12 Grosvenor Place

Paul Arden: On Photography

"I used to commission a lot of photography.

Consequently people were keen to show me their work.

99% of the portfolios I saw were of a very high standard.

98% of these cases contained pictures I had seen before.

Obviously not the same subject or composition, but I had a general feeling that I was not seeing anything new.

I was bored, they didn't have a point of view. If they did, it was that the viewer of the pictures (me) should like their work.

Very occasionally, I saw the work of someone who did have a point of view, whose work was like no one else's. These were often difficult people, almost unemployable because you couldn't tell them what to do.

Sometimes it went wrong.

Sometimes it didn't.

When it didn't go wrong, it more than made up for the times it did."

Paul Arden: 1940 - 2008

12 grosvenor place

12 grosvenor place

12 grosvenor place

12 Grosvenor Place

Some old work.

"Britain doesn't like children much."

"Culturally, Britain just doesn't like children much."

This from Time Magazine in their article on the disaster of Poor English Childhoods, a piece which describes how British teenagers rule the world in sex, alcohol and violence. The story doesn't really address why those are the only entertainment options available though, or how children underclasses have developed.

Also on childhood, the Weekend Guardian ran a piece on the tyranny of pink, a colour that creates a girls' world that is "...sinister, fascistic and devoid of any choice."