Happy Easter

Time for a break. Have a lovely Easter or not.

Endless wittering about photography

A friend who works at the film department at Bristol University described how students would look at 2 minutes of a film on youtube, reference that and think it was enough. They were unable to bear the pace of any film that was slow and nuanced in any way. So, sure, they knew the basic plot of All about Eve or Lawrence of Arabia but they had never watched them because they were too 'boring'.

Though she recognized how great the internet is, she questioned whether it really deepened our knowledge of anything, or merely trivialized it, transforming communally shared cinematic, televisual, musical and photographic experiences into little tidbits or random experiential-factoids without history, context or commentary.

She commented on fashion designers who withhold their ideas from the internet - mainly because they will be copied and sold by ripoff merchants around the world, but also because the internet degrades the consumer experience - it is not the way we shop.

In the same way, I wonder if photography and art isn't degraded by the internet, if looking at pictures on the internet isn't remarkably similar to watching 2 minutes of All About Eveon youtube and checking out the number of stars on IMDB and imagining it's the same as watching the movie.

We all know the people who don't have websites/blogs because they don't theoretically need websites, but I think there will a lot more people who won't have websites/blogs because they don't like websites or blogs - because they don't do anything for their work except degrade it, trivialise it and turn it to the subject of (Tim Hetherington again) 'endless wittering.'

(And with that, here's some new work from the summer. It used to be the cliche about photography that you couldn't show kids smiling or laughing (that was all the family album/school picture thing) but really, how many pictures do we have of people smiling/laughing that isn't sheer whimsy. I can think of a few but any other ideas - smiling and laughing beyond whimsy?)

Summer Portraits

Some work from the summer: Teresa in Burlington, Ontario

Mother and Child revisited

pictures: Colin Pantall

Christmas is coming, so the theme of Mother and Child seems appropriate, with these images, old and new, forming another strand in the 7 Stages of an Idealized Childhood.

Pointless Project #23

I love a lampshade, but a lampshade is only a lampshade. And nothing more.

More Photograms

I got an email from Elaine Duigenan last week and she reminded me of the classic photogram advice: "You have to move on from flowers".

So I did some leaves, but flowers, leaves, it's not really moving on is it. So I ate some cupcakes and photogrammed the wrappers. Behold, the cupcake wrappers.

And from an earlier interview with Elaine on Portfolio reviews and her Hairnets and Nylons, Elaine's gives her advice for older photographers:

“It’s a benefit being a little bit older and having a confidence and belief in your work. You have a lot more experience of life under your belt and so different elements come out. That’s important because... you get conflicting opinions and advice. You need to have your own voice and have confidence and self belief.”

read whole article here

12 Grosvenor Place sequencing

As the nights draw in, I've been looking back at old work, specifically 12 Grosvenor Place, my series on claustrophobia, childhood, family and home. An edit is in this Flickr set, 12 Grosvenor Place. Any thoughts on the incoherence of it all would be welcome.

What would Obama do?

What would Obama do?

It's Obama Love Week!

The 7 Stages of an Idealised Childhood

Hanging on the short rope, Brown's Folly - from the rope swing series.

I'm looking to tie these in with The Sofa Portraits, Life on Mars, Flora and other series to form a wider portrayal of interior and exterior life entitled The 7 stages of an Idealised Childhood.

New Work

picture: Colin Pantall


More new work from the Flora series:

Isabel picking Cosmos from Desanka's allotment

New work

picture: Colin Pantall

From the Flora series:Isabel holding bindweed.

Isabel holding grass in the allotments

picture: Colin Pantall

Isabel holding grass in the allotments with Solsbury Hill behind

The Slippery Slope to Socialism

picture: Colin Pantall


From the spiritual to the political side of one's self.

To find exactly where you fit on the political map, how close you are to George W. Bush or Tony Blair, or even if you're on "the slippery slope to Socialism" like Ho Chi Minh (pictured above), take the test at Political Compass.

To see where the US presidential candidates stand in relation to each other (and yourself), go here.


This is where various political leaders stand.





Ho Chi Minh's not in there, so here's the starting point of his declaration of Vietnamese Independence from 1945 instead.


"The compatriots of the entire country,

All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America..."

Read the whole thing here.

Box Horse

Donkey leads to a horse naturally.

Donkey

As a natural progression from the previous post, here's a donkey.

It's always good to have a donkey on the blog, they cheer things up so.

I find it hard to believe but this is England in February.

Sweet Shop

image: Colin Pantall

Katherine at the Gower

Remember when we did have a summer - my beloved Katherine at the Gower, 2006.


picture: Colin Pantall

Weston-Super-Mare Pier burns down

Weston-Super-Mare's pier (seen in the previous post) burnt down at the weekend. A great shame because it was a lovely pier with the funniest Ghost Train and great dodgems.

Summer is Here

I was going to write a complex post on portrayals of children, landscape, isolation and their relationship to ideas of creation and destruction/the apocalypse.

But, for the first time since 2006, Summer has arrived in the UK. So it will have to wait as we break up for the holidays.

Instead, I will leave you with this picture of Haruka at Weston-Super-Mare, a reminder of just how bad last year was, with a touch of the Severn Estuary Apocalypse about it too.

More Art Photography Categories

There were some interesting suggestions for the art photography categories:

Gas stations and shrubbery in an urban space were suggested - both of which could fit into the liminal category as well as their own. Depends on how you look at it.

Uninteresting subjects in front of interesting wallpaper got a mention (bit of a value judgement in there though) - but that is a bit specific. The wallpaper is nice though and could perhaps fit into a new domestic details and detritus section.

And someone mentioned friends/lovers/daughters on beige sofas.

Again, a tad too specific, and not sure exactly what he is getting at. But I think this might be the kind of image he had in mind - Sofa Portrait #23.