There is a pedestrian passage running from St.Stephens St. to Malthouse Lane. I liked the perspective it presented, so I took a photograph. In reality it is quite narrow, so I’ve stretched it wider. Instead of the normal view of St.Stephens at the end (boring), I replaced it with the column of a flyover, seen from the Undercliff Walk on Marina Way in Brighton. I have, of course, tilted the image to give the picture its dynamic. Behind that is the blue facade of flats above the Silver Slipper arcade on Marine Parade in Yarmouth. I added some more windows. The focal point is an antique French shower unit, that I saw in the window of Stiffkey Bathrooms on St.Giles St. Lastly, I enlarged the manhole cover and moved it to the left, to balance the picture.
Looks Like Rain
Looking up from Cromer beach, one can see the railings of a footpath that runs along the top of the cliff. I liked the signposts and the street lamp. I took a few photos, waiting for walkers to appear in the shots. I ended up using three different photographs and melded them into one – i.e. the two people on the left, and the couple in the middle. As for the lights, I duplicated the principle one and put the sized copy down in the bottom right. I also ‘turned them on’ because it was the middle of the day when I was there. The ominous clouds are my unmade bed of a duvet and rumpled sheets, coloured purple and swirled a bit more for effect.
They Walked From Yarmouth
I took my Mum to visit my sister and brother-in-law, who live in Haywards Heath. We went for a day trip to Brighton (I’ve never been before) and had a walk from Hove along the seafront. I took some photos of course, just like the one of the man who was stood on the seat/plinth, to take some shots of the burnt down pier. The family group were walking on the wet sands by Yarmouth pier. I took the photograph from above the beach. I liked the reflections they cast. The two boys with the sticks were in another shot, so I isolated and added them to lead the group. The boys are obviously in the group, so I changed the colour of their tops. The sky in the Brighton picture wasn’t conducive to the wet sand reflections, so I changed it for a photo of a lake somewhere in Australia to give it a gritty look.
Still Air
I found the domestic electric fan dumped by the side of Dolphin Bridge on the River Wensum. It had obviously been dredged from the bottom, because it was covered in mud and rotting vegetation. I pulled the weeds away, placed it on the parapet of the bridge and photographed it. The gas tower is a collage of two that stand on Admiralty Rd. in Yarmouth. I liked the wall in the background because it had been rendered with a comb like scraper, and some of the plaster had fallen off. All these aspects, as usual, came together and rearranged without any objective idea in the beginning.
Self Shadow On A Stairwell 2
Standing at the top of the pedestrian underpass, at the roundabout on St.Stephens, I was struck by my elongated shadow, looking down the steps. On the same day I noticed the shadow cast by a fire escape at Anchor Quay, off Westwick St. I removed the tiles from the underpass wall as it descends, but left the green handrail. You can see the tiles in my shadow. The two images work well together, creating a symmetry, which flows through the picture. My self portrait is irrelevant. This is me being me, taking pictures of a world I try to understand , and create something that I wish that makes sense. Pretentious and contrived ?? …probably.
Going Nowhere In Particular
The roundabout street furniture, is on White Lady Lane, off the Sprowston Road. It looks as though it belongs on a busy motorway, but is on a quiet residential street. I thought it to be a very striking object. I didn’t know what to do with it. I was thinking of putting it in the middle of nowhere, when I remembered the sugar fields in Queensland, especially outside Bunderberg. One photo was perfect, and of course I had an another photo of the roundabout marker, from a different angle, which I flipped around to add to the conceit.
Another Lovelorn Godforsaken Dream
Sometimes I will trawl through my ‘library’ of photos, and might pick out an interesting image. Then I might see another picture that has nothing in common, with the first; and move on. Two or three more might grab my attention, then I start to experiment and compose some semblance of a narrative, introducing or discarding the components, as I go on. This is a good example of something that came out of such a process. The amphitheatre is at the University, the lion is on the steps of City Hall, and the other object,.. at the top right of the image is part of a wheel assembly of a train. The title came out of the blue. Perhaps I wasn’t in a good mood (?)
Hooning
Hooning is what bored youngsters do on a quiet stretch of road in Australia (which are not hard to find) or New Zealand. It is basically spinning the tyres and leaving rubber marks on the road, amidst a cloud of smoke. I saw a lot of these marks as I travelled around. You can see the side of my van on the right of the picture. The pub tables were upturned outside the Fat Percy, on West End St. Norwich. I put one of the tables in the picture, liked it, so I introduced a couple more. It perversely made sense! The camera angle of the road was viewed on purpose , to get all the tyre marks in. I darkened the marks to make them more prominent.
Kandinsky Mosaic
Just noodling around with some photos of different paving slabs and groundwork, I got carried away, as you can see! I eventually got to the result and was struck how much it vaguely resembled a typical Kandinsky. He was a Russian painter (1866-1944) who is attributed for pioneering abstract art.
It’s Going To Be Uphill All The Way
The road and pavement are separate, but are here in Norwich. I added a few more manhole covers and drains on the pavement for effect. The road is a montage of different road surfaces. The background is a collage of two landscapes, probably in NSW and/or Victoria. The tank was being exhibited at an airshow in Suffolk. I brought the different aspects through experimenting in the construction of the image. Thinking of the title was the last thing I did, when looking at the finished picture.