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Dolls head in derelict house

Exploring the Fascination of Derelict Houses

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This image is of a dolls head sitting on the floor of a derelict house. Derelict houses have always fascinated me. Who lived there? What did they do? Why did they go? It’s about the ghosts of those who have gone before. During my life there have been a couple of opportunities for me to gain access to old properties. Firstly when I worked in the building industry in Birmingham. It was in the early 1960’s. At that time Birmingham was clearing its inner city slums (I was born in one such in Nechells near to the Gas works). Thousands of Victorian houses were being cleared and being replaced, arguably with modern versions. That aside, I had access to houses that had been swept away, though their cellars were still available to me.On a site in Curzon St., we were building a Centre for Public lighting* over what was once rows of early 19thC houses**. Much of was once the superstructure had just been dumped in the cellars we were digging through. In thre cellars …

Installing a New Water Supply

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A few weeks ago we were notified by Anglian Water we had a water leak and that we had a month or so to fix it, or else. We investigated inside the house. Nothing was found. No leaks at all. Everything was dry.We called the number on the e-mail and a really helpful chap arrived from Anglian Water to see if he could find the leak externally saying “It may be the connection between your house and our main”. Reassuringly adding “in most cases it is”. He called in an “Emergency team” to dig up the pavement around the stop tap point where we are connected to the main. They came, they dug and found the connection to the main was not the problem. At the same time they upgraded the connection point to their main. It’s worth mentioning here:1. Anything in the pavement is their issue not the householders.   2. Anything from the back of pavement into the house is the responsibility of the householders to fix.  Hmmm that sounds expensive we thought. …

Humber and Holderness Coast: Unpublished Image from the Meridian Project.

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This image was made as part of the Meridian Project but was not originally published.It shows the East Coast just above the Humber on the Southern end of the Holderness Coast. Co-ordinates for the image:0° 0’22.09″W, 0015 / 53°45’47.05”N Close to the horizon, to the right of the frame, is the Lincs Offshore Wind Farm which is situated 8Km off the Skegness coast. The Meridian Project, entitled “A Line Runs Through It” can be seen here… “A LINE RUNS THROUGH IT” The project documents a photographic journey down the 0deg Meridian Line as it passes through Lincolnshire, after originating at the North Pole the first land it reaches is in Holderness.Captured over many days spread over 6 months, the photographer travelled the length of the 0deg Meridian as it passes through Lincolnshire, a distance of just over 70 miles. Images of the people and places were made along the line from landfall in the Holderness area just above the Humber Estuary, crossing the Humber into the North East Coastal plain, then cutting through Louth, an …

A suggested revision

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Sue and I were in Roker in the North East of England recently. Whilst at dinner in the Roker Hotel we sat next to Ian Macdonald, a photographer from that area. We got talking and Ian looked at a couple of small images on my phone. He made suggestions about the editing of the one you see here. I made those alterations. The image looks all the better for it. Thanks Ian.

Time flies.

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I took this picture of a (then) young man at a travelling fair in Hay Mills, Birmingham (Just off the A45 Coventry Rd) back in the Late 70’s / Early 80’s. I have a few others from the day but I was recently drawn to this image by the far away look in the young man’s eyes. If anybody can put me in touch with the subject – just to say hello – I would be grateful.He would be in his 50’s now I suppose. As I say Time Flies.

New Topographics.

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I have taken pictures from an early age and subsequently, I’ve been producing ‘work’ for over 50 years. I have no formal education in Photography. I am entirely self taught. So it comes as no surprise I only recently heard the term “New Topographics” applied to a style of images. First coined by William Jenkins in 1975 when he was describing a group of photographers such as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Bernd and Hilla Becher. At the time each of whom adopted a similar banal aesthetic in their formal black and white prints of the urban landscape.  For them and their ilk, car parks, suburban housing, pit-head winding gear, water towers etc were depicted in high quality, stark beauty – as the TATE says on their web site “almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape” – hence, I suppose, the term was coined from seeing a new topography directly opposing the picturesque images from the past. Bernd and Hilla Becher were lecturers at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. There they influenced  a number …

A tale of coffee and a great postman.

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 I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to coffee. For over 20 years I’ve owned a Gaggia Espresso maker. I got so much use out of the original it died and I bought a replacement. Even the new one ( 10 years old now)  was suffering from over use but I found a Gaggia service centre in Nottingham and a delightful engineer called Giacomo  picked up the machine and delivered it back to me as good as new. Yes, you can see my obsession can’t you. Don’t judge me too harshly. Some people smoke or drink. I do neither. Some play the horses or gamble. I don’t. No, my singular addiction is good coffee. This week I had a catastrophic upset (Yes, yes, I know. This may be insignificant and trivial to you, and in the current circumstances it probably is but…) when the handle on the coffee basket snapped off, making the machine unusable. It was my own fault. I had put it in the dishwasher for years and the corrosive effect on the …

That was the year that was 2018

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As the calendar year draws to a close there is a temptation to take stock of where you’ve come from, how the journey has been and where you have arrived at. So here goes… This has been a year of change. I suppose you could say that about most years, but I do feel this year has been about re-evaluation and change. Simplification and stripping back have been recurrent themes running through most of what I have done over the past 4 years but none more so than this year. That extends to camera gear, clothes (though don’t take the ‘stripping back’ too literally here), car, the accoutrements of daily life even my watch; all becoming as simple as possible. Simplification even changed our travel destinations. Sue and I haven’t travelled long-distance this year. No trips to the far-flung. Southern Spain and Greece have been our chosen countries this year. That, in itself, was a sizeable change. However, more significantly, photographically I have been working on other projects. For those who are curious: I have …