COBBLER'S PAGE You
may have noticed that 1998 is the Year of Photography and the
Electronic Image. "This exciting year long According
to blurbs in the promotional literature. With money being made
available from the Arts Council and In our local Art Gallery at the moment we have a show that took five people to put together. This consists of large format B & W positive lantern plates illuminated by a spotlight not large enough to cover the whole area and so you are left with a square with a bright spot 1.1/2 in diameter. The slides are of nothing in particular and poor quality. The slides are displayed in a cube structure in the middle of the room, round the walls on the outside of this cube are enlargements mounted in light boxes (three small tube lights in a frame), because the pictures are so overexposed the tubes are the only things one can see. These are priced at ++100each. I fail to see the point to any of it and what it has cost to produce I shudder to think. Running this week we have the grandly titled BATLEY EXPERIENCE For the past twelve months we have had people from outside the town brought in to get Batley residents involved in photography in one way or another. Some of the local schools had projects where the children worked with a photographer. One explored story telling and image making using disposable cameras, fairy lights and instamatics to 'arrive at a basic understanding of visual literacy'. The High School had a Digital Identity Project. I have no idea what form that takes but I hope to see it later this week. The older members of the community were not neglected and sessions were held at a local church hall where pensioners talked about times past and recollected local traditional recipes. These were then cooked and photographed (there is some talk about producing a book from these sessions). The results from all the projects are on display throughout the town in a Living Gallery Festival. Although for most of the participants this was a a one off experience at least for a time they were involved in a positive way even if they never held or will hold a camera again.We had several talks with them at the Camera Club but could not understand the jargon they used. What does this mean for instance, "The liberal use of pictorial and photographic devices are made visible in this process of character construction, as much in evidence on the surface of the print as the object itself"? or "My pictures are composed of a small cast of people who I recognise as my twin sister, older brothers and close friends. Private is made public which I see as preserved moments of my time spent with these people"? I suspect that means snapshots of people. Along
with an art director from London and two other people from well known
magazines I was asked to judge photographs sent in by local people for
a big exhibition. The rules governing the entries were such that the
Camera Club didn't want to know, eg. no retention of copyright.
The entry was low though the standard was good but only the man from
London and I turned up for the judging. We were supposed to select the
best but ended up taking everything because of the low entry.The chap
from London was more interested in photographing everything in the
room with a hand held LOMO camera from odd angles. The
grand climax of the BATLEY EXPERIENCE was to be a fantastic light show
with slides being projected onto water and selected sites within the
town. It has gradually been scaled down to a derelict mill with images
projected onto windows, plays performed, and local history re-enacted. Entitled
'travelling through the Paradise Fields' it is billed as Batley's most
spectacular outdoor performance, with magical images, an explosion of
colour, giant slide projections and haunting poetry, to tell the
amazing story of the town and its people. Taking place over five
nights next week by the time you read this it will all be over. In
this Year of Photography what's been happening in your area? |