Return

Hello again, thank you for tuning again, please forgive the long gap in blogs, I didn’t feel that they had a place in the world till now, as you can read in the introduction above you will see my thought process around this.

Now I have restored this blog I need to answer what purpose it will serve. Well, originally as said, it was academic writing on single subjects. As the academic pathway diverted then so did the writing, it drifted more into a blog discussion. Which I think suits my writing style a little more.

I have still been writing but not publishing and for these pieces I’ve been working on a consistent 3 question approach to the writings/blogs. My intention is to try to keep them close to a research academic element, but I foresee that they will most likely drift into conversational rather than formal presentations. I think this is in keeping with the blog aesthetic. Here are the three question I will endeavour to answer on the blog are:

·      Where I’m at?

·      What readings have struck?

·      What current news feeds into ‘how is photographies regarded?

Now the next question this raises is in the regularity of these blogs. I hope that they will be regular, but I have a feeling that they will become intermittent though, as the pressure of writing something structured and academic each week was dragging the content into something akin to a chore, therefore affecting the quality. This will not happen this time around.

Without further ado then I shall proceed.

Where I’m at?

This saying comes from my partners family who hail from the Northern Ireland. I love its seeming simplicity, but yet its added complexity, in where you are at, at this moment or in general, that’s why its stuck.

This week I’ve have received the final versions of my zines and am readying them to unveil to the world. It’s quite exciting to guess what reaction they’ll get, and what will happen with them. I might not be thinking the same in a few weeks but we will see. I will say that I am quite pleased with how the vision has turned out. I think they really speak to what I intend Urgent Temporality topics to be and how I would like to look at photography. I can also hear the feedback from my past but will actively try not to dwell on that and only listen to what people think of it now. You can see the covers and buy copies from the website! Get them now!

What readings have struck?

While all of this has been going on I have still also kept the reading up, so each week I’ll highlight something I’ve read that I think can apply to ideas, but not specifically at this moment; sort of like a public note taking for further rethought.

The reading this time comes from “Strange hours. Photography, Memory and the Lives of artists. Selected writing by Rebecca Bengal. Aperture. New York. 2023.

I stumbled across the book in a bookshop, where I realised that I have read a couple of Bengals insights but not all, so I have been working through various essays and this one comes from ‘Close up the Honky Tonks: Henry Horenstein in 1970s Nashville’. And in an interview in the back where Horenstein answers:

HH: The historian E.P. Thompson was my hero; he was all about the importance of preserving the culture and not about the big stars of the day. That was a lesson I took into photography.

To be honesty I’d not touched upon E.P. Thompson and this theory yet, but think I’m working my way towards that idea, so maybe it was a matter of time, maybe not, but anyway I have discovered it here. Except the quote that for me, ties it all together, is not quite by Thompson but rather by Raymond Williams, a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic.

Here is that quote:

“Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start.”

Raymond Williams 

I’m not sure this is how you should research this but it is seemingly working for me as this quote seems to highlight one of the founding principles of Urgent Temporality work, which is looking at the ordinary traces of cultures and tracing their meaning back to some principle or no principle. I’m not sure that “culture”  is the right word here but for now it sits as a placeholder until I identify the exact phrase that will explain and elevate the work.

In sharing this I do feel terribly naïve, further examination of why that is, is that I have, in the past, regularly been made to feel this way, so publishing it here is quite a step, opening up my thought process to showing the gaps in my learning always is, but as I strive for more honesty in these exchanges, I will press on.

What current news feeds into ‘how is photographies regarded?

This one is a little trickier as it depends on how close, or far, I’ve sailed to the news that week, and wouldn’t you know it this week has been quite quiet. Past weeks topics have been the application of still images in the Bianca Censori red carpet storm, the rise of the image-based tech bros means for image making and what actually does the catchline of  “…next generation image making…” actually mean.

So for this week I thought I’d identify some parameters to the research.

What am I looking for? Well I feel that photography is less respected than ever but I’m not sure many agree with me so I will start with the question of paying for photography.

·      The rise in not paying for it and what that means?

·      The wide acceptance of lower quality images. Is that solely because of cost or is it something more sinister?

·      The lowering of quality leads to less thought around photographies which has an effect, but what effect does it have?

·      Looking at popular culture where does the principles of photography raise its head?

Does anyone else see these?

One thing this week that has crossed from photography into culture is the release of the Martin Parr film.

Now personally, I’ve never liked the work. He was, all the way through my education, held up as one of the greats, this is something to aspire to and well if you don’t then…At the time I didn’t have the words to express my thoughts, as my mechanisms didn’t allow for conflict with the establishment and established thought. Now it’s all I can do, so in the nicest terms, I found his eye to be quite cruel. I never really liked scousers but did feel he did a hatchet job on them. I felt he was punching down, like a sort of an 18th century great white hunter/explorer, belittling customs and experiences of others fun. The man’s ego does seem to know no any bounds, he certainly has a penchant for the self-promotion, as this film seemingly illustrates.

I feel that if enough people say it’s good, especially the gatekeepers (of which is he one),  then its overt snide intentions seem to be allowed to pass. Of course, I’m in a minority with these opinions and this opinion may not see the light of day depending on whether I feel like I need the grief of his fanbase at this time, so this bit may not be published at this time.

So as every blog needs an image then each one will also contain an image. I will attempt to give some insights into why that image and what the image represents for me; some will be good and some not so, but each will be ready for ridicule!

A piece of plastic separation material with red and white hazards hangs vertically from a tree.

I’m not sure how many know it, but UT’s main camera is a Leica, and I love it how it makes everything zing and pop. I have been taking it on a journey that many traditional Leica users may not appreciate. I’m picking at the threads of photographies, what constitutes a good image and what does not. Wherever you point the Leica you seem to get a pleasing shot of some sort. It just sort of make things look good! To tip this is on its head, as is my wont, I try to push it into making a ‘bad’ picture, this usually involves finding something within the picture that would be classed as ‘bad’ subject, content, feeling or something like.

Here then I present a recent example of this journey and possibly, how it fails, this image does zing! So if I set out to make a ‘bad’ picture yet the Leica has made it into a ‘good’ one, then I have accomplished what I want to do or have I failed?

This is the discourse that runs through part of the image output of Urgent Temporality. Especially in the selection of a recent, random picture for the weekly style of imagery needed for this blog.

As ever I welcome any feedback, comments, thoughts or anything else. You can get these to me via the usual channels.