I've sold my camera

Well I've done it again, sold all my cameras.

I usually do this when I get a bit disillusioned with my photography. The last time was in 1990s after I had moved back to Lincoln and work from London was drying up, remember there was no internet back then and photography was a wet process.

Communications from Lincoln to London were tricky. It would take a long day to shoot a story, drive to Nottingham and get it processed, then pre-edit it, package it, get it to the train station and organise a bike to pick it up at the other end to take it to the editorial office.

In an effort to attain more work from London I built a website on this new thing called the 'webbynet'. Trouble was no one in the editorial offices was online yet. However, I now had a lifeline and having built a few websites for other people I landed the job of Website Manager at the University of Lincoln. I sold my cameras and didn't take a serious picture for 15 years.

5 years ago I left the Uni with enough cash to be independent and pursue my own photographic project (details and pics in this blog). I had an exhibition and published a couple of books. All well and good...

I now face another 'photostential' crisis, where do I go from here? Though, this time it's more of a move in a different photographic direction. Photography for me has never been about producing pretty or spectacular pictures. They have their place but for me a picture has to have some meaning or be more informative than “isn't that amazing!”

The way people consume photography these days has also changed. If I send an email out to my mail list, 90% of those who look at my blog or website do it on a mobile device so, what's the point of me shooting a 40MP image if it's going to be viewed at the size of a credit card? These days an iPhone camera is quite capable of producing the quality needed for a sizeable print or projection. An iPhone is also considerably more convenient. If you pull out a big SLR these days it marks you out as a professional and people start to get suspicious, no one bothers if you pull out a phone. Strange how it used to be the other way around.

I have sold my cameras and am awaiting the release of the new iPhone.

Gardens of Earthly Delights

 Many thanks to Geoff Mathews for inspiring me to come up with a title to work towards. 

Welcome to "Gardens of Earthly Delights" 

I can see I will have to do some research into Bosch. 

In the meantime here's a few pic's shot on my iPhone...

Really?

Why am I doing this, there must be more important things to photograph? With the world the way it is; pandemic, wars, Trump, Tory buffoons, Labour's self-harming, poverty, environmental disaster - and I choose this! I guess everyone elses focus is on the bigger issues so perhaps that should be reason enough. Then again, I wonder what these images say about the bigger issues? Why should I care? In the grand scheme does it really matter when the human race gets wiped out, tomorrow or a million years. It's inevitable that it will happen one day. Perhaps it's a fatalistic view that drives me to photograph the inconsequential, the bizarre, and the seemingly unimportant. Perhaps that's what living in Lincolnshire is... I need a drink!

Meet the creator of these marvelous objects. Maybe it's the need to escape reality that drives us to create our own worlds. I could be generalising but, one thing I notice about gardens such as these is that the creators are always friendly, they have a love of nature and often a greater understanding of nature than most people. 

A sink used as a convenient receptacle for plant cuttings complete with its own water supply and drainage. Or perhaps an unwittingly created metaphor for life... I definitely need that drink?

Next Chapter

It might have something to do with my father's gardening style that I have a fascination for the eccentric.The only photo I have of his garden is the pixie house that he built in the 1980s. 

I think it must be in the blood, a kind of exhibitionist gene maybe. Though I feel no need to turn my garden into Dingly Dell I can see why people do it. 

I love the dedication to the task and the mad eccentricity of it all.

Perhaps this is my next chapter of Jerusalem! 

Though not in Lincolnshire the following pictures are of a garden in Nott's which deserves an honorary place as not only is it beautifully crazy it features the Red Arrows who are of course still in Linc's...

More gardens...

  A few gardens from previous chapters...

Tiny church

Since my exhibition at The Collection I have become a little lazy, floundering on which direction to take this project next. The coronovirus lock-down has spurred me on to do the opposite and get out more, especially now the weather is on the turn. The one thing you can do in Lincolnshire is get away from people. I went for a walk near Apley whose church has to be one of smallest and quaintest in the county.

 

Brexitland

Happy new year and welcome to Brexitland.

More images of flags here...

North West

I have finally got around to covering North Lincolnshire, west of the River Trent...


Looking toward Goole Fields this area is probably more sparsely populated than the fens. Apparently, ideal for land based wind farms and horses.


I have photographed similar attempts by land owners all over Lincolnshire to capitalise on the 'fun farm' - There's not a lot else to do round here unless you like shooting things.

 

 

I love the location of John Wesley's statue in Epworth. No grand plinth in the town square, this location is fitting given his views though, I guess the idea of being idolised at all would be anathema.

In Owston Ferry, there is a feeling of desolation and the sense of a faded community that existed before the television, mobile phones and the internet. I actually like what is has become, melancholic, a place that has forgotten what it is. The phone box has no phone inside it. What was the 'Albion Hall'? Who was Frances Sandres, she gifted the clock tower in 1866? Modern tractors hauling potatoes roar through the square at the same speed as cars, not a single soul on the street. Who knows, with global warming we may have to start thinking more locally again and perhaps these former community areas will be revitalised with markets and other social activities... in my dreams perhaps!

More dereliction

The Plough at Potterhanworth Booths now itself as nostalgic as the technology it displays.


...and more garages, this is starting to get a bit like trainspotting!

The Blitz

In these divisive times we look back with nostalgia for when things were simpler, when the nation apparently pulled together as one. Are we in danger of mythologising the past and forgetting the reality? Why do we want to relive the blitz? Europeans remember the war with respect and try to honor those who died with peace and unification. We also remember with great respect but with one difference. We also consider ourselves the victors and it seems that the nostalgia of victory and our island/siege mentality contributes to a warped sense us and them. Perhaps it is because no one in Europe considered themselves to have won the war (they all lost), that to prevent any further occurrence of war they built a new political system, opened up their borders and even shared a common currency. None of this is perfect and things on this scale take time to achieve. Perhaps it is time to for us to heal rather than pick at old mythologised scabs. Solemnly respect those who gave so much for us and remember with humility rather than jingoism.