>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

You couldn’t make it up

My pool picture ban over paedophile fears is a real headline from the Metro and tells the story of an 82year old woman who was stopped while taking pictures of an empty paddling pool on a common in Southhampton. A council employee told the widow to put her camera away because she might be a paedophile.

Of course she was in a public place and carrying out a perfectly legal act. Even if the pool had been swarming with children she would still have been within her legal rights to take photographs, although it would be a brave woman (and a much braver man) that would insist on those legal rights in the current perverted climate.

Although Southampton council have apologised, they stated: ‘It is appropriate that our staff are aware of who is taking photos.’ This confuses the act of taking photographs (whether or not they include children) with a potential risk of sexual offending against children. In practice it seems rather unlikely that potential offenders will draw attention to themselves by using a camera in this way in a public place, and council staff would probably be more sensibly employed giving greater attention to any adults without cameras – and in particular those who loiter without cameras around where children play.

With or without a camera people can behave in ways that may be suspicious – approaching children, talking to them, following them etc, and although they may of course be perfectly innocent I think most of us would agree it a good idea if council workers and others kept an eye on their actions. But people in any position of authority, however slight, need proper training, and part of it should be to learn that photography in public places is not an offence and no more a suspicious activity than walking a dog – probably considerably less so given that many children are attracted to animals.

There is a poll (‘The Big Vote’) on the Metro page (at the right of the page) which asks readers to vote on whether they think the council worker’s action was over the top. I was flabbergasted to find when I voted that there was a whole 6% of people who didn’t.

Prize Pictet

Yet another prize I didn’t enter for is the Prize Pictet, for which the short list of photographers has recently been announced: Benoit Aquin, Edward Burtynksky, Jesus Abad Colorado, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Sebastian Copeland, Christian Cravo, Lynn Davis, Reza Deghati, Susan Derges, Malcolm Hutcheson, Chris Jordan, Carl De Keyzer, David Maisel, Mary Mattingly, Robert Polidori, Roman Signer, Jules Spinatsch and Munem Wasif.

In fact none of them entered as you cannot do so, but they were all nominated by a “global nominations panel of 49 leading experts in the visual arts, from six continents” which “made over 200 nominations from 43 countries” from which the seven judges selected the 18 names above.

In fact exactly the kind of process that fills me with intense gloom about the future of our medium, although there are people among the two carefully selected groups I admire and even a few whose judgement I might respect (and even a few I know.)

This is apparently the ‘Premier Photographic Award in Sustainability‘ although I’m not entirely sure what they mean by this, and even less so by their claim “Pictet is a leading wealth and asset management group worldwide, which aims to be grounded on sustainable business principles for the environment, society and corporate governance.”

Of course there have been other photographic attempts to look at issues related to sustainability. At the end of last year I exhibited work as a part of Foto Arte 2007 in Brasilia, and the theme of that very extensive festival was “Nature, the Environment and Sustainability.” You can see more about the work I took there, and also read about some of the themes of the lecture I gave there in the posts ‘Under the Car‘, Garden Suburbs and Garden Cities and Architecture and Urban Landscape photography.

Elsewhere on the blog you can also find some of my posts about my experiences in Brasilia, as well as some of the shows from FotoArte 2007 that I was able to see, and on My London Diary the full set of images I showed in Brazil, as well as some of my pictures from Brasilia.

Of course I had no expectation of being nominated for the Prize Pictet, but it is perhaps a little surprising that (unless my memory is wrong) not a single photographer from the very long list of those who took part in that major international festival on the topic is included in the short list.

Pigeons Post

Detail from ‘Release of the Doves’ – see full image below

Pigeons were behind much of the dramatic increase in interest in photography in Britain as an expressive medium in the 1970s. It was the Coo Press, owned by Colin Osman, both a keen photographer and a photo historian, which provided the finance for ‘Creative Camera‘ magazine in the 1970s and the premises for the Creative Camera bookshop in Doughty St, where many of us made regular pilgrimage. (Osman had bought the magazine, then called Camera Owner and about to fold, for £1 in 1966) and the magazine, particularly with Peter Turner as editor and a great deal of advice – at least in the first place unsolicited and typically forthright – from Tony Ray Jones and some other photographers that edged at least a small section of British photography out of its comfortable and self-satisfied rut.

Behind me as I write is an almost complete set of that magazine, and on the shelves downstairs the annuals – including one with a set of three of my pictures, the first of my work published outside of the more strictly amateur magazines.

Town Meadow, Brentford, 1970s published in ‘Creative Camera Collection 5’.

(One of many paradoxes was that while those amateur magazines paid for photographs – at much the same rates as today – in Creative Camera you did it for love and prestige, as is still the case in some of the best photographic magazines, including Aperture.)

Camera Owner changed gradually into Creative Camera and continued to lose money, and it was the pigeon-fanciers who had probably never heard of it and certainly never read it who kept it afloat. Later, when Osman could no longer afford to subsidise his labour of love, the Arts Council took over the reins and drove the magazine into a cul-de-sac from which it only rarely ventured onto fertile ground. You can read the story in more detail (and doubtless more accuracy) on Roy Hammans’s Weeping Ash web site.

Once a year I photograph pigeons. Not for ‘Pigeon Breeders Gazette‘ or some other magazine, but as a part of the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the annual Italian festival in Clerkenwell, London (once known as ‘Little Italy’) where doves are released as a part of the event.

Last year I struck lucky as you can see from the detail – at roughly 50% full size at the top of this piece. Three pigeons took up a difficult to improve triangular formation as I pressed the shutter; it was superb choreography. I’d quickly moved into a good position for the picture as the clergy got ready to release the birds, but then it really was a matter of luck, as the pigeons generally head up into the air at great speed when released.

The full image below includes on the left hand edge ‘Our Lady’ looking down on the clergy and to their right some of the watching crowd (and I think the bus stop adds something, showing clearly it is London.

Release of the Doves, Procession in Honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Clerkenwell, London, 2007.

This year, however well I did I was never going to have the same luck, the doves were going to be something of an anticlimax, and so it proved. Either the pigeons were pesky or the priests who released them needed more training, for they failed to synchronise, and the birds only came together in the air a couple of hundred meters away.

The best of 3 frames taken in around 0.5 seconds before the birds disappeared

The release of the doves is a part of the procession which has evolved considerably over the years I’ve photographed the event, but still I think lacks something. As a considerably lapsed Congregationalist it’s perhaps surprising to have to point out that the missing element is liturgy, an appropriate and religious combination of words and actions, where the priests are in charge.

A countdown by an over-intrusive photographer (not me!) just doesn’t fit the occasion, which would be better served by a blessing with the release of the doves on the closing ‘Amen.’ It might just unite priests, doves, photographers and the crowds.

More pictures from the event on My London Diary – including more frames with the doves.

As always, pictures here, unless otherwise stated are (C) Peter Marshall and are available for use as high-res files

A Host of Pictures

There certainly were a host of pictures at the FOTO8 Summer Show 2008 in the Host Gallery in London’s Honduras St, EC1Y 0TH (23 July- 31 August 2008), with 164 images on the walls of the gallery and the adjoining stairs. Although it is perhaps admirable to be so inclusive, (and I was told there was a much larger than expected entry from around the world), I think it would have been a much better show, and certainly rather easier to view with perhaps half that number of prints.

Honduras St gets quite full

A simple listing with photographers names, sizes, media and prices was available at the gallery, but to fully appreciate the show you need a copy of the catalogue which contains the captions for the prints and can be downloaded as an illustrated pdf (4Mb) from the site. A rather smaller number of prints would have had the bonus of allowing captions to be included on the price list.

Most of the work was by photographers whose names were unfamiliar to me, although the three prints I personally singled out as possible choices for best of show were by photographers I know, including one I see regularly and another I’ve written about in the past. I won’t attempt to influence your efforts to find your own choice by naming them. Go along, look at the work and vote for your choice of best of show. Though I do think they have missed out in not calling it the Golden Daffodil Award.

The open bar was kept busy

Meeting another photographer from my generation (most of those present at the opening were considerably younger), I asked if she had anything in the show, and she told me that she didn’t have a great interest in competitions and hadn’t entered. I feel much the same, although in my case a general lack of organisation had also contributed to my not sending anything in. I have after all been a subscriber to FOTO8 magazine since it began, and did feel that perhaps I should support this initiative. But then I had other things to do. (If any of you reading this don’t get the magazine, do take a look at a recent issue – now better than ever.)

Competitions, particularly those based around single images (though a few photographers had two or three) do encourage and reward a particular type of photography, and much of what we were presented could be seen as a celebration of the exotic – unusual places, people and events – in a kind of colour supplement view of life. When my students used (rather often) to complain about having “nothing to photograph” and if only they could go to China or New York or Bosnia or wherever the last set of pictures they had seen in a magazine had been taken I used to remind them of something I think said by Alfred Steiglitz, to the effect that he had found his best photographs within 50 yards of his front gate. Though of course his family back yard at Lake George was also extremely extensive.

Or perhaps I might show them the work of Helen Levitt or Ruth Orkin (New York yes, but working on their not very unusual doorsteps) or many other photographers whose subject has been everyday life, not treated as the exotica so often on display in this show, but working with the warp and weft of everyday life and creating something with a little magic, some small epiphany. Of course you also see it in the best photojournalism, often working with much more dramatic events (and it is important that these should be photographed too.)

Pizza appeared and quickly disappeared

It’s work like this that, for me at least, is at the heart of photography, and perhaps the only game worth playing is trying to bring out the significance of the ordinary. There is work in this show that moved me in this way, perhaps even 20 or 30 pictures that I might want to live with and hang on my wall, but much of the rest, after I had stood looking at the image for perhaps thirty seconds on the gallery wall I didn’t really feel I wanted to look at it much longer or need to see it again. Plenty of novelty perhaps, but it isn’t easy to produce photographs you can live with. But 20 good prints is a good show, and one well worth a detour. Buses 55 and 243 stop handily and Old Street tube is a short walk away.

The show also prompted me to think about photographic printing, print sizes and pricing.

Pricing
Also on the show page at the Foto8 web site is a useful guide intended for the selected photographers about the pricing of their pictures, which others might also like to download for some sensible general advice on the subject. However I think there were perhaps rather too many who might have been given further advice on the subject.

Setting prices is always a problem. But I think many of these works are unlikely to find buyers at the kind of prices involved, unless the photographers have particularly rich and generous friends and relatives to support them as sometimes happens (mine are all poor and expect prints for nothing.) It would be nice to be proved wrong and to find that there are people willing to pay perhaps £500 or £750 or more for a work by a relatively unknown photographer.

Print sizes
As a very minor quibble, while I’m not in favour of uniformity in general, I think the gallery might have converted all sizes to centimetres rather than have some in metric and others imperial.

What I do find interesting is looking at the small images in the downloaded catalogue and comparing them with the works on show, which range from original small Polaroid prints to five-footers. One of the conclusions I drew from looking at the show was that printing large can be and usually is a mistake!

That all the pictures I found of most interest were a moderate size (mainly 16×20″ or 20×24″) in part reflects my interests stated above, but I did actually feel some of these were a little too large and might have been better at say 10×15″ or even smaller. But then I think photography is at its best as an intimate medium, perhaps in a book (although having spent more on my Eizo screen than the computer that serves it, I’m coming very much to appreciate the advantages of a high resolution rock-steady display screen for viewing my own work and other pictures available at suitable resolution – and certainly looking forward to a new generation of very much higher resolution screens in the future.)

Some works do need scale, but I’m not sure these were the ones actually printed big for this show – and there were a few small images that might have looked rather better at floor to ceiling size. What we are I think seeing in photography at the moment is size largely as a marketing device rather than an artistic one, relating more to the display space than the image. It’s an approach that has a great deal of sense. While large prints may – and I think did – look rather out of place on the crowded wall at HOST, the more normal photographic sizes would be lost on the vast white spaces of the corporate atrium.

Print Quality
Some of the best prints on the wall were inkjet prints, both black and white and colour. With prints for which no information on the print process (or an ambiguous term) it was seldom possible to decide whether they were inkjet or chemically processed.

Inkjet as a medium has certainly come of age (it did so a few years ago for colour, but black and white has now more or less caught up too), although this show also demonstrates that some of its users have still some way to go. Looking through the small digital thumbs in the catalogue there are clearly a dozen or two images on the wall where the print fails to do the work justice.

It isn’t too hard to set up a properly calibrated digital workflow that will produce excellent print quality on desktop printers such as the Epson R2400 – and, using appropriate paper and inks the results are likely to be more long-lasting than C-types or other chemical colour processes. But if you don’t have proper colour management or use unsuitable materials – such as Epson’s misleadingly named ‘Archival Matte’ then problems will arise.

Of course, back in the days when more of us went into the dark to print our own colour there were often some sorry examples of C-types on some exhibition walls – and of course many expensive lab prints from the 1970s and 80s boom in ‘New Color’ are now distinctly past their best.

Giclée

One thing I did find amusing is the number of different ways photographers choose to tell us (or, more often to disguise the fact) that their work is an inkjet print. Among the variations in this show (apparently produced on a device lacking an e acute) are: Giclee, archival Giclee, HP Professional, archival pigment, Giclee printed on Art photo paper, Giclee print on archival matt paper, Giclee art paper print, digital Giclee print (I wonder briefly about analogue Giclees, and how they might be made, but given its slang usage it’s best not pursue this train of thought far) while others give us the make of the printer, the paper, the day of the week and the name of their cat who sat next to their printer (well, almost.) I was pleased to see a few that simply said ‘inkjet print’ or ‘archival inkjet print.’ Giclee (or even giclée) is a term than should have long since been dead and buried.

Someone still working in an office round the corner as I went home

Up and Down: Seesaw Summer 2008

It’s in the nature of Seesaws that they go up and down, and I have to say there is work in the summer 2008 edition of this on-line magazine that excites and work that depresses me.What depresses me is perhaps not so much a reflection on the photographers concerned, but more on the photographic education some of these photographers have recently suffered. That they occasionally manage to rise above it is a tribute to their talent.

Last year in Birmingham a number of us looking at portfolios were driven almost to breaking point over so many portfolios of work in which students had gone back to their childhood homes and explored their memories (or some such similar idea) producing images that may have had interest for them but frankly were worse than boring for the viewer. But although Betsie Genou‘s Les Moguichets is an example of this genre, I actually found the variation in the subject matter and her feeling for lighting and colour made this a series of pictures I clicked through several times and ended wanting to see more. And there are more at her own web site.

Rian Dundon’s black and white work on the Chinese born since the planned birth policy limited families to a single child is also well worth a look. After getting his BFA in 2003, he worked in China from 2005-8, and on his web site you can see more of his photography from China, the US and Europe as well as his writing about China.

The third set of pictures I found of interest was Latvia:Terminus Riga, a very personal and visual investigation of the city with some intriguing images. You can also see more of Iveta Vaivode‘s work on the Latvijas fotogrāfijas Gada balvas galerija 2007 site, including both fashion and five very wintry images in “Dārziņi” (at the bottom of the page.)

Teaching photographers is never easy, at least once you get beyond the basics (though many photography courses in this country have never quite managed to teach these – where I taught it used to be a constant refrain from students who came back to visit us after a year on a higher level course: “Thank God you taught us how to… , because nobody does here.”) What is difficult is encouraging people to see things in their own way and not to be afraid of actually looking both at the motif and their own photographs and seeing where the visual might lead them, rather than working from neatly expressed and constricting ideas or reworking themes that are currently fashionable.

Perhaps there are some hopeful signs in some of the work here that I’ve not mentioned, some glimpses of individual talents that may escape the academic straight-jacket that photography tied itself into from the late 70s. There are certainly some pictures I like among the portfolios, although I think there is rather more interesting work in the Seesaw archives.

Also in this issue Seesaw is a reprint of an interview with Ryan McGinley which more or less tells us exactly the same as every other interview or feature on him (including one I wrote a few years back) and its main claim to fame is that it was made on his 30th birthday. I wrote not long ago about OjodePez, the Madrid-based on-line magazine for which Seesaw editor Aaron Schumann guest-edited issue 13 on ‘This Land Was Made for You and Me‘, including work by McGinley. Schumann contributes three found images of a bare-breasted Tahitian dancer to this issue, found in Winchester (UK) in 2008. I can see no particular reason for finding these images and even less to publish them.

Dundon is one of the contributors to the fascinating collection – kind of a photographic version of fishing stories, where it is always the biggest fishes that got away – made by Will Steacy, ‘The Photographs Not Taken‘ with an essay on social conventions in China, ‘Drunk in Fujian‘. Here’s a completely gratuitous fish that didn’t get away, a 27lb pike caught in Hornsea Mere in 1907.

The Cafe at Hornsea Mere. (C) Peter Marshall, 2008

Larry Finks “The Democrats”

A Review by John Benton-Harris

“The Democrats” by Larry Fink (July 4 -15 August)

I told myself, being that Im a socially and politically minded observer, that I couldnt leave town without taking this one in. I suppose I was hopeful that Mr Fink would reveal some degree of criticism, understanding and feeling for these candidates, their entourages, the press, and possibly even the political process, that would further enlighten and motivate me, simply because thats what I aspire to do when looking in on “My America”.

Sadly I was disappointed, but equally not surprised; for it takes a kind of distance from the everydayness of American life, and new American Photography, to begin to see and catch this nation, its people and its problems, with a minded timing, and from a perspective that has relevance. It also takes a certain kind of freshness, deceptiveness and tenaciousness, that no stay at home American photographer ever gets to develop. That is why no one since Robert Frank in the mid to late 50s has managed to articulate a more lucid and complete visual account of the growing complexities of todays America, for my fellow American photographers are all much to obsessed now with establishment career objectives (obtaining their “Pulitzers” or their “One Person Show at MOMA”) to truly focus on this subject and a meaningful chronicling of it.

I believe that Frank’s stab at this kind of (here hinted at) critical analysis only failed because Robert committed too little, in terms of thinking, analysing, researching, and seminally never questioned his actions and motives, before during and after his road-running across my native land. He also relied too much on momentary feelings and his innate bitterness towards cold war America, to achieve the exceptional goal that could have been his. If he had only spent more energy and a greater period extending the unique story dialoguing that “The Americans” intermittently revealed, he would be even more regarded the he is today.

Now, if I can say that about Frank, you can guess whats coming after looking at Fink’s big scale small offering. Let me start by saying, if someone wants to win my vote for being an artist they are going to have to offer up something more then a casual snapping of these candidates and covering all the angles at what is essentially a staged event, especially if they are attempting to market there results as “Art”. Now I do realise its not easy to work within a limited time frame and with limited access, but from the look of these 29 large well finished images displayed over two rooms at New Yorks PACE/MACGILL Gallery located at 32 E 57th Street, Mr Fink (to my eyes) made no attempt to use this small opportunity to bring anything interesting or remarkable to our attention, as an able journalist or as a significant artist; he merely looked, shaped and shot when he had line of sight. Then he selected, ordered, finished and presented these outtakes from this wasted opportunity, to conform to his art world signature.

Its difficult enough to seize on a meaningful moment, when one presents itself, even when youre regarded, as I am, as a constant pricker of the human condition. But if one hasnt the quintessential qualities for satirical commentary or something even better to aid and guide one in their expression, then one should steer clear of a explosive subject like this, especially in todays political climate. But if youre going to stand up and ask to counted, you had better have something worthy and relevant to offer. Otherwise you and those who represent you will rightly be seen just as opportunists, trying to hop a ride on the political bandwagon, for some quick personal profit. In closing, Mr Finks view of the Democrats may declare his support of this party and candidate, but it offers up nothing in the way of commentary, criticism or optimism, for it poses no questions, offers no answers, and also does nothing to entertain us.

Installation views of the show are on the Pace McGill web site.

Local Government workers ask for a fair pay deal

Unison and Unite were the main unions involved in a two-day strike in protest at the pay deal the Government is imposing on most workers in local government, which will mean most of them get increases that are less than the current rate of inflation – pay that is worth less.

Various pickets and marches were organised across the country, and I photographed a march by a couple of thousand trade unionists in central London on Wednesday.

Local Govt march

I’m in favour of fairness over pay, and the public sector has always taken a knock when the government finds the financial going tough – and never makes things up when the economy booms. However I couldn’t help reflecting as I was taking pictures that many of the photographers there are scraping by on a fraction of what most local government workers earn, with fees for freelance work generally being much the same as they were 10 or even 20 years ago. The minimum wage doesn’t apply to freelances, and many would be financially better off in any full-time employment.

Many if not most people who try to make a living through photography fail. Often they spend a few years trying, then either give up completely or discover some other source of income to support them while they continue. I’ve known photographers whose living comes from renting property, from selling stuff on e-bay, from delivering milk, from gardening jobs, part-time teaching, waitressing and more. Many rely on partners who have regular paying jobs – some even in local government.

Tent City

“Tent City“, the occupation of the Wembley Sports Ground in opposition to the building of a city academy on the site was finally brought to an end early last Friday morning, when specialist bailiffs acting for Brent Council turned up and removed Hank Roberts, the local secretary of the two major teaching unions, the NUT and the ATL who had locked himself to the flagpole on the top of the changing room block.

Hank Roberts (left) talks to another protester on the roof – with Wembley Stadium in the background

Although I wasn’t there for the eviction, I had climbed the ladders up to the roof to talk to Hank and some of the other protesters on Wednesday, when he was continuing the protest despite a court injunction against him personally and the protest in general. The fight to stop the academy will continue, but the plans to house 200 children in portable classrooms on the site for next September now seem likely to go ahead, despite the poor educational experience this seems almost certain to provide.

I also wrote a complaint to the BBC about their biased reporting of the occupation, which highlighted the comments of a Brent Council representative and failed to mention the educational reasons for the action or that Roberts was a teacher and union secretary. As yet I have not received a reply.

I was very glad I could climb down after half and hour or so, as I have no head for heights, perhaps because my father used to take me up on roofs that he was repairing. Our ideas about ‘Health & Safety’ were very different then and there were times when he had to look after a small child and earn a living.

You can read more about the ‘Tent City’ protest and see more pictures on My London Diary

Up with the Swans

I’d lived close to the Thames for 25 years before I first saw the swan uppers as they made their annual pilgrimage up the river counting and marking the cygnets. Our local papers typically only notice the event with a short note the week later, although it is a spectacle that would interest many of their readers to see in person.

But perhaps newspapers – like more obviously television – are a way of avoiding contact with the world rather than encouraging participation, other than through patronising the advertisers. (Much of their content is of course advertorial, and even some of the news stories sometimes have me doubting. This week one front-page splashes a shock-horror-shame exposé of a local brothel for which the paper carries a regular advert in its adult section which makes me muse about the quid pro quo for this week’s extensive free advertising!*)

The uppers however, have been on the job since the twelfth century or so, though their modern practices are now considerably less bestial than in the past. The Queen, Dyers and Vintners no longer eat the birds and they don’t even cut their notches in their beaks any longer. It is all about conservation, ecology and the environment, and about a great deal of care and concern for the welfare of these splendid birds. And they are splendid, even though I once was driven to threaten to spit-roast any of my photography students who added yet another image to the pictorial waste-heap of pictures of them.

Swan upping

But it is in some ways an exciting event, and the skilled teamwork involved a delight to watch and admire, and it’s good to meet them again. Travelling back from Hull in the morning I caught up with them as they left the Swan for the afternoon’s voyage to Windsor, along a relatively swan-free section of river. There seemed to be considerably less press interest than last year, when rumours it could be the final year for the upping drew snappers from the nationals and major agencies, and I was able to work without having to use my elbows.

Swan inspection
The swans get a quick medical on the bank and their details are recorded

It was only the second time that I’ve overcome my republican sentiments sufficiently to continue to photograph the royal toast in the lock at Windsor. This year the whisky seemed to be watered down even more than last.

Royal toast

It doesn’t really make for an exciting picture, although probably more saleable as stock than most I take. The final event of the day, when the Dyers and Vintners stand with oars raised to salute the Royal uppers as they pass standing similarly is one that I’ve yet to work out how to photograph adequately. This year I did slightly better than last, but still not to my own satisfaction. The boats are too spread out to photograph – even with the 10mm which in any case makes them look too small – and longer lenses just can’t show enough. So perhaps I’ll go back yet another year and try to find a different approach.

The boat at left had drifted back behind some bushes, and another had gone too far to my right.

*Note to their legal department. This is not meant seriously, although it does illustrate a certain hypocrisy endemic in the British press rather than any particular newspaper.

A Yorkshire weekend

My London Diary went on holiday last Friday to Yorkshire, where I spent a weekend staying with a friend in one of Hull’s stateliest homes, a grand ‘Arts and Crafts‘ mansion near the university, which he is busy restoring to something like its original state, but with modern comforts such as central heating and en suite bathrooms. However I haven’t posted pictures of this rather grand project this time, but from a couple of trips we made during the weekend.

Hornsea, on the North Sea coast, used to be a short rail journey from Hull, although thanks to Dr Beeching, the trackbed became available and is now a recreational trail, but we went there on the bus. It’s the kind of seaside place that is seldom crowded, but since it rained most of the time we were there, even less so. Our route back was interesting, going through Beverley and then passing Bethnal Green, both of which I photographed.

Arthur Fish & Sons, Fish St, Hull, 1970s

Hull was where I made my first major photographic project – and had my largest one person show to date, with almost 150 black and white and colour prints on display in the fine Ferens Art Gallery there in 1983. Traces of the Hull I photographed are still visible, but much has changed, sometimes for the better. The pictures I’ve put on My London Diary from last weekend in Hull were taken within a short walk of where Fish St.