Edges of suburbia explores alternative approaches to photographic storytelling as a way of understanding and experiencing life in ‘Anywhere Road’ near where I live on the suburban edges of one of the thriving towns in England. Presenting a complicated mix of sterile concrete conformity, quirky humour and lonely emptiness underpinned by signs of economic mobility, social division and climate change.
Built in the 1960s right on the edge of a city, life on the estate is in many ways typical of other middle class estates in areas of economic development. Each house (including our own) is distinct from its neighbours, fenced with private lives hidden from view. The road from each house is used primarily to get out rather than a central link in a ‘neighbourhood’.
Although the documentaries are about the place where I live, the fragmented nature of the place and my own circumstances within it mean that this is an ‘outsider view’ in some ways more than my understanding of places I have lived in other cultures. I start to disentangle some of the underlying ontological and representational issues inherent in the process of ‘documentary’ itself – partly a sociological dialogue with the writings of George Perec and Marc Auge, visual documentary of Laura Grace Ford and video of Frances Alys. I construct collage and photomontage of photos since 2014 of how houses, gardens and objects on public view have changed and what can and can’t be said from these appearances about the life of inhabitants.
I look at how these everyday private images can be manipulated to create anonymised images that raise questions about everyday ‘anywhere/anytime’, traces of unknown dramas and ways of coping in what is quite a sterile environment. I go on to look at the externalities of appearances: the ways in which people assert their identity through their house fronts and gardens and building work, concreted drives for multiple cars for ease of ‘tidy maintenance’ and to avoid vandalism isolation. And particularly issues of privacy and loneliness – shutting out and protecting property. They also present glimpses of beauty in the present: changes with the seasons, light and shadows, reflections, colours and the occasional appearance of people, pets or wildlife.
Happenings in Anywhere Road is a black and white documentary photobook about events and ‘happenings’ – or obvious lack of them – and different individual responses evident from external appearances of houses along the street. The narrative is based on self-conscious sequencing and juxtaposition of photographs taken 2014 – 2022.
Framed in Noir is a fine art photobook using DxO Silver FX film noir filters. It selects and frames different scenes, textures and shapes for their abstract qualities and ‘see what things look like photographed’. The sequencing and juxtaposition is based on aesthetic rather than narrative choices – ability to shock, intrigue or convey unexpected beauty in the everyday.
Xmas in Fragments uses colour photography in a more random way, combining sections of scenes to create an overall impression of my subjective feelings walking along the street during Lockdown in Christmas 2021.
Colours of Suburbia are experimental digital images in different printmaking styles that formed part of my creative exploration of ‘different ways of seeing’ everyday scenes in an ‘Anywhere Road’. Digital print styles using Lightroom or Photoshop include photoscreen, woodcut and sepia solarplate.
Through working again and again in different ways in the same limited location with similar images over time in the same small place, I came to appreciate the many different potential responses to my ‘Anywhere Life’. And to start to think how it might change.
Portfolio Links On SMUGMUG
Location Research
I moved to our current house in 1984 when the area was one of the cheapest in Cambridge because of poor infrastructure, large council house population and distance from the centre of Cambridge.
When we first moved here the area was very much on the cheaper fringes of Cambridge, surrounded by fields to the East and South and council housing to the West and North. But the immediate area has been rapidly changing over the past decade, partly driven by the building of a new station of the main London to King Lynn line (the cranes at the end of the road). This has led to escalating house prices and – to judge by the amount of building work – rising prosperity. The population has also become more diverse. The majority are older people, but also younger international professional and business people some of whom are investing in sustainable technologies.
In the 1980s opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s policies also motivated active local community groups of council house tenants, Traveller communities and Asian Communities. I was one of the founders of Fen Estate Residents Association (FERA) that successfully fought against Tory plans to build a main Cambridge artery road past our house that would divide the community in two. This led to defeat of the Tories as city and county councillors of the area from which they have never recovered. Council elections ever since have been between Labour (generally the majority), Lib Dems and more recently green candidates.
In 1990s after birth of children I was less politically active because of juggling work and family commitments. But I was involved with more ‘family-friendly’ activities with the allotment society, and bringing together local wildlife, conservation and political activists to form the Bramblefield Nature Reserve.
From 2000s onwards no longer involved in local issues to focus on my international work and growing family.
This project is part of a reflective re-engagement with local issues. Laying a basis for locally useful and relevant visual communication work and becoming more directly involved in 2023 when I hoped Covid-19 vulnerabilities will have ended.
This project originated in early documentary photography assignments in 2013-2014 using my Canon DSLR camera. I started to photograph the houses in the streets around where I live, experimenting with lenses and viewpoints as an experiment in local ethnography. These photographs were very much an external view – like the New Topographic typographies of photographers like the Beckers and others. I photographed every house in each street to see whether in fact they really were the impersonal repetitions that I assumed they would be – rows of featureless houses with cars and concreted front drives to park them on. And concluded after my first round with the camera that they were.
It was no accident that there are few people in the photographs. It is true that I felt embarrassed to photograph people who lived in my street but did not know. I was also wary of people being suspicious that I might be some sort of local terrorist or burglar if I regularly trawled the area with a camera – there had been a spate of break-ins and vandalism of cars and property. I also felt a bit awkward as they were neighbours even if I did not know them. I also did not know whether if I did get to know them we would get on. And that could be awkward if things moved beyond the casual nod if we passed in the street. But there were in fact very few people ever around, except at school drop off and pick up times as a few families walked through and a few people getting on and off the bus. The few people I did talk to were actually quite friendly.
Amidst the monotony I also discovered some flashes of personal identity and occasional humour in items in windows, as well as abstract beauty in puddles, shadows and reflections.
The original images were added to periodically using my iPhone 12Max throughout 2021 and 2022 – I had to be a bit careful because people are understandably suspicious of people walking down the road photographing their houses. Just after I started the project there were a number of worried posts on the Cambridge Next Door forum and Facebook page about sightings of photographers in their neighbourhood and security concerns – though not I think that was about me, and there are also ethical privacy issues. As there are so few people around it is difficult to ask permission and I am not sure of the security implications for me of sending a postal message with my details to contact in case of any objection.
Documentary inspiration
Fragments Walking : Moving Image
‘Fragments Walking’ explores the fragmented ‘now’ perceptions of walking along the road as recorded with an i-phone.
It started with time experiments comparing SloMo and Hyperlapse clips of my feet, also a series of panorama images moving the phone as I walked – resulting in a series of fragmented still traces on one image.
Then taking my time-based explorations further to look at the fragmented nature of our perceptions of self (reference Lacan) because we can never see ourselves whole except in a mirror.
Going forward I plan to develop this further as integrating more documentary and manipulation of ‘sound music’ inspired by the work of Frances Alys and Philip Larkin.