Semester 1 Midway Review Prep

Halfway through the first semester already!! Week Six and it’s time to recap on what we’ve achieved on our way to producing a body of work for an exhibition in the Centrala gallery in January.

For me I originally started the project “The Matter Of The Black Country” with a mind map and then went and had a good look through it to see if there was anything I felt more comfortable with.

We need to present this week a short five minute slide deck to explain where we are so far and after having had a wander around Dudley and Halesowen a couple of weeks ago, it is time to share how far I’ve come.

Slide Away

I start my slide pack with the slide of the mind map and then highlight the two areas I\ve narrwoed it down to. I’m calling them Plan A and B.

You can see from the notes on the side that I have selected People/Shops/Street and then Buildings/Architecture.

As i don’t live in the Black Country I would need to travel to capture some images. I chose the trip to Dudley and shot some film and digital.

Wonderwalls

Three slides follow each with a piece of text about the Tecton group’s architecture and the designer Berthold Lubetkin. The Dudley Zoo and Castle attraction has a number of concrete structures, 12 in total all designed by the Tecton group and each of them are fitted into the environment of the zoo so much so that people don’t really notice them. They were added to the “World Monuments Fund’s 2010 Watch List – of world-class buildings threatened by “neglect, demolition or disaster” nearly fifteen years ago and are very highly regarded buildings. The same architect designed similar structures at Whipsnade and London Zoo, including the latter’s Penguin Pool which featured in Harry Styles 2022 hit video “As it was”

Harry Styles, “As It Was” video still.

The slides show the Entrance to the site witht he waves on the entry turnstiles, one of the kiosks and also some photos of the other concrete structures.

The Telegraph’s S. Campbell describes the structures as “Architectural Superstars”

The Kiosk above was for the selling of refreshments to the thousands of visitors to the Zoo but today they are used to demonstrate with smaller animals. The food distribution standards today are much higher so they cannot be used for this.

This last slide features a quote from a woman called Melissa, interviewed by the Telegraph journalist. The quote sits over the photos showing the way that the concrete is made and positioned, even with some damage caused by climbing plants over the years. It’s not a set of buildings that are easy to care for and preserve for the generations to come.

Don’t Look Black and White In Anger

The next slide shows the Lightroom contact sheet of Film #87 which was a black and white Kodak TMax 3200 film shot in a Leica M6 35mm camera, I developed the film last week and then photographed it and converted it using a DSLR Scanning process.

The plan A plan is shown on the last slide of this half and it involves me revisiting the Zoo with a medium format camera, My Bronica ETRS with a 120 film in it, perhaps even a Redscale roll of Lomography 50-200.

Take Me Away

Time to move onto Plan B, not a backup plan as such but more of a parallel attack strategy to ensure I do produce a body of work.

Streets, Shops and Buildings sees me going to Dudley and Halesowen to capture some street photography around the town centres, maybe even capture some images of some of the residents.

The first Plan B slide features a 35mm film photo I made, and a view of the market on Market Place with some pigeons having. afly around, a Big Issue seller sat on the corner and a High Vis waring member of the public heading up the hill. A man on the right of the frame, barely visible had no shirt on and his coat open which was a bit odd, biut there weren’t as many pigeons in that image.

Another film photograph of a shop front that has been adorned with some text, and it looked a bit odd until I researched it and found the following image of the work by Dan Griffin-Hayes of Eye Candy which was painted in 2021.

Interesting how it’s only taken a couple of years to look even more run down than it was before. it also makes more sense as the sentence “Dudley, Yam bostin yow am!” which tranlsates from Black Country lingo to “Dudley, you’re fantastic, you are!”

Bring It On Down

My next slide shows an underground car park in St John’s House, King Street. where I was able to make a liminal space type image of the car park before a security guard came to chat to me. The atmosphere in this images speaks to me and the way the light falls off into the corners really captures my imagination.

The next slide is a contact sheet made from lightroom of Film 88, which I am waiting on the negatives to be returned for. I’ve had the scans from AG Photographic and eagerly await the negatives. This film contained photos of Dudley and Halesowen, especially a multi storey car park there. There was also a nice image of a blue car parked by a blue sign on the top floor of the Cornbow shopping centre that I particularly liked also.

Last week during the tutorial with Sam I discussed how I found a couple of shop names funny as they were not very imaginative and between us we came up with a project of “Shit Names For Shops”, Sam even polled his Insta feed for anyone else who might have a few funny names for shops. It might prove to be an avenue I can keep an eye out for during my wanders. It kind of fits in with the initial use of letters from Shop signs that I discussed in week two.

The last slide of the pack, and hopefully I can get through these in five minutes is the Plan B future thoughts. I’m going to visit West Brom to go and capture some images on film and digital as well as continuing the research into interesting places that exist in Dudley and the Black Country.

Cast No Shadow

I haven’t mentioned in this pack the Odeon Cinema on Castle Hill in Dudley, which was designed by Henry Weedon, and was built at the same time as the Wolverhampton Odeon, also designed by Weedon. There are many other cinemas designed by Weedon but not many of them in the Black Country leading me to think it might be tricky to find any more.

This last slide features a photo of the market as the sun was setting in Dudley and people tidying up their stalls were moving around in the light at the end of the tunnel. The light on the floors is almost like the bones of a fish, or an Ishikawa diagram for all those who’ve worked in engineering.

The next steps are to talk through this pack with the group tomorrow and then get back to Dudley with the medium format and over to West Brom with the 35mm.

Whatever

What happens then, only time will tell.

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