blog – Avon Stories

Thinking about my photography practice

For the past few months, my photography has felt to me like it’s been changing, and not in a good way. I get my rolls of film back, and there are very few that jump out at me as ones I love, and that’s frustrating. There are some different reasons behind that, and I’m not sure they’re all bad, but they’re interesting to me.

One of the things I realised recently is I’m not experimenting as much as I have in the past. “Experimenting” is maybe the wrong word – maybe it’s that I’m not taking as many abstracts, or just shooting for fun. One of the reasons for that is I’m definitely feeling the pinch, financially, with camera film and processing so expensive, so I’m putting pressure on myself to make every shot count. I could use digital, but I can’t have fun with it in the same way I can with film: on one hand, it’s too clean, the images are too crisp and perfect; on the other, I get caught up in looking at the photos as they happen, whereas I can use film to get into a kind of meditative place, where I’m looking, and shooting, and not thinking about how they’ll turn out. I know, technically I could not look at my digital photos until I get home, but that’s really hard for me to do, because I know I CAN see them. I could try to work on that.

But the other thing I’ve been thinking about is how my practice has been changing.

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Tuesday: footprints in the Avon mud

It was gorgeous February sunshine on a cold Tuesday, so I headed out to the mud at the very end of the Floating Harbour, my go-to walk. Since the Chocolate Path is closed, I now take Ashton Avenue Bridge, and stopped to make a little film, taking photos once that was set up.

There was something about the light on the texture of the mud that made the bird footprints look fantastic, especially the way the tracks would be so clear in one place, but a few steps back the mud was slooooooooowly oozing back to eradicate them.

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Spring tide, February 2018

Today was the highest tide of the month, one of the highest of the year (11.5m!) and I pulled myself of out bed to get to the very end of the Harbour, by the Entrance Lock, for 9:20 and the high point. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but on a grey, dreich Saturday in February, it’s a big deal. Especially with the Chocolate Path closed. Especially in the rain. But wow, I’m glad I did!

When I got to the river, it was still, that moment of balance that I love, and wish I could find in myself. It’s always a rush to get as many shots as possible in that time, and I was cursing because I’d once again forgotten the cameras I wanted to bring, spare film etc. But it was lovely. I lay on the edge of the Harbour, putting an underwater camera in the river (it’s so much better doing that in summer) and watched the way the misty rainclouds moved through the trees.

I think my favourite part was standing on the Entrance Lock gate, and watching the water move. By this time the tide had turned, and the water, which had flooded over the top of the lock gate, was rushing back out to re-join the river, bringing clouds of silt. I only had my phone to take films, but this makes me very happy:

The clouds of silt always look so magical, and I could have watched this for days. I walked on around the Harbour, and had other adventures too – but those will be in my next podcast…

Compare and contrast – Gaol Ferry Bridge

I have always been fascinated with how the same thing can look so different when taken with different cameras – everything from what’s included or discarded by the size of a lens, to the way colours come out, or just a different atmosphere. But I think I’ve hit a new high in compare-and-contrast, and it’s making me laugh.

I tend to take photos of the Avon when I cross the footbridges, so one night last week we were walking home from town over Gaol Ferry Bridge, and the river was full, so I took this on my phone, looking east:

Moody, dark, and I like that it still shows the wind on the river. At the same time I took one on my Olympus XA2 – my 35mm point & shoot. I used the edge of the bridge as a tripod, because it would have a longer exposure. And here’s how it came out:

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Repeating a walk: November adventure from Pill down the Avon

It took me a long time to be happy with the fact that a lot of my practice involves repetition and re-visiting places to see how they look at different times. I think part of this is doing a photography degree, where no project lasts more than 5 or 6 months, and each time it’s about doing something new. But one of the things my final project – and even more, my post-uni life – taught me was the value of the everyday, and how re-visiting can add depth and value in ways that continually jetting off to exotic new places can’t.

When I walked from Sea Mills across the M5 motorway bridge and down the Avon with my friend Tracy Homer in the summer, we talked about how we should definitely take that walk again, and see how it looks in different seasons, and what else we can discover. So last week we did it again, with changes – our November walk to see how the autumn looks.

Map, and click on the flickr album to see more photos, taken with my DSLR + 50mm lens and my Olympus XA2 35mm film camera. Below I have a selection of my favourite photos and thoughts about the day, along with some mini films and some sounds I recorded.

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Exploring the Avon – Pill to Sea Mills, and following in Roman footsteps

One of the things I want to do with this project is to use it as an excuse to go walking, and exploring places I’ve always thought about – and last week was an adventure I wouldn’t have had without it.

I’ve known Tracy Homer for nearly 12 years, when we met at the first Bristol flickrmeet. Back when flickr was this amazing social media site, we were part of the Bristol flickr group, and there was this moment when some of us went to a pub to take it from online friends to In Real Life, which branched off into going for flickrwalks to take photos together. Some of my best friends in Bristol are people I met that way, and I still go to a pub once a month or so with some of them, even though we now arrange through different ways, and flickr has gone from being about social media to being somewhere I just upload my photos to.

I liked Tracy from the moment I met her, and I’ve got so many good memories of talking mile-a-minute with her, taking photos, discovering new places, and always laughing a lot. It’s one of those friendships where we can go years at a time without being in touch, but start where we left off, and she’s the best company for photowalks. There’s something about not needing to explain why the walk will take twice as long as it should, because we’re stopping for photos, with someone who’ll get exactly what I mean when I’m over-excited about the light on the mud, or the way the grass curves, or whatever it is, and will understand the need to take the same shot on three different cameras, because she’s doing exactly the same thing.

Last week we went for a long walk, one I’ve been wanting to do for ages: from Pill, up the Avon to the M5 road bridge, then down the north side of the river to Sea Mills, to look for echoes of the Roman town of Abona, and then up the old Roman road to the Downs. All walks with Tracy tend to start with frantic texting and laughing at ourselves right from the start, and this was no different. Could we manage to meet on the same bus from different stops? Of course we could!

This is the map of our route, with my photos on it, and there are more in my flickr album. I had four cameras with me – my Canon DSLR with a 50mm lens, my Olympus XA2 point & shoot film camera (though I ran out of film, stupidly), my iPhone, and the last of the £1 disposable underwater cameras, and there are some from each on the map, plus a mini film.

I’ve also put photos in the blog below. It’s a long one, because it was a long walk (that’s my excuse, at least!)

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A bad photography day – and regaining my equilibrium

I often walk along the River and the Harbour with my partner – it’s not the quickest way to town from home, but it’s a diversion to take photos and enjoy the city, and it usually adds layers of interest and fun to days that would otherwise be about chores… except sometimes it doesn’t.

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