mama mamiya

last week i borrowed a mamiya rb67 to go and re photograph all my finds on film, so i don't have any of those to show as they haven't been processed yet. there were a great many difficulties over the two days which made things quite frustrating, but i did feel that i learned a lot. mainly i learned that that camera though having the potential to provide the end product i want... is really the least practical tool to use. none of my finds are at a uniform height, they are either photographed by lying on the ground or standing on tip-toe at the tall of a stepladder, and this camera is best used in a static situation. so, that combined with having to use a light meter and going back to film resulted in a very involved weekend, with the resulting images becoming almost an afterthought. 

i found i had to be very focused and was not able to wander off and look at new things, or even look at anything else that wasn't on my list whilst i was carrying the 7kg camera and 6ft step ladder. this was a shame as some of the things i had discovered at the start of this project have already become a part of history.

the images at the top of this posting were the ones that no ladder or heavy camera were going to stop me taking - and i am going to have to go back and take some more shots tomorrow. walking through the heygate estate i saw an amazing patchwork of chewing gum, forming a nearly perfect square in front of one of the garages. it is made up of layers and layers of pieces trodden into the ground or flattened by gravity. age and grime has given them individual tones which are quite beautiful. obviously a resident habitually throws their gum out of the window and over time has created a carpet of gum (and possibly dna?) which they may not even know about.

today i was up very early to get a before hours look at the new tate modern photography exhibition. it was nice to wander around when the gallery was quiet, but i am not sure what i made of it all. i liked looking at the older images as they were quite involved and gave me lots of things to think about technically as well as looking at what makes an image interesting to someone from the future. i think my main over all impression was how different the images were presented despite in the main being just prints. 

the use of slide projections in street photography was something i hadn't seen or even really thought about, but it really did seem to add something extra to them and not merely through scale. looking at the way francis alys exhibited his sleeping on the street work made me think about my own project and perhaps using a similar format to show the temporary nature of the subject and the fact it they aren't at eye level.