New and improved

The upgrading of the portfolio sections of the website have been completed with all portfolio images now viewable using the flash image viewer. More images and galleries will be added over the coming months.

One new portfolio area is dedicated to the studio and still-life work which also includes a lot of digital material. Click on the image above to view the new page.

It takes two.......

Well everything went to plan ( ahem...well almost...) and Steve and Gerry tied the knot in a lovely ceremony at York Registry office.

A great day was had by all and we all wish Steve and Gerry all the best for the future.

The images of Steve and Gerry's civil partnership have been uploaded to the website and the link to the viewing page can be found by clicking on the image.

www.richardflintphoto.com

A second domain address has been added to complement the .co.uk domain that the Richard Flint Photography website has used for the past three years.

The website can now be accessed via www.richardflintphoto.com or the www.rfphotography.co.uk address

Blast from the past part II

This image formed part of a series of photographs about Stoke on Trent taken in 1996 but i think the image could represent many streets in any number of towns in the UK.

The photograph was part of a collection of images that looked at the diverse landscape of the five towns that made up Stoke on Trent. The previous canal image was part of that collection too, documenting the dark industrial landscape of the pottery town.

I always thought that the midlands and the north east ( where i have family) were pretty similar when it came to economic and social problems caused by the loss of industry. These images of Stoke were really a continuation of a post industrial project started in Middlesbrough in 1991. Some of the North East images will be posted in the coming months.

The dark clouds were something i always liked and the influence comes from the b&w 1940's films that often had great skyscapes. Stoke usually had quite interesting skies anyway and combining the moody sky with the dark landscape always seemed to work well.

Blast from the past

This image was taken by the canal in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire back in 1996.

The canal had a path which i used to walk on a regular basis and i came across many monuments of Stoke's great industrial past that had sadly started to decay with the passing of time. Like many towns across the UK, Stoke on Trent was hit by the steady decline in british industry that started in the late 1940's.

The canals had been the 19th century version of the motorway, keeping the industries in Stoke on Trent supplied with materials. Now they are part of the tourism network of the midlands with canal boats full of holiday makers rather than coal or other goods.

This image was taken on my old trusty Pentax Super A using Kodak Tmax 400 film during a rather cold January day. At the time I was influenced by the landscape work of John Tordai which has a similar moody documentary feel.

Portfolio update

Glassware - 2007
The portfolio section of the website is one of the areas that i hope to finally sort out in 2007 with the addition of a dedicated advertising section for the studio work i do. It's just getting everything ready to go online!

The portfolio area is going to be upgraded during the summer so that it will be easier to view projects and commissioned work using a Macromedia Flash plugin. All the images will be available to view from one area of the website.

More news on this coming soon

Best blog

One of the best blogs for photography comes from the Magnum photo agency that posts regular images and articles by their photographers.

Magnum photographer Simon Wheatley gives some insight into the decline in street photography in France after changes to the privacy laws. A similar sort of legislation is being looked at in the UK that may introduce similar types of privacy measures very soon. Several of Simon's images about the alienation of young people are included in the piece.

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2007/03/pixelated_youth.html#more

The blog is updated often with new images and discussions about the vast Magnum back catalogue of images and is a great resource for anyone new to the world of photography.

New attitudes

Back in 1991 when i started to study photography as a student, image making was still largely a film based affair with no visible sign of the digital revolution on the horizon but probably the biggest change I've seen has been in the perception and attitiudes towards photographs and photographers.

In 1998 a case was concluded against a street photographer on the premise "that it is illegal to publish a photograph of someone without written consent". Fortunately the case was thrown out but the issue is still open for debate. My own opinion is that the photographed person should have some say only if the image is used in a way that discredits or harms their reputation. The definition of that can be argued by the lawyers but if a photographer cannot work freely in a public area like a street, we end up with no documentation of society and the way we life now. In the past, local photographers would photograph their community at work and play and would become important chroniclers of history. These days to be photographed is often portrayed as bordering on an invasion of someone's human rights ( which it is, if it is harrassment) and yet photographing the everyday event is important.

A photograph taken of a present day street scene will attract very little attention but revisit that image 30 years later and the street, vehicles, clothing and many other things contained within that picture take on a entirely new meaning. Some of my first images taken in London in 1985 have already started to take on new meaning as historical records of the time and yet they were only taken as a record of a visit to see my auntie and uncle.

That's just the beauty of photography !