25 Prints (4)

The fourth group of shortlisted photographs for my "25 Prints" project contains the usual mix of new and old, and pictures from near and far. If there is a common thread to this group - and I didn't intend there to be - it is that they have strayed some distance away from the idea of a traditional photograph. Not sure how many of these will make the final cut of the five photographs I will choose to be converted into A5 print cards.

25 Prints (3)

Here is the third group of five photographs which are on the shortlist for making into small prints for sale at the Arts and Crafts Fair. Again they represent the kind of familiar subjects I have returned to again and again over sixty years of taking photographs. This selection includes two of my favourite Halifax photographs, and another two from that enigma of the East Coast - Skegness.

Spa Plus Ten

My photographs are filed by the date they were taken, and therefore it is relatively easy to go back in time to discover what I was doing on this day, five, ten or twenty years ago. In this case it was ten years ago, and on the 26th April 2012 I was obviously visiting Scarborough. Today’s image is based on one of the photographs I took that day, and shows the Spa complex and the Grand Hotel.

A Message About Mediums

 

When I was young, the Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, was all the rage. He is, of course, most famous for his premise that "the medium is the message" - the concept that the way ideas are circulated is as important as the ideas themselves. It has always been a concept that has fascinated me, and, if I ever manage to get around to it, it is a topic I might return to via one medium or another! What started me thinking about McLuhan, however, was a message from my brother, Roger, in his hideaway in far off Dominica, and links to a series of YouTube videos he has created. Roger is no stranger to experimenting with different mediums: sculptor, artist, writer, stamp-designer, and creator of one of the very first on-line blogs (although the term hadn't been invented at the time). His experiments with YouTube are a new departure for him, however, and are well with a view. Here is his video based on his collection of paintings called "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun"

And, here are links to the other two videos in the series:-

A VOYAGE THROUGH IRELAND

SCULPTURES BY ROGER BURNETT

Catherine And Albert

My grandparents, Catherine and Albert Beanland, in a photograph taken a few years before my birth. According to the 1939 Register, they were living at 12, Lawrence Street, in the Princeville district of Bradford. Albert, 64 years old in 1939, was employed as a textile mechanic, whereas Catherine, 62, was registered as undertaking "unpaid domestic duties". Albert was to live another nine years, but died a few months after my birth, in September 1948. Catherine died in April 1960, aged 83.

Snicket In Greetland

As provided for in the Treaty Of Stainland, my wife and I take the dog for a walk up Greetland at least once a month. Yesterday was the April walk, and the sun and blue skies made it a delightful experience. I took this photograph of a footpath that heads towards the Calder Valley, and the addition of a filter or two accentuates the Yorkshire stone and the rain-fed grass. And yes, that is Wainhouse Tower on the skyline.