The Sentient .jpg

Lucas Paul Shaw / Photographer

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Dad Contemplating

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Rhyl, June 2015

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Offcuts. I’ve been wondering about the formatting and setting of the Dining Out series. I was intent on setting the whole lot in b&w, but photographs like these rely so much on colour. I’ve also found it really difficult to pair them or make sequences from them, without just combining images from the same event, or of similar composition. Colour-casts put me off certain groupings too, but obviously b&w eliminates that particular distraction. And how to present them? Book, right? Sure, but as for layout, I’m more clueless by the day. And I feel like something textual should accompany it, be it who’s in the picture, the location, maybe the food we’re eating? (Yes, I can probably remember most of the individual meals)... Maybe just a short blurb or poem at the front would be best. Or how about matching anecdotes? I mean, middle image is screaming for explanation - but maybe it’s better without it? I always struggle with this stuff. Also, sorry Phoebe. But, as you said, that is your face.

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A Gust of Wind, Mynydd Mawr Campsite, Llyn Peninsula I’ll take the occasional break from my usual stuff to breathe in the fresh air that was a short camping trip in June. Our campsite was a good 30 minute drive from any sign of civilisation, and an hour from the nearest supermarket. The weather was gorgeously sunny, yet incredibly windy. This was the tent, after three days of being pitched, right before we took it down. It looks so tiny and like it could blow away at any moment. From inside, the raging wind was amplified, but we felt safe and calm through the night. I found it comforting to be so far from anything, with only company that I trusted and wanted to be around.

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Tesco, Uttoxeter

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Vibrance and spontaneity, though perhaps driving attributes of my dining photographs, can be rather distracting when looking at these images. I’ve found that too much variety in colour makes the eye dart around the frame frantically, not being able to focus on any details. Furthermore, if you’re looking through them as a whole collection, the frenetic colours make you skip through them too quickly. I’ve found that black and white slows these images down, so to speak. It allows you to contemplate them and examine the details, and helps to pace them and make them more digestible (excuse the pun).

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Paul, Leicester Station

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For months, from 7:30am to 5:30pm every weekday, the constant sound of drilling into concrete resonated through our house. Sometimes, when it was particularly near, the house vibrated and my mother’s numerous ornaments would clatter. It was annoying. I think this photograph was taken about 2/3 though the process - there is still a lot of unbroken concrete present, and you can make out some machinery on the left. Luckily, they finally dug all the damn stuff up, and it now sits in huge mounds of rubble like these. Who knows what will happen next. Houses probably. 

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The White Hart Hotel during it’s renovation period. Despite Uttoxeter’s obvious downtrodden appearance, it’s a glimmer of small-scale hope to see some of it’s more enduring monuments being polished up. I don’t mean to compare the White Hart’s return to former glory quite so unapologetically to our recently refitted branch of Greggs, but both were long overdue and of noticeable benefit to our small town. It’s also nice to see development of sites that were essentially wasteland. I bemoaned the direness of Uttoxeter that was evident in my photography, but there are things to remember. Firstly, they were taken over 2 years, and a lot can change in that gap. Secondly, things can still look real shitty right up until the moment they’re finished. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, my radar seeks out the desperate and dilapidated. I’m just drawn to such things. So you’re far more likely to see Uttoxeter looking run down in my photos, simply because you’re far more likely to see anything looking run down in my photos. Run down is my ‘thing’. But finding the light is another of my ‘things’. And yet another of my ‘things’ is the pursuit of the perfect tension between the two somewhat opposing qualities. Such is life.

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When I started compiling photos of my friends eating in restaurants, I was doing just that - compiling. They already existed and I was just gathering them and looking at them together. But since then, I’ve made an effort to take my 35mm compact with me whenever I go out for a meal. It’s a familiar (and sometimes dreaded) sight to my friends by now, and I guess it’s changed the dynamic to some extent.  Actually, if anything, it’s broadened the scope. Regular dining buddies tend to pre-empt the shots and cower or grimace, while others pull a stupid face to take control over it. Of course, there are plenty of genuine candid moments on their parts, but now I know what I’m doing. I’ve become more calculating with how I shoot - I sometimes wait for interesting moments, or strangers to wander into the background, and I sometimes purposefully take unflattering ones. What can I say, I just find it interesting! So now I have a mixture. People looking at me, concentrating on their food, deep in conversation or thought, duos, groups, chopsticks, knives and forks, using hands, different settings, different moods, different foods. I thread them all together with the hard flash (though there may be a few exceptions along the way) and a monochrome uniform. But I’ve only uploaded them in original colours thus far, so they can be appreciated separately as well. I might switch it up in the future - there are definitely more to come!

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I did exaggerate. Not every photograph I have of Uttoxeter is a lifeless rectangle of grey and brown. Sometimes the light can still come forth.

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A Dull Day for Uttoxeter

This photograph epitomises the mood of my photographs from the last two years. Having not been able to scan them until less than a week ago, I’ve been somewhat in the dark about how my work actually looks. With the exception of about 15 frames, all my medium format films depict my hometown of Uttoxeter. And the majority of these images show it looking kind of shabby. See above image.

There’s a heavy-handedness that I’ve noticed in the work. This image is admittedly a more extreme example, but it’s still quite noticeable throughout. In Plymouth, it was much easier to make light and airy photos. There are a lot of colours and shades Plymouth can be, but Uttoxeter is a medium grey town. A lot of the images look stodgy and dull. It’s a little disappointing, but at the same time, it hits the nail on the head. It’s pretty much just how this town is as of late.

The book I made of Uttoxeter as part of my Faith project, Midlander, presented it as an ordinary but austere place, and the work was very much about my disconnect with somewhere I know so well. But this is less about me, and more about the location itself. It feels really hopeless and lifeless. It’s beyond austere now - it looks dilapidated and dismissed, and kind of tragic. I photographed the same overlapping fence 2 years ago (I’ll put it below) and just look at the difference. 

Life existed, but it’s since been sapped out. Maybe I can try to be inspired by the deadness of it all. Or is that too contrary even for me?

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Lucas Terrace x2 Which is better? The light and shadows are lovely in the daytime version, but the night one feels more intriguing, and I like what the hard flash does to the stain beneath the satellite dish.

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The roses I didn't make look pretty.