I?ve got really interested in history since living in Bideford; its history is heavily tied up with Art and
I?ll be looking out for visual similarities and differences between the two communities and environments. I?m hoping to find traces of
Also, in support of Sadie?s research, I?m photographing pottery. I started examining this craft when I was commissioned to photograph the ?kiln in the park? firing just before Christmas 2009. I?m now keen to make a good documentary record of potters who are still making slipware and using the sgraffito effect with red clay and white slip carrying on the tradition of
?Bideford Pottery?, a family business of Harry Juniper, his son Nick and daughter Sue is the only pottery in town making pots instantly recognisable as Close by is the studio of Doug Fitch, another young potter with a huge respect for the local tradition who even sources local clay which he digs out. Doug also has a collection of old pots and shards from the time when pottery in this area was as big an industry as it was in Staffordshire. The images in this post are the start of the documentary which I intent to take with me to
What an interesting and unexpected end to the year, I was inundated with photographic work. My interest in a photographic job seems to have a direct relationship to its difficulty, photographing in the dark, extreme high contrast, unsociable hours; often visually stimulating but people ask ?can you take photographs in this?? I?m a firm believer in ?if you can see it, you can photograph it? in fact I?d go further than this, I?m not really happy unless the photograph is better than the reality remembered.
One of my challenges was the documentation of a firing of Bideford?s community Kiln-in-the-Park. This was a joint project from the Friends of the
There was talk in the potting fraternity that if they didn?t work with clay they would all be pyromaniacs and there were many photographic examples of a fearless love for flames. The two pictures here are of Doug Fitch who has his own slipware blog: http://slipware.blogspot.com/
Another challenge was photographing the alternative physical theatre company Jammy Voo http://www.jammyvoo.com/ They had been working on a new play at Beaford Arts Centre and needed documentary/publicity pictures. Their play writing is quite improvised, the script to start with may not even have a beginning, middle or ending, so their time together as a company, who live in various parts of