A rare glimpse of me photographic and Goodrich - no doubt falling foul of the tourist trap of heritage

ONE SUMMER, TWO VISITS!  THE PETWORTH ESTATE & GOODRICH CASTLE

A while back I took a trip upwards to the Petworth Estate in West Sussex.  Petworth is funny because it is a bit like Picturesque England summed up in one National Trust property!

Shortly after when camping in the beauty of the West Country, I also dropped in on Goodrich Castle to check out some classic border castle history and buy into the myth of romanticised knights in castles and maidens running round.

But lets step back a bit – I have started further on than intended with no form of rhyme or reason yet given.

I have touched on  this in previous posts, but I often find myself not photographing a place or location, but being more fixated on the people within that space and how they interact with it – or the smaller hidden details in a landscape that, for me, reveal so much more about a place and its people.

Social history is also a fascination of mine providing a basis for trying to understand the motivations of people in the past and how this has affect our society day.  Especially how today, we try to engage with, and form a picture of the past, to fulfil a need of our own.

THE PETWORTH APPEAL – ENGLISHNESS SUMMED UP IN ONE PROPERTY!

The Petworth Experience

I was reminded of this interest when I visited Petworth a while back.  Now for me, Petworth ticks quite a few boxes of my key interests:

• Its National Trust and I have a bit of a fascination for Stately Homes and the organisations that preserve this part of our cultural history
• It was owned by a very rich family!  Again, the insanely rich upper classes and their position in society is another topic I like to explore
• Petworth’s gardens were created by Capability Brown.  Brown’s gardens try to replicate a picturesque ideal of the British countryside which I find an curious phenomenon
• It’s massive
• Artists such as Turner stayed at Petworth and created a lot of work there – so the house is riddled with paintings by famous and classic British landscape and portrait painters
• There is a deer park – you don’t get posher than that!
• It is a tourist attraction and places people visit for recreation holds a keen interest with me.

So my visit was somewhat of a double whammy – not only is it interesting historically and visually – but there are loads of people engaging with the space in different ways who I can watch and photograph!  I wonder how images of this subject can allow us to question the relationship with our own heritage that is today a huge industry.

trompe l'oeil i

trompe l'oeil ii

THE GREAT BRITISH LIE – THE PICTURESQUE LANDSCAPE

John Constable - Parham Mill at Gillingham

Petworth is perhaps a definition of the picturesque – a topic rather keen to my Photographic sensibilities.  For me, the Picturesque is a strange phenomenon – a false visage of Britain, created during the Industrial Revolution as a way of attempting to preserve an old nostalgic impression of the country, held by the more privileged classes.  This impression of an idealised land was born out of the works of painters like John Constable and Photography quickly took up the mantle with Photographers like Emerson and Robinson selecting their photographic subjects in a way that could preserve the ideal they longed to protect.

However, what really interests me is the fact this has idealised sensibility has been maintained – for generations ever since.  A large percentage of people still consider the classic picturesque landscape as the ‘real’ Britain – yet in reality, it never existed. People still hanker after Constable reproductions, visit National Trust houses and view them with a romanticised nostalgia, frequently singing the praises of what I think, are very bland Photographs of the staple British village or a thatched cottage or a horse looking out over a landscape.

SUBVERTING THE PICTURESQUE

I love Photography that subverts this and suggests that there is something else beneath this glossy veneer.  The likes of Martin Parr, John Davies and Paul Reas (to name a few) all work with and around these themes and I think produce work infinitely more interesting, beautiful and important to our visual culture than any traditional landscape image can.

Martin Parr

John Davies

Paul Reas

So, lets turn back to Petworth and you can see these places hold such an interest for me.  In fact – most National Trust and heritage sites in general have a similar appeal, the Trust itself being formed in 1895 right in the middle of a time of massive industrialisation and social change.  Visiting sites like Petworth is great research for a variety of ideas I am constantly mulling over and looking to explore photographically and I am constantly intrigued by how people interact and use such places and what they get out of it.  How the public are responding at heritage sites is often more interesting than the place itself.

HISTORY SHEEP

A similar curiosity took me at Goodrich.  Visitors seem to follow a rather set path around these sites, following the carefully set out paths and markers and more often than not, cutting off one of their primary senses by grasping an audio tour handset close to their ears.  It is as if we go to historical sites with the intention of being given a fully crafted heritage experience – complete with designated views and points of interest, a potted history and a distinct and designed impression of a place and its people.

But stepping out of this world and taking in the environment a a slight distance lets you not only gain your own perspective of history, but also bare witness to how people engage and react with it.  I wonder whether we all crave to experience and justify our views of British history and seek visual evidence for an impression of Britain we have crafted in our minds.  Maybe we choose to visit historical sites based on which of these ideals we want to preserve.  Whether that desire be based upon the lie of the picturesque or something more modest – I wonder how much we are all manipulated by and the sold the story of pop history.

I also find myself drawn to the signage dotted around and how they provide a very blunt and immediate block to the historical illusion we have gone to absorb and subscribed to.  It becomes impossible at best to disengage with the present day and get what we really desire from the place – the picturesque itself falling foul of health and safety, public control and conformity.

Dark and Narrow Stairs

Moat

It has been a subject of interest since reading the John Constable quote “I’ve never seen an ugly thing in my life blah blah blah”.

Anyway, this is another set of images that fit into that category.  Taken during a stroll on Brighton beach the other day, where I was stopped in my tracks by the amazing rust on the old pillars from the West Pier.  The colour, patterns and texture are amazing.

One thing that particularly interests me about subject matter like this, is it is absolutely unique.  No two patches of rust can ever be the same – or the chances of them being the same must be horrifically minute.  Every bit of rust you see is a unique and elaborate work of art.

Actually – this isn’t my strong point by any means – I have a pop knowledge of it, but I wonder if Chaos Theory comes into play when looking at rust?  And if you looked closely enough at parts of rust, would it be a fractal? If you are a mathematical expert and have any comments on that, then great.  If not – then pretend I sound really intelligent and know all about Chaos and Fractals and how they inter-relate to rust.

Rust on Brighton Beach (2010)

Rust on Brighton Beach 2 (2010)

Rust on Brighton Beach 4 (2010)

Rust on Brighton Beach (2010)

Rust on Brighton Beach (2010)

PAINT CHIPS (2009)

TO QUOTE THE INFAMOUS JOHN CONSTABLE

“I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may – light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful”

Despite my lack of any tangible form of memory function, especially when it comes to what people have said, this quote has always stuck in my mind from when I first happened across it.

I was doing a short photographic project on overlooked things of beauty in everyday life (to build up my portfolio to get into University as it happens).  The finished piece consisted of some mediocre photographs each with an accompanying quote.  Not much of it stays with me, but 6 or so years on from completing the project – this quote often jumps back into my mind.

John Constable 'Stonehenge' 1836 (watercolour)

I DON’T LIKE CONSTABLE

I know I am deviating from the main image relating to this post and what I was going to write about – so please forgive me of a short interlude.

I don’t really like Constable.  There, I have said it!  I like his quote, that’s good and I agree wholeheartedly with its sentiments, however, I do not see it applied to Constable’s images in practice.

To me – his paintings symbolise many things that are bad about the sublime and picturesque portrayal of British countryside and rural life.  Overly sentimental, inaccurately portrayed and at times dismissive of the true nature of our landscape.

For me, he does not show the beauty in all things, he shows a stereotypical portrayal of a landcsape.  No doubt, his imagery has been a large factor in creating this stereotype – but for me, the fact remains.  I find his subject matter a bit obvious and over stated and his colour choice too drab and romantic.

Compare his paintings to that of Turner and to me there is no question that Turner’s images where far more imaginative, evocative and representative of British landscapes.

I could go on, I wrote my dissertation about such things…but thats a whole other post!

PAINT CHIPS (2009)

THE LOVE OF SMALL THINGS

Going back to this image and the quote – I guess much of the photographic work I like and indeed make is based around finding almost all things beautiful in their own right.  When you really try and apply Constable’s quote, it is quite accurate – beauty really can be found in all things and representing it in any creative way, for me, is very rewarding.

These paint chippings caught my eye because of the immense range of colours in them.  There I was at the college I work at, picking bits of dried paint of bottles (more because I cannot stop fidgiting and fiddling than an OCD way) and as they came off, I noticed what amazing patterns they made.

This chance, random creation of something aesthetically pleasing really interests me.  The lack of intention, thought or method in their creation and the randomness of their beauty being found is something I find fascinating.

I have still never managed to represent this side of random aesthetic chance in any meaningful way, or in any body of work I am satisfied with.  Perhaps its not possible because the very act of taking a photograph of such things takes away the joy of finding them, in situe, for oneself.  But the search continues…