Photograph it NOW - boring photos can be interesting

Ed Sutton

Ed Sutton

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The secondary school building has been a feature of my village for longer than I have. It got new windows in 2015. No point taking photos of it, it's a fixture. It's boring to look at anyway.

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Except today they're pulling it down.

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Stop chasing all over the place for 'great photographs' that nobody will care about in ten minutes time. Photograph your locality NOW. Even if it is boring, commonplace, unexceptional. It might not be there tomorrow.
 
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No wonder they're pulling it down.....it looks like it was put up on a slant (judging by the first photo.........) ;)

But, more seriously many of the photos from the past that we value now become even more valued when a sense of nostalgia also comes into it. The school you pictured above probably doesn't quite come into that category but look at all those photographs of steam trains. Common as muck in their day and only of interest to railway nerds, but how valuable are they now! Well that's how i feel anyway.
 
Reminds me of when I started at BT. When I was asking engineers where all the local telephone exchanges were they replied "look for the ugliest building in the town". Always felt it was a kind of disrespect and always wanted to do a project on it. Sadly, it's a theme that people get very twitchy about me photographing these days.

Did manage to do this with @Mr Perceptive a few years ago when they pulled down our local college. The landscape is always changing. Today's boring is tomorrow's yesteryear.
 
Ed Sutton said:
The secondary school building has been a feature of my village for longer than I have. It got new windows in 2015. No point taking photos of it, it's a fixture. It's boring to look at anyway.

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Except today they're pulling it down.

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Stop chasing all over the place for 'great photographs' that nobody will care about in ten minutes time. Photograph your locality NOW. Even if it is boring, commonplace, unexceptional. It might not be there tomorrow.
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May not be there tomorrow is a good point. A friend was caring for An older woman near Prineville some years ago and the womon had a barn onher property. Got a decent photo of it and framed it in a piece of wood off the barn. She loved it!
 
Harlequin565 said:
Reminds me of when I started at BT. When I was asking engineers where all the local telephone exchanges were they replied "look for the ugliest building in the town". Always felt it was a kind of disrespect and always wanted to do a project on it. Sadly, it's a theme that people get very twitchy about me photographing these days.

Did manage to do this with @Mr Perceptive a few years ago when they pulled down our local college. The landscape is always changing. Today's boring is tomorrow's yesteryear.
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During the lock down years I accumulated several thousand mundane images of the village (really a suburb of Northwich) that I live in. Many of them will never see the light if day, but I have a lot of that college in various states of disrepair. IMO photographing our changing environment is important and actually something I quite enjoy doing. One man’s bland is another man’s……. You know what I mean!!!

Might be a mini publication or Zine in there…….
 
I have a lot of time for sentimental photos - our world changes so fast and if you think about it, it's only really relatively recently we've had the power to record it.

Storage is 'cheap' these days, particularly in digital form so why not, I spent many hours looking at photos of things that were and their disappearance does add value - not everyone's cup of tea I'll admit but I'm really glad people bother.
 
jerry12953 said:
If you have a large selection (or even a small one) of "boring" photos of your local area, leave them to the local museum or library in your Will.......
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This is a great idea, I love seeing photographs from my local area and beyond from generations ago. It's fascinating to see the changes.
 
In a similar vein, I find myself taking dull pictures of trees and fields as a before and after project. For now, I only have the 'before' but housing development in the area means that any 'after' pictures I take will be depressingly boring too, but I'd rather be bored by green fields and trees than identical groups of timber-framed monstrosities where the road names reflect the very thing that was destroyed to build them :sorry:.
 
jerry12953 said:
If you have a large selection (or even a small one) of "boring" photos of your local area, leave them to the local museum or library in your Will.......
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Or your county archive. Someone bought a copy of my poultry show book/zine to donate the Lancashire Archive.
 
Harlequin565 said:
Reminds me of when I started at BT. When I was asking engineers where all the local telephone exchanges were they replied "look for the ugliest building in the town".
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All government buildings tbh always at the cheapest end of town and always the cheapest built (looking after the public purse)

I wish I’d photographed all the ones I’ve worked in, 5 I worked in have closed, 2 of those demolished, and dozens of offices I’ve visited that no longer exist.

Actually some of them were architecturally interesting including a few ‘government buildings’ addresses that started life as military hospitals in the 2nd WW.
 
A local Facebook page has a lot of old photos from 20-30-40 years ago, and I often think why don't I have any like that?

I like taking night-time photos and when we moved here I took quite a few of local shops and takeaways. It will be interesting to revisit them, if I last long enough....
 
I was watching a video on Ansel Adams and toward the end he'd taken a photo of some old thingand everyone liked it. The video claimed some thing's as they get old take on a special patina, I think they were right! Got this photo of an old, very old convience store near home. When it was being used it probably was taken for granted, as thouh it would always be there. It on it's last legs now unless someone came in to re-build it. But where it's at not that much traffic and even less parking area. The day it's gone a little bitof this country will go with it! 7-11 replaced this old tresure!

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This thread has got my juices flowing. I have been living in my village for twenty years now and I do have a few photos of ordinary things here but not that many. I have some of our local pub when it was in it's heyday but is now being developed into an HMO, although the sign is still outside, and some pictures of the church -- still a church. But there are so many planned developments around and about and I think it is time to get pictures now before all I know disappears under a mound of concrete and lost forever. I shall start tomorrow, using my drone in the first instance, then on foot.
 
I have an awful amount of un exceptional photographs in my Flickr account many of them documenting the last twenty years in and around my little bit of South East London. One particular old building on the South Circular has been a cheap unbranded bedding shop, a betting shop and more recently gutted and re developed into flats but still retaining the old frontage. Not great photography but good to look back at as time moves on.
 
I once took a very plain photo of the frontage of an old telephone exchange. Glad I did because the frontage has now been replaced by a box, which probably does everything all the old switch boards inside used to do.
 
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ShinySideUp said:
In a similar vein, I find myself taking dull pictures of trees and fields as a before and after project. For now, I only have the 'before' but housing development in the area means that any 'after' pictures I take will be depressingly boring too, but I'd rather be bored by green fields and trees than identical groups of timber-framed monstrosities where the road names reflect the very thing that was destroyed to build them :sorry:.
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I have some photos of fields, woods etc.
I never thought I would be saying 'I remember when all this use to be tress' ! as housing estates are going so fast now that saying is not just used by retired people ! ! !
 
Interesting topic, and right up my street as taking photographs of buildings before they disappear is mostly what I do.

In the talk I do, I start off by saying that the talk is about the changing urban and industrial landscape, and finish it by encouraging people to go out and photograph the things they keep putting off, the things they take for granted, be it a person, place or thing as nothing is permanent.
 
Ed Sutton said:
The secondary school building has been a feature of my village for longer than I have. It got new windows in 2015. No point taking photos of it, it's a fixture. It's boring to look at anyway.

View attachment 394980

Except today they're pulling it down.

View attachment 394981
Click to expand...

jerry12953 said:
But, more seriously many of the photos from the past that we value now become even more valued when a sense of nostalgia also comes into it. The school you pictured above probably doesn't quite come into that category…
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I guess in this case it depends whether you spent your high school years at that school… Plenty of nostalgia for me in those pics, my form room was on the first floor in ‘J’ block - later the ‘Mersey’ block - where English was taught ~25 years ago. Lunch halls on ground floor, art and maths top two floors. I still drive past occasionally (but not recently) and my young daughter has done summer school there for the past two years. I shall pay more attention when I take her there this summer!

I can think of a few places local to me that fit this topic as it is only a matter of time before they disappear, and have been permanent if - arguably - unremarkable fixtures of the village for over 100 years. I have been considering for a while taking a few such pics locally, watch this space! Already missed the local pub after it was bulldozed…

Would be nice to see this thread run with a few more pics, and for me they’re always enhanced by some sort of accompanying story.
 
Down at Dutton Locks there has been a boat that has just rotted away. I tend to always take a picture when I walk past, but over the years have deleted many because it was "just another picture of the same thing". Very much a case of not realising until too late that documenting it might have been interesting.

2011, when I discovered long exposures :)
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2016. The rail thing on the front has fallen, but not a lot else has changed.
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2019. Moved on to use film pretty much exclusively by now. Oil has started to leak out of the engine so they've "cordoned" it off or whatever the fancy term is. The cabin is beginning to lean precariously.
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2020. Looking very dilapidated and dangerous now.
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Then finally in 2022...
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Haven't been down there for quite a while, but Chica is gone as far as I can tell. This last photo felt like a bit of a farewell as it has no real photographic merit other than as a reminder.
 
Mallison Bridge Closed at Exeter Quay D60_4332.jpg

Mallison Bridge in Exeter.

Access was stopped "during repairs" and not long after, the council decided it couldn't be fixed and then it was gone. Photography and the internet can keep the history of such objects alive.
 
Been taking photos since the 1950's and my father before me and the only one's anybody is now interested in are the ones containing specific people or old buildings and activities. All the time spent on my nicely composed landscapes and perfect views was wasted, but I enjoyed it. Don't ignore the everyday because someday it'll be a 'valuable record'.
 
I've found a photo of the school some time in the late '70s.

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And the long demolished corn mill along the road which is now houses.



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Graham W said:
I took these pics of the inside and outside of Derby County's Baseball Ground...long since demolished and replaced by housing.
It was on the occasion of their getting promotion to the then First Division under the management of Arthur Cox.
More pics here. :)https://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamwspics/albums/72177720309687057/with/53038325259/

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When Newcastle United appointed Arthur Cox as manager some years ago I remember my friend got all excited. I asked why and he said: "Just wait: You'll see!" Some time later, when the manager was sacked, my friend came in to work and said "See!" He showed me the back page of the local paper with the screaming headline: "Cox Out!" :LOL:
 
Really cool thing about taking a photo that you don't care for. Tou can see it right now on the back of the camera and delete it if you want to. In the film days you'd take the picture then have to wait to get it developed to see it and pay someone to develope it. Digital is an instant fix!
 
I'm very much in this camp. i.e. the belief that photographing the ordinary holds more appeal for me than photographing the beautiful. The beautiful things will be photographed by everyone, but the ordinary, everyday stuff that is just 'life' gets overlooked. And forgotten.

And yet when these caches are discovered and unearthed, these are the things I find most interesting,

Like when thousands of images came to light shot by Vivian Maire: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/vivian-maier-photographer-180980267/

Maybe you have to be old enough to appreciate it. When you look at a new building 10 years after it went up and simply cannot remember what was there before.

Even more so, when you move away from your home town and it's different every single time you go back.
 
I just found a photograph (a print) that shows a very mundane garage forecourt but with a very interesting petrol price of 61p per litre; now wouldn't that be a nice thing to see again -- I'm guessing it was from the early 90's. Mind you, I remember in about 1973 there was uproar when the price rose from 35p to 50p per gallon (yes, per gallon) but I'm afraid I didn't get any photographs showing that event, shame.
 
these are the photographs that you really only appreciate 20 , 30 , 40 etc etc years down the road, i love looking at old photos of where i grew up with lots of nostalgia, so yes it is a boring photo now, but in years to come you will love it
 
Brendan Mulachy said:
these are the photographs that you really only appreciate 20 , 30 , 40 etc etc years down the road, i love looking at old photos of where i grew up with lots of nostalgia, so yes it is a boring photo now, but in years to come you will love it
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Alas I'll probably not be doing much looking in 20 years time. Certainly not in 30 or 40! :LOL:
 
Or how my city has changed.PD030743_DxO.JPG
Still the First Republic, with a dapper set of smug politicians on Flag day

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The Communists ruled the roost and you could read their newspaper for free.

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Farmers bought and sold livestock and land in Piazza

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The football stadium was always full on Sunday

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A hard hat for visiting fans was a good idea.
 
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