Harvest of 2011 Part One - More Doors, More Windows

If you haven't read it yet, you may want to start with the short introduction to this blog series - find it here.
Click on each image to enlarge it, and also comment on and Like images at the Facebook gallery - here. You can comment on the post as a whole at the bottom. All pictures are available as limited edition prints - click here for details.

4618 - Ryde, England, 2011

Here's a nice one to ease us in - a door and a window, an ongoing theme of mine. Lots to look at here - overall I love the colours and the distribution of the green and blue, plus the three chiming grills at the top and base of the wall keeping everything ordered. As is so often the case, it's the details that keep me interested (click on the image to enlarge afor a closer look) - the padlocks, the bricks falling away top left, the white stain, the enforced grid on the window.

4105 - London, England, 2011

Here too, the colour draws you in, a strong red and white, but the details keep you engaged. This is under a railway bridge, hence the muted, somewhat painterly light on a door and wall that never see the sun.

4130 - Tattershall, England, 2011

A lone window this time, falling into sheer black, and another brick wall. Whilst the mossy, messy bricks are fascinating - note how they have to smarten up their act a little around the window - the bottom strip of modernity throws the handmade wall into contrast, stressing the very horizontal nature of the image.

4097 - London, England, 2011

Here's an example of my creating a composition to try and make something that may look fairly normal on the street into something odd and intriguing. Appearing somewhat like a collage, the scales and textures are all wrong somehow, and the elements don't seem to quite get comfortable next to each other.

4081 - London, England, 2011

When I have a picture that contains a collection of items sitting in relation to each other, I sometimes feel there are at least two dialogues happening - one is how the colours and shapes inhabit the frame as a whole, and the other is more about a kind of dialogue between the objects themselves. I can see them with an imagined personality or action. Here, for example, the snake of a black pipe seems to be trying to creep towards the windows, adding movement and drama to the image.

4084 - London, England, 2011

Similarly, I can't help but add my own fiction to images like this one. A single lonely light behind a single lonely window. What goes on inside?

4191 - London, England, 2011

I don't seem to tire of doors and windows. This one was irresistible, due to the striking colour contrasts. The blue is heightened by the boxes in the window. Again, so much to see too - check out the angles and construction of the window, and are those grooves on the wall bricks, or something else? More imagined stories...

4304 - London, England, 2011

Most of my door and window images seem to focus on dilapidated and worn facades, but  the clean lines of a fresh white space allow for some interesting compositions too. Here we are in a gallery, where the environment is strictly controlled visually, looking out over the chaos of rooftops. In terms of where the window and exit sign are placed in the image - this kind of thing is something I take a lot of time over and I can only explain that when it feels balanced to me, then it's right.

4573 - Alum Bay, England, 2011

I've noticed that a lot of my windows have been blocked or erased, this particular one has obviously outlived its usefulness or even become a hindrance. As well as acting as an interesting compositional element, it holds its own mystery so well - the broken and offset lintel is intriguing enough, but what about the shoddy bricking up, with the glass remaining oddly intact?

4577 - Totland, England, 2011

When I came across a set of abandoned caravans, I was so struck by the wonderful muted tones sitting under the grime, I spent quite some time exploring them with my camera. A photograph like this allows me to create some order within the frame and imprint my own sensibilities onto the mess that was there. As always, there is no manipulation in Photoshop to change or enhance the colours.

4093 - London, England, 2011

Likewise, this image has not been constructed on screen, though it may look like it. By creating a composition like this in-camera I can choose what to include and how to include it. It's important to me to get everything just how I want, and I've often had to abandon shots that I know would be great, simply because I cannot physically get the camera lens into the place I know it needs to be to see what I can see in my head. This one, though, was exactly what I wanted.

4169 - London, England, 2011

A similar shot to the previous one - 4093 - that shows how I like to pull things together in a single to shot to make my own version of what I can see. All of these things have their own role to play, but looked at like this, each one feels faintly ludicrous, seems to be placed where it is just so this image can exist.

4419 - London, England, 2011

A different kind of facade, with the odd little windows pushed to the edge of the frame. This one is so sparse, it feels like an abstract expressionist painting, which is often a touchstone for me and my work.

4550 - Brighstone, England, 2011

From a very dour image to one that is full of joy. I love the colour, particularly the wonderful stripe that comes across as a Barnett Newman style abstract feature, but is actually a streamer trapped by a closing door. With the sagging roof tiles. the off centre window and the baggy stripes, it's a really informal image and a breath of fresh air.

4584 - Ventnor, England, 2011

Two different kinds of Door/Window images to finish. Sometimes it's frustrating not being able to get up to something I'd really like to photograph, or even just look at. Having to find a different solution can lead you literally to a fresh perspective, like it did here.

4666 - London, England, 2011

And finally, a take on a design classic - Trellick Tower. Visually it's iconic, so I've had to literally and figuratively get some distance between myself and the building to find something to say in my own language. This image has been shown publicly a number of times and it's always popular. I think the interest stems from three things - the architecture itself, the customisation by the residents on each of the unique terraces, and the design of the image which draws equally from the other two elements.


That's it for Part One. The Facebook gallery for individual image comments is here, and you can comment below if you want to say anything about the blog post as a whole.

Part Two soon. Thank you for reading! All pictures are available as limited edition prints - click here for details.

Harvest of 2011 - Introduction

Following the Harvest of 2010 survey of a year's images, I am moving onto 2011. For the 2010 series of blogs I looked at the images chronologically, grouping them from month to month. 2011 will be a little different - I have once again made a selection of personal favourites, but this time I am going to try and make a bit more sense of them by grouping under loose themes.

As you will no doubt note I am a photographer rather than a writer - these blog posts don't go through endless drafts, I try and write spontaneously about my own thoughts regarding each image and the result is as much for my benefit as yours. I'd be interested on any thoughts you have about the text and the pictures whether at the bottom of this post, or on the Facebook pages (noted at the start of each part), where you can comment on each individual photograph.

I photograph very subconsciously, without a master plan for any series of images, so these series where I look back over a large group of pictures taken of a period of time is my way of getting a handle on why I take photographs in the way I do, and to try and identify themes and possible philosophies within my work.

Indeed this is how my Doors and Windows exhibition from early 2011 (catalogue here) came about. Looking back over 18 years of images, a door and a window seemed to be a running theme - one that I had known nothing about, and the show was a look back over those images. Doors and windows continued to be a preoccupation in 2011, we'll start with those in Part One.

Harvest of 2011 Part One - More Doors, More Windows - click here to read.

'Falling Shadows' exhibition in London from 13th to 25th October

A series of my pictures entitled 'Falling Shadows' will be on show as part of ‘The Rooftop Collective - Edition III’ at Curious Duke Gallery, 173 Whitecross Street, London EC1Y 8JT from 13th October 2014 until 25th October 2014.

I would love to see any of you for a chat at the Private View on Tuesday 14th October from 6.00pm - 9.00pm or at the Artists in Residence day on Saturday the 18th. Please do come along!

I will post full details in the next few days, including details of some of the other photographers who will be showing.

The Harvest of 2010 archive goes Facebook

All the images from the Harvest of 2010 are now on Facebook, with an album for each of the seven parts - so you can see them as high quality, larger versions, and also leave any comments or even Like the pictures. It's always interesting and instructive to get feedback of any kind, and the reaction has been great so far - so don't be shy! See all the albums here.

If you haven't read the Harvest of 2010 you can catch up here on the blog - Part One is here and all the subsequent parts are linked from there. So go ahead and dive in! There are seven bite-sized parts, each with a small selection of images.

Harvest of 2011 will be starting soon here on the blog, so stay tuned, and Like the Facebook page at facebook.com/paulcliffordartist to stay up to date.

Back to life...

Once again, my little blog has been on hiatus while other things got in the way. Well, I'm hopefully back for a while now. I considered starting afresh, but I like the somewhat untidy nature of the posts below, covering a range of different thought processes.

The idea from now on is that paulclifford.com will act as a portfolio site - there is a new version just launched that is much cleaner and simpler.

The Facebook page facebook.com/paulcliffordartist will be very informal, with lots of images posted, along with news and links.

This blog - blog.paulclifford.com - will have more in depth posts with thoughts about my own, and possibly other people's, work and exhibitions.

I have an exhibition coming up in London, my third annual show with the Photography Collective that I work with in London - the work my fellow members are producing is really strong this year, and it's shaping up to be a great show. Catch it at the Curious Duke Gallery from 13th to 26th October. 

More to follow...

Looking at Art 3: Tino Sehgal at Tate Modern

Looking at Art: personal and opinionated rambles on what I've seen, probably with a lot of reference to my own work...

Tino Sehgal at Tate Modern, London 24 July – 28 October 2012


Tate Modern - any visit to London's temple to Art always throws up unexpected delights, you go for one thing and come out with another.

Take today for example. If anything, I would have thought I'd be writing about the Edvard Munch show. I'd found the 1992 Munch show at London's National Gallery intensely moving like no other painting show I'd seen. This Tate show though, turned out to be a more academic presentation, which for me served to suck the emotional punch out of the work.

So maybe it would be the Tanks. Unrefined, industrial spaces just off the Turbine Hall, strange to think these huge rooms have been there all along. Unfortunately, at the moment they're filled with the kind of dark room, TVs on the floor art that I find underwhelming and unengaging.

The double photography show then, William Klein and Daido Moriyama. Some good work here but the sheer quantity is quite overwhelming, and all fairly similar. Nothing that grabbed my attention. Well, there was something that did, but we'll get to that!

I've enjoyed pretty much all of the Tate Turbine Hall installations. They're usually pretty adventurous commissions, whether it's a little crack in the floor that changes the space in a big way, or bringing the outdoors indoors, or creating the very blackest of black spaces to make you wonder if you exist at all.  

The current installation was by Tino Sehgal, an artist I didn't know. All I did know was that he had brought in performers to engage you in passing conversations. Not really my sort of thing, sounded a bit pretentious. So I decided to give it a go and hung about in the wide open space after I arrived to see what happened. Nothing did. I looked for the wall text, the leaflet, the whatever, to tell me what I wasn't seeing. Nothing anywhere. So I'd moved on to the other attractions, as above.

Up in the William Klein show, a little side room showed one of his films. This little side room overlooked the Turbine Hall, and there was something going on down there. In the big open space at the far end little groups of people were chasing each other around. 'There's the art!' I thought.

Back down for a second look. The usual people milling around; students, families, trendy types, older couples, school parties. Then somebody walked past me. Backwards. Then somebody else. I turned around, and in amongst the sparse crowd there were a few of them, then more, walking backwards towards the end of the huge space.

It was quite unnerving, to have these people amongst us in on a secret we don't know. The sudden unified sense of purpose was jarring, like being in a zombie film. Where were they going?

Children and grown ups joined in compulsively with the backwards walking. Now, who was who again? Which ones were the 'performers'? And so it went, a pack running around, chasing and dodging each other in smaller groups, sidestepping, sitting, strolling and humming. And all the while you can get right in amongst it - it's quite exhilarating!

Or unsettling. Like when the players whirled around you at speed, like you may have seen fish do in packs to protect the group from predators. That kind of passive aggressive feeling was underlined when they'd purposefully fix your eyes with a steely gaze as they passed - a chilling encounter.

At points, the individuals (they didn't seem like a group) would sit down and start a complex poetic choral recital in unison, all around you - the effect was dizzying and euphoric. To be amongst such a range of voices, to move from one to another freely was a wonderful experience. Sometimes the lights in the whole hall would go on and off in unison with their chants - interesting, but felt a bit distant from the work for me, a bit too gimmicky. When they sang, you could see who the performers were, but as maybe not all of them sing, still nothing is certain.

Now and again a performer would approach you purposefully and directly and simply say 'This piece is called Other Associations. It's by the artist Tino Sehgal'. And there was my wall text announcing the piece. So simple, but so different, a great idea.

And there were the conversations. They'd sidle up to you, starting 'When I was young...', 'A couple of years ago...', or 'There was a man I very much admired...'. I heard stories from various lives. About wanting to tunnel to New Zealand as a boy, then remembering that decades later atop a volcano on the South Island and having an epiphany of arrival . About getting caught out on live TV, skipping school for Glastonbury. About a mother whose son left a musical recording on her computer when he left to live in Spain, a thank you for her patience while he learnt the guitar in his own way, rather than how she did. About a guy she knew who always used to explain his outlandish actions, like keeping a wild husky dog in their holiday ski lodge, with the phrase 'I couldn't resist!'.

But this wasn't like a play, or immersive theatre. It felt quite comfortable for me to talk back. These were conversations. So I'd ask questions, and we'd end up talking about the growth of the internet since we were young, digging on the beach, Iggy Pop, music lessons, and on and on. Coming at the end of a week where I'd been talking about my work at a Private View and an Art Fair, it seemed quite natural to converse with these strangers. An unusual situation - not to be repeated I'm guessing.

One person who spoke to me answered some of my questions - yes, it was a true story, yes, some people refuse to talk back, and yes, some readily took offence. It occurred to me that I could play a character too, and be nasty or dismissive. Might be fun, but I didn't have the courage for it, and besides, it's nice to be nice.

The further thought occurs that perhaps not all the conversationalists are part of the piece. If you want talk to strangers at length with no real risk of repercussions, this is the time and place to do it. And why not? If the participant's stories are true anecdotes from their own lives, yours are no less valid. 

All in all a great piece that left me with lots of questions about how we deal with other, and with memories of those exciting moments in the midst of frenzied activity. I'd thought it wasn't really my thing -  but patience and openness paid dividends.

The Rooftop Collective Edition 2 - preview

The pictures are up, and the new show is all ready for the opening and Private View tomorrow night (Thursday 4th) at theprintspace in East London. Full details at the bottom of this post!

It's a very big white space and the work is hanging together really well. The show expresses how far we've come as a group of photographers since last year's show. As well as a real step up in the gallery space, we had much more choice about how the work would fit together as a whole with so much more space to breathe. There are five of us exhibiting, and the work is really 'talking' to each other nicely across the walls.

For my part,  I had recently completed working through my images from 2011 and I wanted to boil down a survey to explore one aspect of the year's work. This is slightly different to previous exhibitions (including last year's Rooftop Collective show), which explored a single theme. Whilst all the work does in effect form one composed piece, the connections between the pictures are perhaps not quite so obvious than in a more straightforwardly themed show.

There are two groups of images on the wall, focusing on geometry and details. One aspect of my photography is, I think, the desire show the simple and sometimes sublime pleasures that can be had by taking a slower and more considered look at everyday scenery and situations. I want to make you slow down and stop and look - where colours and materials meet, you can find real and unexpected beauty. I hope to create something new that can feel both interesting and beautiful, both mysterious and familiar.

I really enjoyed creating the Harvest of 2010 blog series (explore it here) and found it useful in starting to divine why I take pictures, and this in turn improves my work I think. Whilst those writings went through the year chronologically, this year I'm going to explore the year thematically, and discussion of the individual pictures in this show will form the backbone of the first instalment of Harvest of 2011, which will appear here in the next week or two, once the dust has settled from the double whack of the Private View and Photofair!

So, you can think of the exhibition as a preview or launch for Harvest of 2011. It's really worth getting to the show if you can, to see the real prints in the flesh. All the artists will be at the Private View, and there is some great work on show, some beautiful prints. We only do these group shows once a year - so it's not to be missed.

I hope to see some of you on Thursday night or on Saturday at the London Photomonth Photofair - another great opportunity to see (and buy if you like) lots of great photography from the artists themselves - around 100 of them! It's an exciting atmosphere with lots of places to eat and drink, and a chance to see lots of new work from me. Read about last year's here.


Details of the group show - 
www.paulclifford.co.uk/TRCedition2.pdf.

My own personal flyer, including a map, and details of the London Photomonth Photofair on Saturday where I'll be too!
www.paulclifford.co.uk/PaulCliffordOctober2012.pdf. 

Note that the gallery is only open Monday to Friday, so unfortunately you can't combine a visit with Photofair on Saturday.