Funny

But the project is turning into what I originally envisaged.

Where do I go from here?

It’s quite a serious question. It’s a very serious question in fact. Never before did I need or realise the importance of some guidance. One thing I know for certain is that the photography (and the method in which it’s presented) that goes to making up my final project has to represent me 100%. This is why I have to keep pushing with the mobile phone work, despite it not being fully understood by either myself or anybody else. I’m also fully aware that I’m not in the least bit interested in contemporary ways of showing my work. Publishing, print, is where it’s at. I’m continuing to print up my work, which not only confirms my belief in traditional print publishing but that also serves as an extremely effective way of showing myself what it is I’m doing. You simply can’t measure your work when it’s online. So, move forwards with the mobile phone work and present it in print form. I’m still fascinated with the postcard format and want to produce my work in that format. I also need to decide whether to work on an entirely new project or whether to present the best of my mobile phone work since I started messing around with it two years ago. The day before yesterday I took a train to the Lithuanian coast with the idea of taking pictures that might contribute to a project representing what interests me about Lithuania. After checking out of my hotel yesterday I took my bag to the train station, left it in a locker and decide to get the first bus that came along, ride it to the end of the line and walk back into the city centre taking pictures as I went. Mildly successful, the experiment also confirmed something I think I’ve touched on here before, namely that the streets of Lithuania are as good as empty. It’s not a great place to drown in street photography. Partly because of this I’m more and more convinced that a retrospective of my mobile phone work, both in black and white and colour, is the way forwards. I’ve been collecting books of postcards and other ways of presenting groups of postcards and am now looking at doing a series of postcards taken in Lithuania, Poland, the UK, Albania, Greece and other places I’ve visited over the last two years and packed in an envelope-like contraption. I want to do this as manually as possible, and have been taking these presentation cardboard envelope packages apart to make some templates for creating my own packaging. I’ve also been thinking a lot about printing. A designer friend has been showing me the different ways printing acts on a photograph and I’m enjoying experimenting with this. I’m even thinking about getting some of my mobile phone pictures made into negatives to see how they print up. Slightly mad for sure, but I’m intrigued to see how they turn out. A carefully printed, hand-made pack of postcards representing the best of my work seems to me to be the way forward. I never asked to get so involved in these mobile phone pictures, but for some reason I’m addicted to playing with them. As always I just wish I had more time. It’s Sunday morning and not only is the light completely shit for taking pictures but I’ve got a whole load of other work to be getting on with. Oh to be rich and to have lots of time. This blog remains incoherent. I need to start talking to tutors and to keep moving forwards with my presentation and print experiments.

What next?

My small 10cm x 15cm laser jet black and white test prints are wonderful (the irony being that you can't see them to decide whether I'm right or not...), although I'm still not sure how exactly to present them. I love backlighting, but backlighting requires a different, darker image than prints hung for viewing in reflected light which takes ages to get right. I've been thinking about the fotoplastikon I saw in Poland (I saw several actually, but that's another story) and am excited about mixing up technologies. I've even been thinking about building lots of individual lightboxes that hold one picture, that run on batteries and that switch on when you pick them up. Truly interactive. I'm also going to have to explore the exhibition ideas here, namely the one offer I've had in the best gallery in the country and the idea of doing a show in a bookshop (mildly inspired by my trip to Warsaw last week). Blah blah waffle. As to the subject matter of the photographs I'm going to be taking in Vilnius, this is were I need to solid support and advice from the course. Ultimately it has to be my decision, but for once I'm feeling like I really need to bounce some ideas around. I made some notes about comments made about a photograph of Marilyn Monroe. The photograph, taking when she wasn't aware, captures the essence in the face that I'm trying to really capture with my. Not only am I invisible when I'm out with my phone, but more and more I'm taking pictures without even looking. You can get pretty good at this the more you do it, plus some of the disasters do at least provide interesting angles and ways of framing a picture that the eye and conscious mind could never do. It's like playing jazz. Or something. I need to do more printing and start filling the flat with pictures. I don't know how I've managed to survive so long without doing this before. So, what next? Daily Lives Revisited I suppose.

Polish Women Photographers of the 20th Century

I picked up a superb book when I was in Warsaw last week, Polish Women Photographers of the 20th Century. Published alongside an exhibition of the same name last year that I knew nothing about unfortunately, read more about it here. Heaven knows how to get hold of a copy outside of the country, the ISBN for anybody interested is ISBN 978-83-7576-019-4

Post before a major project releases the handbrake

Yesterday I went out and bought a new printer and some high quality photographic paper to put in it. With the exception of a magazine spread that featured some of my early mobile phone pictures a couple of years ago this is the first time I’ve really seen the possibilities of my work in print. I’ve thought long and hard about some way of presenting my current photography online, have dived deep into researching the subject, and after a brief spell thinking my work had no merit to speak of suddenly realised that print remains the ultimate photographic medium and beyond a shadow of a doubt the way to present my work. In front of me are a few small, high quality colour and B&W prints of my Vilnius street photographs which are screaming out to be turned into a publication. My major project is now more or less worked out and I intend to go back to my original postcard book idea and to publish a book of postcards with a designer friend, timed rather nicely to coincide with both the thousandth anniversary of the first mention of the name Lithuania in written text and Vilnius’ current status as one of the two European Capitals of Culture. The only thing that remains unknown is how to present the work (and therefore what pictures I should be taking) coherently. Going out into the street and taking pictures can be a frightening thing to so when there are so many random elements. Especially after recently returning from Warsaw, a city with a massive pulse that positively explodes with humanity as compared to the quiet and worryingly provincial empty streets of Vilnius. Now that my recent period of intense work is more or less out the way, I’m ready to get back into the course and to use my time with the tutors to polish my ideas. The other great thing about the project is that the timeframe for finishing the work falls over the summer, which gives me plenty of light (and good quality light at that) to do the job well. Photographing here during the winter is a nightmare I don’t want to repeat in a hurry. Whether I continue with the City of Strangers project or change the theme slightly remains to be seen. Ironically I’ve been thinking about the work of Antanas Sutkus, who it turns out was 70 yesterday. His Soviet-era masterpiece Daily Life Archive echoes in many ways the work that I’m doing, albeit in a slightly different style. As strange as some of my photographs are, they’re ultimately a celebration of daily life, of ordinary people going about their lives. So, City of Strangers may or may not become Daily Life Revisited, a respectful nod to the great Lithuanian master that updates his work after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whatever the exact nature of the project turns out to be, the finished result will be a book, albeit a book of postcards. There’ve been times on this course when I’ve felt intimidated and bullied even as others fail to get why I’m using a mobile phone to take photographs. I have tried to explain this as best as I can and I do I admit need to explain it further. Ultimately though I don’t see any reason why just because I use strange modern technology to produce my photography I have to use strange modern technology to show it. I only wish I had more time and energy to completely submerge myself in my ideas and work.

Hats off to the Poles

Strange that last year I was in Tirana and stumbled upon the World Press Photo road show and that again this week whilst in Poland I should do the same again. Initially I found the latter a bit of a lacklustre affair, more reminiscent of a local photography exhibition than what one would expect from such a high profile event. Whilst the show in Tirana was a high profile affair in a specialised gallery, the Warsaw exhibition has been put up on wobbly display boards inside a shopping centre, but having seen the response I soon changed my mind. This is really what it’s all about, bringing in an audience who wouldn’t ordinarily visit a serious photographic exhibition (or any photographic exhibition at all for that matter), and I have to take my hat off to the Poles for their inspired choice of location.

Text to follow

Slowly winding down after the most intense six months of work I ever experienced. Almost ready to start writing this blog again. Final project coming together nicely. Watch this space.