happy returns

Well it's a little fraudulent to celebrate a tenth birthday  - we had a three year hiatus along the way - but I'm proud to still be writing this blog and staying true to my original intention to use it to think about how and why.

My Ambiguous Project posts drew the most visitors. I've even managed to generate the odd comment along the way too. But I'm also conscious this has become very much an interior conversation and you, dear reader, must be complimented on indulging me. 

Committing to writing regularly has been really rewarding, for me at least. It's helped me think about my work. Before then I thought that would obstruct my natural, intuitive style. But hey even Barcelona need a plan. 

I've enjoyed joining the dots or hyperlinking, to use a technical term, my thoughts across the years. James Burke's Connections was perhaps my favourite TV show growing up (well along with The Goodies) and he's embraced the web in the same way. Spanning time and space. Not a bad way to describe my work if I think about it. 

Coincidentally it's my own birthday around this time and I was delighted to be given a book by my family of the work of a London photographer I was shamefully ignorant of. 

Bakerloo by Harry F Conway is a vital record of Londoners in their moments of passing through one of the West End's arterial tube lines. The images achieve a remarkable balance of both confrontation and compassion. I really admire this work not least because it's diametrically opposed to mine in many ways. He engages with the people in his pictures, forming momentary relationships that are complex and disarming. He's a visible presence going about his business in an constricted space in an open and transparent manner.

He puts it so well

...fleeting moments of pure humanity were shared, deep underground with complete strangers. 

Where people see an monotonous system to merely transport them, I saw life in all its ridiculous beauty.

Amen.