Waiting Room

a place to wait

Whats On

Hereford Photography Festival: The Cattle Breeders

So spring seems to have finally sprung; the trees are budding up; the pipe behind the toilet has been dusted and the cattle are shedding their winter coats. The time has finally come to start taking photos of Hereford cattle. This trio (the Ford Abbey Farm boys) kindly posed for me on Easter weekend. More to follow...

In Living Memory

Dolly Littlejohn

The day we met…

It was our 60th anniversary on 20th August, he died the week before. Yes, that was sad, but there we are.

When he started coming in he was paying for a nine-pence seat, I think. We sold one and nine penny seats and nine pence seats, the Gaiety cinema it was then, in Cardiff. It's a bingo hall now.

I was an usherette, I used to show them all to their seats. The one day these two boys came in, a nice boy and his little mate. They had two nine penny tickets and I said you will have to wait a bit, there aren't any nine-penny seats left, and he said aren't there any of the others? I could pay the difference. I said Oh no no, you can have them this time but don't you go telling anyone else! So I let them have the seats, that’s how it started.

Connie

They came across the fields…

They would turn up some time around the middle of August, I would see them all walking across the stubble fields towards our farm. In a gang, the gypsies came.

I would shout to my father they’re here, they’re here!

I don’t know where they came from but it was so exciting.

They worked all day long, cutting back the hedges; they were hard men. My father would give them the barn to sleep in and my mother would make them a pot of stew. I remember sitting down with them, there with my sister. Their stories were so wild.

Sheila

They said I was a witch…

Father was a very nice, quiet man. He never hit me once… but he did call me a little bugger when I was just gone four and a half. At half past nine that night I went into the shed where he made the cider. I had forgotten what he had said that morning, never turn that bloody tap on! I remember how lovely it tasted. He would give me and my sister half a cup every year.

In the June before he died I was in the garden of our neighbour, they had a lovely everlasting moss rose tree. When I picked a flower from the tree the breeze changed direction and a loud wind arose for twenty three minutes, the voice said YOUR FATHER WILL DIE, NOVEMBER THE 7^TH, 3PM and that’s when he died. I didn’t tell anyone else but my blind sister, my brothers hated my fortune telling.

They said I was a witch but I don't mind that.

The Gardeners Cottage

I have recently been doing loads of work in the Wye Valley. Photography isn't my day job: rope access, building conservation, stone masonry, geo technical inspections and a bit of hard to reach weeding takes me through to the weekend when usually I get my camera out. I took this photograph at lunch time a few weeks ago. It's part of a ruined stately home called Piersfield house. It's built into the walls of a huge overgrown victorian walled garden. I took the photo with a pinhole camera and thought it could go onto the blog. An indirect clue as to what a really get up to.

Memory

Some photographs from a project which I began whilst at Uni. They were taken from conversations I had with them about their lives. I am hoping to get some funding to finish the project so I thought I would post them up while I wait the funders verdict to my application.

Chris the Farmer: Art

Mr Brown: Whats that Chris?

Chris: Oh. A reprentation of a pig.

Over Looking the Wye

Yessss. Another little commission has just come up teaching pinhole photography to people living in the Wye Valley. The aim of the project is to encourage fresh perspectives of the historically rich area using the long exposure of the pinhole technique. Workshops to begin in May. I will post up some of the results then so again, stay tuned. Nice!

State of the Estate, Penpont Exhabition 2009

Early 2009 I was asked along with 18 other artists to take part in an arts show at the Penpont Estate near Brecon. As the title and theme of the show was Stad yr Ystad (State of the Estate), I decided to involve the local farming community who have traditionally been the backbone to the country estate. Over a period of a couple of months I visited each farmer to collect their stories from a life on the land. I then made these photographs to accompany them and displayed it all in the exhibition.

Hereford Photography Festival 2010

I am pleased to announce that I have recently been given a commission by the Hereford Photography Festival to carry out a community arts project involving local breeders of the Hereford cow. I seem to have become something of a farm photographer.

My hope is to reference the history of farm animal portraiture: using a traditional format to reveal something about contemporary attitudes to farming. I hope to put some control of the photographs to the farmers minds. I can't sure how the farmers will respond to my idea, especially in the wake of this hard weather. Maybe they will all just look miserable, which is fine.

New Barn Farm

Cris the Farmer

I first met Chris Evens whilst working one cold winters evening at the Kings Head Hotel in Usk. It was my first shift in the place and the time ticked by in slow loud clicks. I was finding my bearings behind the bar, soaking up it's quirky dusty atmosphere, speculating at the peculiar decorations and getting to feel the quirks of this quiet country pub. Steve Musto, the parsimonious proprietor of that habitual place really deserves his own description, but for now I will just say that he is a character whom will be remembered long after he has poured his last pint. Anyway, what I actually wanted to do is tell about how I first met Chris.

He came in late, about 10 o'clock, ordered a J2O with no ice and stood quietly at the end of the bar. I wondered what he was all about: I guessed from his composure and the gray in his beard that he must be in his mid 50's. He seemed to be waiting for people, staring off into some dark corner of the pub. I could see by the way his gaze was focused that he wasn't actually looking at anything, maybe just meditating on the time passing. He wore a dusty looking flat cap and a huge hi-vis coat which had been seen more visibly in days gone by. I turned my attention to a small puddle of beer that had accumulated somewhere on the bar and left him to his staring.

Ten slow minutes past and a second man came striding through the door and put his arm around Cris giving him a friendly shake which seemed to jiggle him from his distant place and put brought out a warm smile on his face. The new customer looked to me and said "A pint of Timmothy Taylor for me young sir, fill that glass up for Cris and tell me how on earth you have found your way to working for Mr Musto" and he looked at Chris who said " How ya gettin on Jim? I'll Have a half of Timmy Taylor- but let me get these."

I was glad to have some people to serve; I was beginning to wonder how Mr Musto must justify employing me to work on such a quiet shift so pulling a couple of drinks for these two old time friends did wonders for my moral.

"Back on the half's eh Cris?" Jim said looking down at Cris as he scraped around his pockets for some change. "Came off my bike again on Friday night and I woke up Saturday with a sore head I haven't managed to forget. Straight in that same ditch! Think its best I stick to the half's while these roads are icy." Jim was just nodding his head in agreement when Mr Musto turned his head around the corner " In the ditch again Cris, should be more careful! These half pint's aren't going to do my business any good." Cris and Jim laughed and Mr Musto went on. "Maybe you should just get yourself a new coat, something warm and reflective!"

Cris and Jim were true regulars in every way. I came call them the Sunday Night Drinkers and I looked forward to that last part of my Sunday shift. That's where I first got to know Cris. 

Cris the Farmer: Art

A representation of a pig

Roy

My hope for this blog is that it should somehow encourage me  to make some progress with my photography project. I actually have several that I am steadily working on but " A Representation of Chris and Roy" is my number one most important. Whenever I find myself with time I drive my Micra over to New Barn Farm to catch up with my buds Chris and Roy, two best friends living here in Wales. Their adventures are really important to me and I want to find a way of sharing this feeling with my photography. I can't divulge too much in this posting, as time presses, but here is a picture of Roy. Stay tuned.