Local Town

EightBitTony

EightBitTony

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I've been really enjoying the Instagram feed from Peter Mitchell (for strangelyfamiliar) - https://www.instagram.com/strangelyfamiliar.co.uk/

It made me realise that simple documentary photographs of an area might still be interesting in a few years. Despite everyone being a photographer, there's still a place for these kind of pictures. So I've started shooting my local town, over a couple of weekends. There's already 200+ photographs which I won't subject you to. 98% of them are pure record shots with blow highlights, massive contrast, edge deformation, intrusions in the frame, etc. I'm trying to get out of my own way and just take the shots for the record.

But a couple of them I quite like as pictures, although as is often the case in these situations, they show the run down, gritty side to small towns in the north.

Handily, when I kicked the project off a couple of weeks ago (partly because of the Instagram above, partly because of a poster on another forum, and partly because I bought a second hand Canon EOS M50 and wanted to try it out), I also found I'd taken a bunch of shots a few years ago so already had a comparison of some changes in that time.

2017 - Still trading
April 2017 by Tony Evans, on Flickr

2019 - Closed
October 2019 by Tony Evans, on Flickr

2017 - EE
April 2017 by Tony Evans, on Flickr

2019 - Facelift?
October 2019 by Tony Evans, on Flickr

2017 - Co-op Travel
April 2017 by Tony Evans, on Flickr

2019 - Travel no more
October 2019 by Tony Evans, on Flickr
 
So far I've done the high street, market place, and bits of another couple of roads and have over a couple hundred photographs. I still have areas I want to explore which have commercial buildings to get a snapshot of everything in 2019. Then I'm going to expand out and try and cover more social or seeing-eye shots.

lemap.jpg

The red areas are still left to do, with a couple of fill shots from the two main roads, stuff I couldn't get on the day due to the position of the sun.

Anyone else doing simple documentary stuff of the area they live?

Edit: If you're very bored, album is here -> https://www.flickr.com/photos/eightbittony/albums/72157711571369926
 
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This is the sort of thing I think more hobbyist/amateur/whatever photographers could be doing when they're stuck for something 'better' to take photographs of.

I do it on an ad hoc basis in my area and even within a couple of years things change. or disappear and I kick myself for not taking more photographs of stuff that'll 'always be there'. For example, I revisited places I'd photographed in the early 1980s in 2012 to see how they'd altered, and already a lot of places are different now.

Photography of the ordinary gets more interesting as time goes on. Other IG feeds that might be worth a look are https://www.instagram.com/thepeoples_archive/ and https://www.instagram.com/britishculturearchive/
 
My club produced a book covering a year and a day in our local town as part of our 150th year celebration; this captured events as well as street shots and architecture. The book sold well and we are still selling copies 3 years on. This record will not be lost because a copy is in the National Library. So it is worth considering at least a photobook for such a project.

Dave
 
Ed Sutton said:
This is the sort of thing I think more hobbyist/amateur/whatever photographers could be doing when they're stuck for something 'better' to take photographs of.

I do it on an ad hoc basis in my area and even within a couple of years things change. or disappear and I kick myself for not taking more photographs of stuff that'll 'always be there'. For example, I revisited places I'd photographed in the early 1980s in 2012 to see how they'd altered, and already a lot of places are different now.

Photography of the ordinary gets more interesting as time goes on. Other IG feeds that might be worth a look are https://www.instagram.com/thepeoples_archive/ and https://www.instagram.com/britishculturearchive/
Click to expand...

Thanks for those links, interesting stuff.

There have been a couple of big changes in the town that I wish I'd photographed. I've been documenting Nottingham's demolition of a big car park and re-invigoration of that area of the town, but never really thought to apply it to my more local area.
 
Dave Canon said:
My club produced a book covering a year and a day in our local town as part of our 150th year celebration; this captured events as well as street shots and architecture. The book sold well and we are still selling copies 3 years on. This record will not be lost because a copy is in the National Library. So it is worth considering at least a photobook for such a project.

Dave
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks Dave. At the moment I'm well aware there's far too much material, most of it purely archive-worthy, but once I've got the point-in-time snapshot I'm going to see about expanding out the kind of shots I'm getting. I do find it harder to do candid shots of people in a small town, vs. a large city. Something about a city gives both you and the subjects more anonymity and it's easier to blend in!
 
It's a really good project, if nothing else people love looking at old photos and we wouldn't have old photos if someone didn't take them in the first place. I have long intended to something similar myself but never seem to get round to it.
 
Sometimes what is above shop fronts is more interesting that the shop since the custom in the U.K. is to obliterate all traces of the original lower half when converting buldings to shops or ‘improving older ones.
 
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