ELECTION SPECIAL: Those leader speeches condensed

For those that missed the televised UK election debate yesterday, here’s the condensed version – there wasn’t a lot of difference between the three parties:

“Real fair choice for all. Forward not back. A classroom in every school. The right for failing schools to be taken over by successful police forces. And failing police forces to be taken over by successful schools. And accountability. If the police force fails to reform the under-performing school, real power for parents to take over and run their own school. Like Toby whats-his-face. Above all, every school to be a good school, and equal, whether a New Look retail academy school, a faith school or a bog-standard shithole. And a freshly painted giraffe on every roundabout.

British jobs for British workers. And some carefully managed, locally-targeted immigration. Like foxy Spanish lawyers. Wa-hey! The right for voters to sack their MPs and take it in turns to be an MP for a day. We can be heroes – just for one day. Real choice for local accountability. Real change that works for you. Real you that works for loose change. Longer prison sentences for those who deserve it. But prisons that are centres of rehabilitation excellence, not ‘schools’ for crime. Failing prisons to be taken over and modernised by Joanna Lumley and Esther Ranzten [check this]. A guaranteed no. 1 hit single for every prisoner to raise self-esteem, and a ring-fenced HMV voucher for every 18-year-old, to buy that no. 1 hit single.

And finally, let’s make dreams come true for people like the black, disabled teenage pensioner I met in Hull yesterday*. Let’s go forward with this together.”


*Edit, 19 April: since I wrote this, as you probably are aware, a random "David Cameron met" generator has been created.

Candid photography: it's a fair cop

The frequency with which UK photographers are being stopped, searched and questioned by police officers and (especially) PCSOs for Being in Possession of a Large Camera has received a huge amount of media coverage recently. So at an outdoor exhibition at the weekend I was interested to see a few photos on display taken by a member of a police camera club. The photos were mainly candid photos in a busy seaside setting – although not very good (sorry, but then again that portfolio review was completely free).

I like to imagine the police camera club outings involve a bit of photography and then a bit of stop-and-searching of fellow members...

What is England?

I'm currently involved in Stuart Pilkington's 'What is England project', the first phase of which is now online.

Following on from Stuart's 50 US states project, 'What is England' features 50 photographers, each representing an English county through six themes: person (online), group, work, play, urban and rural.

A wide range of photographers are taking part, with the brief to represent their own style of photography as well as their designated county. I am the Dorset participant. On 1 May the responses to 'group' will be published online, on 1 July 'work', 1 September 'play', 1 November 'urban' and then on 1 January 2011 'rural'.

As Stuart says "hopefully by the end of 2010 the 300 images submitted over the course of the year will help to answer the brief 'What is England?'."

The initial images certainly make for fascinating viewing...

In-Public: 20 shooters + 10 years = 2010

I'm very pleased to become a member of the In-Public international street photography collective. American photographer George Kelly has also just joined, which takes the tally of photographers up to 20, in the group's 10th year.

There will an exhibition of In-Public photography at Photofusion in Brixton, London in the summer.

Reasons to be cheerful in 2010: the Third Floor photography gallery in Cardiff

Maciej Dakowicz and Joni Karanka are starting a new photography and visual arts gallery in Cardiff. In between obsessively photographing Cardiff’s nightlife, the pair have somehow found time to convert a 100 square metre premises in Cardiff Bay into a gallery and artist work spaces.

It’s opening on the evening of Friday 12 February with the exhibition ‘Love UK’ by Peter Dench. The show runs until 7 March.


Photo copyright Peter Dench


Photo copyright Peter Dench

Gallery details:
Third Floor Gallery
102 Bute Street
Cardiff CF10 5AD, UK
** Wednesday to Sunday: 1–7 pm **

Directions:
Close to Cardiff Bay Train Station.
Bus routes nos 8, 11, 35 and 36 (probably)
If you’ve been to Cardiff, you’ll have taken a photo of that stainless steel water feature tower thing. It’s near there. Here’s the view from the gallery with the tower visible to the left:


Photo copyright Joni Karanka

The gallery's web site is taking shape, and you can also keep track of proceedings at the Facebook page.

Cardiff seems to be the place to be at the moment, with Dr Who leading the way for an increasing number of TV programmes being filmed there and possibly “the largest concentration of media jobs in the UK outside London”.

The last day of Borders bookshops. Part 1.

I was surprised to find out in December last year that Borders UK was going into administration. It all seemed quite sudden, with little of the speculation and slow death that accompanied Woolworth’s demise. No tentative offers and rumours of takeovers. One minute it was open – the next minute it was closing. Kaput. Closed. Didn’t even make it to Christmas.

Borders had always struck me as a place with great potential for taking interesting photos of people. The English don’t really have much of a life on the street or indulge in everyday ‘street theatre’ as in some other countries, such as Italy (or am I imagining this?). The English urban street is typically a zone that people traverse quite quickly in order to get to somewhere else – usually shops or their office. People rarely linger or let their guard down on the English street.

However, in Borders – the new libraries of the late 1990s – people made themselves at home, grabbed a few obscure magazines, a coffee, and a seat at the table. Maybe spread out some coursework. Maybe dozed off for a while.

Gradually, however, the home comforts began to disappear – tables became fewer and further between, and pianos were carted off. As the financial situation tightened, the meet-the-author evenings became rarer. But, let’s face it, Borders was still a different universe to W H Smith, which if you’re out in the sticks is probably Hobson’s choice. And Borders was still open reasonably late in the evening.

I had certainly seen some good photos in Borders, but had never attempted to take any. For a start, I wasn’t keen on getting banned from my local-ish branch – I had witnessed quite a few Emo kids get barred (for essentially taking the piss and abusing this novel communal space). And I wasn’t that keen on getting permission to photograph inside a branch either – a request that seemed unlikely to be granted, or if it was granted would probably come with all sorts of tedious caveats.

So with the closure of Borders imminent it seemed like a good opportunity to take a few pictures. I popped in about a week before the closure of my nearest branch and took the picture above – already the downstairs was just about empty. I asked a few of the members of staff when they thought would be the last day (still up in the air), and hoped I would be able to return for the final day.

My year in pictures: 24 photos from 2009

Twenty-four of my photos from 2009:


























That's it.

Martin Parr's photobooks of the decade

Courtesy of the British Journal of Photography

The Kids Are Alright – Ryan McGinley, self-published, 2000
Pretend You’re Actually Alive – Leigh Ledare, ppp Editions, 2008
Berlin in the Time of the Wall – John Gossage, Loosestrife, 2004
Flamboya – Viviane Sassen, Contrasto, 2008
Utatane – Rinko Kawauchi, Little More, 2001
Slime the Boogie – Dash Snow, Peres Projects, 2007
Checked Baggage – Christien Meindertsma, Soeps Uitgevererij, 2004
Hackney Wick – Stephen Gill, Nobody, 2005
Why Mister, Why? – Geert van Kesteren, Artimo, 2004
A Shimmer of Possibility – Paul Graham, Steidl/Mack, 2007

Take 2: Jumping the shark...

Sharks have no swim bladder - they have to keep moving to avoid sinking. These photos were taken in 2008 and 2009.


Photo: © Paul Russell, 2008



Photo: © Gary Shrimpling, 2009

Print "giveaway" - December 2009, no. 1

As part of my occasional print "giveaway" series I have four sets of the above two photographs available for a total of £20 including postage if you're in the UK, or £25 if you're outside the UK. The prints are 15 by 10 inches (image sizes approximately 13 by 9 inches) and are printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. Pictures are despatched in a poster tube, and sent via first-class post (UK) or air mail (Europe and USA).

If you would like one of the four sets of the two prints, please email me on paul.russell99@btinternet.com, stating your country location. Payment is via PayPal -- so you just need a credit or debit card. Please email me first, as this will be first come, first served!

Edit: 17 December: two of the four sets have been sold. Two still available.
Edit: SOLD OUT.

Now that's what I call 2009

Tis the season of the round-up, so here are the most significant photographic events of this year, from where I'm standing:

1. Blake Andrews introduces mixer reviews into his blog.

2. Borders UK closes down, as people treat it like a library and forget to buy the books that would have kept it open, just to save a few quid by ordering those books on Amazon. Boo hiss.

3. Nick Turpin’s Publication magazine is published. It’s nice.

4. Some new compact digital cameras are released. They look promising, but prove to be rubbish.

5. Edgar Martins gets into a bit of trouble, and then uses some elaborate waffle in the hope that everything will just go away.

6. Shepard Fairey gets into trouble for something else, involving a photo and an election.

7. I fail to take a good picture of a pig.

8. Colin Pantall takes half the year off (because he’s worth it).

9. The police hassle a load of people for taking photos. After a few journos are questioned, it becomes news. Good!

10. Joni Karanka’s Print Stravaganza continues.

11. Erm, that’s it.

That Olympus EP-2 Press Release in full...

I’m a bit late to this but the new Olympus 4/3rds camera sounds very tempting. I’ve cut and pasted the press release below (sorry, more lazy journalism):

London, 5 November 2009 – Welcome back to the PEN story and the next chapter: "Back in Black".

Hot on the heels of the Olympus EP-1, which was widely acclaimed as a ground-breaking photo enrichment device, Olympus are proud to introduce the Olympus EP-2.

Building on the strengths of the EP-1, the new EP-2 offers a host of new iconic features. The inclusion of a "model village" art filter fully realises the unique photographic and video potential of the legacy Pen series. In addition, the cross-processing, fisheye microphone socket will allow tomorrow's users unlimited leverage into a vast arena of gaping emptiness.

This second digital model takes f-utility even further with diverse, fresh functionalities including:

– Wi-Fi transmission teasmaid port.

– In-camera selective desaturation (red bow and black-and-white puppy mode).

– Remote probability fun control (via HDD-XRT).

– Elephant stun gun.

– Scratch 'n' sniff padlet for mood enhancement (smells include crystalised lemongrass and essence of David Bailey's old camera bag).

– Two new art filters – the model village filter, and the Vettriano filter, which can transform even the most ordinary photo into a fourth-rate watercolour heritage art piece that celebrity chef Gary Rhodes will take off your hands for a couple of grand.

The new model is cloaked in classic retro hyper-babble and is available from larger John Lewis stores.

ENDS

Sounds great! Hopefully Olympus will send me a review copy.
Source

The Axe Vale Festival, joined up transport, and the great horse of Emo

A few months ago I made the journey to the Axe Vale festival on the outskirts of Axminster, billed as ‘probably the best gardening and crafts festival in the southwest’. Enticing!

Planning the journey, my natural instinct was to check the train times first. In a frustrating case of not-at-all-joined-up transport policy, it turned out that I could get a train from Weymouth to Yeovil Pen Mill and then a train from Yeovil Junction to Axminster. The two Yeovil train stations are separated by a couple of miles but despite being joined by a working train line, no passenger trains currently run between them.

Trains occasionally tootle along the line as an emergency measure when flooding occurs, or if a steam train needs to turn around at the Yeovil Junction turntable but there’s no passenger service. Possibly the fact that one station is run by Southwest Trains and the other by Great Western Trains doesn’t help integration.

I spent hours on Internet forums trying to work out how to get between the two stations. Looking at Google maps, the direct route looks like a pleasant stroll along a river, but it turned out to be private property, containing the splendidly named Jack the Treacle Eater folly. There is a road between the two stations but my new contacts on Internet forums told me there was no footpath or verge at all, so it would involve a quite dangerous walk. (At this point, I like to think that Lord Adonis is getting interested.)

So the options were taking a bike to cycle between the two stations, or walking into Yeovil town centre and walking back out, or getting a taxi, or waiting for a bus that might not come. Or a million other combinations that made my brain hurt.

Then, somehow, after spending about half a day researching how to travel between two train stations, 2 miles apart, I realised that there was a bus that would take me directly from Weymouth to Axminster, although the journey time was ominously long relative to the distance covered.

On the Sunday, reaching the bus stop I grabbed some cheapo coffee as the shops were opening and was puzzled by the sight of people crouched over pints in the Weymouth seafront pubs. Had they just started drinking, or were they winding down from last night?

From the top of the bus a series of interesting scenes presented themselves. A civic-minded lady with a small white dog was clearing beer cans and litter from a cricket pitch near Dorchester. Crows loitered ominously around a garden bird table in a front garden in Poundbury. At Martinstown, a Little Egret reared up right in front of the bus – strange to think that just a few years ago these birds were a rare sight in England. At some point I passed a sign that said ‘Revolutions’ next to one that ‘ironically’ said ‘No turning’, which I had previously seen only on the Internet. I didn’t bother to photograph these scenes – the reflections and dirt on the windows means that it’s usually a waste of time.

At last, and feeling a bit travel sick, I arrived in Axminster, and took a few photos at the festival.






After a pleasant day’s shooting I meandered around the town a little, waiting for the vomit-inducing bus journey back. My last view of the town was a group of emo kids leading a very large horse along a pavement.

Clone towns and lazy journalism

Yesterday I paid a quick visit to Dorchester, which like most English towns has been adversely affected by the credit crunch. The town has always had a sizable proportion of independent shops, some of which closed down in the recession. However, more than 20 new businesses and shops have moved into the county town in the last year. I bought a tasty leek and cheese lattice thing from the newly opened Joshua’s, a ‘wholesome natural food’ shop.

In 2004, Dorchester appeared in the Top 10 of UK clone towns in a story that was widely reported in the UK press. ‘Clone town’ is a term for a town or city dominated by chain stores. Puzzled by this, I looked at the source of the data, a report by the New Economics Foundation (NEF). Their ‘methodology’ was a request, via their web site, that members of the public fill in a questionnaire based on a walk down their local high street. One hundred and thirty usable questionnaires were received. Southampton, clone town extraordinaire, presumably doesn’t appear anywhere in the report because no-one filled in a form.

Not exactly rigorous stuff – relying on unverified reports from random people off the Internet. The inclusion of Dorchester is obviously completely incorrect. However the top 10 was reported by the serious press as if it was authoritative research:

BBC
‘Researchers found chainstores dominated the main shopping street...’
Researchers? Not really. It was based on questionnaires sent in by members of the public.

The Independent
‘according to a report published today’
Sound quite official, doesn’t it?

The Guardian
‘It found 42 of the 103 towns it surveyed in England, Scotland and Wales...’
‘It surveyed’? Well, the NEF didn’t survey the towns itself, it just compiled the information received.

In the book Flat Earth News, journalist Nick Davies describes how much ‘news’ consists of press releases regurgitated without question by overworked journalists. At least, I think that’s what he says – in the true spirit of lazy journalism, I haven’t actually read the book or spent much time writing this blog post, to be honest.

While agreeing with the NEF’s polemic against clone towns, I think what this shows is that the media love a good list, and any old press release with a top 10 will get published without question. Meanwhile, good luck to Joshua’s and all the other new and old independent shops in Dorchester.

Vivian Maier – lost photos from Chicago

These fascinating photos are by Vivian Maier, a French-born photographer who died in April 2009 in Chicago, where she had lived for 50 years.

A Chicago photographer, John Maloof, recently purchased around 40,000 of her negatives from a small auction house that was selling all her possessions, including furniture. He is gradually going through the negs, which date from the 1950s to 1970s and posting selected pictures on a blog.

The pictures do not seem to have shown in her lifetime; in fact Maloof only found out her name as it was written on a photo-lab envelope. Also, there are around 1000 rolls of her 120 film that were never developed, which Maloof is working his way through.

Research into the photographer’s life has yielded few details so far – she seems to have no living family, and an obituary that appeared in a Chicago paper was probably placed by people she worked for as a nanny. Maloof was contacted by a researcher who said that she was a Jewish refugee from wartime France, was a loner and poor.

Shocking to think that this collection could easily have ended up in skip and never seen...

Edit: 15 October 2009 - John Maloof has now added a more detailed account of how he came by the pictures on the blog...

The ongoing characters (continued)

Going through my country show pictures can throw up surprises as the same faces turn up again and again in different guises...

2009:

2006:

Don't give up the day jobs: multi-tasking with Philip Glass

I came across this interview with composer Philip Glass in The Independent the other day.

Interesting to note that while Glass started composing in his teens, he relied on driving taxis, plumbing work, and removal jobs as sources of income until his 40s. Only after 20-odd years of composing did he start to make enough money not to feel the need to renew his taxi licence.

[quote]

"At 20, he went to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music (where Steve Reich was a fellow student) and then enrolled in a composer-in-residence scheme for two years in Pittsburgh schools. In 1964, he moved to Paris to study with the composer Nadia Boulanger and in 1967 moved back to New York where he founded the Philip Glass Ensemble. Looking at his CV from this time on, it would be tempting to say that the rest is history, but artistic output, as so often in life, did not automatically translate into money.


Glass didn't earn a living from his music, in fact, until he was 42. Until then, he drove cabs, shifted furniture and worked as a plumber. "I was careful," he explains, "to take a job that couldn't have any possible meaning for me." Stories of famous-composer-actually-working-man-shock from that period abound. The art critic Robert Hughes was astonished to find the avant garde composer mending his dishwasher. On another occasion, a woman tapped on the side of his cab and told him that he had the same name as a "very famous composer.

Gradually, the commissions trickled in and, by the time Glass was 44, he realised that the cab driver's licence that he'd renewed as a precaution might not be needed."

[unquote]

Continuity errors

Two photos taken at the Melplash Show in Dorset.

Can you spot the continuity error(s)?

Now you’re stalking – celebs in the wild

Today I came across my list of celebs I've spotted out and about. I must have been pretty bored when I compiled this. A couple of things struck me – firstly how many celebs I had bumped into on trains or train stations, and secondly how few sports people I had seen (they obviously don’t use trains much). The only footballer on my list is Ian Wright... I am currently pondering the sociological and psychogeographical significance of the data. Meanwhile, here’s the list:

• Andrew Marr – near Waterloo Station, 2006.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber - near Charing Cros Road, 2015-ish
  
• Annie out of Elastica – sat next to me on a train from London to Brighton.
• Adam Mars-Jones – London.
• Alan Bennett – cycling in London!
• Anne Nightingale – Brighton.
• A bloke who used to be in the Bill – big, black hair, looks like a friendly bear.
• Arthur Smith – in Bath, twice in 2004.
• Bob Geldof  – Waterloo Station. Smoking a pipe.
  
• Billy Bragg – shopping in Weymouth.
• Billy Connolly – at the Wimbledon tennis. Does that count?
  
• Bobby Gillespie – on a train from Brighton to London. Looking a bit wasted, surprisingly.
  
• Charles Kennedy (RIP) – emerging from a Brighton hotel smoking a fag.
• Cheryl Baker – ex Buck Fizz. On a train from Nottingham.
• Chris Ellison – out of the Bill. In Bournemouth.
• Chris Morris – in Borders in Oxford Street (RIP).
• Chris Moyles – in a pub, London. I missed my chance to kill him.
• Dennis Waterman – Littlehampton.
• ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton – twice. Once at Nottingham train station [duplicate].
• Edward Fox – talking to himself like a mad person in Oxford.
• Edwina Curry – at a London train station.
• Fenella Fielding (RIP) – star of Carry on Screaming and voice of The Blue Cat. Walking around Covent Garden. Have a rubbish photo somewhere.
  
• Gaz out of The Supergrass – loads of times in Brighton and Oxford. Plus Danny quite a few times over the years - Oxford, Bruton, Bath. Stop stalking me, Danny.
  
• George Cole – Littlehampton.
• Gok Wan – Covent Garden, London, ca 2017.
• Ian ‘Wrighty’ Wright – near the British War Museum. I did that thing where you instantly acknowledge them, then realise you don't actually know them, they're off the telly. He said "hello".
  
• Jacqueline Wilson – loads of scary rings, London 2005.
• Janet Street-Porter – Bournemouth, 2005.
• Jarvis Cocker – sat opposite him on a train to Sheffield, before the big hits. Struck me as a bit unpleasant to his travelling companions. Also, in Bath ca 2016 [duplicate].
• Jeremy Paxman – having, ahem, difficulty walking at Reading Station, 1990s.
  
• John Sessions (RIP) – in a hurry near Liverpool Street station.
• Keith Allen – Southampton train station – asked me where the “nearest boozer” was. Sneered at my factually correct answer for no apparent reason. Prick.
• Ken Loach - in the city of Bath. Took a rubbish photo.
  
• Ken Russell (RIP) – sat opposite me on a train to London.
• Kevin Rowland – twice in London – once during his “lost” decade when he was living in hostels, etc.
• Lesley Joseph – Brighton
• Lucy Ellmann – writer, London Zoo.
• Mark Kermode - film critic, presenter, Swanage 2010.
• Mark Lamarr – London, 2005. Looking like someone with no friends.
• Martin Rossiter – out of Gene, on a train.
• Marty Wilde – on Bournemouth Pier, 2005.
• Maryam D’Abo – Bond girl, sorry, famous actress. Victoria Station.
• Melvyn Bragg – South Bank, of course, 2005. Plus Covent Garden, ca 2016 [duplicate].
• Michael Foot (RIP) – quite a few times on trains. Often with little dog – a very polite man.
• Michelle Collins – in sunglasses for no apparent reason, Oxford.
• Micky Dolenz - In Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub, Nottingham, 2011
• Mike McShane – comedian.
• Neil Pearson – in Bath MVC (RIP).
• Nigel Planer – London, South Bank.
• Nick Cave – being very tall in Brighton, many years ago.
• Nick Hancock – London – we got in each other's way, and we did the awkward jiggle thing. He was apologetic.
• Paddy Ashdown – Brighton. (Also campaigning at Eastleigh by-election - not sure if that counts.)
• Paul (Gazza) Gascoigne – mucking around and playing mini-golf – Bournemouth, 2011. Also a few years later in Boscombe [duplicate]
• Paul Heaton – in a pub, twice. In fact, it looked like he hadn’t moved from the spot in the intervening period [duplicate].
• Paul McCartney with Heather Mills. No entourage – just the two of them strolling in Hove.
• Paula Yates (RIP). In Brighton – looking at rock and assorted seaside tat.
• Polly Jean Harvey – quite a few times around Bridport. At the Melplash Show a few times.
  
• Princess Di (RIP) – got out a car in front of me.
• Ray Alan (RIP) - ventriloquist – in an Isle of Wight café.
• Reginald D. Hunter – Bath, 2018.
• Robert Lindsay  – Charing Cross Rd, London, 2015-ish.
• Robin Day (RIP) – Oxford.
• Rod Hull (RIP) – on Nottingham Station, wearing a gold lame jacket, smoking a pipe. No Emu.
• Rory McGrath – London, waiting to do some filming. Also, a few years later in Bridport [duplicate].
• Ross Kemp – walking along Brighton prom.
• Sharon Duce – on a train.
• Sienna Miller – on Bournemouth Pier. Only 90% certain, big sunglasses - frustrating.
  
• Simon Callow – ACTOR, etc. – Victoria Station.
• Siobhan Redmond  – in the city of Bath.
• Steve Davies – on train station complete with cue holder thing.
• Stephen Fry – walking along a narrow passage in Soho.
  
• Stu and Michelle – or something, off of Big Brother on Brighton Pier.
• Thom York – Oxford – in sunglasses for no apparent reason.
• Una Stubbs (RIP) – near the Strand, London, 2015-ish.
• Van Morrison – numerous times in Bath. Always looking or sounding grumpy. What a surprise.
• Vic Reeves - dining outside a restaurant near the British Museum.
• Wendy Richard (RIP) – walking a little dog, London.
• Zoe Ball featuring Fatboy Slim – Brighton. He’s a lot bigger and taller than I expected.

Two tents print sale [sorry: sold out]

[The prints have been sold now]

I have three sets of the above two of my photographs available for £20 (that’s £10 each, maths fans) including postage. I think the two go together quite nicely, so am selling them as a pair. The prints are 15 by 10 inches (image sizes approximately 13.5 by 9 inches) and are printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. Pictures are despatched in a poster tube, and sent via first-class post (UK) or air mail (Europe and USA).

If you would like one of the three sets of prints, please email me on paul.russell99@btinternet.com, stating your country location. Payment is via PayPal – so you just need a credit or debit card. Please email me first, as this will be first come, first served!