Weymouth seafront: reconstructed

This is the time of year when Weymouth seafront is transformed from an expanse of empty sand into fledgling seaside experience. Now just add sunshine.

Click on photos for larger versions. All photos March 2013

All photos © Paul Russell 2013

BBC story: up close and personal in Eastleigh

The BBC were nice enough to run a story about my Eastleigh by-election project, featuring 12 photos. Click here for the full story.

A few direct quotes from the article:

"On my first visit I was struck by the visual interest of the election being played out against the backdrop of a fairly awkward time for the country."

"I became interested in photographing the influence of the media on the events - situations specifically set up for the benefit of the press. I noted how keen politicians seemed to be on getting their picture taken with anyone they could find in a wheelchair."

On using a small camera (the FujiFilm X10) rather than an SLR:

"I often found myself a few feet away from subjects, while the press photographers who arrived this week were further back. With the silent shutter, people usually forgot I was there, allowing me to get mostly naturalistic photos, rather than staged looking pictures."

Eastleigh by-election: the book

I've produced a 40 pp Blurb book of an edited selection of my Eastleigh photos. It seemed an appropriate format for a short, well-defined project like this with a degree of topicality.

A preview of the entire book can be seen here.

I'd suggest hitting the full-screen button at the bottom right of the preview window, next to the "info" button (and then buying the book, of course!)

Eastleigh by-election: photo guide to candidates

My attempt to photograph all 14 candidates of the Eastleigh by-election has failed, thanks to the pathetic non-shows of Labour's John O'Farrell and the Conservative, Maria Hutchings. I didn't catch a glimpse of them in Eastleigh town centre. No-one has heard of those weirdo fringe parties anyway.

So in the absence of Conservatives and Labour, I'm left with 12 illustrious candidates. Get voting!

Wessex Regionalist, Colin Bex

Elvis Loves Pets, David Bishop

Peace, Jim Duggan

Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party, Ray Hall

Monster Raving Loony, Howling Laud Hope

UKIP, Diane James

National Health Action, Iain Maclennan

Christian, Kevin Milburn

TUSC, Daz Procter

Independent, Danny Stupple

English Democrats, Michael Walters

Liberal Democrat, Mike Thornton

Updated to include Ray Hall, who was spotted on polling day, 28 February.

More photos from the Eastleigh by-election: my week in politics

The Eastleigh by-election is proving a fruitful photo hunting ground, and fascinating event.

Here's some more photos. Again, click on the photos for bigger versions.

Monster Raving Loony party's Howling Laud Hope meets a casually dressed Michael Fabricant, Tory MP and election strategist. UKIP's headquarters is in the centre of town on a busy corner, and hence appears in many of the Eastleigh election shots. Cunning free publicity for UKIP!

Colin Bex, Wessex Regionalist candidate.

The UKIP campaign office.

A town not entirely gripped by election fever.

More heavyweight political encounters. David Bishop of the Elvis Loves Pets Party and Nigel Farage, UKIP. With obligatory UKIP background.

MORE of my election photos in slideshow form here.

Photos from the Eastleigh by-election campaign

Today I spent the afternoon photographing the Eastleigh by-election campaign.

The voting takes place on Thursday 28 February. I will be back to get Labour's John O'Farrell and the Tory candidate, Maria Hutchings.

Here's a few photos. Larger versions can be seen by clicking on the photos.

Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Thornton checks out his receipt

Lib Dem signs

UKIP were the most visible party in the town centre. Pun unintentional

Health Action's Dr Iain Maclennan, a candidate battling privatisation and commercialisation of the NHS

An NHS building today in Eastleigh

LOCAL COLOUR

Lib Dem fruit?

Strong lager

Valentine's day - the flowers of romance

Click on photos for bigger versions.

All photos © Paul Russell 2013

Print sale – fighting ladies

Hi there. I have five (UPDATE: ONE) 15 by 10 inch pristine prints of this well-known image waiting to go to good homes.

My usual price for a print of any picture at this size is a modest £100 but I am offering these for £25. (Due to a mix-up with a gallery they have been sitting here wrapped in tissue paper for a while.)

The image has been exhibited at venues in London, New York, Berlin, Warsaw, Cardiff, Derby (Format Festival), Tel Aviv and (currently) Bangkok, and published widely. So, don’t miss this rare opportunity!

Details
Paper size: 15 by 10 inches (image with small white borders). Digital c-type print, printed on gloss Fujifilm Crystal Archive paper.
These unmounted prints are despatched in sturdy poster tubes.

Price is £25 plus p&p @
UK/Europe (£4)
Rest of World (£6)

Please contact me to express an interest or for payment details on paul.russell99@btinternet.com

The Independent newspaper

London poster advertising the Street Photography Now exhibition

In-Public: Bangkok bound

I am exhibiting some of my great photos in the upcoming In-Public group show at the TCDC (Thailand Creative & Design Center), Bangkok.

The exhibition runs from 5 February to 24 March 2013 and features photos from all 21 members of In-Public, including latest recruits Mark Alor Powell and Jiri Makovec.

In-Public movers and shakers David Gibson and Richard Bram will be giving a talk on Tuesday 5th February at the TCDC auditorium to launch the exhibition. They will also be in Bangkok to lead a 3-day street photography workshop on the 1st-3rd February.

This manifestation of photographic loveliness is promoted by TCDC and the British Council.

Photo by Matt Stuart

Digital contact sheet #1. Punch & Judy

Digital contact sheet - DSCF6025-6030 - Punch & Judy loudspeaker
I've just been going through my photos from last year, generally deleting and tidying up. I came across this interesting seqence, taken on 14 April 2012. Click on the "digital contact sheet" for a larger version of the six-shot run of photos.

"Final":

Contact sheet:

Festive Greetings

Merry Christmas and an exciting New Year to you.

Yes, I mean you.

Bath, 2012. © Paul Russell 2012

Well covered: Embracing the Ordinary

Photo © Paul Russell, cover design: Lewis Csizmazia

Photo © Paul Russell

Currently in bookshops is Simon & Schusters’ Embracing the Ordinary by Michael Foley, author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity. The cover of Foley’s latest book features one of my photos from the Beside the Sea series, and is my first book front cover.

As I remember it, I got the impression that the man next to the supermarket trolley was a foreign tourist who just had to touch the trolley to confirm it was real. Maybe he was thinking “Who would leave a shopping trolley on a sandy beach? Surely it can’t be real. Crazy English.”

Embracing the Ordinary is a witty celebration the quotidian and seemingly mundane, and considers what insights philosophers (particularly James Joyce and Proust), anthropologists, psychologists and neuroscientists have given us. The parallels between the subject matter and street photography, which is often described along the lines of “finding the unusual in the everyday”, is clear.

My photo has a thematic link with the cover photo from Foley’s previous book, The Age of Absurdity - a photo by The Caravan Gallery

© The Caravan Gallery

Dialogues with student photographers, part I

Over the past year, I've had a steadily increasingly number of independent questionnaires from students interested in street photography. Last week I had five of these emails, which was a record.

It's great to get these, and most of the question sets are well thought out and intelligent - occasionally I answer them straight away if they seem easy to do. But usually they fall into the file marked "will do, when I get time (i.e never)".

Of course, many of the questions are repeated, so I would save myself a load of time by creating a FAQ document to put on my web site. While I do this, I thought it might be "fun" to create a dialogue here, with the permission of the questioners, just see where it will lead... Maybe nowhere.

I hope that the questioners (and others) will respond, and I will use the question-and-answer format to create a more interesting FAQ than I would come up with myself. And maybe force myself to give more than the rushed responses that I have given below.

So here we go. The email below is reproduced with permission:

"I hope that it is okay that I am emailing you, as I am in my final year of a BA Hons in Fine Art and have been producing work very similar to what you explore in your photographs."

---- Hi there, I get quite a few emails from photography students (a couple a week usually), but never from anyone studying Fine Art before.

"I am very interested to know how you achieve such great images, and whether they are snap-shots or carefully considered, because as a young person with a camera in a public place, I often get frowned at!"

---- Both! They are carefully considered snapshots. I just spend hours walking around looking for good compositions.

I take them very quickly and move on. As a (I guess) young female, you probably should arouse less suspicion than me, a middle-aged man. Maybe try to look less like you are a serious pro and more like an amateur having fun.

"Is this something you have had to deal with [I often get frowned at], and if so.....please can you tell me how you do it."

---- I only occasionally get asked what I'm doing. I look for situations where I can get close to people without them feeling threatened - where people are lost in thought, busy or in a crowd.

There are videos online of serious photographers shooting - Joel Meyerowitz, Matt Stuart.

e.g. Joel Meyerowitz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCCs_nedFhY

Or look at

"Street Photography resources" on the right-hand side of this blog, some way down.

http://www.sevensevennine.com/

"I'm hoping to do a shoot in a bingo hall next, but legalities keep blocking me out!"

---- Good luck.

"Hope you can get back to me, even if you really cant reveal your secrets of success!"

---- unfortunately "success" only in terms of producing results that some people like, and coverage in newspapers, etc. Which is great but it is very hard to make money directly from this sort of photography.

*** BTW, is it OK if I stick this on my blog? Verbatim, as above? ***

Brighton meandering via GPS

On Saturday, I went to Brighton for the day. I recorded my wanderings with a little GPS gizmo. The results are, to me, strangely fascinating.

If you're a fellow map addict, click here, chose "Map View" (i.e. the left-hand circle of the three on display), then zoom in to taste.

I guess this is not a novelty to people with new-fangled mobile phones with GPS capability but I'm about 10 years behind with technology. Like a human version of Comet.

I covered an impressive 181.21 km due to accidentally turning on the device at the beginning of my train journey from Weymouth to Brighton.

Dorset County Show, September 2011

Some photos from last weekend.

See the full slideshow here.

Melplash Show, August 2011

Some pictures from yesterday's Melplash Show (click images to enlarge):









All photos copyright Paul Russell 2011

Listen to the show, courtesy of artist Joe Stevens