Week 14: The Story of a Photowalk

Hello - sorry for the absence of posts - I'm back now, albeit with a little bit of a cold so I'm going to keep this short. Last week some of us from the class went on a photowalk along the south bank of the Thames from Greenwich to Deptford and a little beyond. We were charged with working up a series of photographs that illustrated a particular take on the day, my chosen brief being to fictionalise the walk. In doing so, I pretended that it was 2028, that the singularity had recently occurred and that we, as humans, were walking into serfdom under the machines and the super-rich: we were not quite there yet, but definitely on our way. 

Prior to leaving I took a long time faffing about choosing what gear to take, in the end deciding on my trusty / crappy Panasonic GX7 hosting a 17mm (34mm equivalent) f1.8 Olympus - a lovely little lens. In addition I took a few photographs with my phone (a Pixel 6 - still annoying me as I have only had it a month or so; one day I'll get there), as well as some with a Nikon Z6 with either an 85mm 1.8 S series lens or a Sigma 35mm f1.4 (yes, I messed up with that doubling up of focal lengths but never mind). I've made a little video using the photos together with some music and employing the Orton effect but really, it isn't ready for prime time and besides, I don't think I can host it here on a Blogger blog as it is too big. Maybe when it is abandoned finished I'll put it up on YouTube and link to it from here. 

So yes anyway, making a story with pictures is difficult. Especially if, like me, you have spent your photographic life trying for The Hero Shot. But, well, like I say, I have put together a video and there are undoubtedly the beginnings of a story of sorts but for the purposes of this blog for now I'm just going to put up my favourite image of the day which was this shot of a Chinook over some social housing in Deptford: 

Grainy as all get-out, and cropped to hell but, well, anyway, I love it and it has the aesthetic I was after, albeit that to be honest the look I was after was a little sketchy while I was actually walking and really only came into being in post, but don't tell anyone...  

More later but that's nearly all for now - I'll leave you with a quote from Sally Mann's autobiography 'Hold Still':

“I tried to remain flexible and open to the vagaries of chance; like Napoleon, I figured that luck, aesthetic luck included, is just the ability to exploit accidents. I grew to welcome the ripply flaws caused by a breeze or tiny mote of dust, which ideally would settle right where I needed a comet-like streak, or the emulsion the peeled away from the plate in the corner where I hadn’t liked that telephone line anyway. Unlike the young narrator in Swann’s Way praying for the angel of certainty to visit him in his bedroom, I found myself praying for the angel of uncertainty. And many times she visited my plates, bestowing upon them essential peculiarities, persuasive consequence, intrigue, drama, and allegory.”

"Praying for the angel of uncertainty" - I like that. 

UPDATE: Here is my video - the first version - other iterations may follow.