My book intro, a name and stuff like that!

Whatcha!

Well, my hand in is 4 weeks today. Scared, stressed, me...never ;)

In fact I am rather up against it to get everything done! Whilst the shooting is all complete, printers and book binders etc need crazy amounts of time to do simple jobs!!! Hence I need to make my final edit of images rather snappy. A problem really as editing photos is my weak point as I like too many! Plus I have taken about 110 films for this project, thats 1100 photographs. I need a maximum of 20 for the final selection so I am trying to whittle it down to about 2% of all the photos I have taken!

Anyway, I have been thinking about the introduction to the book, which will be a little blurb by me about whats it all aboot. Want to read my first draft? OK:


This project started out as an investigation into the English landscape, how it reflected our national identity and how this island is often portrayed in a similar light time and again through picturesque aesthetics or the classic chocolate box view of the country side.
Whilst researching possible locations for the work I came across a number of surveys about the publics favorite tourist attractions in Britain. One survey, commissioned by Lexmark and published in March 2006 asked people for their top UK landmark.

The places suggested by the public were intriguing and the list varied from iconic British monuments such as Stonehenge to more recent creations like the Angel of the North and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. I found the survey fascinating and the top ten locations, as voted for in the poll, spoke more to me about our national identity, our view of the landscape and modern Britain than many of the locations I had already photographed.

Each of the landmarks had been chosen for specific reasons, some were places ingrained in our visual consciousness as symbolizing Britain or British values. Others suggested a more modern country and what we now consider to be a symbol of our identity at this point in history.

However, there were several common factors – they are all places which are visually reproduced in countless publications, memorabilia, photographs or postcards. They each had specific connotations about Britain, whether the White Cliffs of Dover and their link to World War II or the Eden Project and its associations with an eco-conscious population. And perhaps above all, I could instantly recall an image of each of the ten to my mind.

I was interested in the tourist experience of visiting the landmarks, how people behave and experience the sites, what people took photographs of, how the locations would be remembered and how more often than not it was a small handful of similar images that were always chosen to portray the sites. But is there not more to these landmarks? If we side step the pre-marked tourist paths, watch other peoples interaction with the space and try to get under the skin of them – would they not speak volumes about not only the British landscape but also what it was to be British and how we, or others, choose to represent ourselves?

The following images are my response to traveling the country and viewing the landmarks from my own perspective and trying to detach myself from the usual tourist experience so I could observe them in a more holistic manner. Not only are these landmarks interesting because they were selected from thousands of choices as being the top ten in the country but also because they symbolize Britain. I hope the photographs challenge the normal and perhaps expected facade of each place, but also suggest something different about our culture, heritage and landscape.

Any comments or feedback would be gratefully received! Its probably a bit hard without seeing the photos...BUT TRY! This country.

Also I have two more requests. They are as follows:

1) Anyone who wants to help me with my edit is more than welcome! I can show you my short list and you can tell me what you think
2) I need a sodding title! So far I am thinking of quite obvious ones like Landmark or Landmarks. But there are other options to do with tourism etc like photo opportunity or please stick to the paths or something. I am struggling for ideas so anything you think of, please let me know!

Cheers!