editorialgirl

When I heard that the London Transport Museum was offering tours of Aldwych Underground Station, which has been closed since 1994, I jumped at the chance.

Old building, not usually open to the public? Check. Original 1920s and 1930s architecture and interior design? Check. Public transport nerdery? Checkety check check check.

The visit, however, was marred by some rather bizarre rules about photography.

The DSLR ban

When I bought the tickets I had noticed the Aldwych Terms and Conditions pdf included the following:

No professional audio visual or audio recording equipment may be brought into the venue without the express permission of London Transport Museum. No digital SLR cameras will be allowed into the station.

At the time, I guessed that this was down to them not wanting people to take photos that could possibly be used commercially afterwards. But why specify digital SLRs? Did that mean manual SLRs were OK? What about a Panasonic Lumix, or an Olympus PEN – not SLRs, but “professional” quality cameras?

The only point and shoot camera I have is my Fujifilm Finepix S6500fd (I haven’t owned a compact camera since my Pentax Optio broke on our honeymoon). It’s a big camera, though, and has been mistaken for an SLR before. I didn’t want to get to Aldwych and find that they were banning all large cameras, for whatever reason, so I went onto the London Transport Museum website and filled in their online contact form:

Hello,

I’m coming to the event at Aldwych tube station on 4th December and very much looking forward to it.

I am not a professional photographer, but I was hoping to take some photos at the event. I noticed in the T&Cs that “No digital SLR cameras will be allowed into the station”. Is this true for everyone, even amateur photographers who have no intention of using their photos for any commercial purposes?

I don’t currently have a compact camera, but if I can’t bring an SLR (I’m assuming manual SLRs are also banned?), I’d like to be able to bring my old camera – a Fuji Finepix S6500fd. This is not a digital SLR; it’s a “point and shoot” camera – although it has a bulky body which may look like an digital SLR to some people. Please can you clarify whether this would be allowed, before I get to the event? I don’t want to bring it along and then be unable to take any photos because my camera looks “too professional”!

Many thanks for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.

Emma Wright

I got a reply a couple of days later:

Hi Emma,

My name’s Lyndsey and I’m organising the event at Aldwych. First of all – thanks you for taking note of the Terms and Conditions! Unfortunately we cannot allow any digital SLR cameras in the station. This is something that London Underground have been very strict on.
Your Fuji Finepix camera should be fine – I will let the staff working the event know you have contacted to ask about this ,and perhaps you could print out this email, just in case you get asked any questions.

Thanks again,

Lyndsey

Lyndsey McLean
Public Programmes Manager

London Transport Museum

I took the line “This is something that London Underground have been very strict on” to mean that the museum staff themselves were not responsible for the ban, and that it had been imposed by London Underground. This, I supposed, was why they hadn’t answered my query about manual SLRs, or given any further information about the reasons behind the ban on DSLRs. Fair enough. Silly? Yes. But not their fault. I was just grateful that Lyndsey ‘had my back’.

On the day

On Sunday, we arrived at the event to see a sign [Photo: Tim Allen]: “Due to their combination of high-quality sensor and high resolution, digital SLR cameras are unfortunately not permitted inside the station”.

Huh?

The London Transport Museum had obviously been asked about the ban a lot and had decided they had to come up with a reason to give to their visitors. But how on earth is “high quality” a reason? What effect does the “high-quality sensor and high resolution” have on Aldwych Station, or the event? It didn’t make sense. They might as well have said “Due to their combination of sexiness and clippy-cloppy sound, high heeled shoes are unfortunately not permitted inside the station”*. It was clearly not the true reason for the ban and didn’t explain anything at all.

Standing in the queue, reading the sign, we laughed… but I was uneasy. Event staff were obviously taking the ban seriously. I made sure the email from Lyndsey was on my phone ready to show to anyone who asked.

Then a young man in a suit came bounding over to us. “Mrs Wright?” (I’m not sure how he knew it was me. The woman who took our names on arrival must have pointed me out.) “I just wanted to say: thank you SO MUCH for emailing us about your camera. We’re really grateful that you emailed us and asked about it in advance. It’s really helped us out. So – thank you! I just wanted to let you know that no-one should ask you about your camera today, because we know all about it. And if they do… well, my name’s Jason – so if you have any trouble, come to me!”

I stuttered a bemused “thank you” and he bounced off again, back into the station. I didn’t really know what to say. I’d helped them out? I still don’t know how that works. The rest of the queue looked at me with interest. I stayed baffled.

Then we were called in and had our 30 minute tour of Aldwych Station (and you can see the photos – high noise level and all! – in my Aldwych Station Flickr set).

Over the next few days, a picture of the sign was posted on Twitter and mocked widely. Publications like Amateur Photographer covered the ban.

The real reason: time

On 6th December, two days after I’d been, a statement appeared on the London Transport Museum website that finally shed some light on the real reason behind the DSLR ban:

London Transport Museum Statement regarding restriction on digital SLR’s at Aldwych – 6 December 2011

Terms and conditions for the recent sale of tickets to visit Aldwych Underground station clearly stated that digital SLR cameras were not permitted, as these are classed as professional equipment.

There was not a ban on taking photos during tours. However, there were restrictions on professional cameras and tripods because we were concerned that people using them could delay the tours for others, as it was a very tight schedule with more than 2,500 visitors going up and down a spiral staircase of about 160 steps to get to and from the platforms.

We wanted to make the tours as enjoyable and safe as we could for everyone. With the huge public interest in seeing the disused Tube station it was better to have the event with this restriction rather than no visit at all.

We apologise to visitors who wanted to use this kind of camera during tours to the stations.

It wasn’t down to London Underground at all. It was London Transport Museum wanting people to hurry up. They’d obviously had trouble with photographers taking their time… and had decided that this was down to them being “professional photographers”. And, needing a metric to weed out “professional photographers”, they’d decided upon “camera type: DSLR”.

There’s a lot about this that’s totally nuts. I mean, I can understand their frustration, but banning DSLRs – and especially giving so many inconsistent reasons – is not the way to go. In fact I’d argue it’s done their reputation more harm than good.

(It’s also counter-productive, if my own experience was anything to go by. I spent longer taking photos with the Fujifilm – experimenting with the ISO, finding surfaces upon which I could rest the camera to take longer exposures – than I would have done if I’d had the Canon with me. With the DSLR, I’d just have stuck my 50mm portrait lens on a wide aperture and not have had to worry about it.)

So what else could LTM have done?

I think London Transport Museum could manage people’s expectations better. Don’t say “no digital SLR cameras will be allowed”; instead, explain that it’s a history tour, not a photo opportunity. Explain from the start – in the Terms and Conditions – that time will be very limited and that you won’t be able to spend time composing shots.

It’s hard to take photos of an “abandoned” station when it’s full of people taking photos, so a few people were hanging back each time the group moved on to the next area… And, of course, they were going to do this whatever sort of camera they had. This wasn’t something that was going to be solved by banning DSLRs. (Fewer people on each tour would have made this better – but wouldn’t have earned LTM the same amount of cash, of course.)

It was very apparent that most people there wanted to take photos, but at each point of the tour, the group was first obliged to hear an LTM volunteer give a history of the station before wandering off to take photos. Interesting though it was (and all credit to the volunteers, who clearly knew their stuff), it was clear to me that most of the group would have preferred more time to explore. So why not cut down on the talks? Or make them optional?

Aldwych Underground Station is an interesting mini-museum and there are some fascinating old posters and signage. But herding hundreds of people an hour through the place at £20 a pop doesn’t give anyone the chance to appreciate it. I would probably pay more to have a couple of hours’ exclusive access, especially if I knew I would get time to compose and take some great photos. Unfortunately, if the next set of tours they do there is like this one, I probably wouldn’t recommend it.

Aldwych tube station – my set of photographs on Flickr

(*Yes, high heeled shoes were also banned, but that was for obvious health and safety reasons!)

I love being creative, but I’m not an artist.

Why? Because art is form and content. This is a new one on me, I’m ashamed to say. I have always understood ‘form’: the aesthetic part, the part that pleases the eye, or rolls off the tongue… but it’s only relatively recently that I’ve come to understand that a piece of work needs ‘content’ in order to be art. How does it interact with the viewer? Why was it produced? What thoughts does it provoke? What’s the story?

The photos on my flickr account that get the most hits (or even, dare I say, praise) are, of course, the photos that have both form and content but – silly though it sounds – I’ve only just realised this. I love taking photos with form: shapes and lines, shadows and silhouettes and symmetry… but I never take the time to think about the content.

	Good form, dubious content: the space between the Central Library and the Conservatoire. I love this photo – phwoar, the symmetry! – but what does it mean? Nothing. Are the buildings interesting? Well, possibly, but it’s obvious that’s not what this photo is about. So is it art?
Good form and good content, although only by accident or in hindsight: a guy sitting on a wall. This is one of few photos I’ve taken that could be said to illustrate both form and content (the Moseley Road Baths set is an obvious contender, too, but it’s all over this blog already). It’s an interesting image, but there’s also a potential story. I called it ‘waiting’. What’s he waiting for? There you go: art.
	This photo of Birmingham’s BT tower has good form (in my opinion, of course) – the silhouette; the shapes formed by the buildings around it; the sky; the light. But the actual content is … meh, pretty meaningless. Perhaps if BT had just gone bust, or if the tower was attacked by terrorists the very night I took the photo, it would also have good content. Would that make it art? Is the photo, as it stands, not art?

But do I even want to make art? Does any of this matter?

I left school with dire A level results, no chance of getting into university and no idea of what I wanted to do (or might be capable of), but I knew I liked being creative. I wrote stories and I played music and occasionally managed to get as far as drawing and sketching, taking photos and making scrapbooks and collages, but I didn’t really know whether there was a way that I could take it further – or indeed if I should.

I wrote to my friend John, who was always destined to be an artist and in 1994 was at college in London. I asked if he thought I should do an art foundation course. (I imagine my letter was fairly childish in both form and content.)

I’ve still got John’s reply, typewritten on a scrap of paper – I found it again the other day. After explaining how to put together a portfolio, how to decide on which college to apply to and what the interview stages might be like, he had written:

“…But is art actually what you’re into? There’s a potter at our college who refuses to be called a “ceramicist” because it’s horribly not-what-she’s-into. She makes pots – she’s a potter. A ceramicist is into art – trying to make a socio-political point through the clay. Are you more of a crafty good-with-your-hands-I-just-want-to-make-objects-of-beauty type? (Such an attitude is unlikely to get you too far at art college.) That sort of decision is up to you, and will probably come naturally.”

At the age of nineteen, I didn’t know what a socio-political point was, never mind whether I might want to make one through art. I realised that what I thought was art and what artists actually do are totally different things. I decided that, given I didn’t even understand the point he was making, art college probably wasn’t for me.

Luckily, over the years, I’ve drifted into what turns out to be a career – one that’s allowed me to use my creative talents in a way that I’m comfortable with. Being a website content editor means producing content – words and pictures – within very specific guidelines. And I’m able to combine this with a satisying amount of logic and problem-solving; I need the rules of the web. It’s only vaguely creative and it’s certainly not art (but it’s very me).

I’ve wondered about what people have called my “artistic streak” over the years and come to the conclusion that I was right not to go to art college. I’m not an artist. I have the same problem with anything that I produce ‘creatively’: I’m all about the form; I’m far too literal. I don’t write enough outside of work because, although I like to think I’m good with words, I don’t have enough original ideas. I would love to write stories, but a story is ‘content’ by definition and sadly thinking up content of my own stumps me most of the time.

Could I ever be an artist? I don’t know. I’m going to be pretentious and say that one of my new year’s resolutions will be to try and give as much thought to content as I do form. At least, I’ll devote some time to thinking about it when I take pictures. As far as writing goes, I might just have to wait for that big story – you know, the one that everyone has inside them? – to come pouring out when I’m least expecting it. And not to beat myself up too much if it never does.

Every week for the last – ooh, I dunno – six months? A year? I’ve looked at “your pictures” in the Guardian Weekend Magazine, thought about sending one in, and haven’t. Finally, about a month ago, the theme was “derelict”, so I sent a picture of Moseley Road Baths – and two weeks later, I was honoured to see that it had been picked as the lead.

Of course, I’m really chuffed. But I must admit it wasn’t just about getting one of my photographs printed. I hoped that it might get Moseley Road Baths a bit more recognition.

The Guardian’s byline referred to the picture as showing “an abandoned swimming pool”, something that the Friends of Moseley Road Baths picked up on a few days later, saying: “The article incorrectly describes the swimming pool as abandoned (there is another fully functioning pool on site), but it’s not difficult to see why they drew that conclusion.”

Indeed, when I visited, the Gala Pool certainly seemed to be abandoned. And upstairs, room after room of dust and neglect. Boxes of photos and certificates dating back thirty or more years. Paperwork. Pigeons.

Even though the future of the Baths hasn’t been decided yet, it’s still a Grade II* listed building. According to English Heritage, Grade II* means it’s a particularly important building of more than special interest. Yet Birmingham City Council aren’t making any repairs at all, even tiny ones that could save a lot of money in the future. To my (admittedly cynical) eye, it does look as though the building is being left to rot, to make future bulldozing decisions easier.

I wrote about what I’d seen in the Gala Pool on the B13 forum after visiting there to take the pictures last August.

“…it’s in a dreadful state. There seem to be a lot of little things that could be done to save disaster in the future, but it’s almost as if they’re letting it run down on purpose.

For example, there’s a pinhole leak in a water pipe above the unused pool. All it would take to fix it is a stepladder (it’s not very high at all) and some epoxy tape (or even a bit of rubber and a pipe clamp, which would last a few years)… but no.

Instead, this tiny leak has already rusted all the metal in the seats and railings on the two stands below it, decayed all the plastic and rubber on the two floors – and is presumably therefore destabilising the structure underneath.

[here I linked to a picture by Keshvala, showing some of the worst rust, but it no longer exists on flickr]

I think that depressed me the most. It implied that there is no intent to stop the rot at all.”

I still worry about what I saw now, nearly a year on, because I know that all the leaks are still there. It can’t be long before the Gala Pool becomes too unstable to even walk around.

However, despite all of this, I haven’t joined the Friends of Moseley Road Baths – and that’s because I’d feel like a fraud. The fact is, I probably wouldn’t swim there. I just don’t go swimming any more. (On the rare occasions that I get the chance to, I prefer the quieter pool at Aston University). Of course, I want the building to be done up and maintained, but the FMRB campaign is for the pool to be refurbished as a pool. Should I be supporting this, if I don’t have any intention of following through and using the pool in the future?

(I certainly can’t think of a use for the Gala Pool if it wasn’t a pool, though. A gym area, perhaps? …Actually, I’d love to see it as a art gallery, but I know that’s just being silly.)

The Victorian Society, (who, in 2007, featured Moseley Road Baths on its list of the ten most endangered buildings in Britain) seems to think that turning it into a different type of venue is a problem that other Baths have faced before, so have pledged support for the pool to stay a pool. They said in 2007: “Knowing how difficult it is to find uses for swimming baths that fall out of use, we are urging Birmingham Council to do all they can to safeguard the future of the pool…”

So perhaps there isn’t any middle ground. Perhaps we do only have a choice between a fully refurbished pool or nothing. Whatever the answer, the Council aren’t telling us. They’re choosing to prevaricate instead. Everything has to fit into a wider strategy of health and fitness provision, which includes Sparkhill Baths, also currently closed. For the last few years there’s been a lot of talking – about sports halls, fitness suites, saunas, new pools – but not a lot of doing.

And if you were Birmingham City Council – already in the red and, as we’ve seen with Central Library, big on change for change’s sake – what would you do? When you can have a brand new pool for millions of pounds less, would you bother looking after a money pit, no matter how pretty it is?

You can see all the photos I took at the Baths, including more of the Gala Pool and the upstairs offices, in my Moseley Road Baths flickr set.

I went to the Birmingham Seen exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery today. Its run has been extended until January 31st – next weekend – so rather than wait for someone to come and see it with me I thought I’d better JFDI and went along on my own. (Actually, I’m glad I went on my own. It’s been ages since I just went somewhere on my own.)

BMAG vs Gas Hall

Getting there was a bit trickier than I’d expected. The exhibition was advertised as being on in BMAG, so I went in via the main entrance, up the big steps and through the massive doors. (They’re rather imposing, so pushing them open makes you feel really important. I like that.)

The trouble with going in this way, though, is that you can find all the old stuff quite easily, but there aren’t any signs to the Gas Hall… which, it turns out, is where most of the interesting temporary exhibitions are, including Birmingham Seen.

I ended up asking someone – and to get to the Gas Hall from the main exhibition galleries, I had to go through an unmarked doorway, round an unmarked corner and down some unmarked stairs. When I got down there, I realised everyone else had gone in via a side entrance, which would have made more sense, but how was I to know that? (Um, apart from the fact that I’ve lived in Birmingham all my life and should probably just know things like that?)

I do think it’s strange to advertise something as being on at the BMAG, but then put it on in what is pretty much a separate part of the building and not tell you how to get from one bit to the other.

The exhibition

So. The exhibition. If you’re from Birmingham and you fancy a bit of local history, the exhibition is just lovely. The theme is quite vague, in a good way, so anything that documents Birmingham’s history is in there. Oil paintings, watercolours, pen and ink line drawings… and lots of photographs: professional and amateur, fine art and documentary. There are a load of photos from the Central Library’s national collection (which, incidentally, should be given the dignity of a permanent home in a dedicated photographic gallery for the city instead of being stored in a barely viewed archive… but that’s another story). Exhibits date from the 18th century to the present and are shown in more or less chronological order.

Remembering how to remember

Leaving the content of the exhibition aside for a moment (again – sorry), what I found weird on a personal level was that I had forgotten how to “do” an exhibition like this, where there was so much I wanted to take in. I felt almost panicked when, within the first ten minutes of my visit, I saw a photo I really liked. How would I remember what I was seeing? I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I think it’s simply down to being online so much. I’ve become so used to being able to click around from one thing to the next, immediately recording (copying and saving) or bookmarking what I see, that I’d forgotten how real life works. “How to remember”, if you like.

But after bumbling around a bit, I relaxed into it and started spending a long time looking at each picture. I carefully read the blurb next to it a couple of times. I stood back and looked at it from a couple of metres away, then I went in close and studied the detail. If I saw something I really wanted to remember – the name of the artist, perhaps a streetname or detail of old Birmingham that I wanted to be able to talk to my dad about later – I made notes. Actually, I made a lot of notes. And it made a huge difference. Slowing down to take in these details, instead of clicking ‘save’ and moving on, made a big difference to my mood – and I started to remember why we do things like this for relaxation.

Highlights

For me, the highlights of Birmingham Seen were all relatively recent works and my preference for these was probably as much down to recognition of the subject as appreciation of the style. I liked James Priddey’s bold pen and ink drawing of Moseley village from 1969 and Des Gershon’s Balsall Heath Anthology, a series of street photographs from the summer of 1970. Tom Merillion’s “Concrete Dreams” – superb tilt shifts of classic Brummie scenes like New Street Station and Spaghetti Junction from 1999 – were a very pleasant surprise (right up my street, as you can imagine) whilst Roy Peters’ photos of glum councillors couldn’t help but bring to mind this more recent tumblr blog.

There are also some detailed models and drawings of Manzoni’s original plans for the civic centre of the city, where Centenary Square is now. I didn’t know that Baskerville House was the first building in a grand plan that was never actually realised. It was supposed to be just one of a whole set of European-looking civic buildings. Seeing it its original context was fascinating.

Finally, though, the sadness I felt as I watched 7 inch cinema’s Birmingham timelapse film – a collection of photographs by Derek Fairbrother showing the Victorian Mason College building being demolished and Madin’s Central Library taking its place – knocked me for six. I sat on the little bench and watched it through a couple of times on the large screen… and I’m not ashamed to say I shed a tear for our poor city, destined to regenerate and regenerate, adding folly after folly without ever really getting it right, or even stopping to check. But again, that’s probably a rant for another day.

If you do fancy Birmingham Seen, it’s only on until next weekend so you’ll need to make it quick. (And take your mom – there were so many questions I wanted to ask that I knew my parents would have the answers to.) I highly recommend it – although I really hope that at least some of the photography collection will see the light of day again in one form or another.

The Birmingham Photospace team spent most of this weekend preparing for our latest exhibition, Birmingham’s People, which launches at The Drum on Wednesday night.

Birmingham’s People is made up of photographs of people who visited this year’s Artsfest in September. The Birmingham Photospace team set up a small studio in Victoria Square and invited anyone and everyone to have their picture taken by professional photographers (and team members) Matt Murtagh and Jennifer Peel.

There are 170 portraits altogether, 15 of which have been printed larger-than-lifesize (20″ x 30″) and the rest of which are printed smaller and mounted onto massive photoboards.

Like the Flashswap that we ran in March – and everything else that Birmingham Photospace does – this exhibition is to raise awareness of the fact that Birmingham needs a space for photography.

We’re really proud of the Birmingham’s People show, not just because the photos are really good (and they are) but because we’ve proved to ourselves that it is possible to put on a photographic exhibition to a professional standard without a great deal of cash (Birmingham Photospace is completely self funded).

But on to the real point of this blog post.

To promote the exhibition, Matt Murtagh was interviewed for BBC WM radio last week by DJ Loyd Williams. We were really pleased to get the coverage – not least because, despite the 10pm Saturday night slot, the blurb on WM’s site promised a programme dedicated to “showcasing local artists and keeping you up to date with the region’s arts scene”.

I was a little disappointed, then, to hear Matt – sandwiched incongruously between the “dance anthems” – subjected to a rather bizarre line of questioning.

Near the beginning of the interview, Loyd said, “So, you’re focusing on Birmingham’s People. I have to ask this – presumably, you’re local?”

Now I don’t know if I’m making something out of nothing here, but the way this question was framed (“I have to ask this…”) sounded to me like he was expecting a different – perhaps more controversial – answer. Matt doesn’t have much of a Birmingham accent, so perhaps Loyd was surprised when he answered, “yes, certainly – I was born and raised in Yardley.” He certainly sounded surprised, because after a pause, he answered: “OK. Oh – the posh part of Birmingham.”

Ye-es. I know Yardley isn’t the poorest area of the city, but it sure ain’t no Harborne.

Perhaps this could be put down to the fact that Loyd himself isn’t local, coming as he does from Burnham On Sea. But what of the next question?

Matt was explaining what the exhibition comprises. “Over the weekend we managed to take 170 portraits, which was an average of one every six minutes, I think. And we pledged that we’d have everyone’s portrait go up. So we’re going to have 170 prints and 15 large prints, which we’ve decided to be… well, the best photographs we took.”

“So tell the truth then,” began Loyd, “what was the criteria for choosing them? Was it based on attractiveness?”

Matt was, quite reasonably, stumped. “Well… it depends how you define attractiveness, I think,” he said. He got a guffaw in response. “Really? Tell the truth!”

Now I, along with the rest of the team, was part of the panel, so I know the truth. I know that we chose the photos based on… the best photos. How would anyone choose? The best photographs Matt and Jen took, of the 170 taken, were naturally going to be chosen on an aesthetic basis. Which 15 portraits would represent the 170-picture exhibition as a whole? Which were the best composed; the best directed? Which were technically of a particularly high standard? Would they work together as an exhibition, hung slightly away from the other 150-odd?

The best photos would naturally have to include the old, the young, the ugly, the pretty; people with props and without (there were plenty of other artists at Artsfest, so many had brought their art with them); black, white and Asian people; single people, heterosexual couples, same sex couples and families – because these were the people who came through the door. We wanted the large pictures to demonstrate all of this – to demonstrate the huge variety of people at Artsfest: and by extension, Birmingham’s People.

“There was a small panel of people choosing, but we chose the ones that we thought were most representative of what our vision of Birmingham is,” said Matt, finally. “And our vision of Birmingham is one that’s… it’s multicultural, it’s across all age groups, it’s… a perfect mix, I think. Which is what gives Birmingham its strength.”

Obviously Loyd had been waiting for the M word. The reaction was immediate. “Well you say that,” he began, “but some critics might say… because you touched on the word there: ‘multicultural’ – and as soon as you start sort of bandying words like, I don’t know, ‘ethnically diverse’, ‘multiculturalism’… people get a little bit scared and think that often it’s going to be a little bit… worthy. Have you had any sort of criticisms of that nature at all?”

Matt ummed again and Loyd continued, “’cause I’ve looked at, you know, the promo stuff, as I say, and there is a mix of ‘us ethnics’ in there [laughs] – which is good, that’s not a bad thing – but it does leave yourself open to criticisms of ‘is this really representative of Birmingham?’”

I have to admit to being saddened by this line of questioning. I love Birmingham because of its diversity and I don’t see an opportunity to put that across as “being worthy”. Multiculturalism in this sense doesn’t just mean “including black and Asian culture” – after all, a young girl with tattoos and piercings is definitely going to be representing a different culture to an elderly man in a crisp white shirt and tie – and that’s what the exhibition tries to show.

To put it another way, the fact that not everyone is like me – and my appreciation and love of that fact – is definitely representative of the way I see Birmingham.

I don’t know why it upset me, really. I just think it was a bit sad to bring it down to that level, although maybe it’s been good for us to think about it.

What I do know is that the photographers took pictures of everyone who came through the door volunteering to have their portrait taken. Every picture taken is going up on the wall at The Drum. And the fifteen portraits chosen to go up as large prints were chosen because they were representative of the 170, and look great together as an exhibition.

Click here to listen to the interview and hear how Matt actually answered the question (very sensibly and philosophically, of course… the star).

And if you’d like to come along to the Birmingham’s People launch night for the Artists’ Talk (with a glass of fizz!), to view the exhibition for yourself and find out a bit more about Birmingham Photospace, don’t forget to reserve yourself a place on our Eventbrite page.

This photo is of my great grandfather, Ernest, with his sister Jessie and his brothers Frank, Sid and little Freddie. Of the older boys, I’m not sure which one’s which, but my guess is that Ernest is second from left.

There are eight years between little Fred and Jessie, the oldest - so if he’s about six and she’s about 14 in this photo, that would date it at 1897.*

I don’t know where it was taken, but all of these children were born in Birmingham, as were their parents. This branch of my family – my dad’s mum’s dad’s side – is listed on censuses over the years at addresses around the Bordesley area – Deritend, Small Heath, Hay Mills – including, in the 1881 census, an address at Muntz Street, then the home of Birmingham City FC.

By the 1901 census, the boys and their parents had moved to Crayford in Kent, where Ernest met his future wife – my great grandmother – Rosina, before bringing her back to Birmingham with him to start a family. Jessie stayed in Birmingham, working as a tailor.

I have a tangible connection with Jessie; I wear her ring on my right hand. She left the ring to her favourite niece – my Nanna – Ernest and Rosina’s daughter. And Nanna left it to me.

Intriguingly, someone has been snipped out of this photograph. You can see the line where it’s been cut, between the boy on the far left and the others, leaving only a bit of spooky trouser leg.

*EDIT: I saw my dad at the weekend and he showed me the original photograph – here’s what was written on the back:
Frank Herbert 9 yrs / Ernest John 10 yrs / Jessie May 11 yrs / Sydney Charles 8 yrs / Frederick Clifford 3 yrs
This would date the photo at 1894.

Dad hadn’t noticed that someone had been cut out of the photograph – he couldn’t explain it either…! He did tell me about two more brothers, who wouldn’t have been born when this photograph was taken: Reginald Joseph, who was born in 1897 and died in a POW camp in 1918; and Horace Richard (Dick) born in 1901.

Dad has an amazing scrapbook full of pictures like this, with captions explaining who everyone is. I spent a long time poring over the photos and watching these children growing up, having children and grandchildren of their own and getting old.

Last April’s 4am Project was a bit of a washout for me. I didn’t plan anything and didn’t even give the idea of leaving the house a second thought. Instead, I woke up at about twenty to five, stumbled to the window, took a blurry shot of the street and went straight back to bed.

This time, though, was different.

I went to bed at about ten o’clock last night; set the alarm for two forty-five and actually managed to get up and out of the house by three. Nick Lockey drove us down to Balsall Heath where we picked up Matt Murtagh – and then we set off for the Lickey Hills.

Turns out Birmingham’s pretty busy at twenty past three on a Saturday night. The fast food restaurants were still serving and we saw lots of people zig-zagging their way home from all sorts of nights out. It wasn’t until we reached the city boundaries and the time crept nearer to four o’clock that we started to feel a bit more like we were doing something out of the ordinary.

As we passed the site of the former Rover Works at Longbridge – now an empty site surrounded by hoardings – I got a sense of what Karen must have had in mind when she first came up with the idea for the 4am Project. Seeing rows of diggers silently lined up in the gloom where the massive factory used to be was eerie, and the jaunty marketing notices on the site’s advertising boards seemed… well, a bit apocalyptic, quite honestly, without the bustle of the Bristol Road’s daytime traffic to give them some context.

At the Lickeys we left the car just outside the visitors’ centre car park (which is locked at night) and walked up the path to a vantage point that we’d already researched as suitable, because it faces East. We’d brought torches, but didn’t really need them – it was light enough to see where we were going.

By four o’clock we had set up our tripods and started taking photos – mostly of the city spread out below us (and of course, a few of each other, taking photos). Nick took some long exposures of himself swinging torches around and made some cool spun-sugar-esque light trail photos. We didn’t really talk – we were just enjoying the feeling that Karen writes about in her description of her inspiration for the project: “The city was asleep and it felt like I had it all to myself.”

At first, the only sounds were the odd chirrup of birdsong and the faint rustling of the bushes and trees – but within ten minutes, the birdsong had escalated into a full dawn chorus. Blackbirds sang in the trees above our heads, flitted around the undergrowth and perched on benches in the murky light. It was lovely.

At half past four, we heard voices – a couple had come to the same spot to enjoy the sunrise. They said a cheery “morning!” but then stood quietly watching the sky brighten in front of us.

Although it had been a dry night, the sun itself didn’t really appear until it had gone five – but when it did, through a thin horizontal gap in the clouds, it was magical. The couple who’d come to watch were delighted too. The man said, “here she is!” and I realised that they weren’t just enjoying a daily constitutional; they were here for the solstice.

To our surprise, on seeing the sun for the first time, our new companion produced a cow horn and blew it three times, like a bugle. He went for a fourth, but fumbled it and made a noise like a dying duck – but it didn’t matter. We knew what he meant.

As the sun rose higher the world began to feel normal again. The couple left us (“see you next year!”), we sipped tea from a flask (thanks, Nick!), then we packed up and wandered back to the car. The city was just as we’d left it – busy – but with joggers in the place of wandering drunks. I got home just after six and went to bed – then slept for a few hours and woke wondering if it had all been a dream.

So that was my 4am Project. Although I didn’t get many good pictures, I’m really glad I made it out this time – mostly thanks to Nick and his infectious enthusiasm for just about everything. And despite my cynicism for most things spiritual, I’m glad I saw the sun rise on the solstice and shared it with the mystery horn-blowing man, for whom it obviously meant a lot.

See more of my 4am photos
Nick’s 4am photos
Matt’s 4am photos

Birmingham what what what event?

For a while now I’ve been involved in Birmingham Photospace, a voluntary group dedicated to finding a permanent space for photography in the city.

It’s crazy that there are so many photographers in Brum, but no central space dedicated to photography. So, prompted by a post on flickr last year from Patrick Willcocks, a group of us have been meeting regularly to try and make it happen. The idea is that a Birmingham Photospace would provide exhibition and gallery space as well as potentially educational, studio and technical facilities. (And of course a cafe. Every good gallery needs a cafe.)

To this end, the Birmingham Photospace group are holding our first awareness-raising evening next month: a “flash” – as in “now you see it, now you don’t” – photo exhibition.

What? Where? When?

Photographers of all abilities are invited to bring their work along to exhibit at a spontaneous, free event at the Custard Factory on Saturday 21 March 2009. But there’s a twist. Everything exhibited can be offered as a swap.

Whether your photo has been created lovingly in the darkroom, digitally manipulated or just snapped on the run, everyone who brings a print will have the opportunity to swap their work for that of another photographer. It’s a great chance to show your work off to an appreciative audience, as publicly or anonymously as you like – and to pick up some unique, locally produced art for yourself.

How Does It Work?

Simple. For every print you bring to give away, you will be able to take another from the exhibition in return.

To take part, bring your images to the Vaad Gallery in the Custard Factory (next to the Medicine Bar), between 11am and 4pm on Saturday 21 March. Your prints will be exhibited in the Gallery for the whole of Saturday, when you’ll get the chance to meet other photographers and choose a print for yourself. At 5pm we’ll have an official launch – we’ll tell you a bit more about what we’re doing to try and make a Photospace happen; you’ll get a free drink! – and then from 7pm you can take your new piece of artwork home.

If you’re just interested in supporting the idea of a Birmingham Photospace, but don’t want to swap prints, do come along to see the exhibition anyway and show your support.

And if you can’t make it to the Flash Swap, but still want to help, follow the Birmingham Photospace blog and spread the word about a permanent space for photography in Birmingham. If you can help us to find funding, or have any other bright ideas for ways to make it happen, all the better!

Tilt shift lens + timelapse film = really cute fake miniature video. (Wish I could embed it here, but you’ll just have to click through…)

I guess the reason I’ve not seen this done before is that it would be really difficult to add the miniaturisation effect to a video in post production. Instead of using photoshop to blur images in (hopefully) all the right places, Keith Loutit does it “properly”, using tilt shift lenses and a 35mm adapter. The result, together with the timelapse and very well chosen music, made me squeak with joy. (And if you like that one, don’t miss the links to the other two, on the right hand side of Keith’s vimeo page. Stunning.)

Meanwhile, despite those amazing videos making me feel rather small (arf), I’m pressing on with my photoshopped fake miniatures, because – well, they’re just such fun to do. My latest three were taken on holiday in Fuerteventura, from the hotel roof. The full set is on flickr, here. Yay for getting on roofs! (Er, they did a proper tour, by the way; I didn’t just scramble up there.)

Back in May, a woman named Rhonda was travelling on the West Coast of Scotland when she found a camera. Like any good citizen, she handed it into the police.

Three months on, the camera hadn’t been claimed and Rhonda got it back. It was a nice camera – an Olympus digital point and shoot, worth about £200.

Story over? Finders keepers? Well, no.

There were loads of photos on the camera’s memory card. Taken over the second half of last year, the photos included a wedding and lots of touristy pictures of a young couple in various locations around Europe.

Rhonda worried that she’d found someone’s honeymoon snaps.

…Which is where Flickr came in. Rhonda posted a note in the Flickr help forum. The Flickr community jumped on the idea. Yes, it was okay to share the photos in the name of investigation, so she posted the whole lot onto her photostream – and amateur detectives all over the world started to get to work.

The main focus of sleuthing was a house which looked like the couple’s base for part of their trip. Was it a holiday home? Their own home, even?

Someone from the help forum spotted a car number plate with a Birmingham prefix outside the house, so Rhonda joined the Birmingham Flickr group and started a new discussion topic. “Does anyone recognise the road, she asked, “or even the people?”

A breakthrough. A man on the Birmingham group, known as Capo2, recognised the house as being typical of the area where he’d spent the first few years of his life. Not Birmingham, though. Aberdeen.

So Capo2 posted a new topic on Flickr’s Aberdeen group, with a link to the photos, asking for confirmation of his hunch. Meanwhile Rhonda posted on the Scotland group and she and others began contacting newspapers across Scotland.

It was on the Scotland Flickr group that things got really interesting, really quickly. Flickr member Greg recognised the road and, the next day, drove down it to make sure. Amazingly, he was able to pinpoint the house in the photograph and gave out the address in the thread. Another Flickrite, Andrew, googled the address and found a planning application for replacement windows on the local council’s website. (I know. Isn’t it mad?) It gave a phone number for the council member dealing with the application.

From this – presumably through phoning the council – Rhonda was able to contact the owner and landlord of the property and gave them a description of the people in the photo (and their dog!). The landlord recognised the couple straight away and passed on Rhonda’s number.

Less than a couple of hours later, a message has appeared in the Scotland thread: “Hello everyone! I’m the guy who lost the camera!!!!!”

And that’s why I love Flickr.