Past Present Future

We've just had a wonderful holiday thanks to our good friends. They invited us to join them during the second week of their break in Cornwall, staying in an idyllic spot near the sea. I'm not going to compromise anyone's privacy by putting our holiday pictures on my blog but I have got some photographs and thoughts I'd like to share.

We flew from Liverpool which was pretty amazing as it's 40 minutes in the air instead of 8 hours on the road. During the flight back I was thinking about how valuable holidays are, and even our five days away from our usual lives seems to have done much for our well being. Spending time with old friends you laugh about shared experiences, things you all remember that bond you together. You are at the same time living in the moment, experiencing the heat of the sun, the bite of the sea, laughing, making new memories. The other thing that happened with us is a collective thinking about the future, discussing and assessing our lives, where we are now and what we'd like to change.

So the title Past Present Future is a reference to those thoughts, but also to the idea that much of my own photography work explores the layers of time that we walk through every day. How the architecture of the manmade world reflects different eras and the aspirations of different generations. Whilst in Cornwall we visited a theme park for the youngest member of the party and the past, particularly the 1970's seemed very evident. In fact I found it quite reassuring having grown up in that time and having visited places just like this. The photographs here were taken on Tuesday, but could probably have been shot at any time over the last few decades, and probably in the future over the forth coming years too.

Comments

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.

Liverpool Periphery

L1 City Centre L2 City Centre L3 City Centre, Everton, Vauxhall L4 Anfield, Kirkdale, Walton L5 Anfield, Everton, Kirkdale, Vauxhall L6 Anfield, City Centre, Everton, Fairfield, Kensington, Tuebrook L7 City Centre, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Kensington L8 City Centre, Dingle Toxteth L9 Aintree, Fazakerley, Orrell Park, Walton L10 Aintree Village, Fazakerley L11 Croxteth, Clubmoor, Gillmoss, Norris Green

Exquisite Corpse

I've gathered this project together here, although it really just started as instagram posts and me keeping myself entertained/ creative through the early weeks of the pandemic. On reflection, although it looks visually different from my usual work (black and white rather than a focus on colour) the themes that emerge are similar. This is how I've made sense of it: These images are inspired by the exquisite corpse parlour game first played by the surrealists around the time of the 1918 pandemic. In my interpretation each picture is a self-portrait made up of my silhouette and graphic elements found on my Lockdown daily walks in the suburban landscape around me. Living alone I soon realised the only human form I was seeing on a regular basis was my own shadow. I started making these images using my phone camera and a selection of simple apps at the beginning of the first Covid Lockdown and continued until things returned to some kind of normality in mid 2021. I didn’t leave my p

Marc Provins

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