...And now for my next trick?

Last week a line was drawn under my work in Hull. Stories I had begun in the 1980s and completed over the last three years - ‘Rag Bone!’, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Kandy de Barry!’ and ‘Star & Garter’ - all converged in one place. Drag artist Ray Millington, originally known as Kandy de Barry, was performing as Bobby Mandrell in the Star & Garter pub, now called Rayners. Rag and Bone man and long-term friend George Norris was there, not to collect scrap, but to photograph Ray. I was in Hull to show some friends our exhibition ‘You and Me in HU3’ at the Humber Street Gallery, which featured these three stories as well as pictures by George. An opportunity for a ‘happy snap’ too good to miss.

George Norris, Ray Millington and myself in Rayners, on Hessle Road, Hull March 23, 2024. 

Below George Norris with horse Sally and cart, The Star & Garter pub and Kandy de Barry performing in the St Georges pub, all taken in 1983

In two weeks’ time, our exhibition in Hull will be closing. All the books of the show have sold out, feedback in the comments book was heart-warming, media coverage and gallery footfall were terrific, and we’ve just finished a series of talks about it all. 

A couple of the hundreds of comments left by people who visited our exhibition at the Humber Street Gallery 'Wonderful, eye opening, Incredible, important photos'

Exhibiting this work has been as exciting for me as when I was a child blowing up an enormous balloon to bursting point, then letting it go, releasing the pent-up energy, wonderful to watch as it darts around the room. 

 

But now the hunt is on for the spent balloon. It’s never easy to find. And after going through the story-telling process, I am feeling like that spent balloon. I have to start again, but I need time for a rethink.

 

The big question – why bother?  

 

On and off for about the last 18 months and interrupted by the ‘You and Me in HU3’ exhibition, I have been shooting a new story, walking up and down the Lea Bridge Road in northeast London. it’s typically London and ordinarily happy, with business, leisure, faith, food, migration, gentrification, cycle and bus lanes, and 20 mph speed cameras. I want to capture the ordinariness of the changing face of London and I think the Lea Bridge Road community sums up this change perfectly. 

 

I knew I was going to hit the buffers once the Hull exhibition closed so I decided to take some pre-emptive action. As I was revisiting the stories I’d shot in Hull in the 1980s, I decided to ask my original tutor, respected documentarist Daniel Meadows, if I could show him my recent work and ask for feedback. Despite the passage of over 40 years Daniel hadn’t lost his edge. He asked me all the questions that had been nagging in the back of my mind. In short, why am I doing this? Is the story interesting enough? Are the pictures good enough? Why am I using an old Rolleiflex and shooting black and white film?

I have printed out Daniel’s key point and put them on my notice board. They are as good as they are brutal. Pulling out a few in bold to mull them over, I’ve added images to illustrate them. 

 

1 - ‘Sharpen the focus of your intent’ tells me I am not fully communicating what I am trying to say. This is true. I am still circling the story and need to find a way in to capture the essence of this community without misrepresenting it. This will take time. 

A woman waits for a bus on the Lea Bridge Road, London September 23, 2023.  

 

4 – ‘No point photographing familiar things unless you show them in a way which hasn’t been seen before.’ In short, the pictures are boring in terms of content, composition and light. I agree and have still not shot a picture that makes me think, mmm I’m happy with that, but I am getting closer. I have restricted myself to a square format film camera as an entrée to people I photograph on the street and as a visual challenge to my own picture-taking. I am very much struggling with technology, or the lack if it, with the Rolleiflex but I don’t want to do what I did when I was a student aged 23 shooting 35mm format black and white film, nor do I want to do what I did as a news photographer, using the latest 35mm digital technology. I want to struggle with something that is new to me and will, I hope, eventually produce different results from what I have done in the past. 

Boys chat on the top deck of a bus just off the Lea Bridge Road, London September 26, 2023.  

 

5 – ‘You seem to be avoiding getting too close and I wonder why?’ I know exactly why. I am trying to rebuild my confidence in photographing people and at the same time struggling with the notion of a ‘negotiated space’ in which to take these pictures. As a news photographer there was no negotiation, I just took. Today, I want my pictures to have a feel of ‘candid permission’, so the images will have a look of being candid while being permissioned but without being set up. This is a very small space that I am trying to occupy, which I sometimes fear might not really exist given it’s now 2024.

Girls chat as they wait at traffic lights to cross Argall Way that crosses Lea Bridge Road, London September 4, 2023.  

 

10 – ‘Justify working in black and white’. I have considered this and decided to shoot black and white for two reasons. The first was to take out the noise of colour that we are bombarded with on the street when composing pictures. Secondly, I wanted to give people actual prints and slow the ‘act of photography’. This I hope will produce an image for them that feels more considered and as a consequence is more treasured. 

A woman cycles down Lea Bridge Road, London, past graffiti on a wall, September 27, 2023.  

 

12 – ‘Keep going’. And this is what I intend to do. 

A woman vapes and blows smoke as she walks past dumped furniture on Bickley Road just off Lea Bridge Road, London, September 1, 2023.

 

This post originated as a few notes to clarify my own thinking. But after chatting to a few colleagues I realised that many are going through the same thought processes, so I decided to share some of my thinking. Rejecting the obvious attractions of a comfy sofa and afternoon TV I have loaded up the camera with film and headed out. 

 

Plucking up all my courage I asked Kelly Bear if I could photograph her and her dog, Dr Nommy, as they headed off to the vets just off the Lea bridge Road. At the end of the day, it’s just a picture of a woman in the street with a dog on a lead but to me it represents the next step as I leave the past in the past and try to use what I have learned in Hull with future work.

Kelly Bear with her dog Dr Nommy who were off to the vets along the Lea Bridge Road March 21, 2024. Kelly, who lives on the Lea Bridge Road, said the biggest change she had noticed is that there are so many better coffee shops since she moved to the area. 

 

Russell Boyce  

Edited by Giles Elgood  

 

Why shoot if you don’t have a target?

 I have a small collection of pictures shot over a couple of days recently. I like them but they don’t really have a home. They cannot be described as happy snaps to be casually shared on Instagram or Facebook, adding to the daily tsunami of images. And if I think about it, the  funeral of a stabbing victim, a dementia sufferer, a memorial service for a 19-year-old, and two off-duty Steam Punks are not images you’d click ‘like’ on. Your finger might hover for a moment, if you actually admired the image, but then you’d swipe away, considering it poor taste to like a picture from a funeral or of an elderly dementia sufferer sunning himself.

 

I was back in Hull because the BBC wanted to do a piece about my Star & Garter pictures. I arrived two days early to stay with my friend George Norris. There was a promise of informed chat about photography as we walked around the town looking for potential outdoor exhibition spaces for our work. A few pints and certainly a curry were also dialled in. 

 

With the hour change it got dark early so we decided to pop into the Rayners (formerly the Star & Garter) for a quiet pint on a wet Wednesday night and a chat about the possible spaces we’d looked at.

 

The place was jumping. Drag artiste and DJ Regina Sparkles was leading a karaoke-themed night to celebrate the life of Adam Smith, who had died four years ago aged 19. For about two hours I resisted taking a picture. I felt like a gatecrasher, but as the evening progressed, George explained why I was there and I was warmly welcomed. Then Regina started to lead the dancing and I thought this is a must-have picture. 

 Just after I took this picture the music stopped and we were all bundled outside for the main event. It was balloon release time to remember Adam, and in true Hull fashion the heavens opened. With no coat on and getting rapidly soaked, I took another picture. But even as I took it I didn’t know what I would do with it.

Next morning George told me he was going to the funeral of his friend Jason Whincup and suggested I should come along. Jason was well-known in the rag-and-bone and traveller communities. He was stabbed to death outside his home. A man has been charged with his murder. 

 

I decided not to use 35mm digital cameras and took the Rolleiflex. I did this for two reasons. I was not on a news story but I wanted to capture the event and, secondly, I didn’t want to look predatory but I also wanted to get in close. 

I did not attend the actual service and left George to pay his respects. As I sat waiting for him, I reviewed my pictures from the previous night and thought about the ones I had just shot. Although neither set had any real coherence in terms of story value, both were linked by their subject matter. The celebration of a life. 

 

After lunch we walked back into town to look again at potential exhibition spaces, this time in daylight. The autumn sun had broken up the morning mist and the temperature rose a little. Initially, I thought I’d leave the Rolleiflex at home but remembered I had 10 frames left on the roll of film so decided to take it. 

 

This is when we met Ken and Jean Carr. Well bundled up, they were enjoying a drink in the sunshine outside their house, which was still decorated with the summer’s Jubilee celebration flags despite the queen’s death. 

All the time we chatted, Jean’s hand never strayed from her husband’s arm. She told us that Ken was out from the local dementia hospital for the day but would be returning shortly. I have posted them this picture. I hope they like it. 

 

Minutes later we bumped into Ryan Sharman and Marie Buckle, resplendently garbed. They agreed to being photographed, taking the time to pose, with a background they liked only feet away. I was very aware of the colour, so used a digital camera as well as the Rolleiflex. If I had to choose, I’d go for the black and white but for this post I have shared both. I had again shot successfully, but with no real target.

Fifteen minutes later in the centre of Hull I was greeted with a smile and the comment: ‘Ohhh, now that’s what I call a real camera.’ Exhausted from a day’s shopping, mum Tracy Denholm sat with daughter Melissa. ‘If only you’d been here yesterday. We were both fully dressed up as Steam Punks. In fact you’re unlucky, as we’re normally dressed up.’  

I liked it that they weren’t dressed up, but relaxed and smiling with a ciggie on. How could I resist shooting another untargeted random picture. Just one frame. When I sent the picture to them, Melissa quickly replied: ‘We love it. Thank you.’

 

I made it back to George’s house, four frames remaining in the camera. It was a lesson learned early in my career: always have at least one frame left. Then we had a take-away curry and some beers. Promise fulfilled.  

 

On the last day, my interview completed, the BBC’s Simon Spark was adding some colour to his piece. He was interviewing Rachel, the landlady of Rayners, and I thought I’d shoot a happy snap for her to keep. But what started as a throw-away snap ended up as a quirky optical illusion as the wall and carpet line perfectly bisects the image. The only thing stopping you from thinking that this is two pictures is the microphone, which breaks the line.  

In the end, I suppose I just have a random collection of images. But Jean, Ken, Ryan, Marie, Tracy, Melissa, Rachel and Simon each have a picture that I hope is important to them. I also hope that with time these images will become even more significant for them and their friends and family.

 

Maybe that is the target I am looking for: the importance of the person or story that may otherwise go unnoticed.  Who knows? I just love taking pictures and listening to people sharing their stories. 

Russell Boyce

 

Editing by Giles Elgood   

Redundancy, two years ago and now

It’s been two years to the day, November 9, 2020, that I received my redundancy notice. ‘Hi Russell, You are required to attend a mandatory meeting to discuss...’ The clue being that it was mandatory and senior HR staff were cc’d. 

 

What set me thinking about my progress over the last two years is this: last week I walked past the location of my first ever picture story, ‘Bob Carver’s Fish and Chip Restaurant’, when I was an inexperienced photographic student in Hull. 

I have been in ‘transition’. A journey that everyone will make, regardless of their job, a transition from working to not working. I believe everyone will transition in one of three ways:  one death, two life-changing illness or three fulfilling the next stage of life. Sadly many people, men in particular, fearing that they will not know who to be without the status of career, push on far too long in their workplace. I now believe I would have been one of those people.

  

My colleague Victor, the same age as me and looking forward to spending fulfilling days fishing and being with his family, shockingly died of a heart attack one month after being given all my responsibilities.

 

Three weeks after being told that I was being made redundant I collapsed watching TV at home, and I came round to see two paramedics standing in my front room. I’d had a stress-related blackout. I took a picture in the hospital, it’s a significant part of my transition, a sort of ground zero from which to build upon. 

I knew I had to move on. The job I loved was taken away, no status, money uncertainty, ill health and sometimes I worried what I would do to fill the hours I spent working. I am no gardener and struggle to see the point of golf. But instead, I quickly discovered that I would not have enough hours to feed my passion for pictures and story-telling.  

 

Back to November 9, 2020. On the same day I got my redundancy notice I also received a mail from Craig at Café Royal Books. It was the proof of my first ever book, my documentary pictures ‘George Norris, Rag and Bone, Hull 1980s’. A bitter-sweet day. The book was published on December 19, 2020 and sold out. 

I describe myself as being ‘post work’. The word ‘retirement’, like ‘redundant’, has negative connotations. I feel, on the whole, positive.

 

What took a while to slow down was the roller coaster of emotions I felt in the weeks and months after being made redundant, especially as I was undergoing medical tests after my collapse. I felt fear, anger, a sense of rejection, but also a sense of relief at being free of spread sheets and pointless meetings. There was sadness at letting my team down by not being there and simultaneously guilt that I no longer needed to worry professionally about them. I was missing the adrenalin rush of chasing the news and the beauty and power of the picture file. I enjoyed having time for family, friends and myself. I regretted not spending more time doing that before. There were no more midnight calls and the day no longer started with a 6:30 a.m. planning meeting. I felt the joy of having time to shoot pictures to please myself but the frustration that I had no platform to share them. There was the fear of being professionally invisible, and being overlooked because of my age. But conversely, confidence to do things because of my years of experience. This roller coaster had new twists and turns, day and night. 

 

My advice to those going through this experience is to accept all these emotions. You’ll need to give it time. Try to do something small that makes you feel you are taking control.

 

I switched off most (but not all) news alerts and deleted work-related apps.  

 

At this time, early 2021, it was full Covid lockdown. 

 

To move on I decided as a first step that I’d listen to online discussions where people were exploring photography. I learned about a new archive being collected by the Museum of Youth Culture. After a quick call with them I rescued my 40-year-old negatives of youth groups from the attic and offered to scan them for their collection. 

I didn’t want to get stuck in all my yesterdays by poring over my old images or shooting black and white 35mm pictures, nor did I want to shoot news feature stories on colour digital. For sure, no one would want work from me: a 58-year-old man recently made redundant. I had to rediscover my confidence and sense of fun in taking pictures. 

 

While walking in my local park during lockdown I overheard snippets of conversation as people passed by. I decided to start a small project producing a gentle set of images of people I met on those walks, called ‘Overheard in Lockdown’. I emailed the images to everyone I photographed. The response was wonderful, which reminded me why I love photography. My confidence quickly came back to life.

A major turning point came when a friend told me that he had been loaned a Rolleiflex 2 ¼ camera. This was a lightbulb moment, as I thought this would combine learning a new skill, shooting square format on a vintage film camera, revisiting my passion for documentary photography, and using my experience to execute the whole project. My great aunt Ivy had died and left me a small sum of money that I spent on a Rolleiflex 80mm f2.8. I decided to use a tripod and practice on neighbours. The pictures now hang in their homes.  

From this came my idea to shoot the story ‘A Portrait of the High Street’. To push myself further I decided that I’d ask each shopkeeper on my local high street about their hopes and fears post-Covid and record their answers on video. This led to a journey into the dark arts of sound and video editing. Technical help came from another colleague also made redundant.

An equally challenging proposition was getting permission from the council to exhibit the work outdoors and get funding to pay for the printing. With support from local estate agents The Stow Brothers, London City Council, Epping Forest and Redbridge Vision, this all happened.

It was a small project, but the joy on the faces of the people I photographed when I gave them framed prints was as rewarding as anything I have done. 

 

This gave me the confidence to start my story on the Lea Bridge Road. I wanted to document a moment along a street that I think is representative of London today. This is an ongoing project that you can see here.

The Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery confirmed they wanted to produce a one-man exhibition of my youth groups picture stories that will go on show in January 2023 for three months. Below is a sneak preview of one of 14 wall sections exhibition designs.

In May 2022, Rag and Bone man George Norris mentioned that he was back out collecting scrap, but this time with his 81-year-old father. I spent nearly two weeks with them, and was great to reaffirm an old friendship. I combined shooting colour digital 35mm and black and white film on the Rolleiflex. I interviewed them on video and recorded audio. I also shot some B-roll on the iPhone. I didn’t intend to create combination picture comparing 1983 with 2022. It just happened. The video seems to have caught people imagination and has nearly 90,000 views. You can see it by clicking here . The BBC picked up the story and you can see that here. 

In July 2022, Café Royal Books published my second book, ‘Star & Garter Hull 1983’.

While I was in Hull photographing George and his father, I had a bit of fun reintroducing prints from 1983 into the pub and photographing them, lining them up in the same place in 2022.  The BBC also picked up this story and ran the images. The response has been amazing with people who saw the broadcast taking the time to send emails to congratulate me on the images. 

It’s not all been plain sailing. There has been disappointment too. Only recently I had three project submissions rejected in one day. My mentor Dave Caulkin died and I regret not making more time to see him. He had been post-work for many years. 

 

This post has been a way for me to examine my journey since my redundancy notice two years ago. I was tempted, once was written, just to delete it. But I have decided to publish in the hope that anyone facing the same situation might find it useful. 

 

Being post-work is an opportunity because what you have is the greatest asset: time.  I hope that options one and two are a long way away as I’m now having fun. 

 

Russell Boyce  

The Danger of Looking Back and Getting trapped in All Our Yesterdays

A respected friend and colleague once said to me: ‘At our age it’s dangerous looking back at the past’. That struck a chord as I was considering revisiting a picture story I had shot almost 40 years ago and I really didn’t want it to turn into ‘all our yesterdays’. I decided the real danger was that once you start looking back you might never stop, and looking forward would be a thing of the past. 

My dilemma was this: in 1983 I documented George Norris, a 19-year-old Rag and Bone man in Hull. We’ve been in touch ever since and he called me to say he was back on the carts, but this time with his 81-year-old father, George Snr, who had been collecting scrap since he was 13. 

Rag and Bone man George Norris Snr attends to his horse and cart in the 1960s in Hull.           Picture Keith Wade

On the one hand this was a terrific opportunity to photograph him again, looking at what had changed in Hull over the past 40 years, and what had not. On the other hand, I feared I was retracing old steps and reliving my past. In the end, I decided it’d be fun spending time with George and I’d get my step numbers up too. George agreed immediately but I suggested he thought it over, asked his dad, thought about it again, and then replied in the cold light of day. Yes again. 

I now had to decide how to shoot this and, more importantly, why. In 1983, as an art student, I shot the whole story with a Minolta 100b camera, mainly using a 35mm lens and all on black and white film. In our 2022 post-digital revolution I could go all-out analogue by dusting off my old Nikon FE and slapping on a 35mm lens. I rejected that idea. I was not interested in trying to recreate the style of what I had achieved in 1983 as this would be stepping on to the slippery slope towards all our yesterdays. Two reasons for this: I might discover that I hadn’t improved as a photographer, and I had already recreated a picture for fun… 

About five years ago when I was visiting George, we decided to recreate one of my pictures. George had to tap up a mate to borrow a horse, we had to find the right junction on Woodcock Street where the housing had long been demolished, and avoid the traffic. It was chaos. George was bitten by the horse, which reared up and tried to kick him, much to the amusement of its owners, the traffic backed up and we were shouted at by motorists. But we got a nice picture that features on the Cafe Royal Books publication ‘George Norris Rag and Bone Hull 1980s’.  

Apart from avoiding slippery slopes, I was unclear what story I wanted to tell. Was it George then and now? Was it George and his father’s Rag and Bone legacy? Was it the demise of the traditional Rag and Bone trade? Or were these Rag and Bone men appearing as bit players in Hull’s changing cityscape? 

But I ditched any preconceived ideas and decided to go out with my cameras and see what happened. I also threw in a wild card:  as well as shooting on 35mm digital I carried a Rolleiflex and shot black and white film. The attraction here being the square format and the slower pace of composition and shooting. Conscious that I’d be doing a Q&A on video, I also needed some B roll and would shoot that on my iPhone.

What I learned on day one (12,000 steps) was that the story needed the actual voices of George and his father, not just quotes in text, so the planned video Q&A session gained importance. What also became apparent was that the ‘then and now’ pictures were happening in front of me whether I liked it or not. Not only in the repetitive nature of their work but in terms of line, shape and composition within the cityscape.

My content had mushroomed. In 1983 it was black and white film in 3:2 format. In 2022, it was 3:2 format colour digital, Q&A video shot at 16x9 on the DSLR and mic’d for sound, iPhone video B roll and square format 120 black and white roll film. Well, I suppose ‘Content is King’.  I was editing the file down and captioning the pictures after each day’s work to try to keep the mushroom contained. 

This was the pattern of the day’s work. At 8.30 sharpish George Norris Snr would sound his horn outside George’s house and the three of us would squeeze into the cab. He would then get ‘a vibe’ as to where they’d call the streets, and ‘if aught were comin’ out’ a new area would be tried. By 1 p.m. (day 2, 18,000 steps) we’d head off to Neise’s Diner for lunch. A dice with death to cross the road as George Snr refused to use the crossing. Steaming hot steak and kidney pie with mash, veg, a cuppa and a pudding, with custard of course, countered the good work the steps were doing on my midriff and all for £6. Then to the Griffiths Group, Metal and Waste Recycling (we don’t call them scrapyards anymore, recycling is the buzzword) to offload the morning’s collection.

George Snr would drop us back at George’s house. A power nap for George while I got down to editing and captioning.

By day three (20,500 steps, we went out that night too) I had come to realise that the pictures I shot in 1983 should be the story’s visual base element and that would rein in the visual chaos I was creating. By looking back at my original pictures I was able to build on that foundation and begin to structure the story visually. None of the pictures, either in 1983 or 2022, were posed or set up. 

When I saw the opportunity, I worked hard to position myself so a detail like the roof line was at the same angle as the picture shot in 1983 while George pounded the streets. Parked cars and wheelie bins in pictures taken in 2022 destroyed many of the compositional lines the pictures had in 1983. Their bright colours were a distraction. 

I experimented with removing the colour from the 2022 images to create black and white combination pictures. Although initially it seemed like a solution to the problem of mixing black and white and colour, it quickly looked like a pastiche and I felt I was staring down that slippery slope again. 

Apart from the obvious differences - no horse and cart, no flattened Victorian housing, no second-hand shops and no obvious signs of unemployment and poverty - there was a noticeable shortage of people on the streets, which was a concern for me. Also missing was the modern equivalent of one of my favourite pictures from 1983, June outside her second-hand shop, a type of business that just doesn’t exist anymore.

I began to think beyond the more obvious visual aspects of combination pictures - repetition of action, line and shape - to examine the notion of using sentiment to combine images. I thought at first that visually this would be like adding tomato ketchup to custard in Neise’s Diner. I tested my idea on a friend who’s a terrifically creative editor (not the custard and ketchup idea, the picture idea) and it began to make sense to us both. The example below uses the eye line as the common factor to make the link.

To help me sort out the chaos (day five, 10,000 steps) I got all the newly edited pictures printed and spread them out of the floor. The distraction of a drugs bust at a cannabis farm opposite colour printers Foto Worx helped me while away the time as the prints were made.

I was trying to work out how the edit would work in terms of sequence: what order should the pictures be seen in and was a natural flow developing? Nagging in the back of my mind were the different format requirements of video, web page design and, if possible, print. Two landscape pictures made into a combination create a vertical and two vertical pictures make a landscape. Verticals seen on both video and web pages do not sit comfortably but verticals viewed on mobile devices do sit well. Both shapes would create black bands either on the top and bottom or the sides on the 16x9 video format and a transition between the two could make a visual ‘jump’, especially shifting from black and white to colour. 

So, I concluded that different edits were needed for the different formats, which sounds obvious now. But to create different edits to tell the same story I needed lots of content, which luckily I had.

For my website I transcribed all the video and wrote the text story (not without help from my colleague Giles, thanks again). I realised that I needed some additional pictures from 1983 to provide social and economic context for the flow of the narrative. This presented me with the opportunity of using the picture of June in the second-hand shop. The use of text was heavier at the start of the piece than further down, where I just relied on captions. I decided to bold the text to accentuate this. I think the combination pictures work very well, especially when viewed on a phone.

I structured the story as ‘a day in the life’ timeline starting in the morning, through to the collection of scrap, weighing at Griffiths and then the day’s end. You can see the result by clicking here.

The video edit was more complex. I wanted to use the video platform to tell the story through still images. The danger was that I would be seduced into using too much video, and the stills from 2022 would take second place. At the same time, I had to consider the potentially uncomfortable viewer experience as the content format jumped from 16x9 video to vertical combination still pictures. My solution was to not shy away from these concerns but use them to my advantage. 

In my first edit I led the story with the head shot combo of George in 1983 and 2022 to introduce him to the viewer and to say this was a story told in stills and not video. But I was a little uncomfortable with how the almost square shape appeared on the screen as an introduction. My solution was somewhat counterintuitive. I led the edit with B roll video which says ‘hey this a video piece about George’ but then crashed in a single vertical 3:2 still black and white portrait picture of George with my narration as audio. I think the black around the image enhances it too. This to me says ‘hey this is a story about George told in still pictures using a video format as a platform. Enjoy!’  You can see the full video by clicking here.

What the video does allow is a transition between the 1983 and 2022 still pictures. This removes need to use the combination pictures and when you freeze the transition it produces rather pleasing results.  

I was also acutely aware that the video is 10 minutes long. I’m told the attention span of viewers of most online content is 30 seconds. As a challenge to myself I produced a 59 second video too that you can see here. Maybe the audience I am looking for has more than 30 seconds. I certainly hope so. The analytics on the video so far bear this out, so I am more than happy.   

I think I have managed to avoid the problem associated with looking back at the past and getting stuck there. I have done a full 360 degrees and am looking forward to the next idea. I think I have moved the story on by how I shot and presented it in 2022. But you can be the judge of that.

As for the 120 black and white Rolleiflex pictures, I felt they would not add anything more to the telling of George’s story in these formats. But I could not resist a sneaky footnote on the video with a combination of nine pictures. I will turn my mind to them soon.

Russell Boyce 2022