Train, Heave On To Euston

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 one picture from a museum and one picture from the streets of London that just happened to mirror the shape and line of the first. I like the contrast of the solid permanence of the metal and brick and the delicate temporary nature of the shadows and reflections.

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.

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

Marc Provins

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