How hard is Blackpool???

It's been quite some time since I last posted. In fact it’s been quite some time since I last picked up a camera and shot properly. The reason for this is that I have been a little ill and to be perfectly honest, I haven't felt up to my usual creative self.

The other week I took a trip out to Blackpool with my daughter and her friend with the hope of shooting some more Lancoast images. I thought it was going to be easy I actually thought it was going to be the easiest location of the Lancoast essay.

I'm not sure if it is because I am out of practice, struggling creatively or that it was finding something to shoot but I found myself having difficulties finding a picture. Well, that is not exactly true.  I found a few pictures, the difficulty I was having was finding a subject that would fit in nicely with the Lancoast images and also work in monochrome.

As I have discussed earlier, the idea behind Lancoast is that eventually I make salt prints from the sea water of the locations.  The final prints will have a brown monochrome tone to them so the images that I take must working in black & white.

The problem I was having with Blackpool is that it’s so damn colourful!  In fact it is so colourful that it doesn’t work well in mono.

The images I took on the night are nice and I am pleased with them but they won’t make the final selection because of the colour.

So I suppose the question is; do I return to Blackpool and have another go before moving north or do I continue north and return to Blackpool in the future?  One thing for certain is that Lancoast wouldn’t be Lancoast with Blackpool.

I’m also wrestling with other issues regarding the technicalities of delivering the essay.  The original intention was to shoot this entire essay on pinhole cameras using film as the medium.

Originally, I intended to use the Micropress 5” x 4” but attempting to do this in the field has been difficult due to the number of shots I can carry at any one time.  So I’m currently playing with a 35mm pinhole to get a similar result but without the weight.  I think the answer will be a limited series of salt prints from the 5” x 4” and then a mix of monochrome film and some digital to bulk out the essay.

The rest of the images from Blackpool can be seen here.