More Norwich street photography

Here are some more shots I've taken in Norwich recently in order to submit entries to the weekly instruction for the Street Photography Now project - a year-long exercise in street

photography now into its 21st week.

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Norwich bus station

Outside Chapelfields, Norwich

Opposite Next, Norwich

In Gentleman's Walk, Norwich ('Slow down, the next picture may be very quiet and close')

Opposite Debenhams, Norwich

Lowestoft photo shoot, February 5th

I had a multi-purpose bus trip to Lowestoft via Great Yarmouth. In terms of thphotography content, there were two aims - find and photograph the Lowestoft lighthouse, and take pictures in response to this week's instruction from the Street Photography Now project (instruction 19: 'Expose the banalities of the new urban landscape' from George Georghiou). I would search for his work and have a serious look, especially the two series shot in Serbia. He has exxplained that he hadn't meant this to be an exercise in urban landscape photography, but rather it was one to explore the interaction and dissociation between people and planned public space - how they can move throuth airports, shopping centres, presumably public transport as well, and dissociate themselves from contact with others.

The lighthouse shoot is for my entry in the annual Trinity House lighthouse photography competition. Each time I've tried taking pictures for this project I've not been blessed with the most interesting light, and today was no exception. Now it's a question of picking my entries and submitting before the end of the month. Still quite a way to go with both of these!

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Norwich in the rain

I've been taking advantage of Monday's rain - the first since getting the Street Photography Now instruction 16 last Friday: 'Wait for the rain, it makes shooting on the street easier and more interesting' (Martin Parr). Now I've certainly been wondering whether only an Englishman could set a photography project such as this, and seriously doubted whether we would have rain this week, in daylight at least. But the showers initially forecast for Sunday night were then forecast for Monday, so a quick trip into Norwich city centre in my lunch break wasdefinitely in order. And it's amazing how many places you can find to take shelter and look for interesting street scenes when you really need to.

My initial scepticism subsided. In the rain, out come the umbrellas, people rush around and take less notice, the reflections can be great: in many ways it's a more interesting experience than taking pictures in the dry. A good choice, Martin Parr.

Street life

I've been enjoying the weekly assignments in the Street Photography Now Project, but it's something of a poisoned chalice. I'm well and truly hooked, here at the end of week 14 out of 52. My street photography week tends to go something like this:

Friday: check emails at work until the new week's instruction is posted. See whether I have time for a quick trip into the middle of Norwich in my lunch hour.

Saturday and Sunday: prime time for getting some shots suitable for the instruction. Luckily Norwich city centre is probably going to give me the scope for responding to pretty much any sort of project anyone is going to throw at us. There's one pedestrian street in particular that's usually home to all manner of buskers, mime artists and people of all sizes and descriptions. It's been the source of many of my submissions so far.

Monday: start to panic if I need to go out shooting again.

Tuesday: probably get a photograph uploaded into the pool by now and relax a little. Look at other entries and maybe post comments

Wednesday: wonder whether my picture is really good enough, am I shooting too many similar pictures each week, what are other people submitting...has my picture been approved..look at other people's work...

Thursday: check how many views I have had, read any comments and reply. Look forward to a new instruction the next day. Think about weekends away when I'll have the chance to submit something that wasn't taken in Norwich.

To crop or not to crop? I'm wondering whether I should crop more often. This week's entry of mine in response to the instruction 'Show us the aftermath' by Maciej Dakowicz' featured some vomit inside a bus shelter - see below. I would have loved to have been in the city centre after the New Year's Eve celebrations for some real late night in Cardiff style photography (see the photographer's Flickr stream or maciejdakowicz.com) but it wasn't practical. But some people felt the shot ought to have been cropped, so here is the original and my cropped version. Maybe they were right, I'm not sure.

Of course, it might also have worked better in black and white - I haven't tried that, either.

Norwich against the cuts

On 4 December I joined my first ever protest march. This was a public sector workers protest against the Government cuts, beginning and ending in Chapelfield Gardens in Norwich. On a bitterly cold day several hundred people from Norwich and elsewhere in the east of England gathered for a short march in Norwich city centre after which several speakers addressed the rally, including trade union and local politicians. Former Norwich MP Ian Gibson was there, and leader of the Norwich Greens, Adrian Ramsey.

I took some photographs before, during and after the march, but the main aim was to take part. Here are a few pictures to give the flavour of the day.

An appreciation of Miss Tic

I'm a fan of Miss Tic, the prolific street artist who I first became aware of during a trip to Paris a couple of years ago. Most of these pictures were taken in and around the Rue de la Butte Aux Cailles, 13th Arrondissement - I discovered this by accident, having decided to visit this part of Paris by a guide book recommendation for the quirky and bohemian character of the area.


New blog entry on Miss Tic:
http://a-french-education.blogspot.com/2010/11/feminine-misstic-by-pblecron.html
Mis Tic’s website
http://www.missticinparis.com/
Also on Flickr
www.flickr.com/groups/misstic/

Miss Tic features in a range of postcards too:

A day in London

Last weekend I had a cheap day out in London courtesy of Advance rail tickets totalling around £15. In fact it was an afternoon and evening (13:00 from Norwich, 22:30 back from Liverpool Street). The idea was to visit as many photography galleries as I could fit into the afternoon, and then go to a blues dance in the evening at a venue a minute from the station.

My plan was to begin with galleries in the Hoxton and Shoreditch area, immediately north of Liverpool Street station, then moving on to a gallery north of St Pancras and finally the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square. What I suspected, of course, was that I would find enough to interest me in Hoxton, and that turned out to be true. Coincidentally an east London photography festival (Photomonth) is running throughout November (http://www.photomonth.org/), and this ensured I wouldn't run out of things to see. On top of that, the area has a great deal of really interesting street art, which took up a fair amount of my time.

By chance I came across a great exhibition in Redchurch Street at the Maverik Showroom of Pete Williams' photographs of musicians. Just to mention two: a beautiful shot of singer Dee Dee Bridgwater and her daughter at a tribute gig for Billie Holliday; a great shot of Courtney Pine in 1988, and I wrote down most of the caption - there were some great captions - at 'A moody dive in Stoke Newington, winter, Courtney is late, impossible traffic chaos and I'm jammed into the corner of the tiny stage, camera ready and the Mondesir Brothers are playing to an increasingly hostile crowd. Eventually Courtney arrives, car breakdown, he's noticeably bothered at making people wait. He jumps onto the stage, he doesn't even take his coat off but rips the soprano out of its battered case and suddenly beautiful music fills the club, calming the crowd and softening the edge'.

Then across the road to the Idea Generation Gallery in Chance Street for the major exhibition of Mick Rock's photographs of musicians - the Stones, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and many others. I also went to the Book Club in Leonard Street for Andy Willsher's black and white collection (musicians again), Tintype, Rivington Place, Calvert 22 and Flowers East - all on foot from Liverpool Street station very close by.....

Then in the evening to the upstairs room in The Railway Tavern in Liverpool Street for a couple of hours of blues dancing run (Down Home Blues) by Blues Revolution. A great way to end the day, then across the road for the last but one train back to Norwich.