"Some people are bound to succeed. Certainly they’re talented, but they’re also energetic. They do good things, but then they also tell people about them, and get others involved. Such a person is Jonathan Cherry, who’s done some splendid photography of fire fighters, but didn’t stop there, and persuaded a bunch of people (including me) to contribute some text. Full marks to him, it’s a marvelous thing."
- After “failing as a pop star and a joke-writer", Russell M Davies ended up in advertising, launching Microsoft Office and Explorer. He organises the London Interesting conferences and blogs here.
STATIONARY
by Matthew Pontin (Photographer and Director of FOTONOW)
The very act of staying still tends to offer the space required for reverie, a state where one is immersed in thought. This stationary mindset will often encourage daydreaming and stimulate imaginative processes, in one sense you can travel anywhere once you commit to going nowhere in particular. 'We feel assured that we have discovered everything interesting about a neighbourhood, primarily by virtue of having lived there a long time. It seems inconceivable that there could be anything new to find in a place we have been living for a decade or more. We have become habituated and therefore blind.'1 Through stopping it becomes possible to observe with greater clarity.
This series of photographs, Blue Watch, reveals sustained research into the backstage of a rural fire station, the work invites the viewer to consider the arduously long pauses as firemen wait for action. This notion of reflection is inherent within the very reading of each image, it is this deliberate echoing, through a series of contemplative observations, which slowly builds an obvious tension. This unease is evident throughout; a photograph of a magazine Explorations balanced on an armchair, a historical panting of a fireman rescuing a woman juxtaposed next to chalked scores of a game of darts, supermarket cakes and donuts sat on the centre of a table - all hinting at a fine line between the relaxation and drama within these spaces.
The series is testament to the patience and an attentiveness of these firemen, and their presence is noted through the portraits that interrupt more subtle observations. These photographs don't suggest an idle distraction, nor the lack of need for this invaluable service, simply a memorial to the notion of forgetting to remember.
1 Alain De Botton, in the introduction to A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre, Hesperus Classic, London, 2004 p.ix
Blinds
Trophy
Table Tennis
Tattoo
Christmas Tree
Anticipation
Kitchen
Framed
Steve
Anne
Break 1
Palm Tree
IN AN AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA
By David Versteeg
the sun is shining, it always does
birds fly like clouds run
from the wind
the sea eats everything, chewing the land
the sea it likes to sleep a lot
eyes and skin they burn alike
courtesy of the cold cold sun
that never stops to shine
in an aeroplane over the sea
my lover is not with me
I stole both our hearts and know not where I put or left them
I hope that all the other things
maybe won’t be so important
not this time, not so important
I hope I find them soon
stupid boy where are you running
where did you find such courage
boy you used to dream a lot
boy its time to live and sing
the sun burns fear like salt in eyes-
the sun it always shines
the sun burns love in to your face
a courtesy from on high
Explorations
Pool Table
Decontamination 1
Break 2
Training
Retain
BA Chamber
Decontamination 2
Break 3
Martin and Man
A COLLABORATION IN THE WELL BALANCED NEGATIVES.
by Jonathan Blyth (Photographer and Director of FOTONOW)
These are ideas to be considered upon reflection of Jonathan Cherry’s photographic study.
Perhaps as we develop a progressively deeper understanding of ourselves, we simultaneously evolve the confidence and integrity, to conscientiously place ourselves with a measured diligence in to specific contexts and desired events through which we consciously perform with cameras upon the landscape of the physical world?
All photographic acts are performance.
Maybe those adventurously minded or imaginatively adept image-makers curate themselves to perform experience with cameras through the choreography of a photographic event and are alert to the creative gestures performed in the technical moment of a mechanically decisive collaboration between photographer and camera.
and like the master sculptor who recognises when to apply a specific chisel to render a desired gesture in the marble to fashion emotion within form and matter, the reflective image-maker approaching the ephemeral qualities of time and place makes equal deliberation on the apparatus that generates new images of re-presented experience.
All meaning re-presented within the image of the photograph is malleable.
and through the production of this versatile information the author of the image is confronted to communicate their experience through identifying a suitable context for the interpretation of material content and representations of those now recorded events and photographic interactions, contained upon the surface of the object.
Consider these ideas upon reflection of the object held within your hands.
Photographic books are an integral element within the medium and long regarded as the finest context through which to communicate the photographic image and although our vision slides fluidly and often lazily across the physical and virtual platforms in which we curate the photograph, the published format strongly resonates.
Turn over the page, rest the book on a table, reflect on the collaboration in the well-balanced negatives..
and consider the performance of ‘Blue Watch’ a photographic book by Jonathan Cherry.
'Blue Watch' book has been published by Sir Books and is on sale now.
- After “failing as a pop star and a joke-writer", Russell M Davies ended up in advertising, launching Microsoft Office and Explorer. He organises the London Interesting conferences and blogs here.
STATIONARY
by Matthew Pontin (Photographer and Director of FOTONOW)
The very act of staying still tends to offer the space required for reverie, a state where one is immersed in thought. This stationary mindset will often encourage daydreaming and stimulate imaginative processes, in one sense you can travel anywhere once you commit to going nowhere in particular. 'We feel assured that we have discovered everything interesting about a neighbourhood, primarily by virtue of having lived there a long time. It seems inconceivable that there could be anything new to find in a place we have been living for a decade or more. We have become habituated and therefore blind.'1 Through stopping it becomes possible to observe with greater clarity.
This series of photographs, Blue Watch, reveals sustained research into the backstage of a rural fire station, the work invites the viewer to consider the arduously long pauses as firemen wait for action. This notion of reflection is inherent within the very reading of each image, it is this deliberate echoing, through a series of contemplative observations, which slowly builds an obvious tension. This unease is evident throughout; a photograph of a magazine Explorations balanced on an armchair, a historical panting of a fireman rescuing a woman juxtaposed next to chalked scores of a game of darts, supermarket cakes and donuts sat on the centre of a table - all hinting at a fine line between the relaxation and drama within these spaces.
The series is testament to the patience and an attentiveness of these firemen, and their presence is noted through the portraits that interrupt more subtle observations. These photographs don't suggest an idle distraction, nor the lack of need for this invaluable service, simply a memorial to the notion of forgetting to remember.
1 Alain De Botton, in the introduction to A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre, Hesperus Classic, London, 2004 p.ix
Blinds Trophy Table Tennis Tattoo Christmas Tree Anticipation Kitchen Framed Steve Anne Break 1 Palm TreeIN AN AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA
By David Versteeg
the sun is shining, it always does
birds fly like clouds run
from the wind
the sea eats everything, chewing the land
the sea it likes to sleep a lot
eyes and skin they burn alike
courtesy of the cold cold sun
that never stops to shine
in an aeroplane over the sea
my lover is not with me
I stole both our hearts and know not where I put or left them
I hope that all the other things
maybe won’t be so important
not this time, not so important
I hope I find them soon
stupid boy where are you running
where did you find such courage
boy you used to dream a lot
boy its time to live and sing
the sun burns fear like salt in eyes-
the sun it always shines
the sun burns love in to your face
a courtesy from on high
Explorations Pool Table Decontamination 1 Break 2 Training Retain BA Chamber Decontamination 2 Break 3 Martin and Man A COLLABORATION IN THE WELL BALANCED NEGATIVES.
by Jonathan Blyth (Photographer and Director of FOTONOW)
These are ideas to be considered upon reflection of Jonathan Cherry’s photographic study.
Perhaps as we develop a progressively deeper understanding of ourselves, we simultaneously evolve the confidence and integrity, to conscientiously place ourselves with a measured diligence in to specific contexts and desired events through which we consciously perform with cameras upon the landscape of the physical world?
All photographic acts are performance.
Maybe those adventurously minded or imaginatively adept image-makers curate themselves to perform experience with cameras through the choreography of a photographic event and are alert to the creative gestures performed in the technical moment of a mechanically decisive collaboration between photographer and camera.
and like the master sculptor who recognises when to apply a specific chisel to render a desired gesture in the marble to fashion emotion within form and matter, the reflective image-maker approaching the ephemeral qualities of time and place makes equal deliberation on the apparatus that generates new images of re-presented experience.
All meaning re-presented within the image of the photograph is malleable.
and through the production of this versatile information the author of the image is confronted to communicate their experience through identifying a suitable context for the interpretation of material content and representations of those now recorded events and photographic interactions, contained upon the surface of the object.
Consider these ideas upon reflection of the object held within your hands.
Photographic books are an integral element within the medium and long regarded as the finest context through which to communicate the photographic image and although our vision slides fluidly and often lazily across the physical and virtual platforms in which we curate the photograph, the published format strongly resonates.
Turn over the page, rest the book on a table, reflect on the collaboration in the well-balanced negatives..
and consider the performance of ‘Blue Watch’ a photographic book by Jonathan Cherry.
'Blue Watch' book has been published by Sir Books and is on sale now.