Consider a subject
close to your heart – something you feel passionate about. Choose a subject
that you feel people don’t understand or appreciate sufficiently.
You need an idea, a way of interpreting what you’re concerned with, and
you’ll need to develop your visualization through testing and experimentation.
Public transport
has become a hot potato in both local and national politics, as budgets have
been cut quite drastically. No one knows
where the next cuts will be but people are eagerly awaiting the Buses Bill to
see what services can be provided to link both town and rural village folk. This government bill will give local council
authorities the power to plan, develop and regulate bus services. The idea is that authorities will be able to
provide a service that is suitable for the paying passengers similar to that
which is provided in towns and cities.
Lyme Regis is served by three bus routes, those of the X53 which runs
from Poole to Exeter, every two hours, the X51 which runs from Dorchester to
Axminster and back every hour and then there is a local town service, the
Number 71 bus, which tours round the town every hour. The timetables are regularly changed to suit
the needs of the operators and seem to give very little consideration to the
travelling public. Lyme Regis has an
aging population with more than 35% over the age of 60. Being over 60 gives the travelling public the
right to a bus pass to enable them to move around the country for free. Whilst the bus operators are re-imbursed for
these journeys it does not cover the whole cost of the journeys.
Public transport is essential for people who live in outlying villages,
as they very often don’t have their own transport. With village shops, pubs and post offices
closing down, there is even more need to seek reliable transport to the nearest
towns. Buses are used by young and old
to travel to work, fulfill doctors’/hospital appointments, grocery shopping and
visit local amenities, etc.
Late night transport is non existent and seems to be curtailed earlier
in the day even in the summer months when the days are longer. If villagers wanted to go to the cinema or
theatre in a nearby town, they would have to travel home by taxi or make other
arrangements as the last bus is very often mid evening and leaves before the
end of the film or programme.
Research
I’ve been
researching the work of various social documentary photographers such as Martin
Parr, Simon Roberts and Jane Bown and am also a keen follower of James
Ravilious whose work in rural Devon has become recognized as truly embracing
rural life in the late 20th century.
Martin Parr, well known for his quirky photographs of people and places
and has been quoted as saying when asked, “Do you think
things get a bit repetitive? Everyone
seems to produce the same kind of images,” is quoted as replying;
“Of course they do. Most of the stuff on
the Internet is absolute crap. Don’t worry; most of the pictures I’ve taken are
crap too. You have to take a lot of bad pictures to get something good.”
Simon
Roberts, another photographer I follow, has travelled the length and breadth of
the country in a motor home taking pictures of the English at play and produced
a coffee table entitled ‘We English’
which was well received as
a superb observation of contemporary
Britain. I also like Jane Bown’s work as she
especially manages to catch the punctum moment that gives her pictures an added
depth. She really seems to catch a
moment that gives her portraits hidden meaning.
Justification
My initial ideas for completing this assignment were to
·
take pictures of buses in local towns,
·
pictures of buses along isolated coastal routes,
·
people waiting at the bus stops,
·
people travelling on the buses, etc.
I thought I would take photographs to provide the 10-16” x 20” pictures
required and that I could intersperse them with voice recordings and video
footage of my interviews with the local travellers.
I also thought to interview travellers at the local bus stops. My tutor also suggested that I carry out a
survey of how many people used each of the buses featured, at hourly intervals
throughout the day but it was to big a task to carry out because of the
unpredictability of the services and too many bus stops for it to be feasible.
Sometimes due to
the local road system and the layout of the area, planned and unplanned road
closures, ie, road works and accidents, and with no alternative routes
available, it meant that services could be curtailed unexpectedly.
One major factor
in following rural coastal routes and taking pictures was the weather. It could be very windy and cold along the
routes as the bus did literally follow the coastal road from Weymouth to
Exeter. As I was photographing this
assignment in winter I had to factor in wet, windy, misty and foggy weather. It also meant that not many people used the
buses unless it was essential and it was difficult to find people waiting at
the very isolated bus stops.
Whilst I didn’t want all my pictures to comprise of bright, sunny
weather, I felt it would be better if the majority of them were taken on fine days,
as there would be more people about. I
wanted those taken along the coast road to show the view in the distance but
also maintain the isolation and the fine mist that is often a feature helped in
those images. I tried to find a high
spot on the coastal road with a view and an isolated bus stop. This proved impossible so I had to improvise
and insert a bus stop at the top of the hill coming out of Abbotsbury. I went back and forth along the different bus
routes scouting out the best locations with what I thought would be interesting
viewpoints.
I decided to
illustrate my local issue on rural buses using photos, voice recordings and
video recordings. I felt it was
important to gain travellers’ views at to their using the local/county buses
and how often they did ride on them. I
used my iPhone to record the soundtrack of the BBC One programme ‘Countryfile’
as this programme had run an item on rural transport recently. I put a link into my report but as it linked
to the BBC iPlayer the item would only last for 30 days. I was fully aware of copyright issues and
reproducing programmes without permission but felt that a voice recording might
be acceptable.
Local people use
the local buses frequently as a means of moving round a very hilly town and I recorded
them whilst travelling on the buses myself.
I also used my phone to video local people discussing their views on
local bus issues and even included a friend in hospital as she showed her
consternation even whilst recovering from an operation. I found it difficult to copy the recordings
it made, both audio and video, from my smartphone and struggled once or twice
to get them to the folder where I wanted them.
It really was a case of ‘if all else fails read the instructions’.
Summary
This has been a
challenging assignment, firstly because I had to think of an issue that was of
particular interest to put together a statement of intent and to think of
various media to prove it worth the effort.
The hardest part
of all was to decide on what to feature, as whilst buses run through Lyme
regularly throughout the day, I felt that there needed to find other ways to
illustrate the situation rather than of people just sitting on buses or waiting
at bus stops.
I know that I have
exceeded my time limit for this assignment but feel the result justifies the
extra time. As I said, I had to factor
in very poor weather, but day after relentless day of rain made it very
difficult. I also had to factor in my
own feelings on having to ask people to take part in my work. Some people weren’t interested so that is why
there are only a couple of videos showing local people.
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