Skip to main content

Vintage





I know I'm guilty of finding the past in the present whilst photographing the world, but my trip to Derby seemed to be a particularly emotive of earlier eras. Although it is obviously a forward looking place, I imagine the rate of redevelopment isn't as frantic as in larger cities, so there is still plenty of evidence of the 1960's and 1970's. I particularly liked The City Art Gallery with it's beautiful stair-wells (3rd picture) and we stumbled across a preserved laundrette on the way through a housing estate to the university (2nd picture). My favourite picture though was the grey mosaics topping and tailing a modern window (4th picture) which contained it's own improvised abstract window dressing created out of cardboard boxes.

Speaking of vintage, it is the last day to watch the excellent Tomas Leach documentary about Saul Leiter, the American photographer now in his 90th year. If you're not familiar with his work, have a look as it is beautiful, original and for me soulful. The film called 'In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter' was broadcast on BBC Four and is here on iplayer:


It reminded me a bit of another film about a 'mature' photographer, Bill Cunningham New York, by film maker Richard Press. Highly recommended if you've not seen it.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Lovely Pair of Pins

I knew the expression 'pins' referring to legs but had to Google what the Cockney rhyming slang comes from. It looks like 'pins & pegs', but there are some great alternatives like 'bacon & eggs' and 'dolly pegs'. I think I might start trying to incorporate more Cockney into my everyday speak, I do have London roots but they are more South  (Saff)  London than East London, where I think it originates.  Anyway this is all to illustrate a new picture that sits quite neatly with an older picture. So brogues, legs and a sea view from my two main muses. This might be turning into a set...  Oh by the way the top view is Morecambe Bay and the lower image is from The Wirral looking across towards Wales. The North West of England is a beautiful place, with some stylish residents. 

Hold Your Hair In Deep Devotion

At last after a week of being indoors, I walked into the light! I went solo and had a photography day in Liverpool, just what the doctor ordered, as they say. I'm a bit out of words at the moment and was going to include a Philip Larkin poem, but I've been thinking that Alex Turner is my modern day poet hero and this is my favourite track on AM, tucked away at the end. He's in his twenties and yet the words suggest a time before he was born, filling my head with images and memories. I've included a link to the track if you want to listen to The Arctic Monkey doing their thing whilst taking in my pictures... UPDATE Well since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that the song is actually based on a poem by John Cooper Clarke, which makes sense of the time frame (being written in the early Eighties) and the fact that I responded to the lyrics like a poem. Apparently Alex Turner first heard it read by his English teacher whilst at school. So mayb...

Linda McCartney Video Commission

If you'd like to access my cyanotype video workshops, they are still live on The Walker Art Gallery website: Cyanotype prints for beginners Advanced cyanotype prints