New project

Recently, I unsuccessfully applied for a St Hugh's Arts award to document the Lincolnshire coast. Perhaps documenting the entire coast was a bit too wide ranging and difficult to a handle in a 100 word application or perhaps the application was rubbish.

So, I think I'm starting to form something a little more concise. Quite a lot of photographers have documented the seaside (Martin Parr, Tony Ray-Jones etc) but, they have mainly concentrated on people and sociological aspects. Rather than the voyeuristic (I know, all photographers are voyeurs) and class observations, I'm more fascinated by the architecture and visual paraphernalia. It's always been the thing for me ever since I was kid in the 1960's. There's a kind of attractive dishonest beauty about it. I'm thinking this the could be the way forward, here's a couple to start with...

Phenomenology

You may have noticed that I sometimes catch my own shadow in the picture. I'm not the first or last photographer to do this though we all probably have slightly different reasons for it. In my case one reason is technical and the other existential yeah, I know what you're thinking! In winter the sun is always low in the sky and I mostly use a wide angle lens so, it's sometimes inevitable. The other reason is that any form of qualitative research or inquiry (in this case documentary photography) is by it's nature phenomenological. As soon as you look through a view finder, the choices you make become a part of the images so, I often like to leave myself in there as a bit of fun. Here's a few from the archive...

Steeltown

Fact-time folks! The steel industry at Scunthorpe was established around 1860 because of the local availability of iron ore, limonite (bog ore) and limestone. Scunthorpe itself was developed as a steeltown to service the growing industry. The plant itself is huge approximately 7 miles in circumference and 3 miles end to end.

To photograph it in its entirety is not really practical so, I have made it incidental and concentrated on a less seen aspect...


Opencast mine at the side of the works

Open cast mine, I'm guessing it's a sand deposit. I like the way they avoided the trees.

Nature finding a way. Actually having extensively photographed the landscape surrounding Llanwern Steelworks I again found it strange that this is where you see more wildlife than in most parts of the countryside. It's probably due to disruption and creation new habitat and that the landscape is mostly devoid of people due to its unsightliness and the blanket of low level noise from the works.

Truelove?

West Lindsey District Council granted planning permission to Truelove Property Construction Ltd, to clear acres of woodland which was home to Great Crested Newts for an executive housing development and tennis courts.

Truelove Property Construction Ltd

Apparently, the newts were moved to a location nearby and temporary plastic barriers (shown in photo) put in place to keep them from returning. Not quite sure this is true love!

Ed Sheeran v the amphibians

National roll-out of new approach to great crested newt licensing

Scarecrows

Mortality

Just browsing back through my archive and came across these 'signs of mortality'

It's so bracing

North of Skegness in February.

Cottam Power Station

I have never thought of the Trent valley power stations as being a blight on the landscape. Despite the pollution and their dominance they are a thing of beauty.

My father  (Cyril Goddard) was a site foreman on Cottam and High Marnham stations during their building in the 1960s. As you can see from the photo, health and safety weren't as much of an issue in those days, not even a safety-net!

I remember as a small child hearing him tell my mother that the workers were campaigning to senior management for the issue of safety hats for all workers. He does look good in a beret though.

Eat your heart out Lewis Hine ;-)

Pretty pictures

More things that stick up into the air. I felt the need to take a spectacular image, the kind of attention grabbing image that photographers take to impress upon their viewers their 'unique talents'. Not something I am normally bothered about as I am more interested in the landscape itself, rather than flattering it!

So, I got up at about 5.00am and drove into the Wolds with the idea of photographing the Belmont TV transmitter at sunrise in the frosty landscape. The idea being that as the sun came over the horizon it would catch the mast before the landscape and light it up like a giant gleaming pole. Yeah, didn't happen! Unfortunately the sky was reflecting too much light down onto the landscape before it directly hit the mast itself. I'll leave the pretty pictures to others from now on.

Still, it was a beautiful thing to hike out there in the pitch darkness and frost (very, very cold) and watch the dawn break.

Happy New Year

As it's the time of year for reflection and new starts, I've been thinking (please, no jokes). Re-reading my original statement about this project. I need to redefine what I am doing so, this is my first text only post.

Jerusalem as a  project was only ever loosely defined, it's more a bunch of ramblings, both physically in the landscape and in the mind. I have only ever had a vague notion of where I was going with it but, does it really matter?

A continuing theme of my landscape projects over the years has been borderlands (see: The Wash, Confused Landscape, True Stories ). The areas of landscape that are between one place and another.

Coastal areas have always interested me so this might be the project for 2018. Photographing the Lincolnshire coast in greater detail would continue the trend and integrate with the larger Lincolnshire theme.