AD7801: Photography 1: Establishing Practice.

I intend to expand and explore historical and current methods of alternative darkroom printing, to come about new ways of looking at my imagery of the hip hop culture and the people who create it. My aim is to create a new style of representation within my photography and perspective, by painting with the photographic chemicals I will be able to create the frame on the paper as well as in the camera. So I  intend to create prints to a high standard of quality that work in series to one another using alternative print process and development, to create a book of fine art prints. I feel photography is being viewed way too much on the screen and on a plain wall, I want my photographs to come alive because I know they can.


I intend to create new imagery keeping to the theme of HipHop, using the same environment (Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, London in the bars. pubs and venues, recording studios etc) and faces I wish to expand my understanding of the final output of my work, I intend to create 8-10 images created on a paper quality that I have researched and acquired to use as my printing material, maybe concrete and wood. To be able to explore meaning further with these people and the environments I will need inspiration to


When thinking of the way I work I realise it is quite outdated in terms of technology in which the images are acquired, I use 30-40 year old equipment and a process that is as old as photography itself, the negative and the chemical process of development and printing as final outcome for archival. When writing about my work previously I have picked up on the physical and m,metaphysical implications of the darkroom print and contact sheet.


“The Contact Sheet is as close to reality as I can get, it is before any editing process, there is no discrimination, revealing technical errors and mistakes as well as showing the final selected frames I will show the reality of how I see the world and the way the world sees me by revealing it all. The sheets order each moment of reality into a six by six grid, totalling 36 images on each page resulting in a chronological visual articulation of the days and nights spent with almost thirty artist from where I first met them up until present day.”


I feel contemporary ways the image is being received is extremely fragmented, we explore images everyday through social media, the news, magazines, books but mostly the internet, viewing has become very fast, articles and posts are made to capture attention quickly and only holds that attention a brief moment in time, the news is instant and people want to find out whats happening as quickly as they can, (resulting in carelessness) the same pattern is seen through social media, this instant gratification. The results of this instant gratification is that peoples attention span is very short, things are only important to them in a space of time they are viewing the imagery and work, resulting in the creation and burst of meme’s, abstract and fragmented ideas and moments that capture the attention in fragments but unfold deeper meaning subjectively through constant interaction with the internet.
So my work is filtering the IOR (Internet of Realities), and I am using the necessity of life, of photography to convey meaning, whether it is portraiture, social documentary or street photography, I am using the ancestry of photography to revive physical reality . I am celebrating life outside of the internet through analogue photography. I am applauding those who are showing their own craft by practicing my craft By being that their events and creating work with them. Thanks to my type of photography I am able to disconnect myself from the internet reality and to become grounded in the physical level of reality and art and stay focused on my goals, and work independently. Maybe I want my work to simplify reality and to bring about order and actual understanding in the non material world, to pull those fragments together but by using the background information. I am creating an original piece of work by making the negatives and prints
This is why analogue photography is still important, in fact I feel it has been pushed into its own corner, the art is made even stronger than ever because there is a parallel in which there is so much chaos and digital reconstruction of reality. The analogue photographer operates in the analogue world and orders the genuine artistic connection between humankind and images. The analogue photographer sees the world as mechanisms and processes, the digital photographer sees the world as constructions and reconstructions.


From here I intend to question and expand my own practices within the analogue photography, I intend to refine my final output through the printing material, the light sensitive chemistry and the way the work is received e.g. Gallery, street display, book or framed, or archived.




I intend to create 8-10 perfectly polished photographs.


I want to explore meaning a bit more, this time through location, lighting, and model placement in terms of the frame of photography in the moment.


I want to develop my journalistic approach by collecting and retaining information related to the creation and viewing/ archiving nature of the work, more in depth names for images, information that goes with the images such as names (real and performance name) Location, lighting, time of year, meaning of photograph. This information will also determine the power and how it is categorised in the future in its archival form. ​