A rare documentary with Robert Frank
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As am waiting for the inspiration that summer brings, and have been trying to make pictures regularly. That has proved difficult at times, and sometimes I have to make myself pick up my bag and go, and just wander, and see what life puts in front of me.
I find it difficult to walk past anything that has been wrapped, and this olive tree in Newcastle University was no exception.
The lone figure has become a motif in my work, so a misty morning on Wearside proved ideal.
A confusion of outdoor and indoor space found on the banks of the River Wear..
..and again in the centre of Sunderland.
This reminded me of the pictures of ducks taking flight that were common place on the tea-cups and dinner plates of my youth, except this was one of many dead birds washed up on the beach during the freezing easterly storms of March and April.
When a wave slams into a sea-wall, there’s always a point at which you wonder whether the wave is going to keep coming and soak you, or whether it will break upwards and away from you. With hindsight this was not one of the latter, and was not the best time to be using a 50mm lens. If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important.
A great documentary about William Klein If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important.
I found this dolls head (complete with air pellet holes) five years ago on an old industrial site, but struggled to print the image in a way I was happy with. To give me the faded and distressed look I was aiming for, the print was left out in the rain and snow for a couple of weeks before being buried in the garden. I then abraded the paper in a variety of ways. I scanned what remains of the original inkjet, and the new 5″ x 4″ print now feels right, even though it has lost some of the character it had when covered in soil and worms! Ironically when I first printed this I wore cotton gloves to keep my finger prints off the paper, but next time a picture is going to be buried I won’t bother! Special Print OfferI am now offering two football related prints on my website “Into the Light” is a 12 x 9 inch digital C-Type print of one of my favourite images, and is available until July for £20 + P & P. After that time it will be retired.
If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important. A thoughtful 2007 talk by documentary photographer James Nachtwey If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important. Five instructive minutes with Elliott Erwitt with some classic advice for young photographers. NOTE: Apologies to everyone who has signed up for a direct feed from Dark Matters. Feedburner has deleted my subscriber list, and there is no way I can recover it. If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important. A short film showing Don McCullin working in Whitechapel in the east end of London. TOYSMy battered Ricoh GR-1V recently became useless after 1500 films. A “hair” appeared inside the lens unit, and appeared on every negative, and life’s too short to do that amount of editing. Apart from that the flash unit was losing power rapidly and due to go bang! So thanks to Bellamy at Japan Camera Hunter it is now being repaired in Japan, and I am looking forward to its return, ready for the next 1500! Ricoh compacts are becoming increasingly rare, and clean ones can be expensive; so going to the effort of sending it on a 12000 mile round trip is still cheaper than trying to source another one. Saying that, Bellamy can source some excellent and cameras that are hard to find in Europe and the USA, and for anyone interested in classic cameras and their uses in “street photography” I would recommend you check out his website. While I am waiting for my old friend to return, I bought a Contax T2 with a 38mm f/2.8 lens – my excuse was that I was lost without a take-anywhere compact. The results from the first film seem fine, with the lens rendering sharp and with plenty of contrast. Here’s three from the first roll…  The very first negative out of the Contax T2
For anyone wanting more information here’s Bellamy’s T2 review and more about the Ricoh compact series of cameras. The T2 is a little larger than the Ricoh GR1V but still both light and small enough to hold in one hand. It does feel more solid, after all it’s a titanium case, but let’s see how it fares after a few months of abuse! My only real niggle is that you cannot manually alter the ISO setting which was easy with the GR-1V, and the fiddly little exposure compensation dial on the top can be a pain to use, especially in the dark as it’s not illuminated and is really small.  Nice box! LEICAMy latest guest blog post for Leica got lots of interest on their Facebook page. All the feedback was great, and welcome to the new subscribers to this blog who joined after the Leica piece. SHAMELESS SALES PITCHMy current special print offers will only run another five weeks or so before they are retired. If any subscribers would like specific prints in the next selection please ask, and don’t forget that (as they say around here) “shy bairns get nowt”. NB: if you need a translator at this point, click here. FORMATI am currently preparing a portfolio to show at the Format International Photography Festival in Derby on 9th March. There’s a stack of events on throughout March and April, and if you are there on the 9th please come and say hello. This portfolio session has meant that a new Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer now dominates my tiny office space, and after a week of printing the heap of prints and tissue paper grows steadily on what was once a dining table. I have been printing on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk which at 310gsm is a nice weighty paper with a lustre finish and has proved very consistent, and very accurate with what is on my monitor. I have also been using Museo® Silver Rag™ which has a good semi-gloss finish and renders blacks well. A week was also spent re-sequencing and re-making five artist’s books for the Format event. I decided to makes all the book blocks at the same time, which felt like a good choice before the actual making began. Never again…..until the next time! I also printed my latest Belong collection using Blurb as the original artist’s books were a bit too big to handle, and I am quite pleased with the result, which stretches over 106 pages and feature lots of lovely black ink.
INTERVIEWTo end this randomness, here’s a short interview with Jacob Aue Sobol about his Sabine series. Towards the end of the short clip he echoes my own current thoughts about photography, namely I find it hard to make pictures that I don’t feel, and which are not connected to my own life, or to my own emotions and concerns. If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important. A short video featuring the work of Michael Ackerman If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit here Your thoughts and comments are very important. Belong is my latest collection of images. They have been made in Newcastle upon Tyne, Sunderland, Gateshead, and London, mostly during 2012. This is a two-part sequence of 80 pictures that has been put together for two artist’s books that are contained in a slipcase. I hope you find time to take a look
If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and send it on to a friend. And don’t forget to visit my website Your thoughts and comments are very important. For 2013 I have decided to try and make more of my pictures available at accessible prices in a no-frills way. I don’t want price to be a barrier that stops people enjoying my images. These special print offers are for open-edition, digital C-Type prints on satin-matt Fuji Crystal Archive Paper. They are signed, titled and dated on the back, and the front when borders allow. I will send them un-mounted and wrapped in acid-free tissue paper, in a cardboard tube, a method I have successfully used for a decade. Post and packaging will be charged at a flat rate of £7 to anywhere in the world, but if I feel that I have charged you too much, a refund will be sent. Delivery will be made within 28 days, but is normally done in less. To keep this scheme fresh I intend to change my offers every couple of months. The pictures will then be retired or made available at my normal prices which start at £42. So get them while they are hot (and cheap). To ensure you receive details of all my special print offers, please sign up for email updates from my Dark Matters blog. This will also get you a notification each time new blog posts are added. Please share my offers with anyone you feel may be interested, as the better this works, the greater the number of pictures I can offer at a large discount. To kick this off I am delighted to offer these two pictures for only £20 (+P&P) each. The paper size is 15” x 10” and the image size is 13.5” x 8.5”. You will need to visit HERE to purchase.  Thunder snow - Boston  Human Tide - Newcastle upon Tyne If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and send it on to a friend. And don’t forget to visit my website Your thoughts and comments are very important. A long and insightful documentary about Daido Moriyama “Near Equal” was made in 2001 and directed by Kenjirô Fujii, and looks at Moriyama’s background, life, methods, and his unique attitude towards photography.
I have just added a new gallery on my website which features Urban Colour. If you get five minutes spare please take a look -- it is definitely brighter than my normal photography! If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. Seasonal greetings to everyone who has taken the time to visit this blog during 2012. And a special thankyou to those who have taken the time to subscribe and to post their comments. Photography can be a lonely and introspective task, and at times the silence is deafening. Over the past few years my practice has undergone sweeping changes that have taken me away from any comfort zone, so your comments and feedback are always helpful, and always encouraging. They also get me through the times when I feel like I am wasting my time with Dark Matters and with my new projects. So thanks again for your interest and support. With my best wishes for a prosperous 2013. Roger Here are a few “sketch” pictures from my recent wanderings around the North East of England.  Chain link  Engine  Pipes  Heads  Rat Race  A Damp Dusk  Bone Bowl  Broken Marble  Sauce  Bags  Wheel  John with Harris Hawk  Mystery Diner  Jacket  Little boxes If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. The thoughtful and captivating images of Masao Yamamoto
As winter approaches I have started gathering and making images for a new body of work, which will follow on from Present Tense and Future Tense . There are no prizes for guessing the working title!
Although I am photographing towards a certain loose concept, it doesn’t stop me pressing the shutter if a scene intrigues me, and the next two pictures are examples of that. They are perhaps too clichéd, but I just can’t resist deep shadows and thought I would post them.
It’s nearly a year now since a security guard outside a Premiership football club, told me “the radio says you can’t stand there or photograph in here.” Oh how we laughed!? At the time this felt like a nail in the coffin of my Rituals of Passion project, but as the recent Sunderland v Newcastle “derby match” was taking place a mile away from my home, I thought I would take a camera for a walk, and risk the Orwellian wrath of the radio.  Suits - Sunderland v Newcastle derby day. October 2012  The normal friendly welcome - Sunderland v Newcastle derby day. October 2012  Crimefighters - Sunderland v Newcastle derby day. October 2012  A man has a drunken chat with a new supportive friend, one he had just walked in to - Sunderland v Newcastle derby day. October 2012 If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. The powerful images of Alex Majoli  Recruiting  Judgement  Scratching  Wildlife Watching  Follower  Journey  Georgian Reflections  Nil Desperandum  Legs  Circus Day  Ramps  Shapes  Lollipop If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. Here are the rest of my selections from the 2012 agricultural shows. As with any set of pictures I know that my “favourites” will change over time, and with that in mind I will review them all again in the spring and make some decisions about the validity and the direction of my project.  Eggleston Show  Young handlers are an integral part of shows in Teesdale - Eggleston Show  Trophies at Eggleston Show  And the cup for the best backpack goes to...  And the cup for the weirdest breeding project goes to...
 Tucked in for safety at Eggleston Show  Appleby in Westmoreland Agricultural Show  It's hard work winning rosettes - Appleby in Westmoreland Agricultural Show  Sleepy - Appleby in Westmoreland Agricultural Show  Wolsingham & Wear Valley Show September 2012  Is the grass greener in there? At the Wolsingham & Wear Valley Show  Marquee at the Stanhope Show  Carrot envy at the Wolsingham And Wear Valley Show  Setting up for the home-baked cake competition at the Weardale Sheep Show, St. John's Chapel  Wellies for the brass band at a sodden Weardale Sheep Show, St. John's Chapel  Weardale Sheep Show at St. John's Chapel To me there is something strange about these tiny children on their miniature ponies, as many of them seem terrified and there only as ornaments, often dealing with a constant barrage of instructions from their preening parents.  Weardale Sheep Show at St. John's Chapel  Winner - In the rain at Appleby in Westmoreland Agricultural Show  A young handler battles an unruly calf and a big tie, at the Appleby in Westmoreland Agricultural Show  There's an amazing range of emotions in the faces here - Langdon Beck Show  Chilling with the pack at Stanhope Show  Jail break in progress at the Wolsingham & Wear Valley Show If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. Whilst accepting his 2005 TED Prize, photographer Edward Burtynsky gives a talk about rethinking the landscape. He presents some of his images that document humanities impact upon the world. If you don’t have 35 minutes to watch the entire talk, skip to 18.20 (minutes) to look at the work of a Chinese woman assembling circuit breakers. For more of his thought-provoking pictures go here. If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. One of my personal projects is based around agricultural shows, and for the last two years I have photographed those in the Wear and Tees Valleys in County Durham. Over the next two months I will be posting some of the results of my wanderings. In typical Coulam style I will begin at the end, with the final event of the year. The Langdon Beck Sheep Show of 2012 really felt like the last day of summer (although I can’t remember the start of summer, but suspect that it might have been moist!) Teesdale looked glorious in the September sunshine, for one of the most traditional country shows in the north of England.
My enduring memory of this show will be the welcome given to me by everyone involved, and the laughter that prevailed despite the serious competition. For pictures from 2011 please go to http://www.rogercoulam.com/blog/?p=1021 If you enjoyed this post or others on the Dark Matters blog, please help and “pay it forward” and send it to a friend. And don’t forget to visit me at http://www.rogercoulam.com Your thoughts and comments are very important. |
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