Title is further down..

Title is further down

These past few months have contained more than its normal share of sorting out, I’m talking both physically and mentally, hopefully by the time you read this my ongoing move sage will be resolved but with this move one never knows. As this blog is about my photography practice the sorting has mainly to do primarily with “which hat occupies which image” and what the direction of UrTe will entail. As well as trying to sort my archive into something more manageable (which as it contains nearly 30 years worth of work from various sources is not an easy task) and while I won’t go on about that here what it did throw up was something that informs the UrTe practice, while looking back at this work I’ve come to the conclusion that (and here comes the title)

I can’t take nice photos

or maybe rather I can seem to take a nice photo. How do I know this? Well, I’m not completely sure the 80s/90s/00s are a hazy time but when looking back I realised that it (the career, which I will call it from now as it plays on the other meaning of the word prefixed with it, so read it as “to career, usually uncontrollably”) was littered with a complete lack of recognition, awards or such like.

While this thought process may be highlighted more recently as a lot of people (esp in the last few years) have attempted to minimise the career by derision (I know that it was both meant softly and harshly) I have now come to a point where I embrace this period of image making through reflection, study and theory, arriving at a realisation that the career has been framed by that fact.

Looking at the images it’s like I purposely desired to seek a different way, no matter what the outcome. My images never seemed to hit the spot with people, I’ve seen what people acclaim now so do have a reference point for this. It’s like they wanted my imagery to contain something that didn’t happen or taken from an impossible (at the time and in hindsight) angle or simply people just did not like my images. As you always need to reference, I can recall some quite specific events that underline this but can only seem to remember one or two pieces of “praise”. I seemingly garnered more derision than acclaim. This fact, which I think most would agree on, is quite a large problem for a working photographer who made his money from selling work and images.

If you apply this thought when you look back then you can see how this influenced what and how I was during that time which in a series of events mapped out where I went from there. They do say that every decision you make has led you to this point and the point I’m at now is one where I can embrace this fact and talk about it. In fact I would say that I’d already started to explore the idea of making images that are not traditionally nice in my final MA project which touched upon how images are seen online, so see this as something of a touchstone for UrTe going forward.

The main problem I envisage with embracing making images in this non-traditional structure of aesthetics, subject matter and applying the opposite of interesting may have a twofold effect.

A)   Possibly effect any job opportunities by highlight the lack of tokens achieved which judging by the utter importance placed on them seem to be most important factor when establishing a practice led teaching role.

B)   And secondly as I’m still building this new practice, starting the long process of raising a profile shouldn’t I be attempting to make images that are attractive and pleasant? Do I not need to be taking nice pictures?

Well maybe so or maybe not, as I’m hoping that the research and ideas behind the images will inform the value of the image rather than the aesthetics. I am progressing to making images that require more explanation rather than that nostalgic tired process of saying that images should simply speak for themselves without any access point or thought process, I fear that I’m sailing into the territory of work that once explained you see more to them and not simply just the background story .  

I can already hear the derision from people of the past, that’s happened over the years, funnily enough it make me smile now, to think of them, some revelling in their toxicity of opinions (remember one person telling my so full of conviction that my pictures were way too dark, terrible etc, turned out their monitor settings were off…)

Oh boy it’s a conundrum in’t it..

One thing I must always say and remember is that UT is still quite a new concept, it’s only a year old on February 3rd 2021and as such its still finding its feet in regard to style, outlook and direction, it’s firmly started in a vein but has come so far in a short time, yes I know it’s backed up by 30 years of allied practice but this is it striking out on its own away from that way of working so as all advice would say is that you have to be kind in its infancy and I foresee that I will continue making images this way for now, pausing for reflection when it seems right and then acting on that.

As I said previously there is always a need for an image and rather than show one of the images from the past that fulfil the title of this blog, I’m going with an image I’d already shared but feel that really show what I’m trying to achieve with UT, I think it may be quite a clever image (so watch that come back in a few years to embarrass me). It’s an image that is has acted as a starting point for a possible long-term project and initially looks quite uninteresting, mundane and also slightly absurd, but after a few words then you can see it’s backed up with subtle observation, experimentation, thought and even a little theory. It’s also facilitated and inspired by my ultimate inspiration.

A need for words too so the caption reads: The connections we are making in these unique times, they seem so tangible but with closer inspection are they permanent? 

While it may contain a bit of cheesy/cleverness/naivety that may well embarrass me in the future as I progress, I do see that it’s part of a process that is in its infancy, so I refuse to be derided because of that, thinking the world would be a better place if we all took a bit of that advice.

Thank you for reading.