the pier at least two more times, plus one extended trip to take photographs until the battery runs out on the Nokia. At least one card will feature four photographs together on the front.
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