Sheffield//Photographs

Photographs taken from Park Hill, with an 18-55mm lens on my Pentax K-r DSLR camera.
Edited using Adobe Photoshop.

Lens Workshop//Filming

On Sunday, I took my DSLR camera with me on a walk around Sheffield. I had no plans of a route, I just wanted to walk and not really know where I was going, my only aim was to film short clips of parts of the walk as I was walking. With the footage I took, I then wanted to put all the footage together and speed it up to show the journey all together. However when I got back and looked at the footage, it was very blurry and jumpy from where it had captured my movements. I was very disappointed with the result, but on Monday we had our last workshop, the lens workshop. In this, I was able to find out what would be a better way to capture the footage I wanted to, in a smoother way without capturing too much of my walking movements. I have borrowed a G16 Canon digital camera from the university Creative Media Centre, so today I went on another walk around the city and this time used this to record my journey. This footage has turned out a lot better than before, as the camera is a lot more lightweight and easier to handle, it has captured the walk a lot more smoothly and in the way I wanted it to. I plan on editing the footage together very soon, and taking a lot more journeys around different parts of Sheffield and creating maps to go with each one.

On my first journey, I did however get to take some pictures of the city, as the sky was very crisp and blue that day, making very good lighting conditions.

London Town//Photographs

I absolutely love day trips to London with my family, so when there was talk of spending the day there on Friday I was over the moon.  I have paid many visits to London over the years, as I have family that live and work around the city, but no two trips have ever been the same. With every trip I have seen so many different places and sights, and I still feel I have missed out on so much. That's the beauty of London, everywhere is so different and diverse, after every tube trip you feel like you are in a different place, everywhere is so exciting and full and the scale of the city is mind blowing. I haven't been for about 18 months, and it's without a doubt my favourite place to visit, especially with a good camera.
This time we decided to do our trip a little differently and not do the whole touristy-trip, so we walked up Portobello Road and Notting Hill, to Denmark Street and had a late lunch in the fantastic Borough Market. And of course you can't make a trip to London without seeing some art, so after my delicious Ethiopian curry from Borough Market, we made our way to the Tate Modern. Portobello Road was the highlight of my day, I have never seen anywhere so packed full of variety and exciting, individual stalls. With so many vintage clothes, jewellery and cameras, I'm not sure how I walked away having not spent anything?!

Lavender and Garlic, Portobello Road Market

Exotic foods, Portobello Road Market

Portobello Road

Riding the Tube 

Neal's Yard

The Shard from Borough Market

Visitors, Tate Modern

Photographs//Ben Howard at Somersault Festival

Ben Howard dressed for the occasion when performing at home, in Devon

Ben Howard

Rurban short film//Critique

Feedback of my short film from poet Mark Goodwin (it's about 3 Word document pages long, but I feel like I can't really miss out bits, it's all very important to me, and is a wonderful critique of the first short film poem I have ever done!) 

Emily, thank you very much for this transformation of my poem.

There is a list of things that you have done in this film, that I’m really pleased with and impressed by, that really do make the poem work in a new way, and make a new piece of collaborative work ... (a kind of work which nowadays is being called ‘film-poetry’).

Here is the list: opening on green fields and an earth path whilst I’m talking about tarmac and a housing estate – the viewer-listener sees one thing and hears another, the viewer-listener has to imagine that other place whilst watching somewhere elsewhere but related. This technique of deepening the poem’s images, and expanding the poem’s landscape, through comparison, contrast and juxtaposition works very well throughout the film. To help anchor the viewer every now and again you give them a direct illustration, as with the ‘nettles’, sometimes a slightly off-at-an-angle illustration, as with the galvanised railing fence when I mention a wooden fence ... and the snail glimpsed to coincide with the word ‘slick’ is brilliant – witty and yet serious.

Using a passing train, a mobile shelter, if you will, to coincide with my saying ‘dwellings’ is extraordinary ... especially as the train reflects the notion and experience of ‘passing’, of time passing, but also of physical appearance and disappearance, which is exactly what this part of the poem is about ... you have really made an extra poetic dimension here, you have added the phenomenon of train and expanded it to confront the phenomenon of ‘dwelling’, and carry ‘dwelling’ in a new direction ... and of course ‘dwelling’ is to ‘stay in one place’ and to live from one’s surroundings, and a ‘train’ does not ‘stay in one place’ ... the irony and critique relating to how modern people ‘dwell’ or do not ‘dwell’ is rather powerful, and raises a number of questions. This is really ‘film’ working as ‘poem’ ...

Your sensitivity to rhythm through matching you film images to my syllable-music is most rewarding and exciting – it so good for a poet when someone ‘gets’ how important rhythm is, and ‘get’s how the poet has deployed each word to work through sound and beat. There are various places where you deploy your images very carefully, to follow the words, or echo the words. A fine example: the transitions through the phrase ‘a swift / whiff of it / knifes’, and how ‘knife’ coincides with the sharp railing-tops ... and this all enhanced further by preceding these swift cuts from image to image, by a single slow, steady shot of the gate. Another favourite of mine: the transitions through: ‘place / slick / wet / condom’. I’ve mentioned the snail already ... brilliant how ‘wet’ is represented by the snail going out of focus, and then ‘condom’ is suddenly offset against the rubbish of plastic/glass bottles, as if perhaps the condom is lost in that rubbish, but also suddenly we see how bottles are actually similar to condoms ... this is very disconcerting, and very affective/effective!

I’m also very struck by how you have made use of written word, that you have filmed. The word ‘BAD’ is positioned brilliantly in a number of ways. And the word is also revealed slowly. We first see the first two letters of the word BAD appear suddenly as I speak the word ‘doomed’ (‘doomed’ being a ‘bad’ thing), and then you hear me say the word ‘board’ which begins with the letter ‘B’, and so the sound of ‘buh’ is visually hardened by the graffiti-ed ‘B’, and then I go on to say the word ‘bark’ (dog-barks), but this word appears just after we’ve seen the letters ‘B’ and ‘A’ which are the first two letters of the word ‘bark’, and what’s more you make the transition to the next image right at the moment  between my saying ‘distant’, and ‘dog-barks’, and so the visual memory of the ‘BA’(rk) is distanced (behind the fence) to the previous frame but still held in memory through sound. Even if your viewer-listener-reader doesn’t see/hear/read or notice this with their front-brain, there is no doubt that this is all impacting on the subconscious ... later we get to see the word ‘BAD’ revealed fully, which then harks back to the ‘doomed’ ... and wonderfully, when you reveal the three letter word BAD (which is in capitals) I get to say the three capital letters of BMX at exactly the same time – more splendid layering ... so, you not only play with the positioning of film-image and spoken word, but you are actually ‘writing’ with printed word in this film ...

The decision to only include my voice as sound-track, and not to add in any ambient sound background is a very good one. I think I would’ve made the mistake of trying to add in the background sound – but the tension between ‘the silent movie’ feel and the voice-over (or rather voice-to-the-side) which is obviously spoken indoors, really highlights the notion of someone observing and wandering through somewhere that they don’t actually belong to. The voice is very close and confined, and indoors, and the images are outdoors – another tension-enhancing disjuncture.

You’ve added an extra layer of images and rhythm, which, as I’ve said is very exciting ... so, regarding the rhythm: In the printed-text version of the poem ‘whiff of it knifes’ is a single line, and in the sound-track I read it as a single line, and quickly, so that the ‘whiff’ and ‘knife’ almost merge into each other, so that the line is like a single swift stab of speech ... and so, the listener gets to hear that single unit of line as I speak it, whilst at the same time your images, for the viewer, break the line into three units – this disjuncture between the single sound unit and the divided visual units adds a rhythmical layer, and creates a tension, which really fits well with the tense content of the poem – a poem much to do with layers of detail and how we perceive and imagine through that detail – so your extra layering, really is a re-imagining of the poem’s landscape, and your layering directly reflects the layered word ‘rurban’, which of course has been made by sliding the words ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ over each other.

I know that the poem has been ‘cut’ in half ... and I think another film-maker might’ve been tempted to find more footage or loop the footage to fill-out the film to ‘complete’ the poem. But I think ending on the word ‘petrol’ is very powerful. The way you’ve paced the film-poem would’ve been spoilt by taking it further to a false ‘completion’. You have not been ‘governed’ by the poem, instead you have engaged with the poem to make what you needed to ... this is most impressive! (Some poets might not feel that, if you picked up and used there work like this (so take care!) ... but that’s a common problem with poets, and indeed artists, who perhaps focus too much on their egos and possession rather than what art in a given moment demands.) I’m strongly aware of the very striking visual image for ‘petrol’ that you made in the ‘book’ that you showed me (the shimmering colours of which seemed to be volatile and acrid), and so, it is of course inevitable that this re-versioning of my poem, into your film-poem should end on that heavily laden word ‘petrol’.

This style of film-poem is demanding ... there is a lot going on, images (heard and imagined and seen-on-film) sometimes collide sometimes harmonise ... it requires the listener-viewer-reader to pay a lot of attention to a confusing world, and re-visit the film, or metaphorically the landscape ... I really really like it because of that ... going poetically into edgland landscape (which is difficult and laden with contradictions on many levels) does demand effort and attention ...

Some of the things I’ve pointed out you will be aware of consciously, and some of them I’m guessing you might not be ... but I’m certain that all I’ve pointed out relates to a very strong poetic, visual, and musical instinct, as well as a range of skills ... you should really go on playing with word and poetics and visuals and sound ... you have a flare for it!

I hope you are pleased with the film ... you’ve certainly pleased me, thank you!

a happy poet, Mark

Swans and Signets

On the meadows near my house there has recently been 8 Signets born on the lake. After a few days rain, we have had a few clear days, so this was the perfect opportunity to go in search of the Swans, armed with my camera. Luckily, the Swans were very visible from the path so I was able to get very close to take some photos. Sadly there are only 6 Signets left!

Rurban Short Film

Short video based on the concept 'Rurban', made to exhibit in my final Art Foundation show. Audio recording by Mark Goodwin, reading his poem 'Ways Through An Outskirts Estate'. Shot in Thurmaston, Leicestershire. 

Rurban//Landscape Research

As I did for the architecture part of my project, I went out to take photographs as research for the landscape part of the project. I collected photographs around Sileby Marina (the village I live in) and around Thornton Reservoir.

Rurban//Architecture Research

 The first step of my Rurban project was to do some photography based research. I went round Leicester city with my Pentax DSLR to take photographs that I could later use to base my drawings, paintings and prints on.

As an artist, photography is very important to me, as I believe it helps me to see things I would usually miss and find interesting ways of later composing my art work. In photographs, a higher level of detail can be achieved than just with the naked eye, so I like using photos as a back-up for my ideas and art work.

Whilst taking photographs around Leicester, my eyes were opened to what was actually around me and made me realise how interesting Leicester actually is, as I was constantly looking around for any buildings that would make interesting photos. I have now made two photo albums of the photos I took when exploring Leicester which I am using towards my final project.