1984-87 – Other Worlds
In my late teens, I began to entertain the idea of taking photographs not merely as an idle and incidental pastime but as something more serious. In animal rights activism, I was the kid who took the pictures. Those pictures I would never put my name to and the negatives would never remain in my possession more than a few hours. My other photography was of bands on stage or protesters during demonstrations, which was kind of like photographing theatre, in that the protagonists expected to be photographed. But, I was becoming more interested in photographing the far more mundane world that I encountered on a daily basis.
Where this urge came from it is hard to say. I didn’t look at photographers’ photographs as such (I believed that this unduly influence me) but I was aware of Cartier Bresson, Mary Ellen Mark and Martin Parr. Perhaps, on pondering this momentarily, it was indeed too late to claim I had a virgin eye. I now recall the root of what would be my future suffering. I had picked up and bought a copy of American Photography in a bargain bookshop, where they pile them high and sell them cheap. It was a collection of photographers’ works, compiled by John Benton Harris. It included the likes of Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Mary Ellen Mark, Diane Arbus, Bruce Davidson, Garry Winogrand, William Klein… and more. Clearly, I was a terminal case. I had bitten the apple! It thrilled me to look at pictures that, for me, had something. By the same measure, I was put off by images I considered mediocre.
There was a problem with becoming a street photographer. I was quite timid, as such. I could find the courage to hitchhike anywhere the alternative was to stay put, as money was always scarce. I also had the courage to do things that absolutely terrified me but that I considered worthy contributions to a struggle for a more ethical world. However, the idea that snapping a picture of a total stranger on the street or along some lane was terrifying for me; the idea of stopping someone and asking to be allowed to photograph them perhaps was worse still. It was a timidness that had to be conquered and eventually it was but in moments, never completely.
The photographs on this page and those that follow are part of a series called “Under Grey Skies”, which I put together when I was invited to show my work by an arts institute in Medellín, Colombia, where I had moved to. There were some ninety photos in the exhibition (though there are more here on these pages), which I printed from one box of one hundred sheets.
The first photographs are from when I was morphing out of animal rights activism, punk rock and hitchhiking to places I’d like to see in Europe. With the intention of taking pictures, I hitchhiked to Berlin whilst The Wall still stood. I fell onto my feet and into the very bohemian squat scene in Kreuzberg but I didn’t engage with photographing as I wished. I was too immature to do so and lacked that knowing what I was doing or getting close to what I intended to do. At its root was the phobia of stepping out of being comfortably ignored and left alone.
After Berlin, I travelled with a friend who had come from LA to live in London. The trip was more fun than being on my own and I was far happier not thinking about taking pictures but the urge still nagged away. It was when I returned from that trip that I found the guidance that had been lacking. I joined a training scheme for unemployed youths, ostensibly to photograph the architecture and building infrastructure of the county for Northamptonshire County Council. Being on the street and taking pictures, I came into contact with people all the time and, when it took my fancy, I began to take their portraits and photograph the activities they were involved in. The head of the scheme -a passionate photographer called Ross Boyd – encouraged this and the whole team ended up doing the same and, rather than being a machine that produced what was required of us, we discussed photography and processes. Ross was my de facto photography tutor – my first – and encouraged me to apply to the Newport School of Documentary Photography in South Wales. Newport was the place to go then: each year some 800 people would pursue 20 places. I was convinced and, so, had to start thinking about putting a portfolio together.
The pictures on this page – “Other Worlds” – and the next – “Traditions” – are some of the photographs I made during the couple of years I worked on that portfolio to take to show at Newport. I was encouraged to study with a friend of Ross’, Gerry Broughton, but he taught in Leicester and that meant travelling two days a week to the town, which is around 30 to forty miles from Northampton, depending on the route. Because of the scarcity of money and unsuitability of public transport, the alternative was to hitchhike, which I would do there and back two days a week. Gerry Broughton, who was a landscape artist, was my second tutor. The course was commercial photography but Gerry allowed me do my own thing as long as I would attend the more technical coursework in the afternoons. After Leicester, I would cycle around and work on stories in Northamptonshire (the roadside café series I did on my bike) and, when I could, would travel to places to photograph traditions.
Speakers’ Corner – Hyde Park
Easy pickings where people expect to be photographed and nobody really pays you any attention. Theatre!
Summer Solstice – Stonehenge
The closest I come to mixing worlds are these pictures from Stonehenge summer solstice in 1987. An old friend from the animal rights movement, Nigel Smith, had become a traveller and I went along with him and other travellers from his itinerant camp. It was the year after the “Battle of Bean Field”- where the police trashed the travellers convoy and attacked the people – and we were often thrown out of counties by police, who would escort us to the county line with instructions and threats not to return. Again, I have never scanned the photos, other than these of the solstice.
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Light Notes · Short Tales 