von 7Starlings

eingereicht am 1.7.2020

Around Frome: Photographs by Robert Bull

This is my first hard copy display project, so I am finding my way. It includes 87 photographs made in Frome, Somerset, England, and the surrounding area. Most were made in response to three classes run by Karen Dews (https://www.instagram.com/k148photo/). Although it was to be a book, I wanted something close to the experience of looking at mounted prints in a gallery. To that end, I decided on: - matte paper - square pages, so photographs would sit neatly whatever aspect ratio they had - one photograph per page - a dark, neutral background to act as a 'mount' Karen likes the idea of photos "talking to each other," i.e., the whole being more than the sum of the parts. Where possible (it wasn't always) I tried to make facing pages match each other in some way, by composition of lines and shapes, or at minimum, by colour. This plays into the "inscape" idea of my photography mentor, Philip Evans of North Wales, that people have sets of lines, blocks and points in their minds, and when out in the world, only press the button when what's in front of them happens to match one of their innate patterns. Karen also mentioned 'flow' through a book; I didn't give this a great deal of thought, but decided to arrange the photos in groups by colour, the first group predominantly green, followed by blue, which seemed a good lead in to a small black and white section. I am not an instinctive monochrome photographer, and think that sits a little uneasily amid the rest. After that, mixed colours, the first few with a muted palette so as not to jar against the monochrome. At the end, a few pages of brighter colours, index, and acknowledgements. The software told me I still had one blank page available, so I filled it with a collage of photos that hadn't made the final list.