Towards

At Kings Cross

Experimental

This blog is an experimental interface. I am trying different settings and different types of presentation. In this way I am learning more about how these things work. How to do links, how to make pages as opposed to posts. The different ways of presenting photos, small, large or medium. All this is worth learning. Consequently this blog will keep changing in appearance.
Its main purpose nonetheless is to display photos, and from time to time to reflect on  my experience of and understanding of photography. It may even turn out as a kind of diary....
Today I took no photographs yet thought about how photos go together, sifting through my files. I keep finding photos that are interesting. That is not enough. I keep on sifting and looking until I find something that pops or jumps out....That is what I am looking for.
Something I have discovered: even when you select the extra large format for the photo, it still presents better when you click on it!
Every now and then I find one or two or three. I then post these on my other photo blog:     The Art of Aiming:


theartofaiming.blogspot.co.uk

Why I Take Photographs

First of all I am not sure that I "Take" anything or anyone. It might be truer to say - I prefer this idea - I try to make a photograph. Then for what reason? And what am I trying to make? The great anonymous and until recently undiscovered photographer Vivian Maier, lived and worked as a Nanny. She worked for several families in Chicago and is remembered with affection by the children she looked after. One of them recalled.: she was like a Mary Poppins figure. However, she was a strong personality who kept herself to herself, and there were certain boundary lines across which no-one was allowed to step. For instance her room was her territory and no one was allowed in. Apparently she had no visitors. Every time she had her day off she was out all day: taking photographs. In 2007 almost to the week when she died after a fall in the snow, her photographs were discovered by a young local historian who worked in real estate. His name is John Maloof. He bought up the whole of her work from locker sales in Chicago. he even contacted others who had bought her photos and bought them also. Within weeks the few photos he had posted on the web were being hailed as of the highest quality in the great tradition of Street Photography. vivianmaier.com

Maloof has only developed a  part of the mass of rolls of film he has in his possession. Several books have been published to international acclaim and there will be more. This amazing story is in itself a truly fascinating narrative, even without seeing the excellent photos which are its product. The idea that an artist at the peak of her creativity should have lived in this anonymous way and produced so much important work tells us something about the nature of creativity itself: her photography was between herself and the Universe.
She had in her possession books by the great Street Photographers by whom she was inspired. Apart from these examples she had no known teachers. Geof Dyer has introduced her work in one of the books now available. Joel Meyerwitz  has spoken highly of her work. She is truly realized as a key figure in 20th century black and white film photography.
From my point of view she is a hero. She knew and understood something about people and the nature of the lives they lead in cities. She walked around and captured this on film over a period of some 30 years.

Yet I have not even begun to answer the question of why I love to go out with a camera and make pictures.

Towards Drury lane

On a Sreet Set the Issue

Side Set

Travel

Side Ether

The Way Across