Black White Photography - UK (2019-05)

67

B+W

Normally I take documentary-
style pictures of the books
that I print in the factory. This
time I approached the subject
conceptually, as an artist might,
trying to see the pallets as if
each was an installation in
a gallery. Thinking this way
completely altered how I saw
and photographed this all too

familiar subject. A slightly wide

standard lens and a camera

with an articulating screen were

perfect for composing the same

front-on, angled down-style

images I ended up making. In

that one day I surprised myself

by taking 20 pictures, of which

I have chosen 12 to make a

small book.

I

t’s amazing what we can

find to photograph if we

really look, with both our

eyes and our imagination

completely open. And, if we are

stuck watching ink dry, there

is magic to be found even in a

subject as mundane as a pallet. I

wonder how many other photo

opportunities I’ve missed over

the years, due to impatience or

responding to that urge to look

elsewhere? The life drawing

classes I’ve been attending have

also made me appreciate what

can be seen by looking at the

same subject for three hours

at a time. A whole day spent

looking at a factory can take

that awareness to another level.›

Opposite THE INSPIRATION
Think like an artist – in this case the artist Christo, who works with swathes
of fabric. I was inspired by some silken-looking printed sheets from a
forthcoming book of his, sitting on a pallet. Looking around I saw other
pallets and began to see potential images in them that I could shoot as
a one-day project. The time constraint of a single day really made me
look – and see – what I might normally have overlooked.

Above THE IDEA

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the idea of photographic typologies, such

as Bernd and Hilla Becher’s architectural images of water towers or August

Sander’s series on German society, both shot in a consistent style. I adopted

a consistent approach for all my paper pallet images, shooting with the

same downward looking camera angle. The nude image on top of this

pallet is by my book-printing clients, Trevor and Faye Yerbury.