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( http://www.bophoto.co.uk/wpblog/ )
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here is one for the road.

undeveloped - 1

40 rolls of 35mm and 6 rolls of 120 which will have been shot from 1994 to 2006.. most of them during the 90´s.
1512 exposures.
this bag of odds n ends has been carried around as i´ve moved house a dozen times and always mean´t to develope them, yet never had the funds to do so.

i´ve always had a habit of living beyond my means photographically, shooting more than i could afford to. these films represent after-parties, photos from india i did not want to see and goodness knows what else.. some are extra rolls from working on commission - `emergency` films i ended up shooting which did not contain magazine-useable photos and therefore did not justify developing.

i think it´s time to do something with them.. i´m still skint and so it´s tempting to sell a couple off on ebay as-is.. pot luck for a buyer.. curiosity is getting the better of me though, so i´m going to keep them.

will post some results here - could be some surprises.

web site jiggling

have been making some subtle changes to my web site..
how does it look on your browser?
any thoughts?
the intention, as soon as i have my archive again, (dropped my external hard drive), is to put up more in the ´projects´ section and swap many of the ´folio´ photos for more recent work.

Redbull

Tor Capa is 1 year old

.. so he has just had his first ice cream on a stick..

..and his first party..

beefa

apologies for being slack - things have just been very hectic with little Tor Capa, before he begins nursery.
he's one year old today - unbelievable.
to illustrate that i have not been entirely out of touch with photo-snappery, here is one from working in ibiza last week..
i will post again soon..
i will..
i will.

no time.. no time..

i'm on maturnity right now.. until tor capa starts nursery during september..
it's a fantastic time.. very busy as he's walking at 10 months..
we got back from croatia a couple of weeks ago.. quickly found a beautiful flat on top of a mountain.. settled in.. beate started work again after nearly a year on maternity..
all is well.. just no time to blog.
will try to back date blogs this weekend..
here some photos from the past month or two.

in croatia PT.3

tourism from the italian and german, english and scandinavian parts of europe as well as from within croatia itself is booming in places.

there is antipathy towards some areas of the business.. the all-inclusive resorts with wrist band wearing clients who do little or nothing to feed the local area are reluctantly accepted.

tourism has the potential to be big business here, with so much coastline and crystal clear sea, yet i am told that any profit rarely filters down to people in the form of social benefits or improved infrastructure.

big business has moved in from richer countries and purchased many of the most profitable companies and some people have the opinion that there is little left for the croatians themselves..

i'm trying to say little at this time about discussions i'm having here for the simple reason this is the first week of 5, and in time more will become clear. for now i am just really enjoying the photography, the conversations and seeing where one thing and another will lead me.. easing into it gently.

in croatia PT.2

finding reconstruction in villages and towns is really quite easy - there is a lot of it going on in terms of new housing and development, industry and holiday resorts.. individuals and business moving on.

one of the strangest things i have found in this region is roads-to-nowhere. these grids of high quality roads and pavements have been seen next to minefields and deserted villages... like sprawling suburban or industrial areas, minus the buildings.
some locals allege that corruption is feeding the new construction and conflict of interests benefiting certain individuals.. some say that several new developments are not needed


moving inland, though, the veil of normality is generally thinner.. unable to say much for the time being.. still exploring.. still photographing.. yet some destroyed houses stand alone in villages which were relatively untouched by fighting..

in croatia PT. 1

my family and i are spending 5 weeks in croatia at the moment, undertaking 4 or 5 projects with the intention of forming a 10 years after, (or there about), study - during this year that croatia has again been refused entry to the e.u. due to it's northern border dispute.

the first project is to investigate and document reconstruction along the old front-line, perhaps working across into bosnia as well, and in doing so i thought it best to start at the beginning.. with the devastation.

there are a string of ghost villages.. uninhabited due to landmines or simply because the damage was well beyond repair and also peripheral areas of villages and towns, particularly small towns, where damage has not been repaired due to funds...

more info later.. whilst actually photographing i would like to learn much more than i now know and research specific geographical areas before saying more.
as interesting as the project is it's also important for me to respect that the war is still very fresh.. neighbors were fighting neighbors in the region i am currently working.

while photographing as positively as possible i have already been made aware of just how close to the surface the friction is.. with one village in particular taking exception to my working there.

it's quickly become obvious that treading carefully and negotiating access & conversation very gently is the name of the game, even when photographing something as innocuous as a ruined building..

other developing projects are centering around;
-the youth culture movement and punk, bringing young people around the region back together
-tourism and neo-colonialism, which is a double edged sword i'll expand upon later
-the northern border dispute which is preventing entry to the e.u. and
-finally the poverty problems in serbia which continue to this day due to sanctions imposed after the war.

EDITING PT. 15: the magnetic walls are creeping in...

this is getting repetitive.. fun, yet repetitive..
i guess that's editing - not the most interesting subject to blog - and so today i snapped on the mobile phone which alex kindly gave me.

it has a zeiss tessar f2.8 lens, although you would'nt guess it from the fots.
the sensor must be crap...
anyway - this morning i said goodbye to tor capa and bea before heading into collage.. he's not always cross-eyed.. just in the morning, like pappa.

..tucked into a coffee when i got there..

...and then occupied an empty classroom to take possession of the magnetic whiteboard..

6 hours, one chicken salad, a strawberry milkshake, some radiohead and too many smokes later things began falling into place, (note the rows)..


today darragh commented under my last blog post that perhaps i could combine the new title idea for the book, 'wasted', with the old working title, 'decade'.. making either,
'wasted decade'
or
'a decade wasted'.
which i certainly was.. big props to you darragh.. very welcome contribution.. buy you a beer in london next month..


i quite like the irony of 'wasted' because in fact most of the people photographed were having the time of their lives.. living more than perhaps they will again..
some of the parties had such solid intentions.. n. ireland.. serbia.. croatia.. argentina.. canada.. that they could not be called a waste, and yet thats the self imposed term most would apply to themselves at gigs..
it would also be a proper use of the word 'irony', which i've always wanted to do..

up-and-in at 8.30am tomorrow for more of the same before teaching at 11.30...
i'll probably change everything i did today and go for a cheese n ham salad instead.

EDITING PT: 14 - joy of a harvey wallbanger

my home office right now is actually no more than a corner of our baby change room.. i sit at the desktop mac, photoshelter and photographs open to edit live, with beates laptop open on skype to my right... the internet jack is bust so a hairband hooked over the table edge holds it in place.
still..

professionalism is a state of mind and we´re moving in a couple of weeks anyway - firstly to Croatia for 5 weeks where i will be working and onwards.. elsewhere...

but i digress... i caught up with David Alan Harvey on skype today regarding my book and how it is developing.. and, just like his beard, it´s coming along nicely.

with today's call i needed to achieve 2 things - firstly to find a name for the book which unlike the working title of ´decade´ feels irreverent.. as loose and chaotic as the book will be.

the first suggestion was that i wrote lots of single words on a piece of paper and jiggle them around until something settled. what settled was ´world party´ which, without wanting to be disrespectful to them, sounds a little too much like a band from the 80´s who were much adored by those with little interest in music.. (see also ´the lighthouse family´).

¨A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
~Leopold Stokowski¨

and so a week or two ago i hit the quotation sites on the web and found some cracking quotes which i could cream a couple of words from.. quotes about music..
i mentioned a couple and that led to David telling me that all of Martin Parr's book titles are taken straight off the pages of tabloid newspapers.. superb..

sonar in Barcelona 2000

David then clicked on the photo above - hastily titled ´wasted asleep´, before i banged it away to the magazine client in 2000..
wasted.. wasted youth.. my wasted career.. ´Jesus wept - i was wasted last night´.
wasted.
wasted seems like a good name.. trashy.. evocative and provocative.. it´s the number one title for now.. please suggest if you have one better.

layout was also on my need-to-talk about list.
early on in the process David cast doubt on the idea that i need to include day and night photos - thinking the day snaps simply did not fit my style or point.
however, i have wrestled with it and cannot disregard them.
there are some photos i love which will be left out of the book, such as the one below , because they do not fit aesthetically but i have been unable to discount the day ones simply because of the lack of flash.

san francisco NYE 2001

the trick now is going to be in blending them all without using formal chapters.. and i´m excited to say that i think there is a solution.

we chatted about the book needing to hold some of the energy of the events photographed and how to achieve this.. it cannot be as clean and beautifully gentle as Davids ´divided soul´ because my life, the people in the photos and the events themselves were anything but that.
so there will be 4 or 5 ´breaks´ or visual bookmarks to section off the book..
double pages with upwards of 10 or 15 photos scrambled onto them perhaps, (below), as photographed 6 by 4´s laid on a table or perhaps in a cleaner, patchwork style.


they could then be roughly themed upon the full page photos on the following pages of the book..
a visual break between style, content or aesthetic which will enable the use of day photos and also allow the use of photos which are less suitable for full page use.. snaps that are good for telling the story, but which do not warrant a full page..

following the work chat comes the general chat..
burn magazine..
a 1978 copy of national geographic with some of Davids work..
and teaching, photography and the eternal question of WHY we photograph?

sometimes though it is better not to think why and to simply do.. and i´m certainly glad that i did DO for so many years :ø) really enjoying this book right now..

many thanks again for your help and advice David - it is always motivating and downright fun to chat with you..
d

constitution day, 17th may..

gratulere med dagen..
17th may is important in the norwegian year - it is the day in 1814 when the countries constitution was settled upon in eidsvoll.
read more about it here.

we had a family day.. here are some snaps..


















this year as it turned may 17th norway also celebrated winning the eurovision... alexander ryback came up with a decent violin riff and creamed it.. big congratulations to him..
watch it here if that´s your cup of tea.