9 eyes and a photobook

Today saw me purchase a copy of the Paris Photo award nominated book ‘Erasure,’ by the very talented Fazal Sheikh. There is always something special about receiving a new piece of work.  I’m looking forward to spending some time with it over the next few days.  The work comes as four volumes in one and, ‘explores the anguish caused by the loss of memory by forgetting, amnesia or suppressionand the resulting human desire to preserve memory, all seen through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’

In addition to a work that I’m about to spend time with I thought it only fair to share one we all can. Jon Rafman’s project Nine Eyes of Google Street View is a now well know and brilliant piece of work.  If you’re yet to have a look, please do and if you have already, I implore you to do so ago.  There are a number of other good works using this modern version on the medium, but this work strikes well with me.  It seeks not to explore a narrative or particular subject other than that of the medium itself and perhaps also our need for constant input from things we would otherwise not know without the photograph.  The resulting work is fascinating, well edited and speaks well to the nosey part of us…. enjoy

Ken Grant

A couple of days ago I had the great pleasure of meeting and listening to the renowned photographer Ken Grant.

Not only was it utterly fascinating to listen to him and great to see some of his outstanding work, but I was very taken by one particular thing.  Ken has documented lots of the area and community in Liverpool in which he grew up, as well as other communities in Wales, Herefordshire and other areas and his work is agreed by others far more qualified than I to be outstanding. What really took, held and inspired me was Ken himself. He commits to his work and choses what to do carefully in order to be honest to that work, but more so as a person it is obvious that he has an ability to become part of and create the work for the projects due to the way in which those he communicates and then those he shares time with react to him.  This great skill to communicate, I believe, is a large part of what photography is.  In the documentary field in particular the photograph is chosen as the means of communicating what you are documenting, so the quality of communication at the time of taking the images must be as important to the process as that of the final work.  Listening to Ken it is clear that he is an exemplary example of this being the case.

If you’d like to see more of Ken’s work (which I discussed with a colleague as being ‘Parr plus some’) head over to his website.

An update – I haven’t disappeared!

I thought I’d write an update to explain my limited communication of late.  I have had to have some surgery and so have taken time out in order to do so.  I’m on the mend now and so working on some projects as I recover.

I have a number of projects on the go presently, with my work looking at Hart, some digital pieces as well as some studio work.  As it’s completed I’ll post the imagery on my website and let you all know via here that it’s there.  I’m looking forward to sharing a couple of the bits of work with you when it’s ready.

In the meantime I’d like to say a big thank you to the NHS for looking after me so superbly.  We are incredibly fortunate in the UK to have a health care system with such dedicated and caring staff.