“It’s that clarity that unifies Dodd’s work. The subjects are mostly naturally lit, without the trappings of prior arrangement, posing or planning. They represent the accidents of the everyday, in the chaotic arrangements of car boot sale merchandise, and in the frozen expressions of diving swimmers. The Olympic Dreams project in particular isolates and distils the unvarnished humanity of his subjects. The figures hang in darkness, alone, sometimes contorted by their trajectories into unnatural shapes, sometimes floating freely with the water, surrounded by a private nebula of white bubbles in black water. The set generates an aura of medicinal preservation, as if the subjects are swimming through formaldehyde rather than water, frozen in place for others to admire and study their forms. They epitomise Dodd’s style, there in their little bottled worlds, these disparate communities, the swimmers and the athletes, the ballroom dancers and the boot sale aficionados, all are safe, and stable, and preserved.” – Ian Joicey No Culture Icons

You can see the review in it’s entirity on their website: http://www.nocultureicons.com/collective/2012/1/29/article-james-dodd.html

I often create lists to help determine which area of my interests to explore photographically. It’s something I’ve done ever since I read On Being a Photographer a few years back (when flickr was more of an educational resource for me). I categorise ideas and interests with various variables: how interested I am, whether it would interest others, how visual the subject is, how accessible, what sort of cost implications there are and what my knowledge of the subject is.

It may seem a touch overzealous, but I feel it really does help me to logically understand whether a project may or may not really work for me.

Car boot sales have always been on my lists as something I’ve been interested in – both photographically and outside of that world as I love a good bargain. They also meet my other criteria. I know other people are interested in the subject as it’s a national thing, it’s an extremely visual subject given that what everyone is selling is a physical object! I’m fairly knowledgable of the subject, I’ve been both a buyer and seller at various sales, but more importantly I know where I can learn more about it if I feel I need to. The cost implications of the project are almost nil as it’s something I’d be doing anyway. But despite this, there is an issue around the accessibility.

Twin Oaks Car Boot Sale, Junction 29 M1, Derbyshire, UK – 2010.

Whilst I don’t need special passes to some sort of restricted area as some projects may dictate, and it’s definitely not geography which is a limiting factor, it is still an extremely limited project in terms of it’s access. Car boot sales only occur on weekends (well in most cases) and the occasional bank holiday, and you have to add to this that the weather and ground conditions have to be right too! With this work being done in the UK, these stars align all too rarely, but this is only a small negative on an otherwise highly positioned project on my ranked list and it’s why I’ll be aiming to complete the work this year and exhibit it towards Autumn (more details coming in recent weeks).

But planned weekend of shooting being abandoned due to a bit of drizzle – not my decision- and the whole off season left gaping holes in what could have otherwise been productive  time made me think I needed something else to fill the void.

A body of work that is currently titled “The Walkers” began almost accidentally and is one which has been filling these spaces.

I suffered with pain in my knees when I was about 15 years old, it was a football injury where muscle and joint damage occurred through repetitive impact on hard ground during matches and training, my knees never really recovered. I started walking recreationally (3-6 mile circular walks in the peak district) with my girlfriend in an attempt to build the muscles back up after years of neglect, not to mention it was something she really enjoyed. But I wasn’t a fan.

Mam Tor, Castleton, Derbyshire, UK – 2011

Initially it just wasn’t something I was that interested in. I could obviously see the benefits of a healthier lifestyle which walking could bring, not to mention the fresh air and the amazing views of the countryside which surrounded the area we live. But it just wasn’t something I cared about until I started doing it.

We started going for walks as something to do after a morning of visiting car boot sales (most of the venues we tend to frequent are situated in villages not to distant from idyllic country scenes) but it later became more and more of a passion.

We now go for walks when we have free time, we plan days out and have even started planning walking weekends away.

I’m hoping with this work will document more than just the landscapes which have been pictured a thousand times before. I it to look towards the way we interact with the countryside landscape, how we use it recreationally and what our relationship is with it.

I’m drawn to the people and their lifestyles. It’s little things like the way walkers make each other feel welcome. A simple hello as you pass a random person on a mountain top may seem like the most ridiculous of genstures, but at the same time it’s a lot, it’s an acknowledgment that you’re part of something.

This sort of random interactions used to be much more prevalent elsewhere in my life, I’m not saying that they don’t exist anymore, but I definitely feel that the world has changed in my 28 years. Living in a city with half a million or so other people niceties such as this can sometimes get lost in translation. But out on the countryside hills just about every person who crosses you path does it with a smile and a hello.

Being who I am it was inevitable that a camera would occasionally be in tow on our journeys, but The Walkers was never an idea I had for a project until I was photographing it. It never appeared on a list I’ve ever made and yet I can fully see the potential the project could have.

Thoughts like this made me go back over my lists and one consistent subject cropped up, Sheffield. It’s the city I was born in, where my parents were born, where we were all grew up and still live. It’s a geographical location with the most significance in my life and that of my family and girlfriend.

Shirebrook Valley, Sheffield, UK – 2011

Going back to my lists I could see I’d always ranked it lower on my personal interests than other ideas but now knowing that a subject I’d never even considered was now something I’d rank highly if I were to start a new list, I felt it was only right to give Sheffield some more attention.

I’m now actively working on this project (along with my other projects), researching, photographing and developing the ideas I have. Sheffield is a subject I have access to on a daily basis, it costs me nothing to work on, gets me out walking and my interest is growing in it ever time I press the shutter. In some sense it is the perfect project for me. No differing amount of weather, light or time of year will change the fact that the subject is still there, ready and willing to be documented.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that sometimes it’s hard to understand where projects can come from and whilst I’ll always believe in approaching things as logically and following my interests as much as possible, being receptive to new ideas developing and changes naturally occurring, even if it’s something you aren’t interested in, is possibly more important.

I’ll follow up this post with more thoughts on my new work in the near future and occasionally share pictures as I progress.

Photograph from the reworked dog show series.

The idea here is to allow the use of mix media such as videos and audio, to be integrated into the existing slideshows, as well as other programmable features such as interactive google maps which could show a variety of things such as routes, locations of photographs, or even become the navigation for the whole piece.

In addition to this the news/blog section has been reworked to have a more visual aspect, which since being a photographer, is definitely something I feel I should have established earlier.

Finally, There are some new photo essays on the site, some older ones have been reworked in their sequencing. with additional images added and some removed. Also, some older essays have been removed as I no longer feel they fully represent the work I aim to produce in the future.

This work has been done at a time when I’m actively reconsidering the role the internet plays with my photography. I’ll follow up on this in the future with more thoughts as well as announcing some new features and areas of the site which are currently in development.

The site is definitely worth checking out, and not just for my feature!

http://www.featureshoot.com/2011/06/james-dodd-sheffield-uk/

There’s something about professional car booters that really gets to me. I’m not talking about market sellers, or those fantastic old chaps who seem to be entranced by some super super-glue or similar product that no one really needs, that they decide to fritter away their life earnings on setting up a small business with a branded van, PA system and all (I really need to take more pictures of these guys to illustrate my point). No, it’s those people who go to car boot sales, purchase goods from car boot sales, and then try to sell the same items back to car booters, even at the very same car boot sales!

This week saw the first of a double header bank holiday weekend. Bank holidays are usually fantastic for car boot sales, you’ll have one on a Monday as well as the usual Sunday sales and a possible Saturday if you really looked hard enough. But given we had good Friday on the cards, that would also mean a possible Friday slot! That’s right, potentially 4 days of back to back car booting!

This, would even be too much for me! So I vetoed the Friday option, figuring that most people would take that time to get their stuff together for the big weekender – and I was right, or at least I was right if the reports of Bakewell from my parents were anything to go by – so I headed for York on the Saturday.

We’d heard great things about this “fantastic” venue. And I have to give props where props are due, the venue situated in the grounds of the race course was rammed full of buyers and sellers. But it had a totally different atmosphere to the usual venues I frequent and it didn’t feel right to me.

This was unlike Monday, which after a break on the Sunday (I realise I’m sounding like a strange version of Craig David here but stay with me) caused in part by a bit of sun burn and heat stroke caught on Saturday, was great. We made the now usual visit to the vibrant and ever growing Twin Oakes car boot, which for some reason I keep calling Mansfield, which followed a rather slow start with a visit to the Sheffield Transport club, which while packed, seemed to be more populated with tat than anything.

But they were both worth the trips, and as we all know, one man’s tat is another man’s treasure, which brings me back to my rant and the trip to York.

The York racecourse car boot sale is run by an antiques dealer, which was my first inclination that it would be a car boot could be slightly different, but given that they run antique fairs I guessed it wouldn’t be too overrun with the antiques stuff.
But I was wrong, it was, and even the pricing normal items seemed to become inflated by the mere presence of these sellers who go round and have their pick of the crop before the gates open to the general public. And all to just stick back on their own stalls with inflated prices while failing to realise that they are pitching at a car boot sale which should surely, of all places, come with car boot prices?

And don’t even get me started on the “I could get £50 for that off ebay” people.

This week I should be hitting up Bowshaw car boot and possibly Bakewell which will hopefully bring a welcomed return to car boot reality.

The work entered was the first part of Olympic Dreams, which rounds off a fantastic year for the project which was the project I was selected as one of the Magnum/Burn EPF Finalists.

I’d also congrats to winners, particularly my friends Maja Daniels & Ben Roberts as well as give a special shout out to fellow Statement Images photographer Robert Ormerod for also making the honorable mentions list.

Before I get on to the business of the Loot, I thought I’d wrap up last weeks activities.

The Hope car boot was on the school side, which I’m never a fan of. The cars get crammed in too tightly leaving little room for comfortable framing and the background is also less than pleasing in comparison to the field side that I pictured in last week’s entry – it’s a 70′s school building with the odd bit of scaffolding and wire fences around tennis courts.

Pleasley is a strange little car boot. It’s situated on the site of an old miners club ground in the shadows of the old colliery and surrounded by the new housing estate. I definitely feel there is potential here, but as with Hope, it really confirmed how much I need to take a pair of step ladders with me to get close to the type of landscape images I’m creating mental images of. This unfortunately may be out of the question for the short term future of the project.

Getting back on subject, and as I’ve previously alluded, part of the reason I began photographing car boot sales was because I’d probably be at them anyway. And the reason I’d be there would be to purchase goods. These items are something I have been wanting to work into the rest of the project.

Aesthetically I don’t think this particular example can be included inline with the rest of the work in the series – I feel there is too harsh a difference between the in situ items and this – but it’s definitely food for thought. Definitely get in touch if you have any opinions on this.

Interestingly, around the same time as I was beginning to type this up I got a twitter message from Shane Lynam regarding the work of Brendan Corrigan and his “Make me an ofer” series.

The work is formed by the collection of cameras purchased at carboot sales, each containing undeveloped film from their once owners.

It’s fantastically well structured – clicking through the cameras brings you the images from it – and it’s a great found photography project. Some of Brendan’s shots from the car boot sales are also worth a look.

Featuring the work of other photographers around the subjects I’m tackling isn’t something I had initially planned to do, but I’ll definitely be doing more of it in the future, so again, be in touch should you have any links worth sharing.

Update 01/02/2012: Please note that this show was in 2011, other showings of this work are currently being planned, if you would like more details or would like to help, please get in touch

After an almost disastrous week last time out (see this post, explaining how I failed to find the place), this week was a little more eventful. But then how could it now?

First up was the start of the Hope Valley car boot sale of the year, second was the first for Lady manners School and finally down to Bakewell show-ground, which in recent weeks has become one of my favourites.

Hope Valley car boot sale alternates between two different sites. This means that half the time it’s a fantastic venue, literally situated in the middle of a valley. It’s very difficult not to be inspired by the place, which come to think of it, is very similar to the Bakewell show-ground. But for the alternating weeks Hope is situated on a school field that isn’t dissimilar to Lady Manners School, which like the other two venues is set in the beautiful peak district and tends to bring a different set of people out in comparison to the inner city offerings.

On the whole these venues are very laid back and lack any real hustle and bustle which could go as far as explaining why I’m always finding people I know from my own neck of the woods frequenting them. At times I’ve found it hard not to bump into someone I know (or even a relative) as I head out into the countryside on a Sunday morning.

All these venues are very picturesque, so it’s hard not to draw inspiration from traditional landscape paintings of the area of rolling hills and livestock going about their business in fields below.

These sort of natural scenes are what I’ve been aiming for with a portion of my images, trying to capture people in the environments, lost in the moments and not being alerted too much to my presence as a photographer.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible, and of the hundreds of photographs I’ve taken, only two people have ever reacted negatively to my presence. Most of the time there’s some level of acceptance, a nod, a smile, a cheeky wink or warming hello. But with one subject this week, I didn’t get that; I got the former, a rather aggressive quizzing into why I was photographing him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” bellowed out after the click of the shutter sounded. Well apart from having completely misjudged a moment of acceptance, I was actually trying to document a tranquil scene of this seller, laid in the boot of his car, goods laid out on the floor and table in front of him on a lovely sunny morning.

I approached him and explained about the project and a little about myself, but it if I’m honest it did catch me off guard. Judging by his reaction, the least I could offer I offer was a guarantee that I wouldn’t use the image. And with it the situation seemed to be averted, but it did make me think about how I would have dealt with this sort of thing at the beginning of the project.

Since the early days of the work I feel I’ve became more comfortable in what I do, and I generally understood the work more. Plus I think I’ve certainly become more articulate and better in explaining what the heck it is that I do.

Like I said, these instances are few and far between, this being the second in over a year, but what I can’t get over – and this is the main reason I’m writing this post – is that laid on the floor right there for everyone to see (and purchase) were photos used photo frames still containing photos of his family, used school uniforms that blatantly show where his children study, and details of just about every single hobby the chap had ever attempted to pursue.

I found it strange to say the least! Strange that a boundary was brought about through a camera, through the documenting of his image and not from the little pieces of his life presented in front of me, all of which was available for me to walk away with for a matter of a few quid.

Little things like this make me reconsider my approach to the work. Maybe I should be photographing with a small point and shoot camera? Something the subject is more familiar with? Then there could be one less boundary between the subjects and myself? Or maybe I should concentrate on more collaborative efforts between the sellers and myself?

Regardless, I have been considering for the latter for a while, so I’ll use this incident as a gentle reminder, and Ill definitely be doing more collaborative portraits in the coming weeks, both of the sellers and the buyers.

Here’s some current musings on the project, along with an explanation as to why I’m photographing literally everything I eat:

“I love food, but occasionally it doesn’t love me.

Food has always been a central part of my life. I live to eat. I don’t eat to live. But after experiencing several dietary problems in 2007, it was suggested to me by my doctor, that I keep a food diary.

I was told I should log all the food I ate and the times I ate them, all in an attempt to discover which particular food or food group was causing the issue.

My issues yo-yo’d and when I was feeling good I saw no reason to turn to the diary. It quickly became tedious, occasionally I’d cut certain items out of my diet, but it made little to no difference, and they inevitably worked their way back in desire overtook.

My issues continued a while after, but for years I did nothing about them. Looking back now, I think I believed it was easier to live with them, and think of it as just who I was.

So despite the potential positive outcomes of the food diary, I lacked any sort of inspiration to continue with it. So it was forgotten about. That is, until now.

It’s 2011, and I’m no clearer to understanding the cause of the problems. And with this in mind I’ve decided to infuse the tedious food diary with something that does keep my interest.

Feasted is a photographic exploration of the simplest terms, and while at times it may hint to my tastes and life style, its sole aim is for me to discover the root of my dietary issues.

The only reason I have chosen to share this with an audience is to add pressure to myself to complete a whole year of it and possibly stop me eating so much crap, though the jury is still out on the latter.”