Marc Provins

The idea struck me the other day that we go through a form of group therapy at this time of year, which probably sounds very  20th century  California. By this I mean we spend time with our friends and family, we eat and drink together, talking, reflecting on the year, celebrating, remembering, venting, generally making sense of the events of the last twelve months. Then on January 1st we have a fresh start, we can close the old year and open the new untainted one, full of promise and possibilities. This looking back before we move forward helps bring some perspective and allows us to order our priorities, hence the concept of resolutions, a short list of things to make the new year better in some way than the old. I've done a bit of looking back recently. We spent a week over Christmas in a small Cotswold stone cottage in a village walking distance from my childhood home. This provoked quite a profound reaction in me that I wasn't really prepared for. I don't

Welcome to my 200th blog post! This really is a landmark moment for me and I'm surprised at how important constructing the posts each week has become. I can't quite believe how many words and pictures I've put out there over the last couple of years.  A massive thank you whether you are a regular reader or occasionally dip into this blog, I love sharing my thoughts and photographs and keep going because of the encouragement and kind words.  I reckon that every hundredth post can be some form of self portrait, or selfie as they've become known. If you missed my 100th blog post please have a look here: My 100th Blog Post! I popped back to Fred Aldous in Manchester armed with some cameras and discovered they now have an original  colour  chemical passport machine too, so hey presto: To my mind these machines have much more soul than the modern digital ones that have replaced them and I love the iconic orange or blue background curtains that draw acr

The very nature of blogs is rather me, me, me but I apologise in advance if this entry seems a little self indulgent. I just thought as 2013 draws to a close I'd look back over the year and reflect on my own blog posts.  I'm also really pleased that  Creative Tourist have presently got one of my images as their Photograph Of The Month with a feature about my love of the North West coast so I've selected 10 posts from the year that reflect this.  Technically Salford Quays isn't coastal but it's the biggest water we have here in Manchester, so I've squeezed it in at the end. Oh and it runs Chronologically from January this year.  Is that the Top Of The Pops Music I can hear? Top 10 North West Coastal Blog Posts From 2013 Wirral LAST DAY OF FREEDOM Waterloo BATTLING IN WATERLOO Cleveleys and Blackpool VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR Liverpool BACK OF THE BUS Wirral BLUE SEA GREEN LAND Arnside & Silverdale STATIC

Strange what tiredness can do to you. To use Edu-speak work has been 'challenging' of late, and at the risk of sounding like a whinging teacher it has felt like a long term.  I had a curious Gloria Gaynor moment during a particularly hectic lesson this week. The computer system had gone down and after half an hour of trying to get things working again I decided to go to plan B. The students had got pretty restless by this point; I'd already had to break up a physical play-fight between two male students older enough to know better. So I wiped off the original set of tasks from the whiteboard and was in the process of writing up the new ones whilst also fielding numerous questions from the keener members of the class.   I was stopped in my tracks when I realised I'd written, "I WILL SURVIVE" in large letters across it instead of “I will provide A2 paper” .  I tentatively turned my head to see if anyone had noticed and was greeted my a row of grins from t

This scene made me smile. Everything in this picture is fake, a facsimile of something we recognise but altered to fit our weird, fast, hyper-real twenty first century world. Welcome to The Trafford Centre, Manchester, so bad it is almost good, with it's bizarre mix up of an 'architectural' style. The official line is that it is "Rococo/late Baroque with eclectic elements of Art Deco and Egyptian Revival". Wow that certainly is unique. Why not design an exciting modern building to house a shopping centre? Something that could actually enhance the landscape rather than scream out, WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO TASTE OR REGARD FOR HISTORY, COME AND JOIN US! Anyway life got a little odd recently and we ended up here a few times of an evening and actually quite enjoyed it. The other half was doing so many hours working from home that a change of scene became crucial to staying sane and poor weather and town being closed for the night meant it became our refuge. There

Two people appear in my photographs on a regular basis. Miss Swan is one of them and yesterday was her birthday so here is a new picture to celebrate along with a few of our greatest hits together from the archives. Her sense of style and colour make her a natural muse combined with the fact that she never looks fazed when I point a camera at her, one swan that never was an ugly duckling. It was also a momentous weekend as it was the last time we will visit the static caravan in its present position between Silverdale and Arnside in South Lakes. The four of us have shared so many special times there over the years that it was a peculiar feeling to watch it from the car window as we drove away last night. However it is also the beginning of a new chapter as it's being moved to a new site in early 2014, so watch this space for updates. If you are interested here is a blog post from the caravan from earlier this year: Static

I had half an hour or so to explore the streets of South Kensington on Wednesday. I was amused to find that people cover their Rolls Royces and Bentleys in this neck of the woods. This seems remarkably modest and quite the opposite of one-upmanship, or maybe it's just to keep the leaves and bird poo at bay. I really like the suggestion of form and shape sheathed in grey fabric, hugging the expensive, polished machine beneath. One of my highlights of this trip to London happened in the tunnel from the museums back to South Kensington tube station. A group of twenty or so infant school children were walking with their teachers slightly ahead of us, when some of them started to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This built and built as more of them joined in and the sound reverberated around the tunnel. An elderly busker realised what was happening and joined in on his guitar, grinning excitedly at the opportunity of a spontaneous jam. The whole thing only lasted 15 s

3 days, 2 nights, 73 students and 7 staff; Our annual college trip to London has been and gone with everyone returned safely to their homes slightly more cultured and worldly-wise than they were on Monday morning. Seeing so many exhibitions and visiting so many galleries and museums in a short stretch of time caused me to ponder the way we preserve and display objects and artefacts deemed important to human culture. I started to photograph the shadows and reflections cast by display cases - an  ethereal,  accidental moment of beauty. I was touched to see Tony Ray-Jones' notebooks lovingly displayed in The Science Museum's new branch of the Media Museum. I became quite obsessed with studying the specialist archival display materials available to show but not damage these personal pieces. I wonder what he would have made of his ideas, reminders, and plans scribbled by hand being displayed in glass cases to be scrutinised by generations born after his early death. So o

November made a spectacular exit today, beautiful light streaming in through my workroom window, followed by a burning red and pink sunset. I've been chained to my desk, well only metaphorically, but couldn't leave my room so grabbed my camera and photographed these two old beauties from within arms reach The top picture is a fabric case for my Bakelite Kodak Brownie bought second hand many years ago. It has been lovingly embellished with badges from around Wales. Incidentally Bakelite is a brand but the material has the very catchy name polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride and was invented by a Belgian. There we've all learnt something today!

  I've just had 24 hours in Morecambe staying with a friend who has restored an old seafront house. It’s a beautiful reinterpretation of the building, combining the best of the old with big picture windows and a modern spirit. Quite inspiring to wake up and be able to stare out at the watery horizon and the Lake District across the bay, with the light literally flickering and changing every few moments. I managed a short explore before the wild weather stepped in to stop me. I’ve written before about the battle British seaside towns have to reinvent themselves and Morecambe has a lot of people including me willing it on, but there is a long way to go still. However I like hunting down fragments of curious beauty tucked away in the neglected back streets. The title of this blog comes from a mug my Granddad (a photographer) had when I was young, and I can remember him laughing at the sentiment. It came to mind as Saul Leiter died this week just shy of 90 years of age. I

Nine Acre Court is a tower block in Ordsall, sandwiched between an expanding Manchester city centre and a swelling Salford Quays. It's part of the landscape of my life having lived in three flats in the block over the years, firstly on the 17th floor, then on the 15th and finally on the 14th. At one point I knew people in at least twelve other flats and so it truly functioned as a vertical village. I still have friends there now but I haven't personally been in residence since the year 2000.  I've always loved that the tower has its own place in popular culture. Yes Nine Acre Court is also the opening track of The Charlatans 1995 eponymously titled album, apparently inspired by lead singer Tim Burgess's happy memories of parties there. At one point there was also a vintage clothes shop in Afflecks Palace in Manchester named after the song, which was named after the block. Anyhow the reason I mention all this is because I've been revisiting today,

One picture from the streets today on my walk to the barbers. I love the absolute chaos here of line and colour. I tried putting other pictures with it but nothing would sit comfortably so it gets to take centre stage. When I first started writing this blog I did make more reference to other photographers and their work, which over the years has been rather  squeezed out. I think this is because the nature of my photography work changed and slowly became more diary-like and this led my writing. However this week I've been so inspired by a film that I've named a blog post after it.  I'm always on the lookout for powerful films about photography/ photographers in part because it can be a useful introduction for my students and partly for my own development. The students can act as an effective barometer of videos as their concentration span seems considerably shorter than my generation's. My surefire all time winner is Sally Mann's What Remains film which has be

A green themed midweek blog entry with a couple of photographs from my weekend explorations with my camera. Also we have something to celebrate as Hull has been awarded the City of Culture title for 2017! After my visit to the city earlier this year I became a big fan of the place and was rooting for them this week. I'm genuinely thrilled for Hull and hope that the money, impetus and publicity will help them to do a bit of a Liverpool and make it an even more interesting place to live and to visit. If you missed my Hull blogs click on the pictures to discover what I found: Here are a couple of reports about the story from the more established media: www.theguardian.com/culture www.bbc.co.uk/news/

I've had three days of walking the streets with my camera, no rain and not much sun either, just Manchester autumn light and a fine wet mist suspended in the air. The colours have been extraordinary, pavements carpeted by leaves on fire with oranges, reds and yellows. Everything I photographed looked super saturated thanks to the giant white cloud reflectors in the sky, bouncing down an even light across our sodden city. So here's two fingers to those who hanker after summer months, lets embrace all our seasons before global warming steals them away.

If you are a regular visitor to my blog you may have twigged that it has become in essence my public sketchbook. I've been experimenting with visual ideas and then immediately sharing this work in progress. Sometimes things work, sometimes not so well. It certainly accelerates my development pace and single pictures can eventually evolve into larger projects.  Feedback and thoughts from the people who see my tests help to take my thoughts in new directions and hone why I'm doing what I'm doing.  This happened with pH6 my hydrangea project and seems to be happening with my colour sampling work. I realised today after talking about it with a friend that this new work allows me to bring together two aspects of my practice. On the one hand I'm able to observe the world and freeze it in the tradition of documentary photography, yet on the other hand I'm able to continue to work on the image after it's been taken, extending it in the fine art conventio

This morning the world seemed eerily suspended. I walked up our road into Chorlton and the light was diffused and even, the air was still and there were very few people around. This is unusual, we are normally woken by shouting, car alarms, shop shutters being hiked up - urban noise. To add to the strangeness someone had gone on a rampage during the night and smashed most of the bus shelters, telephone boxes and advertising hoardings, so the roads and pavements were covered in tiny blocks of shattered glass.  This sight reminded me that a few years ago I'd started a project called Manchester Glitter, documenting just such devastation and twinkling cubes of glass strewn across tarmac. This was prompted by my surprise at regularly seeing deliberately vandalised bus shelters and then reading in my early research that Manchester had the highest rate in the country. Anyway the project remains a work in progress, but I have a few more images to add. So the diptych today is made