Thought it would be worthwhile documenting my working practice for prospecting for images in East London.
The first step is desk research. My aim now is to try to get a broad spread of references from Booth’s survey. I would like to include the various industries he reviewed, get a broad geographic spread and coverage of the different ethnicities (indigenous British as well as immigrant groups). This involves identifying general areas on Booth’s maps and then checking the digitised notebook entries on the on-line reference site at London School of Economics.
For a day’s trip into East London, five or six sites to check out is about right. I set off yesterday with six logged into my notebook. Once at the site I look for the most compelling composition which shows the location in an interesting way. I look for compositions which include architecture and details from different time periods (old and new is good) and also I look out for visual clues to the historic reference in the modern scene – although I don’t want these to be too obvious.I also need to anticipate where the light will be coming from during dawn, dusk and at night. I have found that sometimes a shot is just not possible if a strong light is too close creating flare. I also need the important elements to be lit. Shooting late at night often means that lights will still be on in the windows of the houses/appartments. Shooting at 4 am street lighting will be available and sometimes office and shop lights are still on.
I use my iPhone to make test shots with an app called Viewfinder Pro. This app enables me to simulate the view using my Phase One medium format camera and different lenses. I have only been using two lenses for the work – an 80mm (50mm 35mm equivalent) and a 45 mm (28mm 35mm equivalent). The 45mm is wider than I would really like but as I often need to adjust the digital images to straighten the verticals shooting a little wider is a good idea.
Here are some examples of locations from yesterday’s reconnoitre. Booth’s texts are in italics.
PEABODY TRUST ESTATE, JOHN FISHER STREET near Royal Mint Street
Sanitary conditions are desirable but not always desired; restrictions as to cleanliness etc are looked on as drawbacks.
This is the image I chose from the alternatives I made. There does not appear to be any offending lights. The buildings are shown well and the new buildings and church in the background adds historical depth. This shot I will try to make in the evening when there are lights on in the flats. You can see from the frame lines on the Viewfinder Pro image that I will probably need the 45 mm lens. My conclusion is that this location is worth a visit.
John Fisher Street Peabody Estate
CURTAIN ROAD SHOREDITCH
Cabinet-makers, French-polishers, upholsterers, turners and chair-makers are found at every turn
This is a busy street during the daytime with lost of parked vehicles, but the view from the southern end of the street looking up towards some old buildings which were furniture showrooms in Booth’s day has potential. I will need to reassess the composition on site. During the daytime the motorbikes and the parked van obscure the view. I have in mind keeping the street lamp central in the frame and hope to show both the banner on the building to the right and the wonderful cornice on the old building just left of centre. It is probably a shot which will need an 80mm lens. This is an early morning shot.
Curtain Street Shoreditch
UNDER LIMEHOUSE CAUSEWAY, near West India Dock
Then on down between the high dock walls, road littered with peas, heavy carts, great noise, echoing walls….
This has potential to be a strong shot. The old text has modern day echoes. It is a shot for the very early morning to avoid traffic. It is difficult to tell how the light will fall at twilight but I have high hopes for this one – sometime hopes are dashed. 80mm lens is the one to use.
Former Dock Entrance under Limehouse Causeway
SALTER STREET near Westferry DLR station
Through the shop and into the back room… a low bed, two chinamen smoking opium, a great ticking of clocks….
Another shot with great potential. I need to make sure it is sufficiently different from my tunnel shot of Regents Canal…. 45 mm is the right lens, I might need to step back a little to get in more of the DLR station.
Salter Street near Westferry DLR station
PITFIELD STREET near Old Street
In the sixpenny seats I have heard a discussion on Irving’s Faust…
There were many theatres in Shoreditch in Victorian times. The Varieties was on Pitfield Street. The gothic building to the right of the frame in the image below is the former Passmore Edwards Library. Part of it these days is the Courtyard Theatre….what goes around comes around… This might be an evening shot subject to traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian. This way the lights will be on in the buildings in the centre background. 80mm lens.
Pitfield Street Shoreditch
The sixth site on Poplar High Street didn’t work out….
photo-graph 
Guy
June 15, 2014
Hi Keith!
I bookmarked this posting when I first saw it as one to come back to and digest more fully. Re reading it I am interested in your method of choosing sites. I hadn’t realized until now just how much the social geography was driving your choices, as a Geographer I approve particularly your efforts to get a broad representation of ethnicities and industries; though if you were a geography student I would expect total representation. This is where it gets interesting for me, how do you balance the “need” to represent each area and group against the need to find a representative image. Clearly doing “just another streetscape” isn’t the answer and your third paragraph addresses the gross criteria that make a shot acceptable, but are they enough to make an image compelling rather than just representative? That would seem to be the difference between art photography and just recording. What is the ultimate goal?
I am interested in your use of Viewfinder Pro. I have it on an iPhone4 that I use as a viewfinder on my 4×5 and have been looking about for a wide-angle adapter to allow full-screen viewing of the image from my 65mm and was wondering whether you had looked into getting something like this for your wide-angle work.
I recently bought Viewfinder Mark II and installed it on the 4 as well as the 5s I use as a phone, but so far I have found that Pro is more intuitive to use.
A couple of years ago I watched Joe Cornish “scouting” with a Canon G11(I think) and started to wonder about what a device intended only for viewfinder/scouting would look like. Viewfinder/iphone4 works well in the finder mode, particularly when I’m doing things with different roll film sizes on the 4×5 and even more so when I’m doing pinhole and zone-plate stuff. However I’m not so sure that this software/hardware combination is ideal for scouting. “Notebook” shots like those you have here are great as placeholder and memory aids, but a couple times I have been scouting and run into one of a kind lighting situations… well you can imagine the frustration I’m sure.
Thank you for posting your progress, process, and thoughts. This blog is one of a very small number I visit regularly. Seeing and reading your ideas is often thought provoking, something I value highly. I hope that you are enjoying your degree program, but I selfishly hope you take a long time to finish. Cheers
Keith Greenough
June 20, 2014
Thanks Guy….making a compelling image at the locations I have selected is a real challenge and not always possible…some images just don’t work…
the art in the work is also related to the link between the image and text. My aim is for there to be a disjuncture between the two which stimulates alternative narratives in the mind of the viewer. The thinking here is based on Umberto Eco’s idea of the Open Work which is in a sense an art work which is incomplete and open to alternative interpretations. Each viewer completes the work based on his or her own agenda…
Finding the ‘one of a kind lighting situation’ whilst scouting without a proper camera would indeed be frustrating. So far though I have been exploring locations during daytime so coming across such an opportunity is pretty unlikely in this case…
Guy
June 23, 2014
Hi Keith! Thank you for mentioning “Open Work” I am very happy to learn that there is an English translation available and have ordered a copy. Reading it with a dictionary in one hand and a telephone in the other was a truly onerous experience.
In looking at various OCA BLOGs I have noticed that most comments fall into the complementary “you’re doing great stuff” category and seem to avoid any kind of critical or questioning thoughts about the postings. Having said that, I’m not clear on whether this is simply based on politeness, a desire to not attract critical comments to one’s own BLOG, or a reflection of the OCA culture. So if this comment is too far out of line please just delete it.
I am not an expert on postmodernism and it is many years since I gave these books close reading, but, with all due respect, your description of your plan sounds more like the ideas behind Derrida’s notion that there is no privileged reading of any text, each reader bringing their own knowledge and experience to bear on their individual interpretation and thus completing their unique version of the text. Eco’s open texts on the other hand hinge on the author purposely building in ambiguity or optional sections. In “Opera aperta” he gives as examples of open texts: sculpture with elements that move around so that their parts appear in different conjunctions; music that has optional ordering and/or inclusion of sections; and writing that incorporates ambiguous language that allows different interpretation. The key to the variability of the text being that alternate interpretations are planned and built into the piece rather than just being based on the chance addition of an unknown reader’s life experience.
In his previous book “The Role of the Reader” (where he starts his discussion of the dichotomy between open and closed texts), Eco says “You cannot use the text as you want, but only as the text wants you to use it. An open text, however ‘open’ it be, cannot afford whatever interpretation. An open text outlines a ‘closed’ project of its Model Reader as a component of its structural strategy.” In other words the project must provide the pieces to allow the reader to reach an acceptable end.
In defining the extreme case Eco says that a text “…open’ to every possible interpretation will be called a closed one.” To my mind this means that the job you have with this project is building on the documentary text and the photograph in a way that adds a range of options or indeterminacy that the viewer can contemplate and choose among in building their completed viewing. That obviously requires more than just the document and the photograph (which would by definition be a closed text). I don’t think that this will give the simplification of presentation that you were hoping for.
Now, having pulled these books off of the shelf I can see that I should probably move them to my desk for a rereading and dust the shelf.
Very best regards…
Keith Greenough
June 23, 2014
Thanks Guy. Good to have some challenging feedback.
My intention has been to try to build in ambiguity/disjuncture between the images and texts to allow/stimulate alternative interpretations by a reader/viewer. The idea is to operate in the same way as the literary works that Eco refers which have (to paraphrase your comment) “writing that incorporates ambiguous language that allows different interpretation”.
For example a text referring to Victorian Opium den juxtaposed with a modern day street scene with no evidence of such activity might generate a range of meanings/interpretations. Some might be try to visualise how the historic narrative took place. Others might think about what drug related activity might be taking place in the modern scene presented. Yet others may be drawn to their personal experiences of drugs in modern urban life. And so on…. The broad context of these interpretations is anticipated by my image/text construction (drugs, Urban life, East London, foreign/exotic influences etc.), but the detail is left to the viewer. This is my intention but from your perspective I don’t seem to be achieving my aims….food for thought.
Eco also refers to the fact that there is no ‘privileged reading’ of a text and whilst I agree he does refer to Open Texts anticipating possible alternative interpretations, but I doubt if he believed that all possible outcomes could be interpreted. This would close the work down rather than leaving it Open…. Did Joyce for example anticipate all possible interpretations of the text in Finnegans Wake. My view is that he did not…
You have reminded me that I need to post my thoughts on Eco’s work….