photography

The Story of Roundabout / July 14, 2020 by Jacqui Booth

In my work, I try to express emotion through my landscape photography, and I bear in mind questions about whether work should have an objective theme, or whether it can be purely personal.

Roundabout is intended to be a visual explanation of my emotional state whilst considering my ongoing frustrations regarding freedom to access green spaces, trespassing and the urban environment, particularly the impact of traffic.

It is a response to a minor car accident, back pain, a difficult relationship, weeks of flu and the anxiety that traps me close to home. The fire that propelled me to travel (or was it escape?) has diminished, quelled by the responsibility I have for my children and my home. It has rooted me to the spot, made me weak and sometimes confines me to my bed. Things scare me. Really scare me.

I have learnt to reliably move my body in beneficial ways. As Lee Hazlewood sang "I've learned to do some simple things. Like lock the door and shut the lights". I wake the kids, clean the kitchen, make some food, shop online. Activities are safe: out with friends, visiting cities, using public transport. The result is that the wildernesses I love are largely out of bounds.I pick up a camera or two and explore close to home, almost a genre of landscape photography itself[1].

I seek out the pockets of green overlooked by industry, where traffic rages metres away or buzzes continuously on the periphery. I try to suspend reality, to enjoy this faint taste of freedom. But the land is spoilt, it's inadequate, damaged and poisoned. It reflects me.I want to stretch my legs, to walk for miles without hitting towns, to hear the silence and feel my heart settle. Is it healthy to live like this? I don't think so.

It's been documented that nature is beneficial to those suffering from depression. “Controlling for individual and regional covariates, we found that, on average, individuals have both lower mental distress and higher well-being when living in urban areas with more green space.” [2]

However, a UK study finds differently “after adjustment for confounding by respondent socio-demographic characteristics and urban/rural location, the association was attenuated to the null”.[3] The report goes on to say “While we did not find a statistically significant association between the amount of green space in residents’ local areas and mental wellbeing, further research is needed to understand whether other features of green space, such as accessibility, aesthetics or use, are important for mental wellbeing.” I find this is revealing.

Looking around my mostly urban area, there are city parks, verges and further out, fields and a few country parks (of the pay your parking fee, be gone by dusk variety). I appreciate these but they are structured, small pockets of shared space in which we are ‘allowed’ to visit if we have a car and the fee. In addition to this, many ‘green’ areas are simply there because the land has no value for further development. The term ‘Edgelands’ was conceived in 2002 by Marion Shoard to describe “The interfacial interzone between urban and rural”. It is not necessarily a new concept, as a hundred and fifty years earlier Victor Hugo gloriously declared these areas "bastard countryside...ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures".

These areas hold an unconventional attraction. This is my environment. The work I’m making is borne of this. My photographs show the damage inherent in these zones but include an element of hope as nature pokes through the poisoned ground. It’s a metaphor for how I feel, how I adapt, how I compromise within my surroundings and yet hope to grow.

Image from East Meet West Publication, 2020

References

1 Irvine, John (2015) A Path Not Far... Landscape Editions Volume One www.kozubooks.com

2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23613211 Psychol Sci. 2013 Jun 24 Would you be happier living in a greener urban area? A fixed-effects analysis of panel data. White MP1, Alcock I, Wheeler BW, Depledge MH.

3 https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/publications/524371 BMC Public Health, June 1, 2017 A cross-sectional analysis of green space prevalence and mental wellbeing in England Victoria Houlden, Scott Weich and Stephen Jarvis

They call it progress / December 20, 2018 by Jacqui Booth

“When we destroy something created by man, we call it vandalism. When we destroy something created by nature, we call it progress.” -Ed Begley Jr.

Nope, I've no idea who Ed Begley Jr. is. An American actor, says Wikipedia, but I liked the words in relation to these photographs of the local railway sheds. Clearly, the scene has been 'created by man' (I've never seen a woman working in the sheds - they seem to be assigned to period dress and tea duty only in this microcosm), though I'd argue that it was nature enough. Every time I visit the Great Central Railway, it's not the trains that fascinate me, it's this area of ramshackle storage containers full of useful odds and ends that eventually become restored engines. Every time I'm allowed to wander through the sheds, smell the oil and peep at the work in progress, the tools and the workbenches I appreciate the access...and the people working there wonder why I'm taking photos. "We had some students in here once taking photos..." they'll say, totally unaware of how special this unpretentious environment is.

I took these photos a nearly two years ago and since then I've had little time to devote to such things. I haven't now. I want to be studying but I'm cleaning the house ahead of Christmas, which is long overdue and hindered by a back that needs to be a little stronger for such things. Still, I'm making progress in my microcosm, though it's influenced by what I think a house should appear to be, criticisms from family and ideas about home style (mostly ignored) rather than simply providing a safe, warm environment for my family and friends. Tools and guitars will be moved, offcuts of wire and piles of sawdust eradicated, albeit temporarily. My own clutter will be tamed. Still, until tarpaulin chic is fashionable, it's probably for the best.

Last summer / July 3, 2017 by Jacqui Booth

So...where to begin? It's perhaps best not to even think about it too much. So much has changed since the last time I blogged about any photos, mainly because so much has happened personally. It's okay, I've still had a smile on my face sometimes, but hell, it's been stressful and will continue to be for the time being.

It's difficult to place how I feel about a lot of my photos that have remained stockpiled. It's not only because I'm so tired at the moment that my elbows keep slipping off the desk. They're just from another time.

This lot are already nearly a year old and I think they were taken to test the AGFA, which seemed very reluctant to give me a good photo on my trip to Denmark. There's still something going on with it that I'll suss out another time. Since then I've taken almost sole responsibility on a day to day basis for my two teenage lads and (fortunately) for now I have the family home to look after. The lads and I are grappling with shopping, cooking, cleaning, GCSE's and all the emotional stuff they feel when their parents royally fuck up the nuclear family thing and quite suddenly start seeing new people.

On this day the sun shone, my youngest protested strongly about getting out of the car at all and a most likely autistic lad laid in a ditch for a whilst his parents patiently waited for him to settle. A regular day out but I knew when we came here as a four that it was for the last time we'd be such a unit at Sherwood Pines. It was almost bittersweet. I drove, the kids eventually played happily together in a place full of happy memories and I took some photos...

52 Rolls:21 Denmark. Holga Meg Diana+ / November 24, 2016 by Jacqui Booth

My family is very varied. Some folk never venture far from home. Others decide that they’re going to get as far away from it as possible. I was talking to perhaps the most wayward member of my family in my Grandma’s flat one afternoon when I said “Well, next time you’re in Europe, give me a yell and I’ll hop on a plane”. And she yelled. And I did.

So it came to pass that after a hastily rejigged departure following a flight cancellation, I left the newly bolted together house mamil still sweating off post operative drugs in the care of my laziest youngest offspring, and got into a cab, caught a train to Luton, an airport bus, a plane to Denmark (the Teenagers’s first flight and only my third), took the Metro into Copenhagen, and another train out to Odense. Heather was located at the top of an elevator, and we all got on the bus to her digs.

The main aim was to catch up with digital photos – so there’s only one from Odense here. The whole country is so utterly tidy and there are safe cycle lanes right out into the middle of nowhere. And they’re not kidding when they say it’s flat. Seriously, even I can ride a bike there for miles and miles. You’ve got to be a maniac to ride one in the UK in comparison. I did when I got back – that’s been filed under Not Fun.

This flat, well kept country was potentially quite uninteresting for me as I like the slightly messier asides – but with the help of the Uni staff we did find some run down areas. However, this was spotted by my son just metres from Heather’s extremely pleasant Ikea infested digs. We spent a lovely time in the drizzle with the wild horses getting this snap.

After three days it was time to let Heather do some work and for her partner, Mark, to head off on even wilder travels with the tiniest lightest camping kit ever, so we headed to Copenhagen for a day and a bit, staying with a 20-something over tall volleyball enthusiast named Rasmus, who rented out a painfully cool room on Air BnB. We wandered out on the first day to explore…you’ll notice from the overlapped photos that the Holga was set to the wrong exposure option. 16, rather than 12. I suspect Teenager involvement (I borrowed his Holga later and it was set wrong), but I don’t have a film mask for this camera so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

The second day was spent in the National Museum of Photography, the Design Museum, and the National Gallery of Denmark so there wasn’t much time for photos. Besides, the Teenager’s patience was stretched enough as it was by the time we hit the modern art that he staged a sit in (I may have left him in front of one of the more out-there exhibits on purpose) and I had to call in an emergency all you can eat buffet stop at Riz Raz. He was a bit rancid during the refuelling process but we survived.

We both really liked Denmark, despite us still coming quite seriously unstuck with two cancelled trains along the way and we were rather naffed off to be back in the UK. But we headed out to the ‘the pits’ for a wander soon afterwards – well, we needed to finish the film, catch pokemon and eat ice cream. I think we’ve adapted again now to our comparatively under funded over populated environment. It’s a lot less relaxing, bit infinitely more varied.

And we’re planning our next trip. California/Nevada/Utah, I’m told…2019. I hope we do it.

Technical shit:

I really have very little idea. It was ages ago. Bear with me! I know I used Digibase C-41 Ready to use pre diluted softpacks. The temp was 25 as it was such a hot weekend and after I following the 21 temp instructions earlier in the day I followed the instructions for the 25 temp…but I’m not sure it was the best idea. Another film in the same canister was less than impressive – but it was probably just way too out of date.

52 Rolls Weeks 15: My Grandad’s folding Brownie / August 20, 2016 by Jacqui Booth

Well, I said they’d be some cheats, and seeing as I’m falling behind then this is going to have to do! I started this roll of film last summer and because the camera belonged to my Grandad Booth, I wanted to run family shots through it…and these things take time.

But with a squeal of delight which alarmed the baby and just about shifted the sorrow caused by my realisation that I’d wasted a frame AND most likely blurred a couple of shots in snap happy haste, the roll of Neopan was ready to meet its Rodinal.

So, I was kitchen bound…the soundtrack was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Tender Pray and much singing and dancing was done between agitations. This is how Saturday mornings should be.

And lo, there were pictures! Pictures of the wife and descendants of the Booth man himself. Not all of the family by a long shot – I may have to round them up. And enter into some sort of unholy alliance with a tripod…

This was risky – a indoor shot with only bright sunlight from the window to the right. That’s my expectant sister with my Grandma. I should probably have left using the camera to her to be fair – she must have used it before!

And here’s a motley selection of 1st and 2nd generation descendants – with a 3rd generation in utero. I can’t have taken the 2nd pic as I’m in it! I suspect Mr Z was called to help again. I may have told him to stand too far back.

And later, here’s my newly adopted fave pub for lunch – you’ll notice that there’s now four generations all out in the open!

And a few months later, here she is valiantly tolerating her first day in my sole care. And I was treated to smiles. And I messed it up! Still, I’ve tested it and I can fit a tripod under her pushchair. Next time.

Note to self: Just stop it with the light leaks!