photoGrant

So Andrew Schofield linked me up to an amazing photographer, Sarah Stolfa, with an amazing book called ‘The Regulars’ – I hastily clicked hoping it wouldn’t be precisely the project I’d undertaken on the premise that I’d grown up with these people around me and they were slowly fading from my life.

It doesn’t quite strike that, but it still rings home on many levels. Which gutted me somewhat. I mean, this idea, this chronology of work I’d set myself up to produce, to document and to keep had just been kinda unseeingly plagiarised by me and I felt like I’d lost originality. That sucks.

But I thought back to the amazing visiting lecturer we had this Wednesday. Dinu Li has been commissioned for a few of his projects and he made it clear that the people who commission you do so because of the way you view the world. The way you see things. Not anyone else. You. That’s why you’re being commissioned to do it. So have arrogance, know that as a Photographer you view the world in a unique way and as an individual with a journey to the present as anomalous as the next person – you broadcast an entirely different perspective also.

So with that in mind I feel despite similarities in subject matter, I had something to add to this portrayal of the Pub regular.

The most important aspect of the work of Stolfa that I saw though, was the deconstructing text residing it. It made statements I hadn’t even begin to think about; like the idea of a ‘Regular’ in a broader sense of the term as opposed to how I’ve viewed them in regards to being nothing more than a consistent visitor to a pub. It expands on the idea that a regular is more than a stranger but not quite a deep friend.

Part of me agrees, part of me doesn’t. I think that’s based on what I discussed before about the idea of perspectives. I mean, I’ve lived in this pub for a long time, this is my home as well as my work. The people that come here each and every day I see more than my own family. They feel like they are family. We seem to posses a connection outside of a friendship. It feels odd to define people between 40 and 80 as friends. They seem more like parents, or grandparents. Some I love, some I despise. Some I look up to, some disgust me. But it’s the raw honesty and the microcosm of the walks of life that appeal to me so much. In what is seemingly a quiet city centre pub, there is an overwhelming array of stories, positive and negative.

So how do I deal with that? I eradicate it all and produce the most unappealing flat representation of each one willing – and allow their face to tell that story instead. Even the term ‘Rogues Gallery’ removes the intuitive inclination that these people are regulars at a small local pub. So hopefully with that in mind and an ever expanding knowledge and depth in Critical Theory (Seriously, it’s so important.) – I think I’m going to turn this project into something really quite great.

Besides, how many rehashes of the same mundane shit do we have to see before we realise no one’s truly original anymore?

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So I decided to check out the Anti BNP Protest they were having in regards to the BNP winning a couple of seats through the election. I wasn’t sure the premise of the protest quite hit the mark – I mean, they’re a week late. But it was peaceful and nothing more needs to be said. Anyway, I captured 9GB of Video & Images and whittled it down to a 40mb, 1 minute short – which you can see at Vimeo, here – The images used in the video are below, anyway. Strike that, I’ve uploaded and embedded flickr, click play below!

Just a bit of a disclosure, I in no way endorse the BNP or what they stand for, but I attended the protest solely to document the occasion, not to partake in it.

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The Risk of the Job, Gilberto Petrucci is assaulted by Mike Hargitay who is protecting Barbara Valentin. April 1966

When people ask me what I enjoy, I almost always say Photography. It’s pretty obvious – they’re asking me whilst I have a camera round my neck. But what really grinds me gears, is the momentary pause, then the inquisitive raise of one eye brow, then the question;

Them papparazi types?

No. You dimwit. Anyway, the young and the  upcoming stars of Hollywood, flocked to Rome in search of fame and fortune. Photographers such as Tacio Secchiaroli, Elio Sorci, Velio Cioni, Sergio Spinelli and so on, would do their utmost to document these people who were constantly spotted in Via Veneto. The photographers were amateurs, with a motorcycle, a flashgun and an advantageous outlook on the pictures they were to capture. Celebrities at their most vulnerable and compromising. This was officially the first time that the controlled lighting and perfect capture of celebrities was challenged.

2.am, August 15th 1958. Tacio Secchiaroli heard rumours that the Capece Minutolo sisters, who were at the time sat with the ex-king Farouk of Egypt on Via Veneto, didn’t wear panties. Secchiaroli wanted to know if this was true, and to record evidence too. Farouk lifted Secchiaroli by the waist. It was the bodygaurds, that Secchiaroli was so careful to avoid, that ironically saved him from the kings rage. Secchiaroli learnt to keep a safe distance of 5-6 meters, from then on. But the thrill of capturing the unknown had stuck.

Regardless of the thrill these people seeked, I still find the idea of Papparazi Photography shallow. It quenches only the thirst of those that need to look upon those they envy, and feel a sense of morbid happiness that they aren’t as perfect as the celebrity world makes out. What worries me the most, is that these people aren’t in the select few. It seems to be a scary percentage of the population and it seriously begs the question – Who on earth actually feels content with themselves in every way?

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Well its lost its virginity with me. Here’s a polaroid of the plants at my window

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