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.
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.
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 …
Images from Coventry cathedral 2007
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 …
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 …
A while back I ventured out with a different camera. I went out with this. As you can imagine I got some strange looks but nobody took it seriously at all. I was largely ignored. Just out of interest, here are the results…
Title: Small Town Inertia. Photographer: J A Mortram. Essays: Lewis Bush. Paul Mason. Poem: Jamie Thrashivoulou Reference: ISBN 9781908457363 First published: Hard back 2017 by Blue Coat Press, Liverpool Website: smalltowninertia.co.uk Size:310mm x 215mm x 20mm Jim Mortram, the master of the Long form of photo story, has released his first book. I’ve known Jim Mortram for a few years and all the while he’s been building up to producing this book; closely working with his community in and around his hometown in Norfolk. Jim’s output is reminiscent of others who have chosen to highlight this sector of our community. The disadvantaged and the disabled. He is following on* from others like: Bill Brandt, who in the 1930’s produced hauntingly beautiful images in the East End of London, the North East of England, and Yorkshire. Much of his work was published in the excellent Picture Post in the 1940’s. Nick Hedges photographs of the poor taken for ‘Shelter’ in areas of deprivation around the UK in the 1960’s and 70’s. About his work Hedges said… ‘Although these photographs …
peterdbarton.com 