Sunday 24 April 2011

Harvest of 2010 Part Two - Dark Tunnels and Signs of Doom


Here's the next selection of some personal favourites from 2010, moving on chronologically...


3756 - London, England, 2010
3760 - London, England, 2010
3765 - London, England, 2010
In early 2009 I went fully digital with my art. One of the benefits of digital for me has been the ability to shoot more images to throw away, without breaking the bank. When I found this almost pitch dark tunnel, I was able to reel off quite a few shots, and walk away knowing I had what I wanted in amongst them. The first image here, 3756, has a formal perfection, and I really enjoy the way the light picks out the yellow lines. 3760 is more about the markings left by workers that you see on walls, pavements and roads from time to time. They usually indicate what going on underneath or behind, like a painted X-Ray. Sometimes they're instructions being handed from one worker to another. Either way, I often find them fascinating. Finally, the slightly unnerving feeling I had down there is really heightened in the eerie atmosphere of 3765.

3769 - London, England, 2010
Sometimes a subject needs a bit of careful cropping and placement in the frame when I shoot it (the images are never fiddled with afterwards) to bring out the interest - like 3770 and 3788 below. Sometimes it's more a case of the bigger picture. Seeing a little set up like this on the street I had to decide what to include and leave out. All the incidental details in this picture are hard to appreciate in this small version, but I find this image endlessly interesting, all the elements like the canister and the bottle, the ivy, the door and the wood, the yellow line melting down on the right towards the litter on the road, all leading your eye round and round. Of course, I moved nothing on the day - I only want images of the real world as it is - if I had set anything up I would never be able to forgive myself, it would haunt me every time I  looked at the picture...


3770 - London, England, 2010
I managed to get this one just how I wanted it. The plain, almost abstract, square window cover pushing evenly at the borders of the image all around, and the heavy shutter pushing it to the right. Compositionally very comfortable in theory, yet still full of tension.

3772 - London, England, 2010
Another case of less is more. So little to this image, the replaced corrugated metal in a different colour, the pipe ready to spit into the drain, and poor number 26, stranded all alone up there.


3776 - London, England, 2010
Red, yellow and blue - plus a great balance of line and space.

3777 - London, England, 2010
One of a few images I shot around this time of cars in front of garages. I like it - I just don't know why!

3778 - London, England, 2010
A perfectly symmetrical conjunction, beautifully ruined by some white sheeting, a tiny chimney, an off centre pipe and a lamp. Without these it would be a much less interesting image!
 
3781 - London, England, 2010
If I believed wholeheartedly in signs and portents in my images, this would be the last picture I ever took. This wonderful text is more of that primitive messaging from one hand to another, coming off here like a last, desperate, hopeful cry.
3785 - London, England, 2010
Another hopeless piece of signage whose message has been lost. Whatever we needed to know is long gone.

3787 - London, England, 2010
Love the geometry of this one, and it continues the somewhat sombre mood of the last couple of images here. The Refuge Area seems to have been tainted now, a stain flooding in from the outside.

3788 - London, England, 2010
This reminds of an Antoni Tàpies style expressionist collage - only all these elements are real and existed like this just as you see them. A great example of the kind of cobbling together through necessity that takes place over time that I really enjoy. More extreme examples like this make me worry that it's hard to believe I haven't created the image on screen.

3794 - London, England, 2010










I like to get down on the ground now and then to get in real close to odd little things like these - no one else sees them from this angle. Ignored and unloved, they are all there for a reason, or they once were anyway. Seeing them singled out, and from a new perspective brings out the elegance and mystery of these strange features.


More to follow soon...

Saturday 9 April 2011

Harvest of 2010 Part One - Amsterdam in Winter and more

Harvest of 2010
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven



I think it's time to start making this photography blog a bit more photo rich. I've now finished processing all my 2010 pictures, so I'm going to post a lot here over the next few weeks, to get some images out there. This is a quick way to get images up, rather than the more curated exhibitions on the paulclifford.co.uk, that need a lot more time to get sorted out.

One of the ideas behind this blog was for me to think about my work a bit more, and to that end, I'll also try to write a little about each batch as they go up. I'm not going to write too much, just some thoughts off the top of my head. Please do post any comments good or bad below and leave your name.

So, going way back to the beginning of 2010, let's start with some images from Amsterdam in January, it was snowy and it was really really cold!

3705 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Little details like this always interest me, and deciding where to put them is always the most fun. With this, I remember ensuring the Barnett Newman-esque stripe remained on the right.

3707 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010

3708 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
The freezing conditions gave me a rare chance to include snow in my pictures - two images here that would never have been possible any other time. Do tiny birds leave such frenzied and distinct footprints as in in 3707 in any material other than snow? And did the bird in 3708 really end it all?

3711 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Another chance to take advantage of the snow. This post coming up out of the canal was irresistible.

3715 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
I always try to get up high in a city, looking down you can see all sorts of odd combinations of things, where town planners and architects haven't thought about the consequences.

3722 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Love this three way composition. I enjoy cropped shots that seem very grounded in the real world, but retain mystery.

3723 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Cheeky one this, and not something I would usually do, but it seemed very appropriate following this Rodchenko exhibition. Essentially reappropriating someone else's photograph on someone else's poster design. Third generation steal!

3725 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Another composition from the real world.

3727 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010

3728 - Amsterdam, Holland, 2010
Two items finding themselves in the same situation with a different result.

3733 - London, England, 2010
Back in the UK now. If you now what this is, you'll probably know why I took a few pictures from this viewpoint. Very interesting from underneath!

3735 - London, England, 2010
An atmospheric interior with great colours and light.

3739 - London, England, 2010
I loved this kind of lighting all last year, I have a few images of them - an exhibition to come...

3741 - Winchester, England, 2010
On some days the light and shadows just seem to fall in all the right places - this was one of those days.

3744 - Winchester, England, 2010
3746 - Winchester, England, 2010
A very photogenic staircase, lots of raw material for me to shove around in the frame to find some interesting ways to flex my compositional muscles.

3749 - Highcliffe, England, 2010
Another abstracted composition. I couldn't resist these colours!

3753 - London, England, 2010
A very confusing image. Took a while in the rain to get this just right - it was worth it!
It's worth mentioning here none of my images are fiddled around with or constructed in Photoshop or elsewhere, they are compositions I created through the lens on the day.

3754 - London, England, 2010
Another odd image, this one struck me clearly in the eye and I just had to take it home.

Well, that takes us part way through February, there's more to come very shortly. As I said, please leave a comment below if you want.

Harvest of 2010
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven