Transience at a location

For some weeks I have had the area near to Salford Rugby Stadium earmarked as a potential area to include in my study for the major project. I called by on Sunday as the weather was just right for shooting; hazy sun with intermittent clouds creating depth and texture to areas. I was pleased to see that some work had been carried out on an area of scrubland; clearing the brambles and pruning the trees. Not sure what the area is going to be but it looked like the beginnings of parkland. This would be particularly fitting with my project as the area has the backdrop of Barton Locks on the Manchester Ship Canal, and what I think is a gas works or fuel storage depot across the water. Felt very inspired and fired off 2 rolls of film, so hopefully some keepers in there.

Later in the day I went to the area near Manchester Airport which is being developed as the new freight hub; a large area of former farmland being bulldozed and turned into warehouse space. Again the light lent itself to picking out a lot of the manmade landforms created as part of the development works, though as it was late when I got there I only had time to do a couple of shots before I lost the light. This is another area I shall return to repeatedly to experience a wide gamut of conditions to get a real feel for the area and subject.

I find I am now getting much more selective about my use of depth of field. I had been trying to get everything in the frame sharp by using small apertures, but I am now realizing a greater sense of depth and atmosphere can result from slightly softening the focus on certain elements in the background or foreground. So  I have been working on using apertures which give the subject of greatest attention to the sharpest focus, and letting other elements fall slightly off focus, yet retaining enough sharpness to still be included as elements of interest and composition within the frame. This seems to work especially well with medium and large format images where the fall-off of focus has a very distinctive look. It is something I shall continue to experiment with. I am, however, conscious of the need to keep a uniform style and 'look' to the images, so need to study the images side to side to see if the 'sharp front to back' images and the 'selective focus' images sit well together. If not, I have a fair amount of re-shooting to do, though it is something I am prepared to do in order to maintain the integrity of the series of images.

Assignment 2 at the Mersey and Crowden

Spent the week reading up on Stephen Shore for the Critical Review and making notes of points to include on my thoughts abouot his work. What may be a challenge is putting these thoughts into some kind of logical order whereby different points expand on or are connected to earlier points.I've realised that at the moment it is important just to get the thoughts down in written form, then I can start to order them and tweak with sentence structure and logical sequencing.

Photographically, Saturday saw an early start with a trip out to the banks of the Mersey to add a couple of shots for the 'Colour Accent' brief. I know it is becoming a photographers cliche, but I am genuinely feeling using medium / large format film cameras is slowing down the way I work and making me think a lot more about shots before I take them. This is mostly due to the cost of film and processing as I can ill-afford to waqste many shots, especially in large format.  The large bulky equipment just makes me feel like taking more time and care over what I am doing - of crafting the image rather than just taking it. The way I have been working lately tends to follow the flow of exploring and taking some initial shots with the digital SLR or compact, then returning the following week with one of the 'big cameras' to realise the vision. I think I should start taking back-up shots on the digital camera, as one or two mishaps lately have meant I have ended up with nothing to show for some trips out, and I feel very much tah time is running away at the moment.

Later in the day I headed out into Derbyshire with the intention of taking some shots for the 'Clear Seperation' brief. The areas where I have been exploring for my Major Project haven't lent themselves very well to this paricular brief, so I felt it was time to try something a litle different. I went to the area near Crowden, where there is a trail headoung out towards Black Hill, I tried for some minimalist landscapes. I also though a change of environment might help freshen my approach when it comes to the Major Project shots. As the light faded I took the opportunity to practise for the long exposure shots I have planned, tr get a feel for how things may turn out and develop a shooting methodology.

 I will have to wait until the films are back from the lab later in the week to asses the outcome. One of the great unknowns in this case is the effects of reciprosity failure of the film. With exposure of around 1 minute registered on the meter, I'm pretty sure I will have to expose for a while longer. Just how much longer, I will have to wait and see from the results of the shots.

Research, Assignment 2, Major project, Salford stadium and 5x4 shots at the Airport

Spent the early afternoon exploring some more 'Edgelands' near Barton Bridge, the new(ish) Salford Rugby stadium and Trafford Park.

A large area which used to be open, unused land is being re-developed. Heavy machinery is shaping the landscape, and what looks like a lagoon is being created. The old 'desire paths' which can be seen on the Google satellite images of the area no longer exist. I was a little disappointed be the extent to which this area had been 'improved', but much of it still fits within the brief for my periphery project.

Took a number of experimental shots to think about composition and subject. Need to return at a time when the light is more in keeping with what I have in mind for the project. It seems strange to be dismissing sunny, clear autumn days as not quite what I am after for the project, but there is a neutrality of mood which I want to get across, and sunny days seem to be beautifying the images somewhat.

Spent the latter part of the afternoon near Manchester Airport. Took the Sinar 5x4 camera along for a specific shot of a river tunnel under the runway which I thought would benefit from camera movements.

Just getting over yet another setback - my laptop got a virus /malware infection yesterday and had to be restored back to the factory settings. As I result I lost the shots I was going to submit for Assignment 2 from the Eliminating Depth Clues project. Although I am able to re-shoot these, it will add extra time on until the submission of this assignment, which has already taken much longer than I intended it to, and with the nights drawing in now, opportunities to get out to take shots are getting scarce - weekend only now as I can't really get out from work before sunset.

Lessons learned:

Back up useable shots on the computer immediately: I'm now having to reshoot some I lost due to computer virus infection -5 minutes of backing up would have saved a day or so of re-shooting. These were recent shots also, so "I'll do it all in a batch later" isn't the way to go.

Get there early if the intention is to shoot after sunset with large format (and medium format) cameras. It is extremely difficult to frame and focus the shot in very low light - best to set up early and wait for the light. Ended up taking an 'educated guess' at the focus for the last shot as I could hardy see anything on the ground glass at all.

Had a read through the interview at the back of Steven Shore's 'Uncommon Places - The Complete Works' between Shore and Lynne Tillman.

Points of particular interest to myself were Shore describing the decision making process Warhol went through when making his work. This echoed my own thoughts that creating an image  is a process, one where the photographer can have any degree of control they choose, depending on the type of image and the scenario. Although this may seem obvious, I feel it is a fundamental of image making, and perhaps why I like to make the sort of image where I can take time to consider these decisions, rather than, for example sport or street photography which is more reactive to the circumstances presented.

Shore goes on to talk about the changing way images were presented, and the way this presentation was accepted by the viewing public,.

Again, I identified with his description of walking down a street and seeing the way different elements interacted, and the way that interaction changes as one moves along, different images and nuances forming as the scene subtly changes. It put me in mind of the Channel 4 trailers where, as the camera angle changes, a large number four forms on the screen then disintegrates as the angle of view moves on.

After reading the interview, I looked up the work of the following on the internet, all of whom are mentioned in the interview:

Walker Evans
John Coplans
Lee Friedlander
Duane Michals
Gerhard Richter
Agnes Martin
Barnett Newman
Ed Ruscha