Musings » Thames Town

Shutterspark

Dave — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:42:57 +0000

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.

Thames Town II. 12"x12" Giclee Print. ©Dave Wyatt 2008

Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed 09

Dave — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:39:53 +0000

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 series featured in Deep Sleep Magazine

Dave — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:27:32 +0000

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

Thames Town. 12"x12" Giclee Print.

Thames Town images featured on 1000 Words Blog

Dave — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:57:00 +0000

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

Thames Town Contact Sheets

Dave — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:15:24 +0000

All contact sheets relating to the Thames Town project are located here.

Please ensure to browse via the in site controls and not with your browser buttons for full functionality.

The Architecture Centre, Bristol

Dave — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:03:47 +0000

Have been in contact with Jodie Marks of the Architecture Centre in Bristol and they are interested in seeing the continuation of this project if I choose it in view of a possible exhibition in the future.

Have a look at their website here: http://www.architecturecentre.co.uk/

Ethical Code

Dave — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:59:47 +0000

I intend with my images to represent a subject fairly whilst also representing my own viewpoint on a subject. Whilst this in some cases may lead me to portray something in a negative light I will still try to remain fair with my reresentation.

My work is concerned more with the concept of our relationship with the environment than strict photojournalism so whilst I will not perform excessive manipulations or add elements to an image to construct a scene I have no issue with removing distracting elements if they are irrelevant to the overall message I as a photographer seek to convey. This does not include any removal or alteration of recognisable people UNLESS they have specifically stated they wish to not be in the images. Acceptable removal only includes technical problems, distracting elements such as tree branchs which due to the nature of a rangefinder I didnot notice in camera but would otherwise have corrected composition for, and also correcting lens perspective where needed.

Overview of Risk assessment -Thames Town

Dave — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:44:09 +0000

The biggest risk is whether or not I am prevented from shooting by security in the estate. Wilst all indications are that this will nt be the case it is a possibility in any situation. In cas of this happening the project will evolve to document other housing that equally exemplifies the growth of suburbia within China.

The next biggest risk is theft/damage of film. Filmk will be both kept and developed in alternating rolls to help minimise risk.

In case of theft i will have 2 options -either purchase a another medium format or resort to digital capture in extremis. It is doubtful I will be able to find a replacement Mamiya 6 so would have to go for a more traditional Medium format SLR.

Budget -Thames Town

Dave — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:34:32 +0000

Here is a breakdown of the proposed budget for the Thames Town Project:

Flights: Total 1800 Yuan

Accomodation: 200 Yuan per night x 10 nights=2000Yuan

Film: 30 Rolls 120 Superia 630 Yuan

Food: 60 Yuan per day x 10 days= 600 Yuan

Travel: Metro -6 Yuan per day, taxis:25 Yuan

Developing film: 10 Yuan per roll Dev and scan x30 rolls= 300Yuan

Printing and high end scanning costs are NA at the moment and will be included in the project if it is expanded past a magazine layout.

More Pledge :) 29th August 2008

Dave — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:23:36 +0000

We had the priviledge of Robert Pledge’s advice for another day today as well as a morning lecture fro him about his work with Contact Press Images and their coverage of the Beijing Olympics. Spent a lot of time working on my editwhilst heeding his advice yesterday about how to improve the layout and finally at the very end of the day ahd something we were both very happy with. The one thing that struck me is as soon as he saw the work he realised what was important about it even though it is largely invisible in the small format of a book -the tiny details that reveal the Chinese element of the space which are barely visible until the image is huge. The final edit included English style text for the title of Thames Town and the same repeated in Chinese characters (thankyou An for your local Shanghai spelling knowledge!), with a not inconsiderable shift in the image layout. I maintained my stance of one image per page mostly but enlarged the initial image to span the centrefold and shrunk the opposite one to accomodate the text and made some fairly minor changes to the cover. The main changes came within though with the image layout. 2 images were dropped completely and replaced wth a new end pair. I will upload both pdfs when I get the cance so any interested readers can have a look for themselves at the difference the advice of one of the best editors in the world can make…