Awayday Returns - National Media Museum, Bradford

                       Ok, so I might be a little late with this entry, but seeing as though it was paid for and I'm always up for a bit of exploring, I thought it would be daft to turn down the opportunity of a freebie seeing as though I'd never been to either Bradford or The National Media Museum before, and so making sure I was stocked up on porridge and a bacon butty just in case, in the blink of an eye I'd found myself stood on the platform of my local railway station with chattering teeth, wondering if trains had got any closer to running on time since the last time I got on one in this country about 10 years ago.....well, they haven't. 
                       Despite the best efforts of Northern Rail to complicate my day, I managed to make into Manchester and over to Victoria Station with plenty of time to spare and so it wasn't long before we were all on our way...well except for the unfortunate individual who had rang Dave to say he was on the right platform but couldn't see anyone which became less of a mystery when it was revealed he was at Piccadilly train station and unless he had really good eyesight there was never going to be much chance of us ever coming into focus. 

                                            

                        Bradford didn't really come as any surprise, it turned out just how I'd imagined it to be, a bit like Leeds, where I'd never been either, but I'd always imagined it to be just like Bradford, but not York, where I'd been, once. A quick rallying of the troops and we were soon all part of the procession on the trudge from the station to the museum where, upon entry, we were basically given free reign to just explore the place and see if we could absorb any knowledge.  A few things caught my eye including Ayr (1979) by Raymond Moore, a British born photographer who, as luck would have it, actually has a 3 part documentary about his work over on youtube and being the nice guy that I am I'll save you the trouble of searching by including part 1 below but not that nice as too include parts 2 & 3 so you'll have to go and dig those out yourself providing you developed enough interest in the first bit. 

                                       

                        Chris Killip also had some work in there including his Royal Wedding (1981) but I've already spoken about Chris here but I'll include the image that caught my eye, firstly because I hadn't seen it before and secondly, because I just guessed it to be one of his before I'd read the ticket.

                                            
                                            
                          Also in there is some of the work of John Blakemore who, to quote Lenscratch.com  "... is considered a national treasure of Britain with a career that spans 55 year years and a mastery of not only his photography and his craft in printing, but in his "knowing" of a subject.  He is concerned with the "ritual of intimacy", the sustained exploration of small areas of the world that interests him--whether working outside in the landscape or working in his studio."  The work in question is some of those from his series  The Garden - Fragments Of A History' in which he produced a series of gelatin silver prints prints created from a collection of subject matter found in and around his garden, so try and think bottles, pottery, flowers and even skulls and you'll get the general idea but not as easily as if you'd looked at the image below.....well, not directly below as that's a short video on gelatin silver prints, but just below that.

                                             

                                          

                       Other photographers that caught my eye included works by Sarah Jones (Analyst Couch), Ian Beasley (Drummond Hill), Luc Delahaye(United Nations), Simon Norfolk (Mortar Shells) and Zoltan Glass ( hands up, I've forgotten) to name but a few oh, and not forgetting The Messenger by Geoff Watson which is pretty hard to miss as it's starring you in face as soon as you walk through the doors.

                         Now it wasn't all serious studying as we were not only given the opportunity to try and absorb some knowledge but also encouraged to take some shots of our own, but not of the exhibited photos, as that's frowned up on by the powers that be.. So with that in mind here are a few of mine, maybe slighty abstract in a fashion, but I have others some of which have been seen and some of which are in colour....but I wouldn't want to tarnish my reputation now would I
                                   

           

Imperial Roll Films

What The Butler Didn't See       

                     

Lloyd Grossman

                           Now that wasn't quite the end of the expedition because by the time I'd realised that maybe I should check my watch to make sure I didn't miss the meeting time, I was already on the 3rd floor balcony watching everyone else disappear across the road towards out next point of interest, Bradford's Impressions Gallery  to soak up Yaakov Israel's exhibition The Quest For The Man On The White Donkey . There was some lovely stuff in Israel's images, which, if I'm being honest, reminded me of Joel Sternfeld's - Retrospektive that I'd seen at the CO in Berlin last November, but if I think about it logically , this is probably more to do with me developing an appreciation of medium and large format photography than anything more suggestive.

                                        

                     There was another room outside Israel's exhibition space that basically was an exhibition in itself, but only in the form of 3 walls of visual reference telling the visitor what they'd missed in the past. A couple of favourites here, Jurgen Schadebrg's  photograph of two black men hiding from the S.A.P for what we presume to be fear of either violating a curfew or something else connected with the onset of apartheid ( I've heard stories about the SAP, after leaving home for the first time at 17 and crashing at my mates place who's parents were still in SA, which was where he grew up)......

                                        

                        .......and the work of Ian MacDonald and his series about the houseboats at Greatham Creek .

                                                 



                      So all in all a good day out, and I even succeeded in getting back from Bradford, via Manchester, whilst successfully avoiding the gravitational pull of some of Manchester's finest hostelries....that's a result in my book.