A future portfolio review has been stuck in my head. If only I had a portfolio with a single concept to talk about. I do not want to open a portfolio of unrelated images and try to bullshit the theme; I need a clever direction. I have been around Flickr and various blogs long enough to get bored of photography that is self therapy, walks with a camera or endless expressions of the picturesque, which is where I am stuck. I keep failing to enter any rabbit hole of an artistic direction. Thinking of this fantasy portfolio review questions if I have made half the progress I wanted.
Another mind fuck of a rat hole I fell down; if I did have an exhibition, what would I want to show? Another perspective could be thinking if I went to my dream photography exhibit, what would the pictures be? Would my own images even interest me? As you can see, I am having a contemplative weekend. Perhaps over confident; I feel that I am close to having some direction. Today, a bit too wishy washy, I’ve a vibe, a personal style. I am a little unique or at least creating work that is more niche than original. I am just falling short of a bloody concept.
Last year I posted the photoshoot is dead, this year I am feeling its harder to navigate through this issue than I anticipated. I watched something on YouTube recently, a video about as unrelated to Photography as imaginable. Chris Williamson and author Louise Perry talking about if we are in a period of Prudishness or Licentiousness. An interesting point Louise Perry remarked that when more people start noticing some excess and talking about it loudly, that’s when society start to change attitudes. It got me thinking about the internet modelling bubble. It’s negative connotations and prevailing aesthetic which seems to of become such a noticeable excess that it is being talked about more frequently, it is starting to be ridiculed. I think the genre is now out of fashion.
Deciding the end is nigh; it is time to draw a line under model photography as a basis for an art project, but keep it open for practice and experimentation. Working with models is fun, it has got me to where I am today, it is like the life drawing lessons for artists. It is an effortless way to create artistic images, but rarely art. It has become something of a machine where every aspect has become routine and honed towards creating very similar images. In the famous words of King Arthur, “On second thoughts let’s not go to Camelot, ‘tis a silly place”.
Despite just fucking off 15 years of model photography in the paragraphs above, I do keep looking at my print “Quartz”, I think it’s beautiful, Irida is beautiful, its different, it’s me, it’s got a vibe. I just cannot quite get all my images to a place I want, safely outside of the bubble. Little will change, I will still book models, landscape’s will now simply take the lead.
I did have one practical art project involving photographing artists rather than models. This avoids the pitfalls of model photography whilst using the skills I have built. I would want to capture the unsung artists of folk music, traditional crafts, and those more aligned with the mystical of English traditions.
The reality is I am far from a socialite; I have no contacts in such realms of society. It is often the case even obscure talented artists have their own network of photographers, both professional and more art aligned that they work with. I might slowly test the waters, go to more art exhibitions and cultural events, see what conversations I can have. I also need to consider this is going into territory more aligned to a profession than a pastime and will be a logistical mission. A project that ticks so many boxes but dangerously in the zone of something I will never start.
The unexpected tilt back towards landscapes has surprised me. I had little interest in landscapes since I started shooting models. It is photographs of people that interested me the most from other photographers. The human condition is what some people feel is beauty itself. After Fifteen years of shooting models, I am now feeling landscapes speak to me again.
Rural countryside suits my personality; I am at home and very aware of the sense of place. My interest in psychogeography is growing; it has more untapped potential than working with models. Unfortunately, my images are just touching upon random themes, going off in different directions, always diluting any sticky syrup that could hold them together. I just need a little more focus.
I do not own a dog, even in 2025 I get weird looks from other men walking their dogs in the fields around Warwickshire. I often smile and say hello, staring towards my dog-less self suspiciously, they pass without a word. But this dog walking wankers rant is digressing my point; I go on walks with my camera, not to create art and that is my issue. I also need to consider if I want to get more serious with my photography. Thinking about more focussed projects worry’s me that I could be taking my hobby into something tediously academic.
Organically formed, the idea of shooting just one field has already started. Many of my photographs are of the same field. It is a concept I like, but it has issues. Debatably, I have done the open field shoot to death. Whilst just one field may seem too boring for a body of work; after brainstorming I am now worried about the opposite. I am not sure I could present a project about a field without its seasons, its wildlife, its macro world, farming, and farmers. Suddenly, it is feeling like a final year MA rather than a fun pastime after work. Do I really want to be researching who owns the land? email some farmers if they want to meet some twat with a Hasselblad to get some farmy documentary images? Can I be arsed? I should be, it is my life’s goal to have some exhibition worth making but, for now I am undecided. On the positive side I like the challenge of keeping images fresh with such a limited subject.
Perhaps a subconscious desire to buy a Clippy XLR stereo microphone pair. Twice a year I go though a phase of wanting to try Field Recording. Over the years I have drunkenly bought the recorder, now just missing the microphone. Something inside me feels once I am out in nature with headphones and holding a microphone on a boom arm, I would have officially given up on being normal. Despite the worry of tipping over social norms, I like the idea of combining field recording with photographs, finding a synergy between them. The problem is trying to combine them; audial visual art is neatly captured on video. Audio and photographs could be a Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow and I am not getting too excitable over that. I did have a slightly crazier idea of making a mechanical contraption with speakers that physically presents an image, then flips it away and present another.
Reading deeper into psychogeography; it is the edge-lands that gives the most interest. It is the half fucked up and weirder side of suburbia that meets the rural. To go full steam forward into the world of the psychogeographic I will need to pivot my usual haunts. Questioning my commitment to the arts again; I am unsure I want to spend my weekends trying to find semi shit hole countryside when I could be out doing the Cotswold way. My gut feeling is the rougher the estate, the better the psychogeography. I do not feel powerful imagery of edgelands materialise when sticking to the bucolic Warwickshire and towns connected by the Fosse way. A concept of Edgelands interest me, I am just mindful I will need to commit to time walking in locations I would not otherwise visit.
This is a concept I am excited about but fumbling in the dark on what specifically the “art” will be. This concept is the least photography and most “lens based artwork” Tempering my enthusiasm is the reality I do not really like when photography goes too far into traditional arts such as painting and drawing. I also do not like collage style art with various images and bits of shit stuck onto a big board. It is a concept I would love to explore but grounded by the fact I cannot imagine the blasted thing I am to make and hate everything I think of. Perhaps a kind of map, a map of the psychology of the landscape rather than its topology, how? God knows.
This is the exhibition I would want to see, it is the work I am the most excited about, just I have not made anything in this genre, which is concerning. It is all about planning, props, hours thinking up ideas. I am excited but worried I may have no ideas after all. Even if such a shoot was to be a disaster, by the act of going out solely to make a piece of art, it is worth a shot. As with other ideas “altered landscape” is not specific enough, I need more focused themes within this genre. ‘The passing and repeating of time’, and more wishy washy, ‘the mystical in the landscape’ spring to mind as themes.
The most logical direction, combining moody portraits into my landscape work. The problem is that is still not a focussed direction. There exists potential but with the usual issues surrounding using models for art, especially when you happen to be a middle-aged guy who seems incapable of considering anything artistic unless it has a beautiful younger woman in it. But damn it, beautiful younger woman creates beautiful imagery even when you have run out of excuses of why they have been shoehorned into a landscape concept.
This is my calling, but it’s the most damaged by AI. It’s the concept of trying to create alien and mystical worlds without any manipulation. Growing up with a Rumbelows black and white tv in my bedroom, staying awake watching Fortean Times, where the reverend Lionel Fanthorpe investigates the paranormal, has shaped my weirder side. This project is to inspire kids and the child in me. It needs some crazy props. Other than the efforts involved, I often go cold on the idea, then hot again months later. Too batshit crazy perhaps.
