Light was too nice but met a new friend… 28th July 2008

Another great day for a great sunset –but though shit if you need flat lighting.  I think the work is usable but it isn’t exactly ideal for what I was looking for –not much I can do except make the most of it though.  At least the brightness helps establish that it isn’t England (!) so that may help I guess.  Going to g through the work of some other photographers tonight such as Peter Marlow and Martin Parr just to help keep myself focused and help sway the niggling doubts about whether this piece is working or not.  It has been so long since I focused on something this banal that I keep trying to add visual excitement to the images before I catch myself and stick to the methodology of keeping it fairly dull to match the subject.  I have shot about 20 rolls of 120 now and can get something but it just doesn’t feel quite right yet.  Think I got a few decent images today –one of a street that has one of the pubs on it which may work as the cover and at least one of the main street images to balance the more obscure views.  Need more non spaces like behind buildings and the spaces we all see and recognise as part of a housing estate but which aren’t usually deemed worthy of photographing.
Also made some images of the church –again juxtaposed with other buildings like the other pub (well, empty building with a pub sign on it…).  Made some close ups of doors and mailboxes etc in really dull light (shadow of a building) and I think at least one of them would be useful.  I need to return in a morning to make sure I have the other buildings I that have not been lit properly in the afternoon so far.  Also need to get a phone box image that is successful –not sure if the few I have so far will be because of the overly contrasty light.  Also need some more houses, ideally the detached ones, and maybe some images with the fences with the houses behind, and the barriers on the roads to stop entrance to the private areas.
Writing this whilst on the metro and the sunset is really amazing.  I guess it is the Jesuit cathedral on the hill that I can see and the sun is setting behind it for a great scene.  I’m not going to shoot it cos it is miles away and the 50/75mm lenses I am using would never do the job, not to mention the filthy glass on this train I’d have to shoot through.  Not sure if I have mentioned before but there are a string of new housing complex’s being built on the way to Songjiang, Image town, Lake Forest among others which all look styled in different ways.
Anyway, I feel like today was not a success but if I came away with some useful images for the project how could it not be a success?  I think the mismatching of the lighting is worrying me and I just don’t have the time or the funds to hang around waiting for a month for the cloud to be perfect.  Maybe perfect is not what this work needs?  Not having my developing done in Shanghai is part of the issue –it’s been a long time (since late 2004) that I have had to wait till after shooting a project to know that it has worked or not.  DISCIPLINE!  I need to be confident in knowing that what I am doing will be fine.  I do not need the instant gratification of an LCD screen to tell me that I know how to make interesting images.  It is good t be back to using medium format again and especially using hyerfocal focusing to maximise the depth of field, something I could not do with my digital gear.  It is vital for this work that everything is sharp front to back within the images.
Oh, and just to round the day off on a high note I had a Sprite and a sarnie from a shop (one of 2 that are actually open!) in Thames Town and met a really nice cat.  Got a lot of weird stares (felt like being back in Dalian!) when I shared some of the sarnie with the cat though!  He looked like Tubes, my family’s old cat, though, so how could I not be nice to him!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 11:21 am and is filed under Thames Town. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.