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i have lost patience with blogger, for the second week running i have sat for over an hour trying to upload pictures to this post - life's too short to sit faffing on my computer while the world's going on around me!

anyway, i'm still here and  i've been doing my elephant thing - and i am soooo bored of computer screens.

(i have added these pictures since using a day where nothing much was happening...)

 

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.

warning, warning

week 4 - i think?

i am sort of enjoying my part in the elephant project, but time has been precious so i have not been out and about wandering as much as i would have liked. i am also at the mercy of how inventive and resourceful my fellow residents have been. there are loads of things that have been worn down, but not a great deal that has been fixed. this may be to do with others lack of time, the fact that it is easier to throw things away and get new ones... or a sign that people really are feeling that some things around the elephant really are coming to an end. 

as a back up i have also been photographing redundant signs, my project is almost archeology which just happened by accident, but is curiously something i had considered studying ages back.

with 3 weeks left to go, the plan is to map out my top few finds and then return to photograph them on medium format. this will be some endeavor as i have never used a medium format camera, but as it's early days i think now is as good a time as any to start. i think the subject i have chosen really needs the methodical and considered approach that medium format requires... and the preserved, formal quality that film still holds over digital. well, that's the plan...

as much as i am enjoying the stamp collecting feeling my project gives, it does sometimes feel rather shallow, particularly when i read about other peoples projects, and hear in the groups what people have been up to. although i am recording people's actions on their environment, i am missing photographing the people and the conversations you have doing it. later this week i am going to talk to elizabeth edwards who is a senior research fellow based at lcc and writes about the relationships between photography and anthropology, so hopefully it will make things feel less fatuous.

am trying to discipline myself to reading around essay topics, but with eurovision and a bank holiday weekend it's not easy.

i have also been adding to my mini file on news stories about people with various disabilities becoming suicide bombers. i started it at the beginning of the year... but it seems it has been going on for a few years. i am not sure what, if anything, i will do with it but it is interesting following a theme as it uncovers many initial reporting inaccuracies that otherwise i would have taken as fact. this was something that zijo gafik hi lighted with the captions for at least one of the world press award photos. 

i liked his talk.

just a bit behind...

went to northern ireland on a big old family trip and got a bit out of sync with the elephant project, so used the time to start thinking about our borders project... and took in a grand tour of some of belfast's fine bars lead by martin who proved very knowledgeable on the subject! 
the pictures above were taken with my phone, so are just sketches really. i think come october i am going to be craving people in my images - but who knows.

elephant project week2

i couldn't get to any cafes when they were open this week, so it took a wander around the area on saturday to see what other things i could find that would fit with my personal brief. i walked for about three hours and didn't really come up with very much, but i did see an old dracula type tomb out on it's  own at the edge of a small housing development which was curious, and frustrating as i can't seem to find out any more about it. i also saw some great building that predate the elephant estates, and look in a much better shape, which makes me think i need to read something about why the last re development of the elephant and castle was meant to be such a good idea.

the photgrapher i have been looking at this week is peter fraser 

elephant project wk1

i am really behind in writing any of this up, so i feel i may have forgotten some things... but if i don't put something up today i never will.

for my part in "the elephant project" i am looking at things that show evidence of people using places in the area. this started as a cafe project, looking at how things gain a personality by becoming worn, mended or adapted over time. how the places are made to work for the people that use them.

with that in mind i just wandered around a few cafes in the area and to some sketch type photographs to see what was there and what things worked. the pictures above show what i found, the top shows some tape on a chair (it is the same as the image at the bottom, where the table and chairs block a doorway) the middle picture is of a random piece of wood used to attach a switch.

reading around the project i have been looking at the work of keith arnatt and paul graham, (which was interesting as he then came up in class the next week)

aside from that... the week class was about conflict photography i was photographing some evacuees at "churchill's blitz experience museum". two project strands collided there, a peculiar themed attraction, and yet more pearly kings and queens. i may put some up later, but i am not sure i really like any enough.