I’ve been up to the Pebblebed Heaths several times without discussing these here. I’m still finding my way around what I want from them personally. Stylistically, I’m attracted to the paths, especially where these braid or are rutted by heavy machinery, as these give me the striking lines I’ve enjoyed so much enjoyed in photographing the M5 bridge at Exminster/ Topsham. Yesterday’s shoot was particularly successful, as the frost picked the lines out still further – something that can be problematic where there is deep shadow or a lack of contrast in overcast conditions.

Likewise, I’m continuing my explorations of the ground with the ‘pebble portraits’. The pebbles are a central part of the heath and I think should form a major focus in a photographic exploration – I’m going to challenge myself to tell as much through these about land use (bike tracks, dog prints) and the seasons (acorns, frost). The pebbles are often visually arresting and I should choose pebbles for their attractiveness as well as their context.

I’m also considering ways to use the picturesque. I think this is important in capturing what the heaths ‘mean’ to their users, as the visual sense is formed by cultural experience, whether or not a photograph is being taken. I could do this unproblematically by following the aesthetics of attractive amateur photography, I could represent the picturesque being formed through photographing photographers, or I could subvert standard picturesque content. All three tactics are demonstrated below.

Wandering around Woodbury Common and enjoying the murky flat light, something I’m embracing I think in response to this course, perhaps because it’s stepping away from the picturesque. Many thoughts. First, that the M5 bridge project, though something I love, is fundamentally shallow, ornamental, pretty. That’s not to downplay it, I’m proud of some really great images, but if I want to say more, use photography to analyse deeper, I’m going to need something more complex. It’s been really useful as learning exercise, and it’s not finished, but this is very much a personal project, its final form impossible to predict, though I suspect when I have the images and guts to do so, it’ll be a collection of abstracts. 

Second, that I need to migrate my feelings about filmmaking to photography – that is, rather than a painstaking wish to get the best shots, then and there, think ahead, take time, my restless, ranging approach is just fine. It’s gleaning. Collecting. And, like Varda, it comes to make sense not in the decisive moment, but when put in combination. I need to think not in terms of single stand-out images – which I have hitherto – but of images that form part of a whole, maybe that rely on one another to persuade and express. 

Third, that I won’t be able to express everything I need through photography, just like I needed my voiceover for my filmmaking. So, rather than seek photographs to stand in for information, or write to describe photographs better, I should let photographs express what they express better than words, and words express what they express better than photographs. How they fit together, who knows. It’s early days. 

Fourth, that I’ve chosen something more complex and ambitious than anything else, including film. There’s a need to adapt my style to my subject – to look out for ways of using my lines (like in tracks) and my colours (like in light) and the strange (like the leylandii) and the political. I should look at how a photographer with a recognisable style transfers between very different subject. I should go back to Shore’s Survivors of Ukraine(2015) and go in deep there, but be alert for more – like Davies’ European eyes on Japan (2008). 

Fifth, that if I’m going to go for a time of day to be photographing, then it’s got to be dusk. 

I think that’s some quite good thinking to be going on with.

Markerink et al. 2008. European Eyes on Japan. Tokyo: EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee

Shore, S. 2015. Survivors of Ukraine. London: Phaidon Press. 

I’d scheduled a visit to Greenham Common today, but my brain decided last night was a great opportunity to wake up at 1, fret, and then think over coursework. Cheers, brain. So a 6 hour round trip wasn’t on the cards and instead I headed up to the Pebblebed Heathlands, a 40 minute round trip. Actually, maybe brain wasn’t being such a numpty after all, as the ensuing train of thought was productive and clear.

The first thing today made totally clear is just how impractical my intended project is. Sure, it’s a great project, but the amount of travel it’d involve will cost money I don’t have and cause disruption to home life if I’m doing it properly. Fact is, it doesn’t have to be done like this. I can investigate commons without needing to visit them all. The Pebblebed Heathlands are fascinating, known to me, and there’s even academic research that I’ve used previously, love, and can go into more deeply. If I’m developing a project about connectedness to land, and if I’m taking a phenomenological approach, then I need to develop my own connectedness to a common, which I can’t do if I’m flying around the country. I’ve been weighing up whether the project should be many commons in no great depth, or one or a couple in depth. Given my inclinations and limitations, it makes sense to go with the latter, and it will also give me the chance to develop a knowledge of sensory ethnography, use money for equipment, and develop a project more connected to Strands and to the possible future PhD with Gideon Koppel. So, OK brain, you win. You were right.

It’s also worth thinking more about the place of research into commons and photography. There’s no reason they can’t be separate but connected. I can write a series of essays on commons generally. I can investigate commons in East Devon through photography. Each can stand on its own, and I like the idea that the photography shouldn’t need explaining. But the two can be connected by approaching the same subject in different ways. Also, why can’t the photo project be like a diary? Entries date, weather, time – rather than trying to get all the shots alike. Food for thought.

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.