Altered States of Agoraphobia: May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Foreign Bodies. A new book edit.

First day of editing It was a year ago that Pogo Books, a publisher and gallery based in Berlin invited me to make a photo-book with them. They had chosen 4 photographers to be part of a new publishing venture to make a large limited edition high quality book and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Unfortunately at that time I was not able to give this project the energy and close attention it truly needed as I was busy both with school and work. Now almost a year later my schedule has finally opened up and with the continued support, patience and enthusiasm of Pogo I can now finally give this wonderful opportunity my full creative focus. The book will eventually contain 80-100 selected images from the entire 4 years I have been in the United States and will be titled 'Foreign Bodies'. After making a radical preliminary first edit of all my photographs, a selection which was made by myself, Claudio Pfeifer, editor and chief at Pogo Books and my dear friend and photographer Marcus Haydock, who knows both my work and creative thinking well, I made 230 4X6 M-Prints at a local camera store and have now began the process of reducing this large number down, sequencing and pairing images together that I believe will work well in book form. From previous experience, especially whilst working on my first book 'Remains To Be Seen' I have discovered that editing on a computer vs editing real prints are two very different beasts indeed and I now understand that whatever may look good sequenced on a screen does not necessarily translate as well on paper. Personally, working with prints laid out on a table helps me to consider the book as a whole - it's subject, ideas and emerging themes and I am able to play with sequencing in the context of the entire edit - both with selected and not yet selected photographs. There is also a wonderful element of chance involved working this way, which I love, especially in the early stages. Random accidents which would not otherwise happen when sat at a computer (in terms of pairing images up) when prints are arranged by either myself or like yesterday for example, when our Cat jumped onto the table, flicked a few prints around in defiance and put a couple of images together in the process himself.. For me editing is exciting and demanding and works out a completely different set of creative muscles. Right now I am not exactly sure what shape this book will eventually take, but I already have a good feeling about it. Pogo Books Website can be found here: http://www.pogobooks.de/ Marcus Haydock's Website: http://www.marcushaydock.co.uk/ Two great articles by Harvey Benge about editing a photo-book: http://harveybenge.blogspot.com/2012/03/photobook-some-thoughts-on-editing-and.html http://harveybenge.blogspot.com/2010/03/photobook-editing-some-thoughts.html

Welcome

About the photographs: These images are a search for a personal orientation between the dream or idea of a place and my actual experience of it in reality. They can be described as a collection of psychic coordinate points which I have plotted between the imagined America I brought with me from England and the real America I found on my arrival in 2008. These images are half truth and half fiction. They are a psychogeography, filled with personal symbolism and tangled with influences so old they were already part of me long before this journey ever began.

A note about the title:  The compulsion to travel, to move from one place to another, has been with me my whole life. Whether it be local, national or international, I have always found myself either in motion or, if not, I have been dreaming about it. Paradoxically, it has been in the periods of dreaming that Agoraphobia, (which Google defines as “Extreme or irrational fear of entering open or crowded places, of leaving one's own home, or of being in places from which escape is difficult”) has gripped me and, at times, crippled me. These photographs are my continued (once secret) revolt against it in the United States of America today, despite recent quarantines.