chris-hill.co.uk

I’m in the early stages of what I hope will be a long running street photography series based around people sitting on benches – as I’m planning on heading out again soon to take some more shots I thought it’d be a good idea to post the first of the shots here to kick things off properly.  These were all taken in Leazes park in Newcastle using a Bronica ETRs with a 70mm lens, on Fuji Velvia film.  All the subjects were asked for permission before shooting them so they’re not really candid shots, but I think its interesting to see how different people react to the camera and being told not to pose.  Ideally I’d like to get hold of the 40mm or 50mm lens so I can get in a little closer, but that’ll come when money allows.

See the rest of the set on Flickr here: Benches: Leazes Park

I love my digital camera, I love taking photos with it and I love the ease with which I can transfer them on to my laptop, fiddle with the colours, crop them, straighten the horizon up and post them to Flickr with a few quick clicks of the mouse.  Its easy, its cheap (once you’ve bought the camera anyway) and its a reasonably safe bet that if you mess up a shot, you’ve taken another 50 very similar images, one of which will be good – but – its not exactly good for honing your skills.

Filling up a memory card with images pretty much assures that you’ll get at least one good photograph somewhere in the mix, but through good luck rather than good judgement.  The images you’ve taken are disposable, you cherry pick the best then delete the others and in some respects I think that removes some of the care, some of the thought process behind creating a photograph – in short, at least for me, it devalues what I’m doing.   I’m a terrible culprit for all of those crimes, I think its hard not to take advantage of the conveniences offered by digital cameras but I’m also aware that in order to get better, I need to slow myself down, think more and break out of the ‘three shots of everything’ mentality.

I recently bought a few film cameras (both 35mm and Medium format) from ebay with a view to forcing myself to slow right down, think about what I’m doing and hopefully produce better photographs as a result – time will tell if it pays off.

The Tyne Bridge Tower building will be familiar to most people crossing the Tyne regularly – though certainly not for its architectural significance. Located on the Gateshead banks of the river, just along from the futuristic Sage building, its 13 stories of 1960s concrete clad exercise in function-over-form.  Abandoned by its former owners, the Inland Revenue, in 2005 and vacant ever since, its now scheduled for demolition and as I write this that operation is well under way.  It does have a redeeming quality though and one that was worth putting effort in to exploiting.

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I recently submitted a photo to the guardian‘s ‘your photos’ section and was lucky enough to be selected to appear in Aprils gallery.

Obviously I’m pretty chuffed about the whole thing, being shown along side other photographers who’s work I admire is a major achievement as far as I’m concerned. Its encouraged me to carry on taking photos and improve the things I do and while its not fame and fortune just yet but it is some form of recognition and that’s never a bad thing.

For those who’ve not already found it, heres my Flickr Photostream which is where I’m posting any photos I feel are any good. (family stuff and general messing about type photos are kept either in the ‘photos’ section of this site or on Facebook.).