Sublime Regis

Planning Palms

Photographs I wish I had taken #2

Bruce Davidson trained like an athlete to enable his Subway project, knowing that he would be spending hours every day carrying an armory of heavy cameras. The images capture the labyrinth of the New York subway in the 1980’s. The sheer logistics of this series might have been a deterrent in themselves as the subway was prohibitively dangerous for passengers at this time, let alone for a photographer carrying a host of expensive equipment. Couple that with the sheer bravery of approaching strangers in this hostile environment and having seconds to capture something of their essence on film and you start to appreciate the genius of these images, were the beauty of the pictures not testimony enough in themselves.
The trains hurtle around the metropolis,the time of day and seasons change, monuments are seen from different viewpoints. The pictures are a mixture of dreams and nightmares, a celebration of joy and humanity, life and death and a reminder of the oppressed and rejected. The claustrophobia of the carriages is redolent with charged sexuality, body odors, emotion, human interaction and alienation. The subway is the great leveller.

Paul Smith polaroids

I shot the SS12 lookbook for the Paul label of Paul Smith

Photographs I wish I had taken #1

Jeff Wall Pawnshop, 2008

Like the overlooked song that creeps up on you in the shower or the book you have to re-read as soon as you get to the end, this image keeps nagging at my senses. When I saw it as a huge print at White Cube it pounded my brain like a pinball, lodged, then disseminated like a roman candle.
Walking around East London this morning I had discarded Christmas trees on my mind. Then when deciding to photograph a window full of crisp boxes the Pawn Shop came booming into my consciousness.
I love the muted colours of this photograph. The distanced empathy of the artist, the uncertainty between reality and artifice.
The impeccable construction.

Looking Forward

My Dad died five years ago today. I think he would have been excited about the onset of 2012 and the changes to come.