Marc Provins

I am a photographer based in the North West of England.

[marcprov]

I'm really enjoying my Easter break, two weeks into April and it feels very spring-like. The seasons have been scarily wonky recently and although this winter wasn't very cold in Britain it was incredibly wet. So to see nature stretching and reaching back into life at a speedy pace makes me feel very optimistic. I walked into Manchester today to visit the newly reopened Central Library (which will have to be the topic for a future blog post). The hour long journey takes me through the hinterland of the city, starting as thinly populated suburbia then passing through post-industrial dereliction and finally on to the sparkle of 'town'. I've always liked this in-between space and often photograph the battle that goes on between nature and humankind as you can see in the pictures from today.

I'll be getting my hydrangeas out soon too as I'm part of a group exhibition taking place in Manchester from next week. It has been curated by Liz Ball who runs Iris Artistic Platform and I'm looking forward to showing alongside my friends and fellow photographers Aj Wilkinson and Mike Stephens, together with a host of others that I've yet to meet. Liz has created a poster for each exhibiting artist, I've included our three below but you can see the entire collection here:

Iris Artistic Platform

Please come along if you can make it next week - Private view on Friday evening...

[marcprov]

Glow

One of the things I'm enjoying about making these still life pictures is the sense of complete control. I feel that I'm working a bit like a sculptor, selecting objects and then experimenting with their placement and positioning. Hours disappear in this process, as I explore colour, composition, light and shadow.  Everything is staged for the camera, and working with daylight the arrangements last only a fleeting time before the intensity changes and the alignment loses its power. 

The further I push with this work the more I realise that in some ways I'm creating self portraits, my state of mind influences the choices I make in terms of colour, object, atmosphere, etc. I'm attempting to strip a photograph back to an almost abstract meditative state, creating a graphic representation of my thoughts at that moment in time. The fact that I'm making these pictures in the confined box room of my home using objects found around me reinforces the intimate, almost claustrophobic nature of the framing and I hope that the choice of colours suggest an alternative reality.

[marcprov]

Acid

Following on from a post a few weeks ago about my use of colour, composition and possible influences, I've a couple more creatives who I think have exerted some sway over my own approach to image making. One from a few decades ago, one contemporary but in my mind both connected by a winding and brightly coloured aesthetic thread.  Viviane Sassen's work walks a stylised path between fine art and fashion photography, being simultaneously both and neither. She's not afraid of colour and splashes it around with aplomb. Just when you thought there was nothing new to be done with the medium she brings a fresh twenty first century surrealism to the table (or should that be light-box or screen?). She uses bodies like props, limbs from several people forming new imagined beasts, albeit beautiful beasts. She seems to play with our lack of trust in digital photography, has it been Photoshopped or is it clever staging?  Guy Bourdin could be Sassen's photographic Great Grandfather, born in Paris in the 1920's he was Man Ray's protégé absorbing his avant garde approach to photography and inventing his own stripped back nod to surrealism. Bodies become objects, objects become animate, acid colours scream and clash, fighting for attention. His images take on a more sinister voice if you read even a little about his life and his unsettling narratives seem to play out a series of misogynist fantasies. Despite or because of, he helped change the face of fashion photography, his images still looking contemporary several decades after his death. I'm excited by both photographers and admire their use of colour and clean, graphic composition, which has probably been absorbed by osmosis into my own work. So above three new still lifes from me, and below some of my favourite examples of the aforementioned photographers. If you missed my original blog post you can find it here: Shapes Of Things Four from Viviane Sassen:

© Viviane Sassen

Four from Guy Bourdin:

© Guy Bourdin

[marcprov]

Bright

An extra little blog post to help see out the month of March and usher in April and hopefully spring. A few weeks ago I made some portraits of a young writer called Furquan Akhtar, it was very much a collaboration with him providing the clothes and style. We managed to create an impromptu studio in the box room which acts as my workspace, using Manchester's finest daylight and the chimney breast as a backdrop. So here is my favourite picture from the shoot which I'm posting by way of saying a public congratulations to Furquan as he won the BBC's Alfred Bradley Bursary Award on Saturday. You can find out more about the award here: BBC Writer's Room You can also follow Furquan's writings here: Huffington Post

[marcprov]

Mother Stands for Comfort

I was pretty obsessed with Kate Bush as a child and then as a teenager. Wuthering Heights should have been the first single I bought when I was ten years old, but I'd spent my pocket money on How Deep is Your Love by the Bee Gees a few weeks before. Although we weren't very well off when I was growing up we had a very good hi-fi and headphones in the days before we wore them all the time. So as I grew into a moody, confused adolescent Kate's esoteric sounds and eccentric lyrics helped me escape to a different me. She has stayed part of my life ever since, kindly releasing The Sensual World album just as I got my first student grant cheque. When I moved to Antwerp I soon ran out of money, eventually after much angst I managed to get a cleaning job. On my first day I discovered a full set of Kate's vinyl whilst I tidied up and as I played them at full blast in this grand, high ceilinged apartment I knew everything would be okay. Tickets went on sale this morning for her first concerts since 1979 and I managed to get some! The world and all of us have changed a lot since then, but it was really special to see the excitement and feeling being expressed across all the social media we have now by those who carry a bit of Kate with them still.

I struggled a bit to find the right picture today, but eventually went for one from a little series I made a couple of years ago called Nest. It is about home and memories, so seemed appropriate. I've titled this post in honour of one of my favourite tracks which also seems particularly pertinent as it's Mother's Day on Sunday and I'm looking forward to making some new memories with my own mum. I think there will definitely be some Kate Bush tracks on my iPod for the journey back to Gloucestershire. 

[marcprov]

Box Room

My provisional title for this work as it evolves and grows into a set is Box Room. The box room of our Edwardian terrace is my studio/ work-room/ atelier/ study/ office and it's where I'm making these small still lifes, using the diffused daylight from the window. It's actually west facing but this being Manchester it appears more like north as the light is usually travelling through a generous layer of slate grey cloud. I may be wrong but the idea of a box room seems very British and slightly eccentric, too small for a double bed it often ended up as a dumping ground. That was until the invention of the personal computer gave this Victorian idea a new lease of life as now everyone needs a place to store a desk, chair, screen and keyboard.

I've been making work about home and the domestic on and off for more than twenty years. I keep coming back to it, an itch that needs scratching again and again. I'm enjoying the process, fiddling, styling, composing, editing; it's therapy for me.

[marcprov]

Shapes Of Things

I've been continuing my experiments with colour still lifes, gathering both the objects and the backgrounds by hunting around my home. This way it feels like they are constructed from personal things that have some history with me and are part of my memories. I'm starting to see this new work as being closely connected to collage as I'm bringing things together from different places and presenting them in a new context. This was a moment of clarity for me, as I've been dipping into a beautiful book called The Age of Collage, since receiving it for Christmas and pondering how to experiment with a collage aesthetic whilst still maintaining my own style. It looks like my subconscious has led me to an answer of sorts.

If you missed my first posting you can reach it here:

flawlessly-typed-and-spaced

The book is sumptuously produced, with a broad range of approaches, really inspiring. Here are some of my favourite collage artists from the book, with links to their websites:

Jon Legere

Julia Busch

Kent Rogowski

Ruth Van Beek

Sergei Sviatchenko

[marcprov]

Flock

A little mid-week blog entry. I've been experimenting with moving image, just test pieces really until I get my hands on some proper equipment. The last time I did any video work was more than a decade ago whilst doing a Master's Degree, when people still used tape and had to digitise it afterwards. So please see this as a sketch/meditation - best watched in HD with the sound up high, music courtesy of Metronomy.

[marcprov]

Flawlessly Typed and Spaced

Some still lifes created at home in natural light for today, isolated portions of my domestic life. We must be pulling out of winter as my pictures are getting brighter. I was looking through my 20th Century in Poetry book today which is a weighty tome as you might imagine, arranged in chronological order from 1900 to 2000.  At the back there is an Index of First Lines, which is essentially a list of fragments, thought provoking glimpses into the poems contained within. I like the slither of insight you get into the content of the poem as well as an instant sense of how writers mould language like soft clay. Sometimes that clay is fired in my imagination and I have to turn to the page to read the complete poem, sometimes I just keep reading down the list. A fragment of fragments for you: Do you drive an old car? 703 Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way 146 Dürer would have seen a reason for living 207 Even now there are places where a thought might grow 548 Every year without knowing it I have passed the day 480 Father, this year's jinx rides us apart 442 Feeble Caligula! to say 327 Flawlessly typed and spaced 562 For 5p at a village fête I bought 551 For me dark words are 421 I've left the page numbers in as it gives you a rough guide as to the year the poem was written which also suggests some context. If you are wondering I had to turn to page 562 to read The List by U. A. Fanthorpe...

[marcprov]

Touch

Lack of sleep is the bane of my life, arriving unannounced it stays for a while and then leaves without a fuss, probably for some other poor soul. I respond to the world in a different way whilst tired, more tactile and instinctive and less logical or cognitive. This can actually be quite beneficial for my photography work, as I'm very much living in the moment with heightened senses informing my creative choices. I had just such a day on Saturday, I'd made quite a few pictures and was on my way home when a couple came out of their house with their Dalmatian dog. As they walked past me the dog came over to me and I instinctively stroked him, the softness of his fur unexpectedly transported me back to my childhood as it felt precisely like Satchmo our family Dalmatian. I must have stroked hundreds of dogs in the intervening years but I'd never had that sense of sameness before, I wanted to run after the dog for another memory hit, resisted, but was left thinking about both dogs. Looking through my pictures later at home my decisions where informed by this tactile experience and the two I've chosen were settled upon whilst still considering the importance of touch and how our senses are intricately woven together with our memories. I told you I was tired!

[marcprov]

Scandinavia

I appear to have had Scandinavia on my mind recently, I've no idea why but it seems to have filtered into my brain and come out in my photographs. I only realised when I started reviewing my images from Nottingham and Sherwood, maybe it was all those trees bringing back memories of visiting my family in Sweden.  When I was a child my uncle and aunty from Stockholm seemed like the most exotic creatures on the planet, they brought beautiful gifts that looked like nothing in England, taught me strange words and spoke of seeing Abba walking the streets of the city. Since then I've been to visit and swam in lakes and slept in the forest, eaten a cake made of fish but never saw Agnetha, Frida, Benny or Bjorn. In adulthood I've also visited Denmark and Finland and absolutely loved these small sophisticated nations with their own elegant aesthetic and way of living that seems in balance with the natural world and our human needs. I've gathered a few images by some of my favourite Nordic photographers below to celebrate this rush of icy air blowing through my subconsciousness. I like that there is often a sense of melancholy in the work of these photographers, balanced by a humour that seems to suggest that everything is not always as it appears on the surface. Like the films of David Lynch there is a suggestion of otherworldliness and an acute sense that light is precious and darkness could envelop us at any moment.

Anni Leppälä - Finland

Lars Tunbjörk - Sweden

Julia Peirone - Sweden

Sølve Sundsbø - Norway

Løber Nøgen (A photography collective rather than an individual) - Denmark

[marcprov]

The Forest

Four of us have just spent five days in Sherwood Forest in a wooden lodge. This was our view from the deck, a scattering of silver birch and the forest beyond. It was west facing and so each evening we were treated to a sunset, the light subtly pulsing through a spectrum of hues before dimming to reveal the stars. We nearly always gravitate towards the coast for holidays and so initially it seemed strange to be inland, until I realised that being around so many trees can have a similar grounding influence as staring out to sea; Swaying trunks in strong winds replace the lapping rhythm of the tide and listening to the power of nature, whether it is shingle being dragged across a beach or branches rustling and creaking, is still humbling and awe inspiring. 

We stayed just on the edge of Edwinstowe where Major Oak stands, a tree that is believed to be more than a thousand years old, and is part of the Robin Hood legend. It is quite something to stand before a living, growing thing that has been a constant through vast changes in the human world, acting as quiet witness to phenomenal alterations around it. 

[marcprov]

Wrapped Up

I received a Valentine gift this morning, yes I know I'm lucky to feel loved. I opened it in haste before dashing off to work and left the wrapping sitting on the table. It was only when I got home this afternoon that I realised what a thing of beauty it is, posing in the threatening light of another brewing winter storm.  The wind is already whistling down the chimneys and around the windows, clouds chasing across the sky, trees swaying. Stay wrapped up folks.

[marcprov]

Obscured

Two photographs shot through glass, one is a shop window the other a display case in a museum. One is deliberately obscured to try to hide the cable mess of the modern world, to present a slick front. The other a perfectly crafted cube designed to display treasures, accidentally smeared by the cleaning process. The natural world creeps into both images; a reflected sky, a burst of sunlight. Both pictures make me think about human fallibility and our attempts to control the world, someone ordering the wrong window film, the cleaner doing their work and leaving their mark.

[marcprov]

Spiders and Snakes

Photography has the ability to reveal layers of complexity in what might appear to be our everyday, mundane reality. It is also a way to glimpse the world through the eyes of another, as we are effectively seeing the world as experienced by the photographer. I've often been surprised to look through my own photographs taken the day before and notice something revealing about my state of mind on that day. This is one of those cases, as I subconsciously spotted two creatures crawling across the Liverpool streetscape. I don't remember thinking spider or snake when I took the pictures, but then I was feeling pretty spaced out after a week of being poorly and house bound. However on viewing later it was the first thing I saw and I've been pondering ever since what this might mean as they are also both common phobias. I believe the phenomenon of projecting animal qualities onto objects is termed Zoomorphism, well that's what the internet is telling me anyway. 

[marcprov]

Hold Your Hair In Deep Devotion

At last after a week of being indoors, I walked into the light! I went solo and had a photography day in Liverpool, just what the doctor ordered, as they say. I'm a bit out of words at the moment and was going to include a Philip Larkin poem, but I've been thinking that Alex Turner is my modern day poet hero and this is my favourite track on AM, tucked away at the end. He's in his twenties and yet the words suggest a time before he was born, filling my head with images and memories. I've included a link to the track if you want to listen to The Arctic Monkey doing their thing whilst taking in my pictures...

UPDATE

Well since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that the song is actually based on a poem by John Cooper Clarke, which makes sense of the time frame (being written in the early Eighties) and the fact that I responded to the lyrics like a poem. Apparently Alex Turner first heard it read by his English teacher whilst at school. So maybe it's John Cooper Clarke who is my modern poet hero after all, will do further reading...

"I Wanna Be Yours"

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I won't ever rust If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot You call the shots babe I just wanna be yours Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours Wanna be yours, wanna be yours, wanna be yours Let me be your 'leccy meter and I'll never run out And let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without I wanna be your setting lotion (I wanna be) Hold your hair in deep devotion (How deep?) At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean I wanna be yours Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours Wanna be yours, wanna be yours, wanna be yours Wanna be yours, wanna be yours, wanna be yours... I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I won't ever rust I just wanna be yours I just wanna be yours I just wanna be yours

Writer(s): Alex Turner

Copyright: Emi Music Publishing Ltd.

This is the original version by John Cooper Clarke:

I wanna Be Yours... I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust If you like your coffee hot let me be your coffee pot You call the shots I wanna be yours I wanna be your raincoat for those frequent rainy days I wanna be your dreamboat when you want to sail away Let me be your teddy bear take me with you anywhere I don’t care I wanna be yours I wanna be your electric meter I will not run out I wanna be the electric heater you’ll get cold without I wanna be your setting lotion hold your hair in deep devotion Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean that’s how deep is my 

©John Cooper Clarke

[marcprov]

Three Hull Mice

A non-productive seven days. I've been ill for an entire week and not left the house since Monday, missing three days of work. I'm not going to moan on, it has reminded me of being poorly as a child, lying on the sofa with a blanket watching rubbish TV, having soup for lunch and a soak in the bath to clear my sinuses.  So no photographs until today. My last blog entry was called 'Precious' in which I was starting to think about how we preserve human culture in museums and galleries and photographing the paraphernalia used to display and conserve. Whilst lying at home surrounded by my 'stuff' I've been thinking about what would go in my own private museum, what is precious to me? The first three items are the Hull mice. These were knitted by volunteers and sold by other volunteers in a charity shop to raise money for the Caring For Cats Charity in Beverley on the outskirts of Hull. These now live in a drawer in a 1960's dresser in our dining room as they were bought and brought back to Manchester by our Hullensian friends for our cat Olive. I like this little chain of kindness and so does Olive who will sit by the drawer and use her most dramatic sounds to demand we get them out for her so she can drag them around and give them a good kicking. It makes me smile that they look dishevelled (thanks to Olive) and homemade, probably using up some leftover bits of wool, they show their own history. They were photographed on the mantelpiece, the place where traditionally family treasures are displayed for the world to see. Whilst making these pictures I had Keith Arnatt's work in my mind. I wasn't trying to reproduce or copy his style, in fact I was trying to avoid making them too similar. He made some beautiful, quiet photographs of human possessions and his images make me think about what we treasure and what we discard in this world. I've written about when I met Keith Arnatt, my photographic hero in a previous entry: http://marcprovins.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/peter_19.html Some examples of Arnatt's work:

© Keith Arnatt