“The death of hope” Photos about loss- an extension to my project “Photos I’ll never take”.

It’s of a carousel wrapped up and out of use. Barry, my husband has taken some photos of this too, as we discovered it together, but as it isn’t his normal type of subject, I’m going to run with it.

I think its fits in neatly with the loss of hope in having children.  Its a children’s playground item, and out of use, in the centre of a big city.

I started off taking straightforward shots of the carousel, then started to walk round it taking panoramas. This led to walking round taking a movie, as it made it look like it was moving. This was quite hard to do and took a long time, as the light made it difficult to see what I was filming and I didn’t want the foreground in the picture. I had to do it several times and was surprised to find that walking slowly produced the best results. I had originally thought that walking fast would be best as it would mimic the actual carousel moving. However by going slower it gave time to take in details. I love the sound effects too, the bird chirping in the movie is the best! This post includes the movie and I’ll post the photos over the next few days.

Balloon dogs

Saw these wonderful balloon dogs behaving like they were real. This isn’t, of course, strictly: “photos I’ll never take”, as I took them just because I liked them. However, I may have been influenced by the project as I do find childish things more interesting now.

Ice skating with a penguin

Its amazing what you can get away with in a crowded shopping centre. The reaction was either fairly positive, interest showed, or I just got looked at. No abuse. I think this project goes down better with a youngish crowd and families. Pre arranged it with the manager of Priory Meadow shopping centre, Hastings, who also gave permission for me to visit Santa. Really grateful to him (John Hough). Loved the penguin. I do look a bit terrified in the video, which is hardly surprising, it was quite a feat skating while holding on to the penguin and the doll and trying to make her skate too, (especially since I’m not very good at skating) I had to stuff socks into one of her boots so she was at an angle, making one leg slightly raised. Her feet aren’t parrallel, so she wouldnt have been able to move on the ice if I hadn’t done that. I think it looks more realistic with one leg raised anyway.

Sledging while pregnant (sort of) THE VIDEO

Here is the video of me trying to sledge holding on to Katrin and also trying to look pregnant at the same time. It was a complete failure. Not sure if I should include it in my exhibition as it doesn’t look like a very serious peice of work. I did have a problem at the interim show where a few people just burst out laughing when they saw my photos, which wasn’t exactly the effect I was going for! Its a difficult question, because it takes a little time and at least six photos before viewers get the right reaction emotionally, otherwise they just laugh. Not sure if it will be the same with the video or not. Would welcome views on this. I will be posting two more videos after this hopefully tomorrow