When I say here inspirational images, I mean it much more literally this time – because the chosen piece is a film rather than a single still photograph.

Mark Lewis came to do a lecture at Brighton when I was at univeristy studying Photography and I have been interested in his work ever since.  I have previously touched on the fact that often video art leaves me a little cold.  I rarely see a piece where I feel the medium is being used in a manner that is befitting.  There are exceptions like Christian Marclay and in particular his amazing work The Clock.  But, more often than not, I am left wondering why the person is working in film and not something else.

So then, Mark Lewis was one of the first video artists whose work I really connected with.  No doubt this is partly because his work is essentially moving photographic scenes and so it holds a natural appeal with me.  I think this is an untapped resource of inspiration, because seeing small segments of the world, moving in their natural state is a wondrous thing.

The film Algonquin Park, Early March kind of sums this up for me.  I’m afraid there is no way I can embed the film here without abusing all manner of copyright law – but click on the still image below to be taken to see it on Mark Lewis’ own website.

MARK LEWIS - ALGONQUIN PARK, EARLY MARCH (2002)

This film is brilliantly atmospheric and the composition and chosen scene quite beautiful in their own right.  What I really love however, is the exploration of film that is also contained within the piece.  The simple act of choosing a view and re-composing it through the course of filming by tilting and zooming is disorientating and then endlessly rewarding.  A simple camera trick fools the eye and at the point of the ‘revelation’ gives me enormous satisfaction each time.

MARK LEWIS’ OTHER WORK

I hope you like the film and check out some of his other work, which is kindly shared in full on his website which you can find at: www.marklewisstudio.com/films.htm

Some of my other highlights are:

2001 – Windfarm & Algonquin Park, September

2002 – Children’s Games, Heygate Estate

2003 – Airport

2005 – Northumberland

2007 – Roundabout

Perhaps a slightly macabre choice of image to choose as inspirational and I am perhaps not normally one to single out documentary war photography as a point of general interest.  However, I have taken a slightly more active interest of late having seen Don Mccullin‘s amazing retrospective show at the Imperial War Museum.

SUSAN MEISELAS ‘CUESTA DEL PLOMO’ 1981

SUSAM MEISELAS - 'CUESTA DEL PLOMO' 1981

Whilst my last choice of war imagery to feature on the blog was perhaps a bit more on the comical juxtaposition side (see post WAR…HUH…YEAH, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?), this one is purely brutal and blatant in its approach.

Taken on a hillside known as Cuesta Del Plomo just outside Managua-a in Nicaragua, the image depicts a well known assasination site as used by the national guard.

There are many horrific images taken of war and the cruelties that lay therein, but this one is particularly stark in its approach.  We are not just witnessing a slumped body or a mass of flesh where we are left to make an assumption as to what has taken place.  This image almost pulls your eyes out with its up front honest depiction of the cruelties that man is capable of committing on its decided enemies.

Remove the body and you could be looking at a tourist’s photograph of a picturesque landscape – where as the reality of the site is much harder to bear.  In fact, Cuesta Del Plomo was a first port of call when searching for missing persons, so common where the assasinations that took place there.

I think this images sums up why war and conflict should always be struggled against and once again extends my respect for those journalists and photographers who dedicate their skills to bringing the reality of it to the general public.

Dulce Est Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and all that bollocks.

Chek out more of Meiselas’ work at her website…it isn’t all war! www.susanmeiselas.com

~~~And on a lighter note, After several years of writing this blog, I think this might be the first time I have lapsed into the low depths of using the word Juxtaposition. For that…I must apologise ~~~

Whilst I am very far from being religious and very far from holding any sort of faith at all, I am fascinated by religion and churches.  I think my lack of understanding and personal belief make the world of religions a curious place and churches a strange and alien world to enter.

In my photographic enterprises, I have done a few projects on religion and churches to try and understand peoples faith and beliefs better. I have never really nailed it, but continue to pop into churches wherever I see them and sometimes take a photo if the mood takes me.

Usually a Church is a church is a church and apart from the usual architectural appeal they do not really jump out as being something different.  However, when I came upon a very unlikely looking church in Tintern – I couldn’t believe what I saw.  I say Tintern, but technically I think it is in Brockweir just outside Tintern!

THE MORAVIAN CHURCH

SEAL OF THE MOVARIAN CHURCH

Greeted by a rather kitch picture of a lamb holding a flag – this was one church that had to be investigated further.  The lamb is the symbol of the Moravian Church, which I must confess to not having known anything about prior to stumbling across this strange little church.

With roots going back to the 1400′s the Moravian church is an evangelical protestant movement which focuses its practices on simple doctrine placing importance on unity and piety. Apparently with a worldwide congregation of 850,000 it is not a huge movement – but none the less one that seems to have a congregation in humble Brockweir and a splattering of churches in the UK

It seems to be a rather open church, happy to accept anyone of Christian faith to actively participate in its community.

I have done a bit of research trying to find out more about them, but there isn’t a great wealth of information as far as I have seen – however, they do focus their practises around  simple statement know as The Ground of Unity.  Here is an extract:

With the whole of Christendom we share faith in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We believe and confess that God has revealed Himself once and for all in His Son, Jesus Christ; that our Lord has redeemed us with the whole of humanity by His death and His resurrection; and that there is no salvation apart from Him. We believe that He is present with is in the Word and the Sacrament; that He directs and unites us through His Spirit and thus forms us into a Church. We hear Him summoning us to follow Him, and pray Him to use us in His service. He joins us together mutually, so that, knowing ourselves to be members of His body we become willing to serve each other.

Any clearer?  No, not sure I am either.  The church itself was a strange place – felt more like a cross between a scout hut, someones house and a country chapel

MORAVIAN CHURCH BROCKWEIR (2010)

The church was rather plain really, quite protestant in its decoration with nothing particularly fancy.

However, what was always there was the lamb staring at you from the centre of the wall above the altar.

It made a strange but perhaps slightly less oppressive sight than the usual Christ on the cross that is usually in its place.

MORAVIAN CHURCH BROCKWEIR, WALL DETAIL (2010)

It never fails to intreague me how very many different religions there are as well as how very many denominations and variations within that religion.  People’s thirst for spirituality is something that I suspect I will always be fascinated by but also utterly perplexed by.

I happened upon this old photograph yesterday and it’s summery glory made me long for loosing my Long Johns.

PICNIC BUGGY (2010)

I then happened upon this old photograph which made me more angry because the bastard weather doesn’t even have the decency of descending into the depths of proper and exciting snowy glory.

SNOW DIGGER (2011)

Anyway stop moaning it is only 5 days in, here is to a happy new year regardless!

Long live January and thank you for all your dedicated reading in 2011.

P.S – How British is this post, starting a new year moaning about the month, the weather and the dark!

Part of my core being rebels against the Picturesque.  As an aesthetic, I find it false, imprisoning and rather obvious. Instead, my eye is often drawn to that, which some might deem as ugly or a visual blight.

Industry falls nicely into this category and is something that I find rather visually appealing. Removing any thoughts of capitalism, destruction of the environment or the retreating countryside – it has a beauty in its formal, bleak and constructed nature, sometimes virtually approaching a macabre aura surrounding it. Factories, power stations, refineries, car parks – I love them all.

As mentioned in the past – everything is and can be beautiful if gazed on in the right way (see my post I never saw an ugly thing in my life).

So to our story for today. The other week I was driving along in the Mach when I almost veered off the road in excitement, as out of the left of my peripheral, the huge edifice of an abandoned power station loomed into glorious gaze.  Distractions such as this are a danger to me when I am driving as I desperately try to peak a glimpse whilst maintaining full driving capability.

On this particular day, there were three fold of such distractions: 1) an enormous wind farm in the distance 2) a small glimpse of Thanet Earth (Europe’s biggest Greenhouse) and 3) an abandoned power station.  To say I was in visual heaven would be an understatement.

Now, you might think as a Photographer I would screech to a halt, leap to attention and start snapping. But no. No my mind works in a very singular manner – I was driving to somewhere to achieve a particular goal and therefore to deviate off this would be unthinkable.

Luckily enough for me, the Good Lady Hannah was sitting beside me and began her semi-regular torrent of persuasion that I should not exist in such a one dimensional brain space and act with the spontaneity that graces the great and good. A marginal tussle of stubbornness occurred after which I relented and parked up in a questionable lay-by.

Hurrah for GLH is all I can say because as luck would have it, I was armed with my old steed – the Mamiya C3 Professional. This was my first ever medium format camera – a beautiful twin lens, square format beast that served me well for the best part of 18 months.  Recently, I have cracked the old girl out once more for a new project I am a working on, to be revealed at a later date. Needless to say for now, the project is Black & white, medium format and Square – hence I was well prepared for this chance encounter.

So I shot a few rolls and was very pleased I did, because the Power Station looked as good on film as it did through my peepers and the side window. Below are a few of the more interesting shots.

As a brief side – please forgive the slightly poor quality of the images, but they have been scanned from negs at not the greatest resolution on a rather dusty neg scanner.  Also they were shot on a fairly old film which I suspect had started to deteriorate – but it is all I had!

ABANDONED POWER STATION AS SHOT ON THE OLD STEED

SPORTS BAGS (2011)

BE A SPORT

I would imagine that upon reading the title of this post you fall into one of two categories which we shall explore and exploit below.

1) You are a regular reader, glancer or somewhat connected OurWorldMyEye reader and thought ‘Sports Photography, surely not – what has he come to. This I have to see’.  (Apparently you talk to yourself a lot).

2) You have been pumping the Goggle machine for information relating to how to do sports photography or for examples of good sports photographs and the title of this post cunningly suckered you into my fold.

Either way, prepare for disappointment as it is probably not what you wanted or expected!  I sure know how to sell myself don’t I!

The story goes that a College asked me to photograph their sports trials so they would have some stock shots to put into publicity material, prospecti (is that the legitimate plural of a prospectus?) and such like.  Now I am no sports fan but I had never done any sport photography before and figured it was a good learning experience – so I obliged.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY ADVICE

On the agenda was Football, Rugby, Netball, Badminton and Basketball.  All different beasts that boasted their own challenges.  So, for the benefit of those who have come here today hoping for advice on sport photography, here is my summary of each:

FOOTBALL – Really hard.  They move quick, pass the ball too much and by the time you focus on a shot it has gone.  Anticipation is the key and as someone ignorant to the game it proved a struggle!  My tactic – keep following the players that looked the best and wait for a tackle as its the only time they stay still and you can get a shot!

RUGBY – Fairly easy.  They are a bit more cumbersome than the Football players and the game stops and starts almost as much as American sports!

NETBALL – The easiest of them all.  They are forced to stop with the ball and do that pivoting thing, so you have ages to frame a shot.  No worries.

BADMINTON – Impossible.  Dark hall, fast movements, lots of courts – getting a good shot just doesn’t happen.  Looks like it is a slowish game but they move their arms too fast!  My advice – get someone to pose!

BASKETBALL – Well a mixed bag all told.  Again a dark hall makes it hard and they move really really fast.  But, get someone in the air and you are onto a winner.  PLUS basketball players show off more than the other sports so they naturally try and do something snazzy for you.

Right, now we have sorted them who came for advice out, with what will no doubt be classed – ‘the single best guide to sports photography…ever’ in years to come; we can get on with the main event.

As anyone who has graced these pages before will know, I get easily bored photographing what I am supposed to.  Hence, I soon realised that sports photography was actually a good thing as there where hundreds of far more interesting shots to be taken that didn’t involve the sport.  So, when nobody was looking and whenever possible – I fired off a shot for myself.

TURN THE CAMERA ON THE UNEXPECTED…

Therefore, I will not be sharing with you and of the ACTUAL sports photographs, but will instead show you a selection of my alternative sports photographs.

Here, I suspect, ends my career as a sports photojournalist!

LONELY (2011)	ESCAPE (2011)
SWOOSH (2011)	FLOOR SHAPES (2011)
JUMP (2011)	FENCE DIPTYCH (2011)

Shoreham by the Sea.  Perhaps for many, this does not conjure up the most exciting of images or inspire you to pay it a visit and in fact, it gets quite a bad press – however, I would suggest you are missing out!  Not only does Shoreham boast a rather interesting harbour complete with house boats, it also has it’s own airport a diss-used cement works and various bits of industry and other excitement.

That said – I don’t go there myself often – but aware it has the River Adur running past it and sometimes keen to have a river walk, I sometimes attend it with my lens.  Now the River Adur really is quite exciting – it passes through some curious places and as some of it is navigable by reasonably sized vessels, it has a good splattering of industry besides it banks.  I love a bit of river side industry – especially now most of it has closed or been seriously scaled back.  The result is numerous warehouses and factories that are in various states of diss repair. For me, that sort of location ranks alongside building sites for pure joy and excitement!

WALK ALONG RIVER ADUR IN SHOREHAM AND THE RESULTING PHOTOGRAPHS

So, my usual route when treading the banks of the Adur is obviously to head in the direction of the massive abandoned cement works – who wouldn’t!  But, on this occasion, I thought a change was in order and perhaps the other way upstream would be just as interesting.

I can say it was – not only did I pass the airport but I spotted a myriad of lovely things on my way and found the whole walk very visually inspiring and interesting.

But, who needs words when you can have pictures! So here are some photos I took…

The sea has always appealed to me and whenever I am in its presence I feel grateful and contemplative.

Perhaps because it is one of the few features on the planet that truly gives you an idea of our insignificant scale in comparison to the greater picture of nature.

Perhaps because the land is safe and familiar and the sea is unknown.  On land Human kind can dominate, in the sea we would drop several rungs on the food chain.

More likely, I think it is the movement that I enjoy – the sea is never completely still and is a constantly changing picture that will never appear the same from one second to the next.

My new drive to work involves and early skirt along the side of the Hastings shore line and a constant battle between concentrating on the road and the sea in equal measure.

The other morning the sea mist was out early and created that effect where you cannot quite tell where sea ends and sky begins.  I reckon that is my favorite of all sea views and fills me with a strange desire to start swimming toward the invisible horizon to see if it can ever be reached.

But…that would be stupid and, despite the rumours and accusations – I am not a stupid man.  So on this particular morning, I just Photographed it instead.

SEA WITH NO HORIZON i (2011)

SEA WITH NO HORIZON ii (2011)

 HIROSHI SUGIMOTO ‘SEASCAPES’

Photographing the sea is hard however as I am always reminded of Hiroshi Sugimoto, who, in my humble of humblest has made the most beautiful images of the sea that anyone is likely to take. As a result, I feel for me to photograph the sea in any serious manner is a pointless pursuit as I cannot conceive of a way in which to do it any better or even any different for that matter. Scrub that, I fail to see how I could even get close to something resembling his images.  His series of black and white photographs entitled ‘Seascapes’ are now one of the first things I think of when contemplating the ocean.

Rest assured, if I won the lottery tomorrow (or any day for that matter), one of the first things I would do is purchase one of Sugimoto’s seascapes and hang it proudly on my wall so I could bask in its glory each and every day.  Simple, technically perfect and beautiful.

Maybe Sugimoto’s comments on his Seascapes project say it best, and so I will leave you with those as well as a few of his perfect photographs. Notice if you will how every detail has been perfectly considered, right down to the horizon line always falling in the exact same spot in each image.

Water and air. So very commonplace are these substances, they hardly attract

attention―and yet they vouchsafe our very existence.

The beginnings of life are shrouded in myth: Let there water and air. Living phenomena

spontaneously generated from water and air in the presence of light, though that could

just as easily suggest random coincidence as a Deity. Let’s just say that there happened

to be a planet with water and air in our solar system, and moreover at precisely the right

distance from the sun for the temperatures required to coax forth life. While hardly

inconceivable that at least one such planet should exist in the vast reaches of universe,

we search in vain for another similar example.

Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view

the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a

voyage of seeing.

HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, AEGEAN SEA PILLON, 1990	HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, BALTIC SEA RUEGEN, 1996
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, LIGURIAN SEA SAVIORE 1993	HIROSHI SUGIMOTO, NORTH ATLANTIC CAPE BRETON, 1996

So given the new move to new terratories I thought it would be apt to break my visual silence with a couple of images from my first explorations of what Hastings has to offer.

INTERLUDE – visual silence?  Is that physically or metaphysically possible?  Can one have silence in relation to something that does not intrinsically pocess sound in the first place?  Perhaps my scentence should have read: visual blindness?

ROOF TOP VIEW FROM FUNICULAR RAILWAY (2011) - Is it sad that at the tended age of thirty something I find the prospect of a ride on the Funicular railway mind numbingly exciting? Well...I do - you get a great view of Hastings old town too!

Entering the heady realm of living in a new area is a bizare experience for me – as someone who generally sees the world as a series of photographs, I find that the more familiar I am with an area so the more micro the images become that I see around me.  Brighton is a firm example of this as I knew its streets and buildings rather well, after 10 years of enveloping myself in its dirty glory!  Instead of seeing new vista’s of interest, I would see a new stain on the floor, a interesting coloured brick in a wall or a comic item discarded amongst the pavement debris.

So starting to place foot onto virgin pavement in Hastings, I have suddenly found the visual stimulous has become more macro again as the whole environment and landscape is new and unfamiliar.  This is exciting. I am, you could argue, excited. So much so that I am contemplating embarking on yet another project (to sit nicely alongside the myriad of mounting projects I have started but yet to finish!), which is soley about my initial exoploration, inspirations and sightings in, around and of Hastings.

BE PREPARED FOR A HASTINGS RELATED PUN FEST

Perhaps, through this series of photographs, I could visually conquer Hastings (1) and battle (2) with a new set of influences and images. You could even argue that I am already finding new potential images are hurtling towards my eye like an arrow (3). The potential for visual exploration is boundless and, Will_I_Am  (4) excited.

Sorry.  No really, I am sorry.  I have brought shame upon myself – BUT in self defence, I felt the need to erradicate all Battle of Hastings related puns out of my system so they will never have to grace the pages again! I understand that it is no good apologising to you know, as, for you at least – it is too late.  You have already suffered at the hand of my obismal efforts at comic whit.  But, I hope you understand the mental need I had to get through it early on!  I particularly wish to express shame for pun 4 – which, even for me, was sub-standard!

DAY IN THE PARK (2011) - Arguably my first official Hastings Fun Day involved the annual park gathering. Bunting and deck chars festooning a park are the best way to spend a sunny weekend!

That is it …a small and pathetic relay of Hastings related images to wet your whistle before the onslaught begins!

Well hello there strangers.

Prior to starting my latest scribble, I was tempted to cast an eye back on when I last posted, but fear got the better of me so I have decided to plunge back into things, whilst maintaining an ignorant bliss as to when I last set fingers to keyboard.

Wonky Lamp - Wonky Plant (2011)

EXCUSES EXCUSES…

I know what you are thinking and what can I say – it has been a rather busy few months.  So busy in fact that I hung up my Internet shoes and have hardly ventured into the murky waters of the websphere for the lions share of the summer.  In fact, I wish I was a large wild cat and could have bitten off a large slice of the summer months and skulked off under the shade of a tree with them to slowly gnaw on their goodness.

Instead, following a summer of manic busy chaos thus blog neglect, I sit here now penning this to you as the wind and rain batter my new studio window in not-so-sunny Hastings.

WHAT?

That is right, you did hear correct.  The major event of the summer that stunted my Internet web trickery was moving from Brighton to Hastings.  A short jaunt down the coast when looked at on a map, but a whole sea of change (sea of change…that is a deliberate and clever pun. I thank you very much).

So I sit here now in my studio…

Chess Heads (2011)

WHAT?

That is right, you did hear correct.  The move meant me and the good lady Hannah could get more bang for our buck.  And by bang I mean room and by buck I mean rent. Hence I can now carry out my world takeover from the dedicated space of a studio.

But you don’t care about that, you care about the neglect, the lack of love and my complete abandonment of you all.

SHOW US SOME PICTURES THEN

To that, all I can do is apologise and assure you that I now have a new town to explore, photograph and waffle about on these here pages – not to mention the backlog of a few months worth of new fun and frolics to sort, sift, report on and enjoy!

So without further a do I will keep you no more, it would seem rude after such an absence.  Rest assured that my eye is now firmly gazing once more upon your world and to prove it, here are a few snaps I took during the chaotic first few days of the new abode.

Love to all

J

x

Get the Important Things Sorted First (2011)

Baby New Potatoes (2011)