It's been some time

It sure is a difficult and strange time for us all.

I have no words of wisdom to share I don’t feel the need to add my voice to the already mammoth amount of COVID-19 conversations and I’m not really sure why I’m sat at my computer typing this.

Perhaps it’s because when we have our choices curtailed by external sources, even though most usually choose to live within the confines of their societal norms, it’s gonna make us feel trapped. It’s another means for me to calm - a wordy way to let off some steam.

I’m very lucky to live in a coastal location. My one walk a day takes me to open spaces, beaches, or rural walkways with few people. It soothes and calms. I’ve always appreciated how fortunate I am, and my heart bleeds for those struggling in dire personal circumstances.

Whatever happens in the coming months, I hope we all can find solace in the hope for more solidarity as a species in future; more kindness and collaborations; significant shifts in attitudes towards nature and our part in it; perspective on celebrity and money; and the power to demand better from those who run our governments.

I hope in a few years this experience isn’t just turned into a block buster movie and we all go back to our consumerist lives. Don’t get me wrong, creature comforts created through a capitalist workforce are appreciated - but let’s keep it to the important stuff and lessen the need to pump out ‘tat’ for tat’s sake.

I hope you can safely ride the storm, find comfort in the virtual hugs of loved ones, and learn that whatever our differences, we are all closer than we think.

Stay safe. Stay home.

Josie.

Book Review - The Holiday Pictures - Paddy Summerfield

In The Holiday Pictures, Summerfield has captured a kaleidoscope of life by the British seaside, in glorious black and white, nothing staged or seemingly planned, just opportune moments.

Some of Summerfield’s photographs stand out from the crowd. In one, an older woman walks with a stick along a stone jetty. Ahead of her is the ocean and the horizon - nothing more. In another, a woman with a frame heads down the slipway onto the sand, her shadow in front of her with the sweeping shadow of a seagull on the ground just a little ahead of her steps. And there’s one of an older man in a suit, wearing a cap and sandals with socks, walking along a promenade, head down, with nothing but the sea to his left and a life-buoy ring. Is Summerfield trying to portray sensations of loneliness, perhaps? Or do these moments simply lend themselves to this response? Could it be more about the freedom of taking time to oneself that being by the sea affords many people - the sheer joy of the wind in your hair or the sun on your face as the rest of the world simply melts away?

With all these photographs, of life being lived at the sea’s edge, we are left to make up our own stories and respond in our own way. But, as none of us know what’s over the horizon, this book celebrates the days (even if it’s pouring down) people seek time out, for fun or for reflection near the ocean.

The pictures never show a direct connection with the people in the them; unless the person has turned unexpectedly as the shutter clicks. They have a voyeuristic style, as if we are peeking over their shoulders into their life. And even the more recent images seem to have a sense of times past, perhaps the black and white plays tricks there. In many, there appears to be no contrived idea about best vantage spots; the picture is simply taken as and when.

In her review of the work, Patricia Baker-Cassidy says, “We belong to the tides, they move through us. Again and again, we return to the ocean’s edge”.

Summerfield’s photographs could easily be replicated today. Not to take away from the stories they convey, but because the seaside continues to draw all walks of life to it.

I live on the coast in Cornwall. I took my dog to the beach this morning. There was a kaleidoscope of life there even though the weather forecast was for heavy rain and gales.

In Summerfield’s images we see the bucket and spade brigades, men in suits surveying a crowded beach or trying to read a newspaper, children playing with carefree abandon, individuals lost in thought, and selfie-takers.

Today I saw surfers surfing, dogs chasing balls, children paddling, lifeguards monitoring, and so many faces all turned to the waves and sky. Although not a typical British seaside town, I could easily record life being loved and lived at the water’s edge.

This is perhaps what I take most from The Holiday Pictures - even if they don’t reflect my own holiday experiences, they do reflect the variety of emotions we can all experience near the ocean.

Book Review - Sheffield Photographs 1988-1992 - Berris Conolly

There’s something about a photograph which depicts a human-made world, but is devoid people, that gets me every time.

They lure me in and spark the storyteller in my head; who once lived there, what was their life like, where are they now?

And even when there are glimpses of people going about their daily lives, I’m fascinated by the fact I will (very probably) never know them. This moment is the only connection I will ever have.

Berris Conolly’s book, Sheffield Photographs 1988 - 1992 brims with a sense of time and place, in a city I’ve never been and know little about.

It calls from the recent past, and I wonder how much Sheffield has changed since these images were taken.

All black and white, the photographs provide a stark insight into the area of more than two decades ago.

Pubs, boarded up or seemingly waiting for signs of life, feature in the opening pages.

They rub shoulders with litter strewn abandoned spaces, pretty urban parks, the River Don reflecting life along its banks, and the ominous industrial buildings and machinery that were the lifeblood of the city.

A particular favourite for me is the image, Greasy Vera’s.

Taken in 1988, it shows an unloved food van slowly decaying in a derelict area. But it makes me want to know who Vera was.

Then there are the 1989 pictures of the Edgar Allen steel works.

I’d never heard of Edgar Allen but the book includes notes on the images from Adrian Wynn, in conversation with Berris Conolly. These photographs show the factory empty of industrious movement; instead they record the steel works last breaths, with one image showing six men who had just received their last pay checks.

Conolly had been commissioned to take these pictures as part of the city’s regeneration programme, and although many images speak to a time passed, the story of the city rebuilding and taking a new direction can be seen.

Geoff Nicholson’s introduction (I always read these sections after I view the photographs) provides a vivid account of life as a ’Sheffielder’. He says that even now he sees the city’s history like Conolly’s images, in black and white, but goes on to say, “…beneath the smog and coal dust, in the houses, in the pubs, at the football grounds, people of course lived their lives in full colour”.

And that’s how my imagination responds to this book, with a soap opera full of life and noise; I may not see it in all of these images, but I know it’s still there.

Published by Dewi Lewis Publishing, the photographs are enclosed in a silver-grey fabric cover, reflecting the ’Steel City’.