
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.