Stabilizing my position against a sudden updraft..

Resident Alien. Part 14

Psychogeography. Part 1. (by way of introduction) 

Once upon a time in Weymouth, Dorset in 1991, I had forgotten I had an appointment for a root canal surgery and instead I smoked an eighth of hash via the hot knife method. It wasn’t until after all the coughing had stopped and the final Lebanese nug had been forged in fire and the plastic blast funnel dropped to the floor with an arm gone limp, did I remember so too. 

As the stage lights go up, Tommy’s smiling face emerges from the dispersing cloud of pot like a spirit making contact from the other side. His eyes were rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. His mouth was wide open and a loud dry clacking sound was coming out of it. The glint from one of his fillings winked back at me from a rusty molar in what appeared to be Morse Code, reminding me that even though I had moved my root canal appointment twice already, the pain was not going away no matter how much I smoked.

The dental surgery was across town and 20 minutes as the crow flies, but on foot it would take me twice that long. I’d have to weave my way through Weymouth's terraced backstreets, behind the seafront’s Victorian facades and through a maze of sleazy guesthouses, student bedsits and corner shops, where I'd make my turns. The last leg of the journey was uphill, at the end of a long steady incline at the edge of town. I headed straight out, Tommy would remain at the flat under the condition that I returned with a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch and a scotch egg.

I arrived at the dentist office late, but I still had to wait. The pain that I had tried so hard to stifle with drugs, made one last forceful return. It was as if my body, knowing that relief was imminent, dropped all its defenses and gave way to a full and glittering spectrum of a pain, so exquisite, that I disappeared inside of it completely until the receptionist called out my name. 

I sat in the dentist’s chair with a mouthful of the dentist's fingers. As a cold thread of Novacane went in I shivered and stared up at the ceiling beyond the cross-fading lens-flare created by the dentist's head as it eclipsed in and out of the light. As the drill whizzed into action, I tried to astrally project into a large colour poster-sized photograph which had been thoughtfully pinned up there, on the ceiling, presumably by the dentist, for the distraction of his patients (and to my own unexpected delight). It was an aerial view photograph of Weymouth and by the quality of its colour it must have been from the late 70’s, or early 80's. "Transcen-dental", I mumbled to myself, as the dentist ground a latex knuckle into my numb lower lip. 

As the dentist drilled I drooled. I studied the aerial photograph closely, trying to orientate myself within it until I found myself hovering like a seagull looking down on everything and I was there, suddenly, part of it. From this strange new bird's eye view, my seaside home looked wholly unfamiliar to me as I began to scan the coastline looking for local landmarks. Was that the clock tower? The Pavillion? The 24 hour garage where I was to buy Tommy’s munchies on my way home? I was sure they were, but not completely sure, I was a stoned seagull getting a root canal, after all. 

This radical shift in the perspective of the familiar required of me to reach for my own personal experiences of Weymouth as my map and guidebook. Once I “found myself” within it, I could use these experiences as markers to navigate wherever I needed to go. Whenever I recognized a location, I found the memories that I associated with it seemed to already be there waiting for me to re-experience them, before pointing me in the direction of the next. This drifting psycho-geography was as real for me as the bricks and mortar of the places themselves. 

It was in this way (and after I had climbed to a great height) that I began to then navigate my way back across town until I reached the street with the dentist's office on it. I counted the houses in until I found the surgery and I hung in the air outside, trying to get a glimpse of myself through one of the windows. And it was there that I could indeed see my own distinctive gecko green Gazelle classics and chocolate corduroy's as I lay back horizontally in the chair. The rest of me was obscured by the dentist who was hunched over, with both elbows sticking out and from the back he looked like he might be eating spaghetti off my face. 

Stabilizing my position against a sudden updraft, I tried to see if the Simon on the inside was aware of the Simon on the outside, so I landed on the window-ledge and looked within. In the very moment I did so, the dentist shifted his position and my attention was suddenly diverted from the photograph on the ceiling to the gnarly seagull sitting on the window-ledge outside looking right at me. And, before the oral suction tube snagged my tongue, I could have sworn there was a moment of mutual recognition between us.

The dentist told me to take a pink rinse and spit and reminded me I would be numb for a couple of hours and I should refrain from "smoking anything at all" in the meantime. “No problem” I said, sitting up and swinging my feet off the chair and finding myself in a sudden standing position. “I really like your photograph, by the way”, I told him, nodding to the ceiling. “Oh thank you!” replied the dentist, “I took it myself when I was a student in Naples. My friend had just got his pilot's license and took me up for a spin. Are you familiar with Naples, Mr Kossoff?” The dentist asked. "No", I replied, but I was unsure now if this was in-fact the correct answer..

Me, 1998, Brighton, UK. Original photo by Marcus Haydock

These thoughts as a framework..

Resident Alien. Part 13.

Harvey Benge. Part 2. On editing and sequencing. 

 

The reason for writing about Harvey Benge in the last post was originally to share his advice to anyone who might be in the process of making a photo-book. During his life, Harvey made over 70 books and zines and it was his preferred medium for presenting his photos, of which 'Vital Signs', published in 2000 and 'Truth and Various Deceptions' published in 2011 are amongst my favorites (from what I have seen). 

I re-discovered this photo-book advice again just recently and I still think It’s good advice and worth sharing. It appeared on his blog on Sunday, March 11th 2012 - A blog which remains today a rich and creative archive full of insights, ideas and personal process from this once busy working artist. It was these thoughts about editing and sequencing that I used to organize my own work into a series of connected episodes for publications, features and shows at that time. I also used these thoughts as a framework for my own photo-book, Remains To Be Seen, which was self published about a year later, in 2013.

1. Have a strong compelling idea. Fresh, exciting, demanding. Not derivative or seen it all before.

2. Come up with a riveting, compelling title for the book. And do an amazon check and make sure somebody else hasn't got there first.

3. Start with really good photographs, many more than you will finally need. 

4. Including  bad pictures will only drag down the good ones. 

5. Don't shoehorn in a crap picture just because it fits the idea. Nor include a great picture that doesn't fit the idea.

6. Make a sequence that surprises, challenges and puzzles. Ask more questions than give answers.

7. When you put pictures together don't make the reason blindingly obvious and make sure the sum of the parts is not less than the impact of the individual photographs.

8. Try and sequence the book based on a conceptual flow not purely visually.  A  sequence made visually is generally too obvious not to mention dull and boring.

9. Don't have more pictures than necessary. A book of around 50 or so pictures will work best. Less is often more.

10. Give the pictures room to breathe with plenty of white space. 

11. Consider the rhythm and flow of the work. Sequencing photographs is like composing music.

12. Think about what makes a great artwork and make sure what's been done measures up to that. Does the work have  a sense of mystery, a veiled narrative and a reason for the reader to want to come back (and back) to consider the work?

13. Don't over-design  the bookwork. The book is for the photographs not as a showcase for clever design. In fact, avoid "clever" completely.

14. Make sure the work has a feeling of authenticity about it. Avoid the contrived. 

15. Make the edit and the sequence and then do it again, and again, because it can always be done better. Always.

16. When you have something you really think works, make a book dummy which is as close as possible to the final book. This will give you a sense of the outcome of the work on both a visual and tactile level.

17. Finally, remember there are no rules. And even if you think there are, set out to break them. 

He also added “In the past I've made bookworks by printing postcard size prints of the potential images and spreading them out on a large table to edit and sequence. Although with this book I did make postcard prints I also went directly to making an indesign document and then converting the work to PDF files as I went. I've ended up with umpteen PDFs that chart the progress of the work, gradually refining and hopefully making the book better. I find this method really flexible and simple and using indesign is a breeze.”

All photographs in this post by Harvey Benge.

Keep me focused and shooting..

Resident Alien. Part 12.

Harvey Benge, Part 1.

“My interest lies in the strange anthropology of cities, observing and making photographs of the unusual and overlooked in the human landscape where nothing is as it seems.” – Harvey Benge

Harvey Benge (1944–2019) was a prolific photographer and committed maker of photobooks. Working between Auckland and Paris he published over 70 titles, often in the form of limited editions. This photo is from the Auckland Art Gallery where they were on display after his passing.

I don’t think it is possible to talk about my own photography between 2008-2013 without mentioning the influence of Harvey Benge upon it. I first became aware of Harvey’s work when I was at college in 1998 where he gave an artist's talk. His book ‘Not Here, Not There’ had also not long been published and one of my housemates owned a copy and I loved it. It was a book full of signs, symbols, puzzles and labyrinths, but it was also pretty wacky. Harvey's notion about the “I-ness amongst other-ness” was an idea that resonated with me from the moment I heard it and it has stayed with me ever since. It was responsible, in part, for my future explorations into Psychogeography, which has since become integral to my own work. I am presently writing about this subject in more detail, with posts scheduled for next month.

photos by Harvey Benge.

In 2008, when I moved to the US, I saw some of Harvey's new projects online and decided to reach out. I had not long bought my first digital camera and I had been shooting a lot with it, but I was feeling despondent by the technology. I was also living in a new country and didn’t really know many people and I missed the creative connection of like minds in real time. I was a fan of Harvey’s work too of course, and I wanted to simply tell him so. I remember that he replied the next morning with a friendly email and asked me to send him a link to my photos online. Harvey and I stayed in touch after that for about 5 years and he became a mentor of sorts and he helped keep me focused and shooting with genuine encouragement through some difficult times during my immigration process. I am grateful for his friendship.

 

photos by Harvey Benge.

I later heard he had mentored other photographers at that time too and this does not surprise me at all. Harvey had such an open and generous spirit about what he did and he wanted to share what he knew with those that reached out. He used to say, “The world of our photography is a small one” and it's a statement which I have never forgotten and am frequently reminded of, even just as recently as yesterday. It grounds me in my conduct with my own global community of mostly online virtual locals sharing the same photographic passions as myself and in-spite of its dispirit members, the community is indeed a small one. The first time it proved true for me was when both Harvey and I were invited to become members of the same photo collective, Get the Picture, by its founder, Damien Lafargue in 2011. 

Recollection show, Paris, 2013. Work on right by Marcus Haydock.

In its time Get the Picture was a rich and enjoyable experience for me to be part of, I learned a lot and was shown some true faith. Damien was enthusiastic, driven and my friend, and we once spent a memorable day shooting together in St Louis, Missouri. Sadly we are now out of touch (but not so much as to still be able to link his Instagram here. That small world again..) A book was published with a nice selection of work from it's members and there was also a group show in Paris in 2013 which I was regrettably unable to attend, but my mother and brother met Harvey and the rest of the collective there at the opening. Harvey is much missed today and these are just a few of my many respects..

Harvey Benge.