Prayers

Saint Sulpice

Back from France and in a scanning marathon. Its initially depressing to see the photos and then gets better... but apart from a few instant standout shots my opinions can shift quite a lot on what will or will not be included. At the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris for the Equinox, as detailed in the occult conspiracy blockbuster the Da Vinci code (see the second picture) the church has a gnomon (see the first picture) and is in effect a giant sundial. On the equinox the sun is channeled through a hole and hits a marker on a brass line set into the floor of the church. The circumstances of the installation of the gnomon are explained without reference to CERN or mad monks in J.L. Heilbron's 'The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories.' which details how the Catholic Church came to convert four cathedrals into solar observatories during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite the church's reactionary response to scientific advances.

Due to a slight error, still a sore point, I have no picture of the light hitting the marker. It was a gloriously sunny day too! These photography missions I have been taking for my book all revolve around a chance moment of light; at Stonehenge the sun rising over the heel stone, being able to see the eclipse in Siberia after days on a train. This reflects for me the chance nature of the photograph itself- the search for the decisive moment, but through the process and looking at the resulting photos I'm getting to understand that it is about what lies around getting to that moment of chance too. The Catholic Church, and indeed all spiritual belief systems that I am aware of, make use of light, as symbol, and as atmosphere. The calendar is intrinsically linked to the sun of course, and this made its movements of vital importance to the Catholic Church, seeking to define its year of worship. The failure to get the money shot, which given the placement of the line after the church's construction, would not have been terribly interesting visually, gave me a chance to think more about how the church used light to instill reverence and glory into its rituals. Devices such as stained glass, rose windows, and candles result in this controlled cinematography of worship. The final photograph I've posted here was taken in one of the side chapels that line the church, and it was like a pool of 17th century light had been fixed in time. Also its interesting to think ultimately the church is a giant camera obscura..

Smaller?

Thinking about layout, the above being rather influenced by the layout of Tony Evan's photos in English Sunrise as designed by David Hillman. The book is curiously modern in concept and presented with the attention to detail that makes viewing the book a great experience. Little things like how the pages open and the size of it in your hand. Simultaneously the book is really dated by the circular corners of the pictures, and the colour of the prints- I don't know whether the nostalgia trip was attended but it is a great lesson in design. In particular I like how the photographs are presented small, demanding an intimate viewing experience. I am working with a small format and creating book photographs as Alec Soth would have it. I want my photographs to be like icons, small and richly coloured prayers.

PhotoMNE, Lourdes

Looking greatly forward to this, especially to see Guillaume Riviere's work. It'll be interesting to return to Lourdes which has become a bit of dream-like condition in my mind. More info at the official website about the other photographers.

Plan A or Plan B?

Eclipse photos and narrative confusion

Now presenting, for the first time ever..... some photos from the Siberian Eclipse mission. Starting to put together some ideas for how my book will flow using rough scans from prints as a guideline- plan being to only scan the negs of the definite contenders after doing some test scans to get an understanding of the colour parameters. This will probably turn out to be a silly way of going about it but it seems logical at the moment. Sequencing is going to be as much of a mission as going to Siberia, some things work visually together but that doesn't necessarily mean that the meaning is enhanced. The easiest thing to do is one image per spread on the right but for my purposes that then loses some possible connections. I 'd like to layer up as many connections as possible without losing the individual resonance of each image. Arse, and I haven't even gotten near print issues yet... but in a way it is enjoyable almost like playing Snap trying out different relationships between the photos.

Exhibition at the No Soap Gallery

Returned from Siberia! My show, 'Photography and Spiritual Experience', is on at the No Soap Gallery in Novosibirsk until August 13th. Massive thanks to Artem, Constantine and Olya for all their help.

After the Rain

A week on from the Solstice and I have just about caught up on sleep. It was a cross-country mission and yet to get photos back from processing, I don't know whether the end justified the means. There were over thirty thousand people there, a strange mixture of druids, pagans, international tourists, families and the, as predicted, local teenagers taking drugs for the first time. One guy sat quietly for hours drawing a pen and ink sketch of the scene. At three in the morning the centre circle was packed with drummers and crusties dancing on the stones, and around the henge a sea of umbrellas and beer cans. Groups of people huddled together under bin liners in a soft almost imperceptible English drizzle . The whole scene was incongruously lit by floodlights, which were turned off as the dawn approached. The dawn like, the rain, was difficult to perceive and the day's light became a white haze of dampness. The drumming intensified with the dawn and pagans gathered around the heel stone to perform a ceremony whilst in the circle some lifted a sun on a pole towards the east, and the A road lined with departing cars. As the solstice itself, at about six am approached, the crowds had thinned out, driven off by the rain to the makeshift parties in the car park. The remaining hardcore danced on to occasional blasts of a horn, people getting kind of naked, whilst others had built up a relationship with a particular stone, and perhaps under the influence of drugs, had a chat with it or hugged it or slept against it. I don't know whether I felt any spiritual response, already a memory for me my mind has kind of transformed it to a Bacchic mist, in which the stones seemed over real, like they had been built by a props department. The photographs for me will hopefully capture my experience of the time passing there. I took such an experimental approach to exposure in such grey light and I was shooting for so long without the prior benefit of sleep, I can only hope ... But like the start of a relationship the anticipation is exciting- viva film! (You can see the BBC day in pictures of it here.)

They Shoot Horses Don't They?

At the Appleby Horse Fair to try out shooting colour film as its been a while, for reasons of cost, concept and control I've been sticking to black and white for personal work. Not delighted with the colour so I might need to keep to black and white for the solstice as the varying light is going to be a bit of a challenge. As somebody said (Meyerowitz?) you have to think in colour too, and I don't understand how the film will react. I have time to get a handle on one film if I was to shoot constantly over the next few days but the range of light means that I will have to change film speed and then I reckon it would make more visual sense to use a range of films rather than having two and pushing.... but I want to shoot colour... its a quandary. I think I need to seek advice from somebody old school who really knows film....

Gypsies are of course photogenic, almost as much as war, although the atmosphere was rather more chav than Koudelka. There were a couple of camera clubs and a few pros taking the classic shot of the horse splashing out of the river. Most people who I know will wonder why I don't have a lovely picture of a horse coming out of the water if I were to show them these pictures, and would think me a better photographer if I did. This gives me vague anxiety and also pisses me off. But then am I just achieving a simulacrum of a more elite aesthetic- kids with toy guns, moments of contemplation amidst the bustle? Enough theorising- as it was certainly some strange and memorable experience, a bit like a Friday night in the city centre- too much beer and a feeling that it is about to kick off only with galloping horses thrown into the mix. And the girls were wearing outfits like a crop top and matching hot pants made out of orange lurex, and everyone was getting really bad sunburn and throwing beer cans in the river. My boyfriend said that somebody had just had a shit in the sink when he went to the pub toilet. I should really make it clear that this isn't aimed at gypsies as most people there had, like me, come to watch or shoot horses.