Faces old, faces new

Newspaper photographers photograph people.

More than anything else, we photograph people. Sometimes they are desperate to be photographed ( celebrities, politicians, anybody with something to sell, pr managed individuals who need to arrive through your letterbox, cloaked within the authenticity of journalism as opposed to advertising.)

Then we photograph ordinary folk, who have a story to tell, genuine major or minor stories, all important to the individuals concerned, and the photographs act as anything from basic id shots to powerful story telling images which burn themselves into the readers' collective imagination of the event. Often these people see the necessity for our presence, which can be invasive. Sometimes they don't.

And within this group fall the managed photo opportunities, staged by the police, the armed forces, or any authority who wish to promote their own agenda, who know that the press are desperate for any kind of coverage of a particular news event.

Then there are the people who would rather not be photographed, the offenders arriving at or leaving court, the public figures who have behaved in a way to offend public decency or standards (celebrities, politicians etc. etc.)

Faces. Fodder. Out there for public consumption.

Because Dudley/Stourbridge/Halesowen are considered marginal seats in the forthcoming General Election, expect to be swamped by handshaking, babykissing (oh no, they don't do that anymore, do they?) votegrabbing, smoothtalking politicos from somewhere else, well into Spring 2010. There's a treat.

In the past couple of months I have met Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling twice in Dudley and Stourbridge ( the last Shadow Home Secretary I photographed in Dudley was Tony Blair - whatever happened to him?)

And recently, Tory leader David Cameron was strutting his stuff in Halesowen, on one of his Cameron Direct roadshows. Very smooth, very slick, and won't his performance be fascinating on the forthcoming televised political debates...Thank you America. I might just find something else to do that night.

I spent half the session trying to frame his head within the halo of the background logo, just in case..

And then there are the new faces. Selling something, certainly. But selling something you might benefit from, something untainted, positive, something you could hang your hopes on.

Miranda Dickinson is a young Stourbridge author with her first novel in print. And it might just be massive. And she won't corrupt you. And she won't claim public money in order to further her career. And you might just be entertained.

Another face, at the moment relatively unknown...

Watch this space,
Phil

http://www.thesilverimage.co.uk/

A day out

A regular pleasure is a drive to the mid Wales coast. From my home in Tenbury Wells, I head for Craven Arms, Churchstoke (and Harry Tuffins,) Newtown and the impossible to spell Machynlleth (actually it's easier to spell than to pronounce - Mahunthleth is one favoured version.)

So last weekend off we went. Christmas shopping list, MP3 player, camera and map on Dot's lap - I don't do satnav, it seems to dislocate a vital part of the brain...

Machynlleth offered up it's multicoloured treats, and presents were bought (but no Welshcakes this time, unfortunately.)

A tasty bacon buttie lunch, and off again, heading for Aberystwyth, with the promise of a view of the massed starlings performing their dance of the dusk at the end of the pier (one of many venues around the UK for this phenomenal display of late afternoon congregation.)

On the way, a little diversion to Borth, across the estuary from Aberdovey, and where, a couple of years ago I encountered a group of orthodox Jews on a day out, picnicking between the groynes, gently strolling and contemplating the whatever, while the RAF performed aerial acrobatics in the blue sky above. A bit like Jack Vettriano with added sky detail..

But no Jews or jets today. Just a sunset, and a mild query about where Muriel Delahaye the artist might live. We spotted some dark painted houses, and naturally assumed that was her home/studio.



This is one of Muriel's paintings, black, Welsh and spot on.

A drive through the late afternoon light brought us to Aberystwyth, but the starlings had already arrived and settled, so that's one to go for again in the New Year.

However, the town was poppin' with Christmas lights, students, Lottery hopefuls and folk like myself, a random assortment of expectants and passers through, fuelled by that strange tinge of optimism that radiates from Christmas deccies.

And Aberystwyth is one of those good looking towns, with a prom, a milk bar, a pier, a cliff railway, and if you're very lucky, sunshine.



The promenade, Aberystwyth

And then on the way home, one of my all time favourites - driving through the night, listening to Beth Orton, David Byrne & Talking Heads, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Tom Waits and Joanna Newsom. Magic.

Phil

www.thesilverimage.co.uk

Shooting stars

Last night I saw five shooting stars, and today I'm starting my first blog.

Is there a connection - who knows? I'll take it as a sign anyway, must remember not to burn out though.

I have a picture of my wife Dot and some friends on holiday in France, lying in the grass watching the midnight sky, all stars and candles, which I will post when I find the negative.

I've never seen so many people taking pictures as there are nowadays. When I first started taking photos on a Halina Paulette, probably fifty years ago, a roll of film would be bought for the summer hols in Cornwall, and I would still be using the same film at Christmas to photograph my mates building snowmen, igloos (we had drifts you could crawl into - and they did collapse, and we did get wet and cold) and sledging on the waste ground that still hadn't been built on.

But I was the only lad with a camera. And I still have prints and negatives from all that time ago.

My point is, what happens to all the photos being taken by amateurs and enthusiasts today?

I know that many never make it to the print stage, many are never archived onto hard drives or cd/dvd, they are deleted in camera or from the mobile phone once the subject has had a look and a giggle.. they are the shooting stars of the photographic world, a brief and possibly dazzling appearance, then wiped from existance in order to make space for the next digisnap.

The world is being documented like never before, but will enough of these images survive so that somebody in the future can try to make some kind of sense of it, so that whatever story is being written, future generations will have an archive of unparallelled proportions, from a far wider diversity of sources than ever before. Mr everydayman (and woman) are doing their bit to leave a mark.

Just remember to save some of it somewhere, so that we can have another look a bit later on.

Phil.

www.thesilverimage.co.uk