The Commission

The Commission: Waste

For the commission project I have produced a series of four photographs of street drains in the local Medway area. In regard to waste my idea was to take a scientific approach in that these drains become a sociological study of people’s attitudes and behaviour. The litter that is carelessly dropped onto our streets persist in their original function against the battle of weather, where they are washed down into the street drains, holding the common expression ‘Out of sight, Out of mind’. My photographic studies of these drains are accompanied with a contextual title on the location that becomes just as important in informing the viewer’s perceptions of a social class. ‘Jobcentre, Council Estate, Casino Nightclub, and Magistrates Court’ allows the audience to excess an understanding of where these drains came from. Their contents speaks about the type of people living or travelling their. In this respect these street drains can fuel the common perception of a class in their manners and conduct in regards to waste. These drains are filled with the litter of quick fix consumerism driven by the desires of our large consumption; and the mass of cigarette buds accumulated in these drains become an interesting disorder onto smokers.

            My interest first began with how the impact of society’s consumerism influenced the litter and rubbished dropped onto our streets and I studied the series ‘Thrown Down’ by Julian Stallabrass. It was from this research that I became interested in how the waste forms a character and personality of a society that could be studied through street drains. In referencing to Stallabrass’s ‘Thrown Down’ series I realized that these ordinary and mundane scenes in public spaces have gained status through the act of photographing; highlighting a message that may even be political to the impact of minor individuals in their contribution to waste. Similarly the street drains are also ordinary pieces that have only gained power and interest to an audience through the act of photographing them. I also studied Chris Jordan’s ‘Midway’ series, Kevin Newark ‘Protoplasm’, Peter Fraser ‘Materials’ and the photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. It was the research from Bernd and Hilla Becher that fuelled my concept further into taking a controlled analysis of street drains where any contextual information is withheld only by the title. With the limited time I had on this project I would develop my study further by taking a typological approach and photograph a wider range of street drains that would enable an audience to compare and contrast in the same way that of the Becher’s.

            Using a large format camera (Wista) I had many technical difficulties in exposing the contents of the drain. Originally I shot on cloudy days only so the ambient Fstop reading would be within the 5 Fstop boundaries that film can record. However this proved unsuccessful and I employed the use of Metz flash and experimented with the light ratios and filters on both the Mamiya RZ and Bronica medium format cameras. I finally found that the use of spun with a 1Fstop difference to the ambient light was effective in exposing the contents of the drain. Though I still encountered complications with the reflection of metal bouncing too much light back and thus reducing the amount of light reaching inside. The use of spun was very effective in distributing an even spread of light that did not flatten the subject in my photographs.

            Overall I feel there are a lot more technical improvements I could have made to translate my visual language. Perhaps I could employ the use of two Metz Flash on either side of the camera lens to further expose the contents of the drain. With only using one on the left hand side of the camera this was obviously not enough to reach the right side of the frame, and there are visual white hotspots from the reflection.

            Finally I would place my work in the context of an Exhibition where I feel this would best support my narrative with other Artists who hold a similar theme. It maybe that my Street Drains could accompany a series of street workers where both the theme of waste is closely related to the idea of the mundane public space, quick fix consumerism and its society.