Sheppey and the Thames Estuary

I was told Isle of Sheppey is 'forgettable' and would be a waste of my time by someone I know. After a few trips to the island I personally think 'forgotten' would be a better word. Sheppey fascinates me - it is has a special feel to it. It gives a sense of being far away, so it is rather strange to know that London is only about 65 km from there, perhaps it is more of a mental state than about geographical location. In many ways full of contrasts - there is neglect, youth with little to do, lots of rubbish but at the same time friendliness, people with a lot of time on their hands, people walking their dogs, tending to their gardens. It is also a place people retire to, Doris, a lady whom I photographed told me 'It is every Londoners dream to live by the seaside'. Sheppey is her realisation of that dream.

I've been pondering over maps, looking at the rest of the Thames Estuary, there are many small places scattered along and big gaps of empty marshland, much of the area is undeveloped. It all awakens my curiosity and I think it could be a relevant project, especially since more and more attention seem to be given to the plan of putting an airport on a man made island in the Estuary (just outside Sheppey) and there are other ideas too, an article in Sunday Times - 'Take a dip in Dubai-on-Thames', outlines the idea for two man made leisure islands in the estuary including marinas. I don't know about Dubai but sounds like there could be another Sandbanks on the way.

If any of these plans go ahead it will for certain change the places along the estuary forever and would impact on communities and wildlife.

So I am expanding my project to places and land along the Thames Estuary rather than just Sheppey. Photographing very much in the same way, using medium format, available light and mixing landscapes with portraits. Also talking to people, trying to get some good quotes.

I went out to Canvey Island yesterday. The light was really strong and horrible for most of the day but I saw lots of good locations to return to when better light, very exciting. I got some shots of a group of 17-year old girls sunning by the beach using a very graffitied wall as shelter, I thought that made a terrific backdrop. I also met a lady who told me about a man called Joe who lives in a mobile home and builds model railways, there is a track running through his garden. He sounds like the kind of person I want to include, hopefully he will agree to be in a picture. I also got the man running the beach cafe terribly worried that I was from health and safety, I had to keep reassuring him I was not.

Easter projects

I started the Easter break looking for upmarket dog grooming salons. I had the idea that I wanted to portray the upswing in pampering for dogs and get some amusing pictures illustrating it. It proved a lot harder than I first thought and has not worked out at all so far. I shot in two salons, first Wagin'tails - a pet boutique and spa. All the to me outrageous treatments they listed like aroma therapy etc did not really happen in reality and the dogs pretty much just had the ordinary cuts. I also feel that I did not make the most of the shoot, I could have taken more photos upstairs in the boutique and got the owner's dog to try on some of the outfits. I find it really difficult to ask when I know people are busy and I feel bad about being in the way.

I also did a more conventional saloon in Primrose Hill, more like a day at the salon. Both these shoots are rather uninspiring and I have spent a lot of time looking for places and events. I found a place in Brighton which looked great, it has pink interior and looks like a kitch hairdresser but really smart at the same time. They unfortunately would not let me take pictures there. The response was that I could upset the dogs. I also tried a dog walking group for toy dogs (small dogs), they are really in to dressing the dogs up, but the organiser gave me a long list of reasons of why they would not allow any photos. They were upset because photographers had published their dogs in calendars etc without their permission or knowledge and they have their personal photographer as the lady on the phone kept pointing out to me. So I'm stuck with an idea and no real pictures at the moment basically. But I will keep trying.....

For another project, I spent a long time pondering over different places to photograph, trying to find some interesting fact or something unusual. After trips to Dungeness, Folkestone and Ramsgate I eventually settled for the Isle of Sheepey - an island out in the Thames Estuary. It is part of the Thames Gateway regeneration project and has had a new bridge built connecting it to the mainland and there is further development planned. Sheepey has a reputation for being one of the most deprived areas in South East England. This project has really just started, so there are lots of 'missing' images(the bridge being one). I also keep doubting my choice which really does not help my shooting. I want to mix landscapes with portraits. The weather was wonderfully temperamental which I really like but I was also badly prepared for it and got quite soaked the two days I spent there.

Just realised that I have managed to delete all my Sheepey scans after the ftp upload. Me and technology.....

Poodles and the seaside

Images found on Google

For Easter project ideas I am thinking of poodle parlours or maybe luxurious dog spas as they seem to be marketed as. A 35mm approach and a set of portraits shot on medium format. I want to find as outrageous grooming as possible. The idea is to shoot colour and add a bit of fill flash for the portraits. Been surfing the net, yellow pages etc to try to find the perfect salon. One thing is clear, U.S would have been absolutely brilliant for this project idea. Nevertheless London is catching up, Yellow pages states that dog pampering services are up 93% from 2001.

I am attracted to the idea of how much our society spend on pet care, not just the grooming but boutique dog hotels, dog fashion, there is a yearly fashion show at Harrods called Pet - a - Porter showcasing the best fashion in doggie world. It is held in November each year but I will keep that in mind for the future. The search for pink poodles and extreme cuts continues....

Paul suggested I find a place in U.K and approach it in the same way as I want to continue the Kaliningrad project, that is to shoot medium format, mixing landscapes and portraits of people. This is what I like best to go places and explore them. Loads of choice and I am still very much researching ideas.
A few thoughts:
A place called Drigg, small coastal village in Cumbria. It is the place where most of Britain's low level radio active waste is being put and in January this year the government made a deal with the council to expand the site. Strange place to live I think but there is only 300 people living in Drigg and looks rather tiny on the aerial photos I have seen. Maybe not enough scope....

The decline of the English seaside resort or perhaps it is being born again.....? Decline is often much more attractive to photograph, I love crumbling paint and abandonment but it is hardly a new story. Looking for an angle..

In Morecambe Bay an old hotel is being restored to its 1930's heydays, the rest of Morecambe is in crumbling. On channel 4 a few month ago they questioned who would come to a boutique hotel in such a depressing place.

Folkestone has been seriously regenerated from its decline. Business man Roger de Haan has invested in art and galleries etc. It all sounds like a rather hip place to hang out. Folkstone is a gateway to mainland Europe with the channel tunnel.

Had a look at Sealand, a micro nation that I heard about a while back, well terribly disappointed to find out that Sealand is only made up of a sea barge, a military base during world war II. In 1967 Former English major and radio broadcaster Paddy Roy Bates occupied the island, named it Sealand and settled there. Recently there was a fire and as I understand it no one lives there now. http://www.sealandgov.org/history.html Anyway it is really quite mad.

Hopefully I will get time to check out a few places on Monday like Ramsgate, Margate, Folkstone, Great Yarmouth.

Many things to think about

Iman

For the portrait brief I decided to focus on Muslim women, particularly western women that have converted to Islam. I have done some portraits on this subject before and wanted to explore further and try some different approaches. I found a really good lady (or so I thought) who agreed to pictures but changed her mind after I taken the photographs! The reason was that her husband got really upset about it when he found out, she said I could not use them for anything. I will respect that apart from putting one up here on the blog. (below) I was really not happy with the pictures I had taken anyway, some of the photos are really cliche, her looking out of the window, trapped in her house, so what was I thinking? It was raining and the house was not very attractive. It is a real shame since her story is so interesting, she is in her third marriage, she was the second wife in her previous marriage which she finally could not cope with. She converted to Islam because after her first divorce she felt the church would not accept her anymore. Religion is her obsession.

Awful picture

I tried Iman a German girl who I have met briefly before through a contact, I thought she be good for close ups since you can kind of tell from her face that she is northern European. To stick to head shots was really difficult and new to me, I find my self wanting to include more of the scene, stepping back.

Iman

Iman is a student of linguistics and lives in a house with two other Muslim girls, Aia from Egypt (also student - Visual communication)and Leila from France (working) I asked if I could photograph them together. I wanted to illustrate who many Muslims chose London because of its multiculturalism. Iman says life for her is so much easier in London, in Germany she is not treated as a German anymore. I had arranged to shoot them on the stairs outside the British museum this did not work out, it was hard to get them together during daylight time and I had to opt for stairs outside The Tower of London, with the light coming down very fast. I did not do very well, made a stupid mistake in many of the images, where the girls further back are slight out of focus and the background is not right. Did some more at their house. I used flash and it is really harsh I really, really have to sort out my flash skills. I always desperately try to avoid using flash.

Aia, Leila and Iman

Through Iman, I met Julia another convert, I was interested in her because she has a n MA in theology and converted to Islam half way through. Julia does not wear a headscarf. I think that it is important to include that not all Muslim women do, but it is really hard to convey this in the photographs..... and I don't want to photograph her standing outside a mosque exactly.

Julia


Aqeela is my third person, I have photographed her before but wanted to try some new things, her putting her hijab on looking in the mirror etc. The light was very good coming through the windows and I managed to use natural light reflecting a bit in some of the shots and using tripod for some.

Aqeela

Sheila

I also went to Trafalgar Square for 7am the other day to meet up with Sheila from Save the Pigeons Organisation. Since the feeding ban came in to place volunteers from this organisation has been feeding the birds every morning, but are now forced to feed just of the square. I had this image in my head of loads of pigeons flying around her. Sheila said the pigeons had gone a lot more shy lately because of lack of human contact. I came back with a set of pictures that did not work at all.

So it has been a pretty step learning curve. I enjoyed the portraits, the interaction with people is very rewarding. I need to practise a lot more on composition and light and most of all to be more assertive in these situations. There are so many things to think about, the most important being representation I think.

No aimless wanderings...

Street photography is hard!!! I got so excited about this assignment but got so disappointed with my results! I had lots of tries, it was hard not wander along aimlessly, I am really good at the aimless bit, I indulge in it and usually get lost but also find things along the way.

I liked the idea of trying to find a topic that could fit in to a bigger story, maybe this could keep me on track (?) I came up with some ideas. Binge drinking - Britain being a nation full of drunks first came to mind. I got really excited about this and thought I would have a go, using a mobile phone. Test shots showed dreadful quality so I binned the idea for time being. Instead I went in search for people drinking coffee. I got this really interesting documentary for Christmas called Black Gold, about the coffee business and how the big corporations of the western world are sucking poor coffee producing countries dry. Two billion cups are drank everyday in the west for which most of it the farmer has not been paid a fair price. I had a few goes and realised quite quickly that it was almost impossible to see the coffee cups in the pictures, I quite liked the idea of photographing through windows... I had some luck yesterday, a big ad in Metro stated that it was 'coffee day' and Starbucks was giving away free coffee in the afternoon. I got pics of sum guys in Mexican hats handing out coffee. Apparently Starbucks is going fair trade all the way. I just red an article saying only about 20% of fair trade is fair.

My other topic was shopping, consumerism, which meant I went to Oxford Street, a street I absolutely hate, I first tried to shoot the shopping area in Kingston, where I live but the bigger street worked a lot better.

Last out was Trafalgar square, I wanted to photograph the last surviving pigeons, relating to the feeding ban that has been in place for a few years. I got a bit side tracked and ended up photographing down from the National Gallery. I didn't realise at the time but it all looks terribly boring.

Bridge players

Yesterday I photographed bridge players at Esher Bridge Club. They meet every Tuesday evening. I also went to one of the members house and took some shots earlier in the afternoon. I was worried as usal about the light being to low and thought I might just as well use the invitation. So it was bridge all day and all I can say I know about bridge now is that it is very complicated and even though most of the players have played for years they need to look at their notes at times.

The light in the club was OK, so they are the pictures I have uploaded on to the DR site. I found the shoot quite difficult even though the players remain pretty much in the same position throughout. I looked for small details, like hand movement, concentration on face and eye contact as well as finding a good position to shoot from. I was trying to use the players shoulders to look over, to frame the image, lead the viewer in to the image and create a more exciting perspective. This did not quite work out, I would have to move in closer for such effect but then I was loosing faces. I think this would perhaps work out with a 24mm.

I really enjoyed last week's lecture. Though, being familar with all three photographers work I have never looked at them together and compared their practice. I was in to photography for a long time before I came across The Americans by Frank but it is one of the most amazing books I have ever seen. Every image, the sequence has that certain feeling, a distance to the world it observes, often very melancholic and I can indulge in this feeling forever.....and it just seems to speak volumes about the state of America and its politics at that time.

Winogrand's colour image was incredible, so graphic and unreal! I'm trying to find more of his colour stuff.

Relationships...

Thinking about relationships, twins imediatley came to mind. I find the relationships between siblings fascinating and twins even more so. It is only 15 months between me and my sister and even though we are very close it is also a very complicated one. I managed to find two five year olds: Holly and Rosie and their older sister Ellie. I was able to photograph them after lots of rescheduling due to one of them being sick and later I lost my voice due to cold and flu. But on Saturday morning I had a few hours with them. Thinking about it, I have never really photographed kids to any extent, luckily they were very willing to welcome me in to their lives, this also included me taking part in all their activities.

It was hard to get the twins both in the same frame or directly interacting, it was as if they did not want to be compared, often I noticed that it was always on of them playing with or sitting next to their older sister Ellie. The slightly older twin, Holly was often determined to pose infront of the camera when the other two were playing in the back of the frame, a lot less aware, I found it all really fascinating but was to focused on talking pictures to be able to make any sense of what was going on until later. When I photographed her sisters I could feel Holly pulling at me for attention, I think my presence there my also have changed the way they interacted. After taking the camera of me several times to take pictures of me and each other, they found some of their parent's cameras and started to click away, so we all ended up taking pictures. It was a lot of running around and I didn't have control over my exposures all the time and have got some classic burn outs for digital infront of a very bright window as well focus on the wrong things. All in all I think the shoot went quite well but I would have liked to capture more of the tension between the twins but I really need to spend more time to get such moments.
I had also hoped to photograph two 18 year old twins that I found through asking lots of people, they looked really good, very punky and specific way of dressing. They agreed to pictures but later changed their mind. I think I might have freaked them out a bit by saying a could come and do some pictures when they were hanging out with their friends in Camden.... I also tried a housing project for teenage mums in my area but soon realised that I would need more time to get access, the social worker was really nice but said that understandably these girls are very vulnerable and it would take me along time gain their trust.
Instead I decided to settle for a more straight forward mother & baby relationship. I found Ania and her baby Ruby and they readily agreed to pictures. I find myself often shooting with the lens right open and on as slow shutterspeed as I can get away with and often getting things out of focus or blurred by movement. I'm not used to working on these settings and it is really intersting to see the results, quite often the shallow depth of field and most of the frame out of foccus creates more feeling in the image.
I am going to photograph a group of bridge players tomorrow and are just hoping that the continous cough I have draged around for days will miraciously dissapear!