Thames Town II. 12"x12" Giclee Print. ©Dave Wyatt 2008
My Thames Town work is this week featured on the newly formed ShutterSpark website. Shutterspark was, “created to showcase the work of budding photographers to both the public and potential employers alike, shutterspark blog gives photography BA and MA graduates the best opportunity to promote their work.”
Please visit ShutterSpark now and have a look, there is some awesome work being displayed at the moment and if you graduated within the past few years, it is well worth submitting work of your own whilst the site is growing in popularity.
Came across this test for your colour vision on the X-rite site today -seen it before but thought I would post my results. Could do better but not horrible I suppose.
You can find the test on the X-rite website here
Well I have had an interesting week of it with trips back and forth to the Photographer’s Gallery in London. “The reason?”, I hear you ask… Well I have been part of a group exhibition showcasing who they deemed the most interesting graduates from the past 12 months on British photographic courses (I know, my MA was in China but it was run through the University of Bolton). 23 of us showed work and it was a varied mix of styles. It was interesting to see the work I was doing in China in the light of what other courses had been producing, including Goldsmiths, the RCA and LCC, all courses I hold in high regard. Overall I am chuffed to bits to have been included and more importantly my work held its own there. I will try and get hold of an image of the work in situ to add here when I go for the VIP reception tomorrow night.
There is also a mini site that will be up for a year promoting the work in the show so go and have a look at the variety of work for yourselves.
Fresh Faced And Wild Eyed 09
Thames Town. 12"x12" Giclee Print.
Deep Sleep is, in the words of it’s creators, “…a quarterly online photography magazine founded by and featuring work from a small group of contributors who share the same office space in Shoreditch, East London. Each issue (published in February, May, August and November) will be on a specific theme and guest contributors are also invited to submit a set of images based on that theme.”
Well their theme for issue two was Alien and as such they are featuring my work from Thames Town, which is jolly nice of them (too much Blackadder goes Forth means the word ‘jolly’ must make an appearence).
You can see the whole issue here: Deep Sleep
Tim Clark over at 1000 Words has featured my Thames Town work on his blog a little while back so please go over there and check out the blog. It is by far one of the more interesting blogs showcasing and reviewing contemporary photography online.
1000 Words Photography Blog
So, I know it has been soooooooo long since I posted anything at all here but this is just a note to say I am back in business, yeah baby yeah!
I feel a bit like at school having to explain why my homework is late butseeing as i am currently dogless I have little excuse, except I have not had access to a scanner and a photography blog with no photos just isn’t the same…
Anyway, I’ve been working on a few personal projects recently all concerning our relationship to the land in one form or another, details will be posted on here soon 
I’ll post a bit later on different developments in the past 5 months, there have been a few interesting ones! But for now I will leave you with a recent image…
Just a quick not really to make sure people are aware that I have given my website a complete overhaul. More changes are yet to come but for now have a look over on http://davewyatt.com and let me know what you think.
Well, I have been back in the UK for 2 weeks today and am finally over the jet lag and getting around to starting new projects over here. I will post a bit later about the successes and failures of the final book output of the landscape of leisure series which arrived here just before I did. The final 2 copies are long gone off to China now but I have images to post to compare the dust jacket versions to the image wrap version and have some comments to make concerning the whole process with using Blurb.com.
I have a couple of projects which I am just starting to research/shoot now. One is very simple and concerns the recession currently underway in the UK and will feature the empty shells of former high street stores. Not sure if to confine it to just Woolworths, or just one town or to make it a more general thing yet. Will have to start shooting something this week and see what comes of it.
The other project which I am researching now in order to try and get some funding is concerning light pollution. This piece will be shot on the Mendip Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK but lesser known than places such as the Lake District and Snowdonia despite having a host of attractions unique to the South West. Purely for selfish reasons i’m trying to take my time researching this because at the moment it is ridiculously cold at night up in the hills, not quite as bad as Dalian but still colder than I would like!
The light was fantastic today so I went and shot in the more open side of the zoo again to make decent images of the viewing platforms and enclosures. I am not worried about using these for my project at the moment, more just trying to get as many of the things I want shot done before I leave China in a couple of weeks.
I will post some images shortly but the biggest highlight was watching the zebra. Think I may be loosing the plot a bit cos I was stood waiting for a groundskeeper to move so I could shoot the enclosure and daydreaming of midgets riding zebras in a cavalry charge.
Oh, and I came across what I believe was some Emu. Never seen them up so close before and didn’t automatically recognise them without Rod Hull’s arm being elbow deep in one’s rear end… Weird thing that caught my attention with them though was the sound they make, much like someone banging a bongo type drum!
Shot the rest of the viewing structures including the ones I did a few weeks ago that inspired this concept, despite having to make a dash through the gates to stop a suicidal emu following me into the hyena and wolf area. One of the Hyena’s was on heat as well and so they were all very boisterous today. Made it round to the bear enclosure just as the light was disappearing and so the colours were all pastel hues but could only make some images because the main thoroughfare to the lions had been sealed off since my last visit.
I woke up this morning and it was heavy snow coming down outside. Everything was really dull out light wise so didn’t make it outside to shoot but managed a few images when the sun came out briefly around half ten. First time I have shot digital since June as well. Resorted to it cos I have a 90mm equivalent on it so it allows a bit more fun with composition from my towerblock window…
Tram on snow covered lines in Dalian, China.
Oh god it was cold yesterday, but unfortuately I didn’t realise this until I was standing in the wind with my tripod set up in Labour Park. Well, the wind had hinted at it earlier when I was shooting some billboards with images of trees set up in front of actual trees but the realisation that a hoodie was not going to be enough to keep me from freezing was quickly setting in 30 mins later as I focused on the vents and sky lights of an underground market seen from the grounds of Labour park.
Image wise I basically spent a couple of hours wandering around the north and west sides of the park that I have not really visited before and focused on the little hints of man and the efforts at hiding the controlling elements within the park. Interestingly came across a make shift home presumably again for homeless immigrant workers built behind some bill boards but nobody was home so could not get any portraits.
Finished off by shooting a little in the now empty amusement park, specifically the rollercoaster and a tree in front of it. If I get a chance to go back here and the guy who was either the supervisor/watchman or someone trying to rob the place blind (could have gone either way to be honest) is not about I will hop the fence and shoot some more interesting images of the rollercoaster not in use.
Decided one last trip to the botanical gardens was in order after the light had gone last time before I covered the remaining exercise spaces so braved the gloomy looking sky (reminded me of English weather actually when I was actually there).
Turned out to be a wise move (isn’t being motivated to go and shoot always a good idea?) because I went to one space that had been occupied the past 2 trips and had one of the most interesting relationship between the trees and their adaption for use yet.
Made a point today to shoot images of the other parts of the park I found interesting as well including sie of the bank that supports the lake and the huge water pipes that are the output from the manholes I documented before here.
There is also an space here for an unknown game that is fenced off so managed a few frames of that although I have no idea what the game is at the moment.
Sadly I think my career as a celebrity in the park is over because bar a nod and Ni hao from the guys following me about last time as they passed me by I was left to my own devices for the afternoon. I feel strangely D-list and washed up now… !
Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian, China. 3rd December 2008
After shooting a lot on Monday I intended to take it easy today and just shoot the wave defenses in Xinghai but the light was interesting and I felt like a hill so decided to stop putting off my Tai Shan visit. Turns out I should have come here in the summer really when there may have been a chance of getting some light on the North side but oh well, the dim light adds to the eerie feeling on the North side where I found broken down walls and buildings that are perfect fodder for me at the moment. If I get a chance with decent weather again (it is a few days later now and snowing heavily outside…) I’ll try and spend a day wandering through the woods both sides of the hill exploring whilst making new images. Near the top you get a spectacular view North over the vast identical housing blocks with the new high rise buildings to the rear. Had an interesting experience yet again when making images of this actually. Heard a rumble and the screech of brakes behind me and turned to see 2 army jeeps with soldiers pouring out. Obviously my heart sank a little and i was quickly working out what I had shot that may be deemed inappropriate that day (nothing came or comes to mind!) so thought I was all good even though I knew I didn’t have all my papers on me. Turns out they seemed to be escorting some officers who were going to watch the sunset at the top together… while the rest just stayed down with me at a lower level viewing spot. Despite us not speaking the same language they seemed nice, with some old man pointing at me and shouting various things a lot while talking with them that included the words foreigner, England and stop, but they were absolutely pissing themselves at this slightly senile old guy which was a huge relief. They even had a play with the camera while I was pointing out and trying to explain I was waiting for the tram to go through the frame…
Shahekou district, Dalian. China. 2nd December 2008.
The other interesting part of the day was on the way down the hill I found a small area set up presumably by an immigrant worker as a makeshift shelter. The light was failing fast so shot a roll or so around the scene to add to a growing collection I have of these from around the parks so will see how they turn out. Also should try to make time to go and hotograph the roads around the base of the hill because they are so very different than the more modern sanitised Dalian with overcrowding and power lines and pipes above the streets and generally looking more like most would assume China to look.
I made a second trip to the Botanical gardens in Dalian on the 26th November on a quest to shoot the rest of the exercise spaces there and make the most of the tripod that I didn’t have last time I was there, and have a go at getting slightly different takes on the chairs in the lake image that is currently in my edit for the leisure book (see a post with the pdf that will be here in about a week or two). I noticed on the the main scenes with the cross beam between 2 trees now had bright yellow tape over the beam so reshot this before moving on to a few of the other trees that now stood out more due to this yellow tape and some spaces I had not noticed on my previous visit.
Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian. Liaoning. China. 26th November 2008
Amusingly I gathered quite a bit of interest while doing this and after an hur or so had a solid fan base of 5 spectators following me through the woodland. I remember when I first started out in photography and being shy to the point of not even liking taking pictures in front of people let alone of people and now here I am, wondering through a random bit of woodland in China with 5 guys just following and staring in utter bemusement at what I am doing. Wish I had shot some portraits of them now but oh well, my complete lack of language means it is difficult to achieve anything approaching intimacy in portraits here so I choose to avoid them, instead feeling that the landscape speaks far more intimately about my relationship with the Chinese and all of our relationships with the landscape. I still feel that nagging voice in the back of my head that I should be making portraits though but I worry if that is genuine or if it is just me trying to do what I think I should do rather than continuing to just respond in my own vision to the questions in my head.
Dalian Botanical Gardens. Dalian. Liaoning. China. 26th November 2008
Before I start, in case he reads this, sorry for the title Mike, couldn’t resist really! Anyway, went for a walk done in Xinghai a couple of weeks ago just for a break from the essay writing really, I forget the exact date but it must have been around the 20th of November or so. Didn’t take the tripod cos it wasn’t really anything formal, just a chance for fresh air but took the camera down with me seeing as the cloud was dull and low.
Came across the deserted amusements from the summer that looked much like I remember the ones back home when I visit Weston during the off season. I always found these places so much more interesting visually when they are abandoned, something slightly eerie and melancholy about them. I could go on about ideas of how these things remind me of childhood dreams and the like that didn’t quite pan out as expected but you get the idea. I find the aspects of how an area thrives during the on season and then becomes so desolate during the winter months more in tune with my experience. Anyone from around small season areas would be able to relate to this concept
Anyway, I have added one image to this post that I feel sums up the ideas I am talking about well. The closed down confectionery stand with the fake rock behind that would appear to now be home to someone from the look of the makeshift curtain doorway. The flat lighting helps as well add to the general feeling of a loss of innocence felt by the kids who would have been buying ice-cream here only 2 months ago. The large fake rock is built as well to make people feel that the large park this is in that has been transformed for tourism is really still a natural environment, with the explanation mark sprayed on just to remind people that the natural is far to dangerous and they should remain in areas where their money can be procured. In reality all that was once natural has been laid waste in the the urban sprawl. Dalian serves as an interesting example of this with the Mayor in the ate 1980s adding many green parks for people to relax in. The only problem is most of these have given way to commercial ventures and remain only as a weak facsimile of the natural environment, the remnants of which are only seen in the steep surrounding hills that are inaccessible but still littered with power stations, quarries and pylons.
- Untitled. Xinghai Park, Dalian, China. 2008 ©Dave Wyatt
Weather today was good for shooting and I’m sure it will be one of the last during this trip to China so I went out and shot a load of film today all from Xinghai Square and Eastwards through the Shell Museum (a giant recreation of a fairy tale castle) and out along Binhai Xi Lu again.
Before I get too engrossed i should add that I have been shooting since the last post, just lost my internet last week and have yet to catch up with the missing posts. That and book editing have been taking up all my time lately so expect a flurry of posts about the past couple of weeks over the next few days.
The plan was to go down to the zoo to re shoot a couple of images that were soft from my earlier inability to pull my thumb out of my arse and use a tripod, and after much deliberation decided on the decent end for the day with an early go at the bathtubs again with better light. As is often the case with me this plan went to the wall almost as soon as I got off the tram to walk to the zoo the long way through Xinghai Square. I’ve never really shot much in there so trees with fairy lights attached and the plugs hanging loose by the trunks was too much to pass up really…
After making a nuisance of myself sufficiently around the main bits of the Square including trampling through the flower beds with the tripod to get something interesting with the colour purple (photo will be here in about 2-3 days) and annoying a sleeping policeman enough was enough. There should be quite a few interesting images from all of this and one of the things that I really found helpful in removing the distraction of having everyone stare at me like I’m from Mars (its really, really off-putting sometimes for those of us with no desire to join the stage) was having the iPod on. Gogol Bordello to the rescue again! Something about their music always puts me in a happy and inquisitive mood (and want to drink vodka for some reason..!) so I think it added to my work today.
Anyway, went up the Shell museum as well and made some interesting I hope images of electricity cables coming out of a window. Doesn’t sound that great but the window is made to look like a fairytale castle and these were big think cables, so it should work.
Oh, and the other place I managed to get to today was the bathtubs again, and I think at pretty much the same time as last time so we shall see what the lighting was like. Thinking tomorrow morning is the time to go and get the definitive shot -it looks like it will snow later in the week so this could work as well but would like a well lit non snowy shot to start with. As has been my habit lately I went off wondering again in the little trails at the sides of the road today and I swear i spend as much time treading around people’s makeshift toilets as i do making images, but I think it is worth it. I found a whole area covered in empty clam and oyster shells today in a bit of woodland so I think that tactic of exploration is worth it photographically. Hell, I enjoy so even if the images are no good I’ll still keep exploring.
Bathtubs. Dalian. China. 2008.
I noticed today there have been a couple of Beth Dow’s images up on Flak. For those that don’t know Dow won the book prize on offer from Blurb this year with a series entitled In the Garden that presents a series of visages of man’s encroachment upon nature. You can see the series on her site here: Beth Dow. My interest in the work is pretty obvious to anyone who has been paying attention but what with the reading into the concepts of Imagined Geographies and historical and culture depictions I have been doing for my MA, I find Dow’s use of Platinum printing fascinating. Think of the my current work dealing with the expansion of the ultra modern and artificial into the natural and how this would look presented as prints visually familiar to those early photographs from travelling Victorian tourist photographers.
There are a lot more details on contemporary use of old processes -today utilising digital technologies interestingly, on Keith Taylor’s website. Taylor did Dow’s printing as well as apparently undergoes work for a range of photographers from Eve Arnold through to Mario Testino. I’d be interested to know what Arnold work he prints because I know Glen Brent was doing all of her printing up until at least a few years ago, but I’m not sure if Brent uses any old processes.
I realise I have not been updating this as much as I possibly could recently so thought I would add something about what I have been working on lately. Today being the last day to finish the 1st draft of my MA dissertation means my head has been in the books recently but I have been trying to get out and about to shoot and find new and interesting locations for later shoots. One thing I have been expressly looking at is the sports areas flood lit at night. I’ve visited a few of these now but have to find one that is going to be appropriate -either the flood lights are insufficient to allow me to make a useable image or there is nowhere from which I can get a suitable vantage point. I swear with my current quest to find high ground I feel like a sniper half the time.
One thing that has become clear over the past few weeks of shooting and looking at work for my paper on contemporary practice, I am becoming more and more interested in the periphery of spaces. This idea has been addressed before in Mark Power’s 26 Different Endings and Steffi Klenz’s (of Nonsuch fame, a series that heavily influenced my Thames Town work) A Scape. Both if these bodies of work concern the edge of the city of London, Power in regards to how we artificially create borders and Klenz in an examination of the nature of a space in flux.
What I am interested in with this periphery concept within leisure spaces is how we have a more fluid relationship with the landscape. These spaces are less about the commoditisation of the land and present more of a balance between man and the land. However when we dig deeper we see that this is still a highly managed landscape and our relationship is still one of dominance over all.
Shooting wise I have also been revisiting spaces now that it is November and officially the off-season. Ever sonce first picking up a camera I have been obsessed with the notion of a landscape virtually abandoned during the winter months with only the remnants of a vibrant summer industry left behind. Never sure that the images I capture of this are not overly cliched but if nothing else there is something both calming and poignant about photographing something so familiar when so far from home.
This leads me onto another point about my work that has become more focused and resolute in my mind. By attempting to a China so different than the manufacturing giant depicted in the western news, or the mystical historically rich ideal of the travel books, my work is attempting to comment on globalisation and homogenisation of culture, how in the 21st century the global culture means that the land is shaped in much the same way no matter where you are based and it is only in the small details that we can see references to individual cultures coming through. Those spaces that are altered by groups of people and not by industry are the spaces where we will be able to truly observe some level of individual culture.
On a technical note it has been difficult to add images lately because I blew a harddrive and as such have to redo all corrections on my film based work. I knew I should have burnt the back up disks last week… It also meant I lost 95% of the digital work I shot in China but I am strangely calm about this and find if anything it actually to be a freeing experience. The only images I truly rated I have A3 sized copies available of and the rest to be honest were in two modes -a form of diary of my initial time here, annoying to lose but lets be honest, I would have never even converted the RAW files anyway (I am not and never have been one to shoot in this way before or after my first 2 months in China -I just have no interest in photography outside of using it as a method to explore my ideas. I guess this is a family thing because there are relatively few snapshots of us from my childhood when compared to the horrendous experience most we are subjected to when other families pull out the photo album). The other lost pictures were just my initial explorations, all of which have led to the work I am doing now but form only the basis of the initial ideas. That they represent the desire for me to leave behind the more reportage style for the time being would have been interesting to look at again but overall their loss feels almost like a weight has been lifted -the sum of my work in China will rest in that which is on the physical artefact that is film.
On a whim, partly because I felt I was yet t have made a successful picture there and partly because I wanted to go exploring, I went back to Labour Park in Dalian a few days ago to work my way up to the top, Lu Shan, and have a look around for more of the subtle (comparatively speaking) signs of our influence and control over the environment. I found a whole series of spaces used for tai qi and other morning rituals and also some presumably for more violent martial arts further up the hill. Also had an interesting experience with the local, ‘wildlife’ again when a couple decide to get together in the background of one of my shots while a strange guy crouched and watched them from the bushes, completely uninterested in the fact he was in full view of me. I guess the wooded edges of city parks are pretty much the same no matter what country you are in…
Anyway, here are a few random selects from the shoot that have caught my eye initially.
Castagnoli’s work -Provincial Japan, is available to download from his site and is a very interesting look at Japan form a Western perspective, utilising a very western style reminiscent of the work of the new Topographics and also more contemporary artists such as Joel Sternfeld and Mark Power, but with a more snapshot aesthetic in his representation of colour. The work is very relevant to mine when looked at in light of Edward Said’s theories of Orientalism and as such will be included in my dissertation in relation to how it represents the East from a Western perspective.
You can look at Castagnoli’s work on his website here: Guido Castagnoli
Thanks to the ever valuable Conscientious blog run by Joerg Colberg for this info which I would have undoubtably missed otherwise. The web does have its uses afterall…
