working with the weather

Today I have to get on with taking some photos. I have two plans for the day, neither of which I can currently execute because the weather is wrong; I want to try a collage of some houses in my road, but would like a little bright light. Failing that I really want to try getting some more shots in the rain, but the forecast today is for high pressure. Such is life; I also tried to get a video of the dog speed-eating her breakfast, but the camera was cold from being in the car, and steamed up at the critical moments; will try again , but sadly can't give the dog two breakfasts!

Having been to Andrew Watson's talk on Monday about the Segsbury Camp project, I now understand why he mentioned researching glue when I mentioned my interest in collage; he has been there and done that. I could, of course, create digital collages, and there are even websites that will create a Hockney polaroid effect for free on any image that you choose, but having tried it on a couple of photos decided that there was no creative control whatsoever.  Andrew's work with an archeological site involved using a camera on a pole taking aerial views of the ground, something that has also been done to good effect by Andreas Gefeller in his studies of empty buildings in Japan and Dusseldorf. Both photographers have used extremely methodical techniques to create exact plans of the ground; my plan is to be less mathematical and possibly to experiment with scale on a vertical and horizontal plane.

I was amused to see that Andrew's work was displayed in large plan chests, in a similar way to work that I didn't understand at Elusive. This confirms for me the importance of understanding the intention and background of the work; Andrew's use of chests seemed entirely appropriate and practical, in allowing the viewer to get really close to the images despite the entire work being enormous. If I had been asked to look at them without knowing anything of how or why they were there I would probably have passed them by.

www.arch.ox.ac.uk/segsbury-camp.html

 www.andreasgefeller.com/supervisions/works_since_2005