Project Development: Location Shoot One

Having looked through my old research, such as 'Hurry up and Wait' and 'The Great North Road' the most successful images in those books are the portraits of the people that the artists encounter. Through driving and owning and maintaining a car, I have met a lot of people that are associated with road travel, and I feel that visiting and shooting them is a relevant part of my project, and something that I can expand into.

I decided to visit my mechanic, as he is a big part of my driving life, and I felt that he would make for an interesting set of portraits.

These four images are the best I took, and as it was raining and he was busy, I didn't get the chance to take too many more! I think that, from a viewers perspective, images of people that I come across and deal with over the course of my journeys make for more interesting portraits than my passengers. I am beginning to realise that I am going to have to expand my project a little to include more of these types of images. I plan to keep some key portraits of my passengers, but concentrate more on the roadside services.

Collection Idea 2 - Windscreen shots

Over the course of the last few months, I have been shooting a few images out of the windscreen and have begun to build up a fairly large collection, to compliment the sign collection and work with rest of the images to give my work a sense of motion and progression.

I think these work well together, and give the series a sense of time passing, with different weathers and locations adding interest.

Sixth Trip - Dartmoor

I have decided, following the success of the previous trip, to stick to more rural roads. I drove through Dartmoor and am fairly pleased with the results. I stuck to photographing the three main subjects; passengers, scenery and for the collections.

I am beginning to feel that I am getting some strong landscape images from my latest shoots, and the portrait photos are coming along well. They are looking more candid, and less posed which makes a lot of difference. Having looked at the posed sets, I feel that this style is much more interesting. Roadside encounters such as these are interesting to look at but make for more personal and intimate images too.

Passenger Portraits Development: Choices!

Following group feedback, and my own personal opinions, I think that I am going to have to find a more interesting way of portraying my passengers when driving. The posed shots I initially produced aren't working so well, as they just look like snapshots of my fellow students. Although there is a style of photography in which this sort of thing works well, I just feel like this isn't it. However, I feel that the candid style I have begun to explore works much better and will be sticking with this from now on!

In Almost Every Picture: Erik Kessels

Erik Kessels is a German artist who compiles series of 'found' photographs, and one set in particular really caught my eye. Based on assumptions, I guess that the photographs show an elderly woman on her holidays, who is being driven around by a taxi driver. The photographs are clearly taken over quite a lengthy period of time, as the make and model of the car changes as the book progresses. The taxi driver takes the images; landscapes, scenery etc. with the taxi itself being present in the frame at nearly all times.

The book finishes with this final image: the taxi driver who has been taking these photos for so long, photographed out of the window of his own cab. 

I am really inspired by this book, I think the series is so interesting and the final image just sums the whole book. The book relates to my own work because often my van is present in the frame, and is almost the most important past of my journey. The vehicle that the journey is done in becomes part of the trip, and takes on a character of its own.

Fifth Trip - Move into more rural areas and roads

On the last trip, I enjoyed photographing in more rural scenery. Travelling through the Peak District was very inspiring, and I intended to go back there once the snow had cleared. That opportunity came on the way back from a shoot in Brighouse, and I drove back through the mountains to try and find some places to get some landscape images to supplement the others I had already taken.

I think that this shoot has been the most successful so far, and I am very pleased with a number of the images I have produced. As well as photographing as I always have been at rest stops and taking portraits of my passengers I concentrated on getting good landscape images too, documenting the scenery we were driving through.

I am pleased with some of the shots I have taken today, and feel that my project is developing nicely. I am beginning to realise what works, and what doesn't.

Motorway: Colin Ball

As I have decided to move on from the Fosse Way and start photographing on other stretches of road, I feel that it is relevant to look at the work of Colin Ball. Ball's series 'Motorway' depicts the UK's Motorways in all weathers, and from the driver's perspective as well as including the road as part of the landscape.

Although Ball's work could be criticized for lacking variety and merely being snapshots taken whilst driving, I think there is still reason to take influence from it. Ball often shoots in poor weather, and this gives the shots a sense of drama, and this captures the essence of driving on the motorway.

I intend to take influence from this series of work by increasing the amount of images I take whilst driving, on a variety of roads and conditions, and start shooting out of windows and the windscreen more.