PHO703:Coursework – Page 3 – DEAN BELCHER CRITICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL

This break as been at a time of continued uncertainty as the world seems more and more in a state of flux,with Covid 19 Lockdowns affecting the every day and time becoming more and more skewed.On top of this we have the isolationism associated with the rise of popular right wing governments ,Brexit and the rise in racism it’s been an interesting time to look back at the repeating of history both via litreture and photography.

I have a real interest in history in particular social history and would like to explore it more in particular in reference to what is happening right now but on a grass roots level.

I have several ideas one of which would involve the use of re photography one that would involve re visiting. One of my passions is The Spanish Civil War,having watched the lectures both Simon Norfolk’s and Gustavo Germano’s project have sparked ideas similar to some i’ve had before but struggled to formulate into a plan.

My project would involve a combination of the two,to include portraits and landscapes,the landscapes would be of relevant sites of importance to the battles and consequenses many of which would now look nothing like they do now,for instance the Barcelona Telephone exchange which was a pivitol strong hold during the seige of Catalonia,maybe the beaches which now would be either empty or full of tourists in Southern France where the refugees from the civil war were interned with no shelter resulting in many deaths.

I really enjoyed this project and am very much a fan of Ed’s use of different media and his approach to photography to record the banal,a skill I argue is not easy especially in making it valid and still interesting.Personally I have always been more fascinated by this approach and even before becoming aware of practitioners such as Ed have adopted many of the methods in my commercial and personal work including portraiture. By becoming aware of such photographers I only love it more and embrace the techniques and ways of seeing.So much so that during the break and again not as a direct result in order to get fitter I began cycling to all the professional football team’s stadium in London enabling me to shoot a series of images (in this case on my smart phone) resulting in photographs showing the usually busy streets surrounding them in their deserted and less glamourous glory,in doing so it raised a lot of questions around class,society and community and also in doing so helped formulate and influence another similar project that I will be researching for this module’s project around Estate Pubs.

Much as I want the final images to be correct and technically good that does not mean to me anything more than how I see them as correct,I have no interest in the latest gadgets other than how they can make things easier to achieve the end result which I think is one thing I can really ally myself with Ed Ruscha’s sentiment and approach.

I’m sure it is not really the case however when Ruscha states he is just recording the thing/subject because it is interesting,something I wonder is a means to provoke response such as that of Jeff Wall in the short film we watched,where he imply’s Ruscha is an idiot and that Ruscha only talks this way in order only to provoke a reaction.I must say I do wonder if the latter is correct.There is a message there if only to ask the viewer to look.

Getting back to the excersise, I decided to take a project that I shot in 2016 exploring how we consume music these days compared to the past,it’s a project I have shown as a small exhibition,had published and talked about on the radio but really not taken any further despite book publishing discussions which kind of fizzled out.I thought it was the perfect project to emulate Ruschas Sunset Strip,Records and 26 Gasoline books,firstly because of the repetition of subject matter but also the fold out seemed the perfect format as it’s also a format used in the packaging and design of Vinyl record art work,this one being heavily influenced by one of my favourite albums by the Small Faces Ogdens Nut Gone Flake,originally sold as a fold out contained in a round package to imitate the tobacco tin it’s named after. Whilst I was not able to get it made as a final object beautifully die cut and printed I made a simple mock up using very Blue Peter techniques,sticky tape and cardboard boxes,please excuse the crude approach but I think and hope you get the idea.