Category: Assignments

Assignment 4 – Tutor Feedback

A little bit delayed but I have now had formal feedback from my tutor on Assignment 4 following our conversation a couple of weeks ago:  all very positive and supportive.

“We had a long conversation about a range of topics including progress on the course, the thematic continuity in your work, including the written assignment, and the possible modes of presentation for Assignment 6.

The essay, although a subject difficult to condense into 2000 words, reflects a strength and depth of research that supports all of the coursework – theory and practice.  I was impressed with the revision/reworking of earlier assignments – 2 and 3 looking at alternative forms of exhibition/dissemination; real evidence of dealing with a body of work in continual development.

Feedback on assignment 

Discussing the essay for Assignment 4, your view is that it works as a starting point for a much larger piece.  The limitations imposed by the brief mean that it is not really possible to explore the subject in depth at this stage.  Perhaps it is something that could be picked up again later and developed.  My own view is that it is little more than an introduction to a potentially much bigger exploration of the topic; there are lots more places that it might be possible to go with this line of thought.   If anything, it leaves open and raises still more questions that might usefully be addressed and to be answered.   As it stands though, it offers a starting point for a personal exploration of a subject that has not already been covered within the course or any of the other work I have done for it.   As ever, a major practical question is whether or not I might have the time to devote to developing the subject further.

Coursework

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity 

So far as other course work is concerned, we discussed my approach to the print on demand book mock-up exercise.  You feel that this has worked well for the chosen subject matter and is possibly worth having printed in any event just for myself.  I certainly feel quite happy with the concept that I have produced.  I am already having a book made by Blurb of another, older, project, and once I have seen how that comes out, I will probably go ahead with this project as well.

 I have in the meantime been working on a hand-made concertina book for the sequence of images that make up Assignment 2, in particular struggling with how to approach the map to go on the verso, discussing the practical and stylistic problems of trying to use an OS map.  I showed you my current mock-up of a hand-drawn, rail network style map (which is currently having text added to it in Photoshop) and your reaction was that this looks good.  In particular, that it does not contain too much information, which would otherwise be the case if it had been practical to use an OS map.  I will press ahead with this concept and complete a maquette.

We also discussed my thoughts about slideshows for Assignment 1 and possibly for Assignment 6.  You will have a look at the examples that I have produced so far, posted on my learning log, and we can discuss next time we speak.

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Thorough and detailed research for A4, covering practitioners from three continents and a long time-frame.

Suggested ‘Return Journey, a film about Mass Observation and Jimmy Forsyth for further research, also a link to Amber’s site and exhibition of Jimmy Forsyth.  Work – You are already acquainted with both.

Learning Log

There are a range of new items uploaded under the Books tab, including the online arts magazine Learned Pig,  ‘Landscape as memory device – redux’ looking at the work of Onaka and Ogawa, interpretation through curating. Shibata’s ‘Gas Stations’, which could relate to your work for A5.

Suggested reading/viewing 

You will come back with some suggestions for slideshows and movies that might be useful to consider when developing my own ideas.

(Still) looking for something a bit more engaging than time lapse sequences

An interesting pair of videos constructed from still images following the tsunami at Fukushima.  The link wasn’t working at the time of search, but CSP’s site is worth exploring.  http://www.chrissteeleperkins.com/multimedia/

Pointers for the next assignment / assessment

Having discussed my proposal for Assignment 5 we agreed that I should press ahead as planned.  It is a logical development from the benches project for Assignment 3 and fits in well with the work that I have done until now on this course, and even going back as far as Square Mile for EYV.  I certainly feel that over time my work has developed a distinctly local flavor and that my immediate locality is proving to be a major theme, and area of interest.  We also discussed how my move from the city (now almost 15 years ago!) has influenced the way that I look at the village.  This chimes with the hypothesis that I raised in the essay for Assignment 4 about the photographer as an outsider and how that colours the way a locality is seen.

You encouraged me to press ahead with both of the ideas that I have come up with so far:  the postcards, and black and white, large format, images.  This will fit well the workflow that I have already projected, starting with test shots with a digital camera to determine points of view and composition, which can then be developed into the postcards, before taking out the 4×5 camera.  Using the latter I cannot afford to be making test shots and need to make each exposure count.  Whilst the continuing Covod-19 lock-down continues, this is not really something that should get in the way of pressing on with this project.  It is now more a practical question of when I am going to be able to devote the time to it.”

Assignment 5 – Postcards

Here is a first go at the postcard set for this assignment.  The pictures I took the other day have come out quite well and with a bit of tinkering in Photoshop have a suitably “postcard” aesthetic about them, appropriately kitsch.  I simply increased the colour saturation and vibrancy and added an extra boost by resetting the white balance to “daylight” (notwithstanding that the camera was already set to this), added a border and some text.  When it comes to printing them I will use a glossy paper.

I might make some more minor adjustments before the set is finalised but for now I am quite happy with the results.

Assignment 5 – Second shoot

Having already had one go at this, I got out again this week with a view to getting some proper shots for the postcard element of this project.  This time I used my old Canon with a zoom lens, 18 – 135mm, to give a bit more flexibility that was offered by my Leica and 50mm set-up.  Interestingly enough, whilst I expected to be using longer focal lengths, it looks as if more shots worked out at around 35mm.  Set at ISO 125 and f/16 throughout, the other interesting thing is that the exposures were all quite long, around 1/40s, despite the very bright sunshine (it was a really hot afternoon!) but I had already made the decision to use a tripod to maintain uniformity of point of view.  From my experience to date of the 4×5 camera I think I will wait for a slightly more overcast day.  The film that I use seems to work better in flatter light: if it is too bright the lighter areas tend to wash out and be over-exposed.  (I could use a ND grad filter but I have not had enough practice with them on this camera to feel comfortable and confident yet.)

Having decided after the first shoot to drop the war memorial I have added a couple more sites instead.  There is another pair of shops (butcher and dress hire – what a combination, but it is that sort of village!) that I would have liked to include, or at least try out, but unfortunately there is almost always a car or other vehicle parked in front that gets in the way, as was the case the other day.  I nevertheless feel that I have enough subjects for present purposes now.

Here are the contact sheets from this latest shoot.  The next step will be to select the final views and make them into postcards. (I think I will have to Photoshop out the lady in pink in front of the convenience store.)

Assignment 5 – Sensitivities

Throughout the planning for this assignment I have had in mind the need to approach it carefully and avoid as much as possible attracting unwanted attention.  Today I got out for a further shoot (on which more anon) and had an example of just the sort of thing that I am wary of.

Having decided after the first foray to drop the war memorial and look at some alternative additional sites, I decided today to include the recently revamped “Village Store” (not to be confused with the local Spar).  Rather than my Leica, this time I used my old Canon with a zoom lens and mounted it on a tripod.  Although I was on the opposite side of the road, as soon as I set up the shopkeeper came straight out and ran across the road to ask why I was taking pictures of his shop.  He was not at all unpleasant or challenging but he was clearly anxious.  Once I explained what I was doing he was fine and said that he was worried that his landlord had decided to sell the shop and had not told him.  Not quite the sort of response that I was expecting.  He then went back to the shop looking relieved.

When I go back to shoot with the film camera, which will be even more conspicuous, I think it would be sensible to go into the shop first and tell him what I am doing, if only to keep him calm.

It never ceases to amaze me that most people today do not seem to bat an eyelid if you take pictures on a phone but react when you use a proper camera.  At one end of the spectrum I have attracted friendly curiosity, particularly when using my old film Leica, through nervousness, as today, suspicion, to outright hostility.  In the latter case I have learned simply to walk away and avoid any confrontation.  With luck, when I get out again with the 4×5 it will be curiosity rather than anything else that is generated.  I do not doubt that the sight of a large format camera on a tripod and my head underneath the focusing cloth is going to raise some eyebrows!

Assignment 5 – First shoot

I have at last been able to get out for an hour or so to make a start on this assignment.  At this stage what I am concerned about is testing out view-points and camera angles, rather than making “finished” images, and looking critically at the sites that I have in mind.  This is perhaps just as well as the light was horrible:  the sky was heavily overcast, the clouds leaden, and indeed it started to rain quite heavily not long after I came home. Nevertheless, it was a useful exercise and although I have yet to go through the pictures I took in detail I already have some ideas about what positions are going to work when I get to the shoot proper.  It also became abundantly clear to me that one of my chosen sites, the village war memorial, does not really fit or work with the other sites and so I might well omit this.  On the other hand, although they do not feature in the product of this first foray, there are a couple more sites, that did not feature in my initial thinking, that might well fit in quite well.  I will have to do another test shoot of them before deciding.

From a technical point of view, I quickly learned that the local petrol station and convenience store is going to be quite hard to capture.  This is not just because of its size but also the effect the large forecourt canopy has on the light.  This is certainly going to need some careful metering before I expose any film in the large format camera.

As a bit of an aside in this regard, I felt I was getting some slightly odd meter reading on the digital Leica I used for this first shoot.  Despite the fact the light was so poor, I was surprised by some of the aperture settings that the camera recommended.  Set at ISO 400 and 125s I was surprised that it kept wanting small apertures; I had expected it would need smaller f stops but it consistently pushed me towards the upper range on this camera’s lens, f/16.  Unfortunately, I did not take a light meter with me to double-check but I did a quick test when I got home that suggested the readings were consistent.  (This is not the first time that I have had what I feel to be aberrant readings on this camera but everything actually seems to work fine.)  What this does serve to emphasise though is that I am going to have to be careful with meter readings for the film camera.

Another point is that the siting of the large format camera is going to be problematic in a couple of places because of the main road that runs through the village.  Coincidentally, more with an eye on portrait photography, I have just bought a 210mm lens for the 4×5 camera which should help with capturing some of the views I want from slightly further way, that is across the road, than I would be able to achieve  with my usual 150mm lens.

So far as attracting attention is concerned, in fact only one person approached me during this shoot:  someone working at the local car dealer di ask what I was doing but then apologised for getting in my shots!  I did take the precaution of putting my NUJ Student and OCA cards in a holder on a lanyard to make things look “official” and that perhaps helped.  What sort of reaction I get when I set up a field camera on a heavy tripod, with a focusing cloth over my head, remains to be seen!

As yet unsorted and unedited, here are the contacts sheets from this first shoot (from which it is immediately clear that I need to rethink and look again at the angles for some of these sites):

Assignment 5 – Further research

While waiting for an opportunity to get out and start shooting this project (I have been rather frustrated by recent bad weather and too many other things to do when the weather has been reasonable) I have been doing a bit more research, in particular looking at the “New Topographics”, among others, which has led to some interesting conclusions and raised some further questions.

I have not looked much again at the Bechers notwithstanding they were part of the New Topographics show. This is not because I do not like their work, as I have written elsewhere more than once I do, but simply because their overtly and deliberately typological approach does not really help me with this project.  They would have been relevant if I had intended to photograph different examples of the same type of building, as with Jethro Marshall’s village halls, but instead I am looking at a range of different buildings within the one village.

Putting aside my disagreement with Baltz’s views on the nature and function of landscape, and Adam’s notion of Form, I have looked again at both of their work but have found that neither really adds anything to my current thinking.  I find that Baltz’s exaggeratedly deadpan aesthetic, though I quite like it in its own right,  does not really fit with what I want to explore here.  What I am interested in is the human intervention in the landscape to make otherwise non-descript spaces places with a particular significance.  His approach is just that bit too blank for my purposes.

I have a similar issue with Adams’s work.  Some is more closely related to what I am after, such as his gas station images, but I have already formed my own views in the light of the work of Ed Ruscha and Toshio Shibata, as I wrote in my first post on this project (https://markrobinsonocalandscape.photo.blog/2020/05/03/exercise-4-6-proposal-for-the-self-directed-project/).

Otherwise, again much though I admire, for example, his night-time suburban images, they do not really take me any further forward.

Much of his rural landscape work, even where it shows signs of human intervention, is a bit too empty for what I am after, simply because the countryside that he worked in was itself so empty!

Taking the New Topographics as a starting point, I have also looked at some of the New Düsseldorf School, such as Struth, Ruff, and Gursky,  but again do not feel that I gain anything useful from them.  Gursky, for example, is certainly deadpan, but the monumentality of many of his images, both the subject matter and the physical photographs themselves, are a little off-putting and not really relevant to the much more domestic scale of my project.

This leads me to a couple of thoughts on research generally.  In the case of this project the explicit, direct, conscious influences have been few, as I have already identified (Ruscha, Shibata, Ohashi, and now Marshall).  I have to recognise though that there might well be other influences operating at an unconscious level, which quite possibly includes the New Topographics.  I suspect it is inevitable that when you look at so much work, so many images, as we are doing on this course, it is hard for them not to have an effect at some level.  The other thought is actually a question:  how much does research help in reality?  In so far as there is an unconscious influence, I do not doubt that it does.  I do though wonder about the extent to which it has a conscious impact in the case of the project as I have conceived it.  The point is that I have started with a particular idea, a development of much of the work that I have done for this module and in particular Assignment 2, and it is that idea that determines how I need to approach this work and what it should look like.  Arguably therefore, even the conscious influences are not in themselves that significant.  I think that research is important, even vital, even if only to set one’s own work into a wider context, but it is not necessarily a substitute for, and certainly not a bar, to coming up with original, personal ideas ab initio.  I suppose the point is that it important to develop one’s own voice and not simply to follow what others have done in the past, or are doing now.  Be aware of the traditions and wider context but find one’s own place with them.

The other thing that I found myself thinking about was the notion of “schools” in art generally.  Can the artists featured in the New Topographics show truly be said to belong to a particular “school”, a conceptual style, of photography?  Did the Bechers, Baltz, and Adams, for example, really have that much in common from an ideological or aesthetic point of view?  Is it more a case of a curator creating a framework within which to collect and exhibit varied bodies of work?  Certainly, it seems to me the Bechers have been doing something quite different, ploughing their own particular furrow.  I do not see much of the same typological approach in the work of the others.  Flicking through Wolf (2019) again it is striking how many of the artists interviewed do not seem to identify with any particular school, genre, or style, simply getting on with the work they need to do without having to carry the shackles and burdens of categorisation?  Is it a case of curators, and critics, commentators and academics (let us not go near the theorists for now) trying to impose categories, structures, genres, on disparate bodies of work to meet their own practical or theoretical, ideological, needs and agendas?  This is a much bigger topic than I want to get into in any depth at the moment but I am much inclined towards such a view.  This is not to dismiss such an approach out of hand, but as I have indicated before I am inherently suspicious of, if not actively hostile to, efforts to pigeon-hole artist and their work, to fit them into categories not of their own making.  I am wary of “isms”.  Art, in all its forms, is too multifarious and varied to warrant or bear being straitjacketed in this sort of way.

All of which, in a somewhat roundabout way, brings me back to my starting point:  what I am trying to do with this project is find my own way of expressing the ideas that interest me, without necessarily, consciously, being swayed or influenced by the work of others (except to the extent I have already acknowledged) or aligning my work to any particular school, genre, or style.

Wolf, S, (ed), (2019).  PhotoWork:  Forty Photographers on Process and Practice.  New York:  Aperture

Assignment 2 – Still working on the book!

Since I last wrote about this book project, which now seems to have taken on a life of its own, consuming mine in the process, I have been able to make some more progress and to discuss it with my tutor when we discussed my submission for Assignment 4 (I will post on that separately once we have finalised the feedback).  I had made a mock-up of the map (2.25 metres long!) which he quite liked.  I have since gone on and created a jpeg version of it, which has allowed me to add type for the stations and other points of note along the route instead of having to write them on by hand, which I fear would have looked a bit too messy.

The prints of the photos have now been made and trimmed to size and I am in the process of adding hinges between them.  Once that has been done, I will print and trim to match the sections of the map, then add the covers. Still lots of work to do and I still expect that the result is going to be a maquette from which a final version might, theoretically, be produced professionally, rather than an “artist’s book” in its own right.

On that last note, quite coincidentally there are a couple of brief articles in the latest edition of Printmaking Today (pp 22-23) relating to artists’ concertina form books.  (I am not actively making etchings or other prints of my own at the moment, being all-consumed in my spare time by this course, but I still occasionally collect prints so like to keep abreast of what is going on in the wider print world.)  I am not entirely sure whether it is reassuring, but at least I am not alone with my struggles, but both show how difficult, and time-consuming a process making such a book is.

With a bit of luck, and not a small amount of further effort, I should be finished soon!

Printmaking Today.  Summer 2020.  Vol.29, Issue 114

Exercise 5.6: Context and meaning

My ideal venue for displaying a set of photographs from Assignment 5 would be the Side Gallery in Newcastle (dream on!).  I very much doubt that there would be enough prints to properly fill the space in one of the two upper galleries but there is a small space on the ground floor that would work.  It is though fairly small and so the prints themselves would similarly have to be kept on the small scale, probably no bigger than 8×10 inches.  Exactly how they would be hung is difficult to estimate, or sketch, at the moment as I do not have any clear details of the scale of this space, which is little more than a large alcove with two and a bit usable walls. Depending on the final number of images though I would expect them to hang in a single row at eye level.

The next most suitable space locally would be the gallery at the Queen’s Hall in Hexham.  Again, it is difficult to judge scale but I would expect that a dozen or so prints could easily be accommodated in the main ground floor space of a size up to A3, which is the biggest that I can currently print.  Again, one row of images at eye level on the two main walls of the space, with perhaps a couple between the windows on the western elevation that overlook Beaumont Street.

As the subject matter is going to be locations in Stocksfield it would of course be nice to be able to display them here in the village.  Unfortunately though, I cannot think of a suitable location.  The village hall is not set up to act as a gallery.  The Quaker Meeting House would be a nice venue but is too small and again not really suitable as a gallery space.  The same goes for the cricket club.  The local school (I am still not sure it is going to feature) might be a possibility but then there are issues with access.   The local church hall is similarly not geared up to act as gallery.

This is a shame as having read John Walker’s essay (which I got from academia.edu rather than Scribd), it is clear that a local exhibition of local views would have an extra resonance for people local to the village.  Such a display context would have greater meaning for people who live here in the village, and who might not otherwise necessarily see the pictures if they were hung in Hexham, albeit only about ten miles away.  Equally, Hexham based viewers would not necessarily ascribe the same meaning and importance to such local images.

This is, I suppose, the central point to Walker’s piece, that where and how images are displayed inevitably has an impact on their meaning, just as, for example, does the juxtaposing of images, and the use of text either as caption or accompaniment.  How and where images are displayed carries with them implications for the value, cultural or monetary, that might be ascribed to them.  This is of course something that has been touched on before in the context of considering what amounts to a “photograph”:  something that appears on a gallery wall is naturally going to be regarded as more “valuable” than something that is printed in a newspaper.  McLuahan again and the medium as message.

The other main point I take away from his writing is the question of individualism in responses to images.  I had not really thought about this before but it now seems to me to be obvious that there will not necessarily be as many different reactions to a picture as there are viewers.  Yes, each individual might bring something particular to themselves to their engagement with and response to a photo but there will also be a great deal in common within groups of viewers.  Certain experiences, values, understanding, beliefs, will be shared in common within any given group and that should mean that there will be a certain commonality in the way the images are read. 

I have had some limited experience of this in the past when exhibiting some of my etchings and prints.  In one group show that I participated in all the works were of the same dimensions and hung in the same way.  There was a resulting sense of equality, no one’s work being favoured in any way over that of the others.  In another group show (in a commercial gallery) there was a much more hierarchical approach, some prints being framed and hung, others simply mounted and put in browsing racks.  The different contexts immediately drew different responses to the works from the buying public:  the framed and hung pictures were much more likely to be bought than the others.  Needless to say my work was only in the browsers and none of it sold!  I did also have a small one-man show that coincided with the Tall Ships race calling at Newcastle some years ago.  The pictures were of a nautical theme and the show took place on board one of the sailing ships that was taking part (a former colleague arranged things for me with the captain).  Because of the context, the nautical theme, the display on board the ship, the prints actually sold quite well!

https://www.academia.edu/11911020/Context_as_a_determinant_of_photographic_meaning

Exercise 5.3: Print-on-demand mock-up

Working in a rather roundabout fashion I have now got back to this exercise.  I have been rather more concerned with producing a physical book (not something I can do through the likes of Blurb given my chosen format) which has been taking up an inordinate amount of time.  Turning to this exercise has been something of a light relief!

As I am now using Lightroom I thought I would start with the Book Module contained within it.  Although it would appear to be a fairly simple matter if the book is to contain only photos it seems to be of another order of difficulty to incorporate and combine with text.  There is no doubt a way of doing it but I have not found it yet.  I have therefore fallen back on Blurb’s own Bookwright program and this has proved to be remarkably easy to use and I have come up with something, albeit not yet very refined, after just a few hours work.

As I have barely got off the ground with Assignment 5, for which I do intend to make a book, I have, for sake of ease, gone back to an earlier project and used the images produced for Assignment 3.  For these I have adopted Blurb’s standard landscape format, one image per double page spread, on the righthand page alone, with the map reference captions.  Simply for the purposes of experimenting I have also added a single page of text at the end which is a lightly edited version of the text that accompanied the final set in my blog post for the assignment.  The only other addition is a title page:  somewhat mockingly I have decided to call this book version “Sedes Memorabiles”, Latin for memorable seats, which of course ironically, not all of them are and even some of those with a memorial function are not easily readable by a general public.

I have no training in or prior experience of book design but I am well aware it is not a simple matter of putting some images and text on a page.  What I see though from looking at photobooks in my own library is that for most keeping things simple is what works best.  There are of course exceptions:  William Klein’s New York book works precisely because it is busy and slightly disorienting:  some of my favoured Japanese photographers’ works are also more successful because of their sometimes unorthodox presentation.  I also just like the idea of one image per spread, or no more than one per page, with minimal text.  I do not think my effort is anything that someone else would want to go out and buy but as an exercise, an experiment, and first dipping of the toes into the waters of making books, I think it is not bad.  No doubt it could be refined further but I am otherwise reasonably pleased with it as a first attempt.  Not to mention surprised at how relatively easy it was to put together.

Proof copies of the cover and main body are accessible below:

sedes-memorabiles-1.pdfstandard_landscape-softcover-premium_lustre_paper-1Download
sedes-memorabiles-1Download

Assignment 5 – Research

There was a piece in the Guardian that caught my eye this morning about a collection of photographs of village halls in the South-West.   Black and white, landscape format photographs of simple, utilitarian, but nevertheless socially important and valuable places, they strike a chord with me in connection with my ideas for the self-directed project that forms Assignment 5.  This sort of approach, picturing otherwise quite ordinary, mundane, architecturally neutral buildings and places is just what I plan to do within my own village, I am merely going to cast my net wider for a greater variety of buildings, though one at least is likely to be our own village hall.

I have included a link to the article below but because it is not very long I am also including the text here.

“This way for Bums and Tums! The discreet charm of the village hall

Bleak, bulky yet strangely beautiful, village halls are the beating heart of rural Britain, where great events happen for £8 an hour. We meet a photographer celebrating these harmonious hubs

 ‘Determinedly mundane’ … clockwise from top left, St Andrews Hall, Charmouth; Ashill; South Perrott; and Bettiscombe village halls in the West Country. Composite: Jethro Marshall

Arow of karate kids are performing mawashi geri kicks in unison to the cries of their teacher. Coincidentally, in the room next door, the Brownies are learning first aid. The next morning, a gaggle of pensioners arrive and are soon waltzing to wartime classics. Then, by the afternoon, a jumble sale is in full swing. One week later, dozens of people are queuing up to vote, hot on the heels of a neighbourhood forum discussing a contentious planning application.

These are just a few moments in the life of a humble village hall. More than any other building type, the village hall represents the ultimate multifunctional democratic space. It is a forum for raffles, cake sales, birthday parties, fitness classes, political meetings and more – a witness, as Jethro Marshall puts it, “to great human events – mostly for around £8 per hour”.

Absent of the life that sustains them, village halls have become haunting symbols of a time when we could congregate

Marshall, a Dorset-based art director and photographer, has surveyed a range of village halls across the West Country for his latest book, Halls & Oats, a celebration of what he calls “utilitarian bucolic construction”. In the midst of the pandemic, his carefully framed black and white images, devoid of human life, take on a new level of pathos. The children’s parties have stopped, the Bums and Tums classes are postponed, Knit and Natter has been put on hold. Absent of the life that sustains them, village halls have become empty shells of promise, haunting symbols of a time when we could congregate – but also hopeful reminders that we might one day do so again.

For all the colourful life they contain, these buildings tend to be fairly nondescript, if not downright bleak. As architect Sam Jacob writes in the introduction: “They are vernacular in a practical rather than sentimental way.” While town halls are draped in the heraldry of civic power, and churches are intent on impressing narrative and belief, the village hall is “determinedly mundane in its dogged lack of architectural expression”. Part barn, part chapel, part schoolhouse, they are, for want of a better word, sheds – but sheds full of civic ambition.

Weighty air … Branoc Hall, Branscombe. Photograph: Jethro Marshall

The Bettiscombe village hall, built in 1961, is a stained timber building with a simple pitched roof, elevated by the addition of a big porch and central square window. It has the look of an Amish barn or a pioneer church, the rituals of worship exchanged for bingo and Pudding and Pie nights. Branoc Hall in Branscome, built in 1976, is a grander affair, with two storeys of windows and exposed ragstone walls lending it a weighty air. A central clock on the gable end cements its status as a force for public good. St Andrews community hall, built in Charmouth in 1909, cranks the ambition up even further, with pebbledashed buttresses and a frontage clad with mock-Tudor timbers, giving the indoor lawn bowls sessions a whiff of Merrie Olde England.

With many taking on new life as hubs for aid networks in the pandemic, they remain radical spaces of social connection

Others are more straightforward prefabs. Knowle village hallwas built in 1948 by the National Council of Social Services as a temporary measure and, like many temporary postwar structures, is still going strong 70 years on. In the Exmouth Journal’s report on its opening, a Mr Tilestone described how “the hall was not a building erected for any one section of the community. It was not for the men, the women, the small children, or the old people but it was for every single one of them – it belonged to the village as a whole.” As Jacob puts it, in their very existence, village halls are “a covenant – a promise even – of the possibility of community that must be fulfilled”. With many taking on a new life as hubs for aid networks in the pandemic, they continue to operate as radical spaces of social connection.

This is Marshall’s fifth book, under the imprint West Country Modern, following such titles as Farm Follows Function, Coastal Brutalism and This is Hardcore, the last a photographic essay of roads. The subjects seem wilfully mundane. They take the matter-of-fact aesthetic of the “new topographics”school of American photography – pioneered in the 1970s by Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher – and apply it to the most humdrum of structures in the Devon and Dorset countryside.

 ‘Nondescript if not downright bleak’ … the prefab Knowle Village Hall. Photograph: Jethro Marshall

By doing so, Marshall forces us to look again, to see the beauty in barns and the majesty of flyovers. He says his intention is to “reframe our rural landscapes as inspiring, progressive environments” and sums up his position as “anti bucolic/pro rural”. The countryside is not a rose-tinted Eden, as hundreds of years of romantic propaganda would have us believe, but a place of work, industry and civic life. Activities may be on hold for now, but socially distanced coffee mornings and contactless karate will return soon enough.”

One interesting reflection that this piece sets off is the relationship between what I propose to do for this assignment and the “new topographics” school.  I confess that much of the work of Louis Baltz has not moved me, and I do not agree with his ideas about what landscape is, and I do not agree with Adams’s notion of “Form” (as I have written elsewhere – https://markrobinsonocalandscape.photo.blog/2020/04/19/landscape-and-gender-exercise-4-4-of-mother-nature-and-marlboro-men/).  I do though like the deadpan approach, particularly as practiced by the Bechers.  So perhaps there is a connection, or an influence, at work behind my own intentions, though coming to a similar aesthetic from a rather different theoretical position.  Perhaps it is also time to reassess my views of Baltz’s work, separated from his conceptual underpinnings.

Marshall, J, (2020).  Halls & Oats.  Lyme Regis:  West Country Modern

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/31/village-halls-west-country-bums-and-tums