Stress is a funny beast; I need to snap out of it. This weekend felt like the end of a war; it was just a couple of weeks of hard deadlines in the day job. Rational thought goes out the window, the ability to manage photography and work impossible. There is something potent about the countryside’s ability to pull you out of stress. Of course, as a tactic to end your anxiety; it will never work, but when done without prior considerations it’s like a drug.
The photographer Brooks Jenson mentions the amount of self-therapy, fine art B&W photography cluttering up the scene. “ARAT”, another Rock, another Tree. He has a point, I try to make my work more meaningful, but I am failing and no longer care. I would be in a mess if it wasn’t for some camera in the countryside, walking therapy.
I was supposed to be making Cyanotypes, but the 35mm Leica isn’t the best for scanning negatives and besides, I feel these work better as Low-Fi Silver grain. I wanted to keep things easy on the contrast and retain paper white. I’m resisting the urge to add some Vignette or burn in the sky. They’ve got a vibe I like; I can imagine them being used in a 1980s periodical on Reel to Reel Field recording techniques as demonstrated by a man in tweed attire.
I feel my works maturing a little, it’s a niche subject; the field and a hard one to make work. I like the fact hardly anybody will probably like them based on the melancholy of subject and processing. I was watching a few “Walkie Talkie” YouTube videos recently. Street Photographers in the US, walking around the streets talking about their approach, sometimes they go a bit deep. Something about you cannot create original work until you fully let go of outcomes or at least quit making work for others. I have turned my back on sharing work in order to create something different but still trapped in the mindset of caring how they are received. I feel it at every stage in my process “Can’t do that Matt, people will think you don’t know how to do a print with full tonality”.
I like these images in the order uploaded. I am fully aware the Planet Earth Photographic Advisory Association will probably want the order reversed and possibly all my readership, which believe me, I am equally confused about. The lovey’ish example of Pictorial Composition of Compton Verney Lake, well that’s just in case I decide to upload something to Instagram. It's that big muddy field with questionable contrast and unsophisticated composition that is stirring my melancholy soul.
