I’ve not yet got my head around including images with WordPress – all in good time – but I do want to use my CRJ to think things through.

Yesterday, I did a walk of around 8 miles, linking up a fair few of the extraordinary collection of commons just north of Exmouth/ Budleigh Salterton. The area is an SSSI, and geologically interesting due to its characteristic pebbles – the remnants of a vast river delta that once covered this area. It’s also historically interesting that so many commons still exist in an area of agriculture and so close to relatively urban areas. The weather was glorious and the autumn colours just starting to emerge.

It was unlike any photo walk I’ve done before. I think this is due to it being connected with the MA. Rather, it was like the shoots I did for my film MA – it was a thinking through of ideas, using the camera as a form of thinking, and as a record of thinking. As with film, I became acutely interested in borders and permissions – something that defines commons, so perhaps inevitable. However, I now realise this has been a focus of my photography since that revelatory, frazzled walk with my Yashica in 1994, something that didn’t occur to me until now. Photography can be used as a way of decoding and considering signs – there certainly were plenty of them yesterday.

Personally, perhaps the central question of this MA is – who am I as a photographer, and what is it that I do? These questions were very much present. Being a rather awkward, self-doubting person, I struggle with photographing people. This presents a problem when photographing commons, because people are central to what commons are. They’re what makes a common a common, rather than just a collection of trees, an expanse of heather. To explore commons is to explore how people use the land. A way around this may be to follow one of my aesthetic traits – photographing the ground for the signs and tracks people leave behind – mountain bikes, dog prints, litter, car park potholes.

It’s just an idea, and chances are there are other activities that don’t leave much in the way of traces (such as model plane flying). But what it does make me wonder is whether I’ve been wrong in considering too narrow a view as to what ‘style’ means. I have several photographic strategies that have evolved over time. First is what I’ve just mentioned. Second are the wide angle, very geometric shots that look great with artificial structures, but also work with open spaces and footpaths. Third is my interest in signage – especially where a visual pun is possible. I think I can harness each of these to explore commons in different ways. How I weave them together into a coherent and unified style, and what other strategies I might add, is something to contemplate ongoingly.