Broc Field take 2.

Broc Field, UK. 2012
Broc Field, USA. 2006

I mentioned on here last week about returning to a certain themes and subject matter. Last weeks efforts were the haunting urban golf courses of my youth. This week I bring you the stinky Broccoli Field in all its smelly fullness. I have probably shown the Broc Field 2006 image on here many times, but it has done me proud over the last six years and is now in its final edition, so it deserves a little more web time.
The new Broc Field 2012 is not so much a vain attempt to recreate another best seller (for me at least), oh no. This one is a very British affair, made in grey, stormy, wet conditions, the Dark Cloth slapping in ones face together with a bit of bad language and a funny look from the locals.
The only similarities here are Broccoli, and even then the crops are probably very different types. Come to think of it; Can you even grow broccoli here in the UK.?

Well I like it, indeed I like the look of most crops and the uniformity they give in the contrasting landscape..

Conscientious Extended | Meditations on Photographs: Jacob Israel Avedon, Sarasota, Florida, May 15, 1971

Conscientious Extended | Meditations on Photographs: Jacob Israel Avedon, Sarasota, Florida, May 15, 1971

Photography teaches that how well you see has nothing to do with how well you see..

Working Title

Tales From The Crypt 2012.
Dolls House 2012

The Flowery Room 2012

Here's a few wee snippets from my ongoing Masters Project. I really want to come up with a fabulous title, but as I have not awoke in the night with some kind of an epiphany induced heading I shall just go with 'Mercurial Memories Of A Wee Bugger' for now. Wee Bugger was apparently an affectionate term my Mother used when I was a bit naughty, like the time I threw a cantaloupe melon at my sister thinking she would easily catch it with her tiny hands, but instead became unconscious.

Based around childhood memory, we start with Tales From The Crypt, The Crypt being a cave located in the museum where one would hide on school trips and try and scare passers by with howls and monstrous sounds.

Then we have my sisters Doll House, once complete with working lights and a small electric fire (or should I say a red bulb). I decided to photograph the mini house as I found it rather than tidy the furniture and vacuum the carpet. This is simply the way I wanted to depict the subject may refer to my interest in abandoned places (all be it on a tiny scale). It does not suggest a 'broken home' as some have suggested.

Finally we have the Flowery Room. The place were I spent many hours looking up at the peculiar, but reassuring, light filled rectangle of glass while listening to Miami Vice theme tunes longing to be cool.

Now then, where's my tape player...

AFTER AND BEFORE.

Pitch and Putt. Carlisle, 2006
Pitch and Putt. Carlisle, 2012

Once in a while I find myself returning to subject matter that I have dealt with before. In this case it was golf courses, shot at night (or in the case above very early in the morning) with long, long exposures and a frosty chin. It's probably fair to say I was obsessed with golf courses at night for some time. Without going into too much detail (around 2006 ish), after a long period of not being able to make any photographs, the firsts ones I made were of a golf course at night. In fact it was this very golf course you see before you.
When I began to shoot the Urban Sprawl, golf courses were a perfect combination of the elements I considered to be worthy of the subject. Artificial light played a big factor here combined with a man-made landscape which often bordered contrasting natural wasteland.
Part of my new work (the mighty MA) includes 'places' from my past and so the approach I had was quite different to the first time I photographed it. To cut a longish story shortish, this particular section of golf course bordered a small forest. As a youngster I would camp in the forest leaving early in the morning before the golfers arrived in there baggy pants.
This particular shot (2012) is in the same area as the one above it (2006). It's just made at a different time of day, with a different angle and no flood lighting, and not forgetting a very long exposure around the one hour mark.. If you look closely at the top image you will see the little flags, same as the newer version..
I would like to think of these images as a After and Before. The Before is an image with a specific purpose and idea in mind (2012), the After (2006) is an image where its reasoning and comprehension comes later. Or something like that.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.

Carl Reiner

Conscientious | Photography and Doubt

Conscientious | Photography and Doubt