Hi Again

Having made a pigs ear of my blog page design, I'll start again.

It's the end of January; a bad month unless you're still alive and relatively well. In which case it's a good month. It has its problems, not the least that it's grey, cold, wet and you're brassic. 

Let's forget January then.

I've just started on the Diversity project that has taken precedence over the Class and Faces projects that I was planning to do for the first Trimester of the course.  The first thing I did was to decide that I wasn't going to look at easy targets like inner-city deprived areas, Benefit Streets or refugees, but I plan to find out about ethnic, religious,
class, sexual orientation, political and other diversities within my own town, Devizes. Not much diversity, you might opine, but diversity and super-diversity has taken the place of the discredited multiculturality, so there's a lot of subtle differences in people's outlooks/beliefs than one would imagine at first sight.

I  thought that I should first find out the basic facts and figures about the Town By interviewing people who know -- people on the Town Council, senior police officers and church leaders, so I contacted Town Clerk Simon Fisher at The Town Hall, with whom I'd worked years ago making pictures for the Town Guide. What nice man! He gave me over an hour of his time last Friday and gave me a run-down of Devizes past, present and future. And I have to say that the future is bright for this little market town.

This is the man himself:

Simon gave me some addresses to contact, which I have done. Watch this space.

Meantime, at Richmond Athletic Ground near Kew in London, we spent the first of (I hope) many sessions photographing rugby matches. Why? Well, to reach UK minority groups -- Welsh, Irish, Scottish, where better to go than the locations where regional groups like those congregate? There's the pubs, yes -- but those maybe later; I opted first to contact the London rugby clubs catering for those displaced from their home regions -- London Welsh, London Irish and London Scottish.   The Welsh and the Scots responded enthusiastically to my initial emails asking for their co-operation though I'm still looking to hear from the Irish. We were invited to watch and photograph the game between London Scottish and Ealing Trailfinders on 27th Feb at Richmond.

First, let me advise you to ignore your sat-nav in favour of common sense when you're trying to get to Richmond. DON'T GO M4; take whatever route will get you onto the M3 and find it that way.

But we made it -- a few minutes late, wet, cold and a bit worried cos I was looking for a stadium but found a sort of 'community ground' with just one basic stand. However, the good news is that it turned out to be a great experience and an example of local support -- there might have been up to 300 people there, many of them supporting the opposition -- Ealing isn't that far away -- and the game was carried out in the best traditions of sport, none of your prima-donna football behaviour, nobody dived all afternoon and everyone respected the ref, never questioning his decisions. 

We weren't equipped to do top-quality sports photography -- Susie had the D3  with a 70-200mm lens and I worked the D800E and a short zoom, trying to catch individual players. 

Sadly, they were all too pretty! A bit of an overstatement if you like, but I was looking for typical Scottish faces, preferably muddy, a bit battered and if possible, a touch bloody. But this was the First Team, young, athletic and as fit as butchers' dogs, all of them. I found only one who looked like he'd been in a few Glasgow disagreements, but he was on the subs' bench and didn't take any active part in the game while we were there.

picture by Susie Bigglestone 

I think London Welsh has to right idea, in that they recommended that I should attend a Third Team game (they call them 'The Occies'  -- short for The Occasionals), who, I'm assured are 'all shapes and sizes' and might show a bit of character in their faces.

Our trip to Richmond on that grey, cold, wet day wasn't a great success as a photographic expedition, but  was thoroughly enjoyable otherwise. Gets you out of the house, y'know.

 liSSSSkSe inner-city deprived areas, Benefit ~Streets or 

End of a Long Month

Hello

It's coming up to the end of January 2018; My Lord, is it that time already?

Ordinarily, Januaries are bad enough months; Christmas has been and gone, pressies used or forgotten, grey days, long nights, cold, either boozeless or habitually too much -- a bottle of red goes nowhere -- and a distinct lack of money. Where did the time go? Where did the cash go? Where did all the goodwill and fellowship go? 

This Jan has been worse than usual from just about every point of view. Not only are the days universally grey but we've been invaded by a virus that has caused through-the-night coughing, sneezing and general fed-upness throughout the family. Yes, I know; us and millions like us throughout the land.

But it's coming to an end. Having sold most of my kit and half my soul on eBay, the bills are paid; Susie has identified the authors of several of the Albumen prints, (contact prints from 15"x12" glass plates) given to me at Salisbury College fifty years ago by John Barker who taught three-dimensional design there, so that we know a) they're not worth millions but b) they're genuine pictures from Italy, Greece and Iran which have a history and a visual value all of their own, and I've found the most interesting area for research in the study of ethnographic diversity. A book dropped onto the mat a week or so ago, accompanied by an invoice for £105 ("HOW MUCH?" I shrieked, before looking more closely at the document to see it said 'No Payment Required; Review Copy') called 'Ethnography, Diversity and Urban Space', published by Routledge. 

Fascinating; a gem of a book; edited by Mette Louise Berg, Ben Gidley and Nando Sigona, it discusses diversity in terms not only of ethnicity but also of class, religion, sexual orientation and all stations north.

I plan to put the practises and principles to use in two immediate areas: first, I've already approached the regional London rugby clubs (London Irish, London Scottish and London Welsh) for permission to photograph some of their players, and second, I've just made an appointment with one of the Devizes Town Clerks to talk with him about the diversity (or lack of it) here in my home town. I don't want to look at the usual targets, you see, like inner-city deprived areas; I want to find out about the people here -- those that I have put into my new 'Standard Class' -- not upper management but not on benefits either, who are our neighbours, friends, work colleagues and family.

And I chose the rugby clubs because I wanted to photograph regional faces and figures -- and where better to find them than where regional people gather -- in this case to cheer on their compatriots on the rugby field. 

Do stay with me; I hope to make cauliflower ears, flattened noses and toothless grins into works of art. 

Well, you have to try, don't you?

Have a good day.

John  

Been away a while

Hi
Just back from being not-very-well.
Glad you're still here.
I'll talk again soon
Best
John

Went to Imber yesterday. 

Imber; village on Salisbury Plain, unoccupied since 1943 when the villagers were dispossessed at short notice by MOD to provide a training ground for American troops to practice house-to-house fighting in preparation for D-Day (youngsters please Google). Albert the local blacksmith is said to have been seen sobbing over his anvil, and coincidentally was the first resident to die and be returned to his village for his funeral. Sad.

Typically, the promise of return after the war ('for the duration' was a phrase commonly used at the time) has not been kept by MOD in spite of several legal actions taken on the local's behalf since then. But looking at the state of the village now, no-one would want to.

Lovely day though, sunshine and just the right temperature. No official organisation (hence no-one asking you for a fiver to park on the verge) -- how refreshing. Lots of people there, all apparently having innocent good time (different from sad residents in 1943), many delivered there by ex-London red Routemaster buses, freed temporarily from their retirement, from Warminster. Even one open-topped. Made Brexit seem a good idea after all; that and the Olympics, but shut up; mustn't talk politics, sex or religion. 

For ease of transport I took along the Fuji S3 which has been adapted for infra-red; it gives lovely pink files that can then be neutralised to B&W in Photoshop and ticked to taste. Try these:

All pictures © John Bigglestone

Another year, another birthday.

August 10th; been and gone. Another one; where do they go? Where do birthdays go when the Cinderella Clock reaches 24.00? The carriage turns back into a pumpkin, the fine white horses into white mice; don't ask what the birthday cake turns into. But the eleventh of August has no charisma at all; not for me, anyway. Daresay it means a lot to those born/married/died on that day but not for me. Just one day can make all the difference. 

Now that's a concept worth considering: just one day can make all the difference.

JB

Another year, another birthday.

August 10th; been and gone. Another one; where do they go? Where do birthdays go when the Cinderella Clock reaches 24.00? The carriage turns back into a pumpkin, the fine white horses into white mice; don't ask what the birthday cake turns into. But the eleventh of August has no charisma at all; not for me, anyway. Daresay it means a lot to those born/married/died on that day but not for me. Just one day can make all the difference. 

Now that's a concept worth considering: just one day can make all the difference.

JB

Funny old life, this. Everyone knows that our time on this stage has book-ends, the finish one being just a mirror-image of the start one, both giving the physical and emotional support that each phase of that life demands; parents doing it for their babies, children for their elders, most with care, patience, commitment and occasionally affection. Nice thought.

I should stop there but can't help suggesting to you that the accepted advice of looking forward rather than back isn't always the best. I'm reminded of that by two things that happened recently: first, my son David, for whom I have the greatest respect (in spite of his having inherited some of my characteristics) as well as deep affection, spoke quite glowingly of some of my previous work. He'd been reading some of my articles, published in photo magazines such as the BJ and Professional Photographer and referred me to an ability he said I had to put words together. Thanks David; that means a lot. Some weeks before we had been looking at a boxful of old photographs of mine which, in their haphazard way, plotted a route through my professional life. "There's a book here" he said, and being susceptible to a bit of flattery, I concurred. 

The second trigger happened yesterday as I listened to something on radio; 'The Purpose of Life is to Pass on Something' someone said. Who the someone was and in what context he (for it was a 'he') said it escapes me (my short-term memory was always poor -- I used to ask my opponent how many snooker points I had scored at the end of each break, though often it didn't tax their maths too deeply) but I took note of that proposition and decided to push it further. What had I to offer that could justify my life, this term on the planet, that I had adopted as my own?

Looking at the box of prints and assessing my previous worth proved to be a good exercise, and I would recommend that emotional journey to anyone reading this -- if you've got this far that is. Look at what you have done, good and bad. Don't ignore the bad, as it's there and you did it, but conversely don't beat your breast about it till the blood runs.  Concentrate more on your achievements; be honest, be modest, be balanced but above all, give yourself the credit you deserve.

You'll feel better. I do.

John