LET’S DO FAQs!
How long have you been running this website? 2024 is its eighth year. I finished an MA in Photographic History in 2016 and started the website up shortly after that.
What did you have in mind? The MA just seemed to spark me off. I wanted to think some more and write some more about contemporary photoculture and also to pursue black and white film photography and to write about that too. So a website seemed the best way to go about it.
Don’t you get fed up writing all that blog stuff? Sometimes, natch. But I can’t stop! It just starts going round in my head and the only way to exorcise it is to write it down. Maybe it is writing me……
And what’s the point of all those photos that no one is ever going to look at? Same as the writing. They nail something that I need to nail. When I’ve clicked the shutter button a few times, or written a few lines, I seem to have a spring in my step for a while. As if a weight had been lifted somehow. Anyway, don’t be negative - plenty of people look at my photos!
So it’s not fun? Course it’s fun. But it’s ballast, too. Plus I am really interested in the way that images and words work together. Usually the text is a description of the image; or the image is an illustration of the text. But I think there can be much more to it than that.
What’s it about, then? Well. An artist, it seems, is someone who has a message for the world. But I prefer the idea that the world may have a message for us - if we look and listen carefully enough. So the work is finding out what that message is and then passing it on. I do that by trying to get my own thoughts, expectations, preconceptions and so on out of the way. So it’s a contemplative practice (as opposed to a rhetorical one).
And what is that message? Look at the photos! Read the blogposts!
What’s the worst thing that anyone has said about your photography? No problems with the photography but I once had an art teacher who had a look at something I was drawing and then said: “Sometimes I really don’t know why I bother….”
Who are your influences? Can’t you think up something more original than that?
Okay then. Try this one. What gets you up in the morning? Hmmmm….that little click of the shutter button, maybe. Or the scratch of pencil on paper. Or a cup of good tea. You can keep your luxury yachts, that’s for sure. Though I do like a good hotel - especially after a long walk. But since you ask, I did come to the conclusion some time ago that one of the greatest pleasures in life, for me anyway, is conversation. It can come out of nowhere; it might be long or short; it might be funny or sad….. It is just THE greatest thing.
How do you like living in Manchester? It’s a long time since I lived in a big city. I’d forgotten how much I like the feeling of having some sort of invisible but teeming sub-culture around me. The graffiti, the grunge fashion, the slogans, the humour. It’s anonymous but everywhere and I find it very reassuring. Where I once lived in London, not far from a bend there was a big official “SLOW” on the road. Then again, nearer to the bend, the same warning . Then even nearer someone had stencilled out on the road surface in big white letters: “PANIC!” No idea who did it but, it made me laugh every time I saw it. It’s that kind of thing - what’s just below the surface. You wouldn’t call Manchester a beautiful city but its streets are so devil-may-care and the people so interesting to look at….
What’s with all the stuff about Afghanistan on the blog? I was in the Diplomatic Service for a few years as a young man and I was posted there. It was the first time I had owned a camera so that is when I got going. It was politically very unstable. In my first three months, there were three governments and two assassinated presidents. It’s amazing what comes crawling out of the woodwork when law and order break down. Having seen that I’m a bit less of a revolutionary now.
What’s the best job you’ve ever done? For a few years I was a volunteer adviser on immigration law at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. People came for free advice about their immigration status. I loved it. I loved my colleagues and I loved the clients. I met some amazing people. Mind you, I didn’t do it full-time which helped.
There seems to be a bit of Zenny Buddhisty stuff in what you write. Are you, er…..? Er……no, I’m not. Formally anyway. But over several decades I’ve found the Dharma to be a deep source of wise and useful ideas and practices for living from day to day. I see myself more as a modern contemplative. So that makes me a contemplative photographer, too, I would say. (Please don’t send that up to Pseuds’ Corner in Private Eye. I was in twice in my professional life and they weren’t very complimentary so I don’t want to be in again, thanks.)
Is it just the film photography that you do. No digital? Like many of my age I started off with film then went digital and then got back into film. With film, I think it’s probably the deferred gratification – said to be the hallmark of the bourgeois experience, I’m afraid. But I’m still interested in digital too. I just think that they are two very different processes and give two very different results and you have to understand that each changes everything.
How long are you going to keep on doing this? Surely you’ve got better things to do? No idea. As the Lankavatara Sutra says: “Life is like a dream, but reality is relentless.” So - keep going! (That’s a very loose translation of the Sutra by the way.) Anyway, better things like what?
Writing a novel? I did once but couldn’t get anyone to publish it. I have had stuff published though, in The Guardian and The Independent and The Big Issue and others over the years; and I’ve had some successes with my photos. And I once won thirty quid for a haiku in a competition! But really, it’s a mixture of pleasure and frustration that drives me on.
Anything else? That’s about it, I think. Oh - just the copyright bit.
COPYRIGHT: All work of mine on this site, both photographic and written, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives 4.0 International License. (CC-BY-NC-ND: this means that an image/quote can be used free of charge only non-commercially and may not be modified in any way. The copyright holder must be credited.) Any work that is not mine is covered by standard copyright law. I always try to get permission before using others’ photographs but some times I have to rely on fair dealing provision in copyright legislation.
I hope you enjoy the photos and writing.
Peter