I need to get these thoughts down while they’re still in my mind – hence this post won’t be illustrated with images just yet.

I guess in response to this week’s topic, I’m thinking quite hard about just what my practice is, where it’s going, and where it needs refining. I’m starting to realise that going out shooting stills is actually a very different experience to shooting video, even if it’s on the same camera, even if the subject matter is identical. The really big difference isn’t out in the field – it’s what happens to those bits and pieces afterwards. Whatever strength stills photography has, in comparison with film, it lacks the immersive textual experience of the voiceover, it lacks the thematic and emotive games that can be played through sound, it lacks movement, both on screen and of the frame, and it lacks the sophistication of meaning made possible by editing. This isn’t to imply that photography is inferior – it’s absolutely not – but that I’m going to have to think carefully about how to translate the thematic and textual elements into a new medium.

As I go out shooting, I’m thinking. The shooting is part of that thinking, and this is why I settled on the essay film as the best match for my inclinations as a film form. My thinking can be expressed through choice of shot, choice of frame and focal length, sound, dissonant editing, duration, voiceover, music, on screen text.

In particular, as I shoot, I note down my thoughts and these form the basis of an accompanying text. This text is very important – as a writer, it’s of equal importance to the image. In my dissertation film, and my film about the M5 bridge at Exeter, this was worked up rigorously and was an integral part of the editing process. I realised today that there are things that I won’t be able to say through photographs, but that I want to say, as part of my commons project. These are personal reflections, moods and abstract ideas. I need to think about how to keep this as part of the project.

For example, walking amongst some of the really small patches of common land left – such as Manor Farm, which isn’t even signposted but is actually rather wonderful, and looking across the Otter valley towards Mutters Moor and Harpford Common, it’s like island-hopping between these extraodinary places. Islands in a land inundated with private owndership.

For example, it strikes me that the timelessness of the land is in its useage, in its history. There’s nothing timeless about heathland – it’s heavily managed – but people have been free to wonder on these little patches of land since there were people. In all that time, they have not been stopped, and if they have, they have fought back and won. There’s a dream inherent in the commons, and it’s a dream found in national parks, wildlife reserves, public parks. But common land is the origin of all this – and of course, many of these types of amenity ARE commons. To a certain extent, streets are also a kind of commons.

That was pretty much my train of thought. It’s something I want to develop – but I can only think of doing so in writing. So it’s time to stop messing around, and be including writing in what I’m doing.

As another note, it’s time to stop being so prissy about leaving things untouched. The pebbles on the commons look so much nicer when they’re wet. I need to start getting them wet to photograph them. To hell with authenticity.

And as one final note – one thing that I’m starting to do is understand my terrain, my own take on it. Starting to understand how best to photograph paths, birches, seeing the possibilities in kinds of land. In this, what I’m doing is no different to street photography.