 |
| Port Talbot |
The brief is to produce a series of approximately 12 images (there are 15 in this presentation and a short video clip) to explore the concept of a journey. An introduction is required setting out:
- how the brief was interpreted;
- relates to aspects of the course in Part Two;
- evaluates the work and technical choices; and
- explains the reasons for selecting views and arriving at outcomes.
The summary map of the journey1 may be viewed in digital contact sheet format; the collection is set out below:
I selected one day of an ongoing project to walk the entire coast path of Wales. The coastline affords a high diversity of both geomorphological and human influences; this project focusses on the latter, recent trends and influences in particular2. As a former geographer, the variety of human response to diverse natural conditions over a short distance is a source of interest in many contexts; the enforced discipline of following a set path means there is no avoiding what to many might be viewed as mundane, drab and uninteresting yet often, as in this case, juxtaposed with the unusual, picturesque, and inspiring. Ian Sinclair chose to walk around the M25 (Sinclair, 2003); Richard Long also uses walks in a structured way, albeit adopting text as his art form, as discussed in Exercise 2.5.
Sinclair, as with Farley and Long (2011) actively sought the non-picturesque: the car parks, industrial estates, power stations and the like that adorn our crowded island. Their ideas influenced my choice of journey, as this walk incorporates one of the largest steelworks in Europe, and has been the subject of recent national concern, as described in the The Guardian and many other media due to possible closure. It is arguable whether the Tata steel works can be viewed as 'Edgelands' in the way that Shoard (2002) and Farley & Long have utilised the term - "a disorganised but often fertile hinterland between planned town and over-managed country" - as it is a core part of the town of Port Talbot. 4,000 jobs (approximately 10% of the town's population - source: Wikipedia) are directly at risk, and a further 11,000 in support roles (BBC News, 31 March 2016); the Docks Cafe that is on the Coast Path and whose image appears in the collection, featured on BBC's Panorama as a business highly dependent on steel workers.
Yet the steel works are iconic. The images show how they dominate the skyline; they are without challenge the dominant feature on the 45 miles of coastal landscape between Barry and Swansea. They are more than a Becheresque typology, as discussed in Exercise 2.3. Built originally in 1902 and extended until 1930s there is no way now that a town would be constructed around a pollution blackspot3.
A second observation of this journey was the marked contrast in a short distance between the industrial sublime townscape of Port Talbot and the steel works, and the altogether more genteel Porthcawl4 and more naturally scenic woodlands of Graig Fawr, just metres from the M4 and the town the other side, yet a world apart. The collection endeavours to highlight the binary contradictions. The first three images incorporate the rustic with the industrial. The paradox in the image of Gorsedd Stone Circle is that the steel works predate an ostensibly ancient monument that was actually constructed in 1923 prior to a National Eisteddfod (source: Wikimapia).
It was lambing season at the time of my journey, and I was struck by how the Arcadian scene was overlooked visually by the steelworks on the one hand and aurally (hence the short video) by the M4 on the other.
The remaining images are in binary contrast:
Woods in Craig Fawr and tunnel under M4 – beauty and sublime;
The Actors on the fresco5 and the boys playing in the woods6 – the heritage and the future;
Coney Bay Amusement Park and Port Talbot Steelworks – closed and operating all hours;
Apartments at The Rest and houses in Margam - new and traditional: a proposed complex of flats and traditional industrial housing with close proximity to the M4, along which a tanker passes;
Porthcawl harbour and Transport Café –the protected and the threatened;
Plastic boardwalk along the beach and the Plaza – funded and unfunded7;
The final image reflects the transition between the leisure based seascape of Porthcawl and Kenfig Burrows as the path nears the industrial.
The brief includes viewing strengths and weaknesses. A clear strength is increasing observation during the journey and subsequent research on the steel works and on Porthcawl as well as specifics such as the Plaza cinema and the boardwalk on the beach. The journey fitted several of the topics of the chapter. A weakness is arguably the rather contrived binarism; like many similar projects, you can choose to find what you want to see. Perhaps there is some oversimplified flâneurism in the approach. To develop further needs a subsequent visit and more research. Technically, a couple of the images are weakened by shooting contre-jour. That is an inherent problem of telling a story while walking a one way route: you do not necessarily arrive at a point of interest at the optimal time for taking photographs8.
It was lambing season at the time of my journey, and I was struck by how the Arcadian scene was overlooked visually by the steelworks on the one hand and aurally (hence the short video) by the M4 on the other.
The remaining images are in binary contrast:
Woods in Craig Fawr and tunnel under M4 – beauty and sublime;
The Actors on the fresco5 and the boys playing in the woods6 – the heritage and the future;
Coney Bay Amusement Park and Port Talbot Steelworks – closed and operating all hours;
Apartments at The Rest and houses in Margam - new and traditional: a proposed complex of flats and traditional industrial housing with close proximity to the M4, along which a tanker passes;
Porthcawl harbour and Transport Café –the protected and the threatened;
Plastic boardwalk along the beach and the Plaza – funded and unfunded7;
The final image reflects the transition between the leisure based seascape of Porthcawl and Kenfig Burrows as the path nears the industrial.
The brief includes viewing strengths and weaknesses. A clear strength is increasing observation during the journey and subsequent research on the steel works and on Porthcawl as well as specifics such as the Plaza cinema and the boardwalk on the beach. The journey fitted several of the topics of the chapter. A weakness is arguably the rather contrived binarism; like many similar projects, you can choose to find what you want to see. Perhaps there is some oversimplified flâneurism in the approach. To develop further needs a subsequent visit and more research. Technically, a couple of the images are weakened by shooting contre-jour. That is an inherent problem of telling a story while walking a one way route: you do not necessarily arrive at a point of interest at the optimal time for taking photographs8.
Footnotes:
1. The maps are available free from the official Wales Coast Path website. The contact sheet was constructed using copy and paste from relevant maps.
2. Over 60% of the population of Wales lives on the coast (source Wales Online)
3. Port Talbot is the most polluted town in UK - see South Wales Echo 12 May 2016.
4. Porthcawl is a traditional holiday resort whose raison d'être as a place for coalminers to take their annual fortnight's respite has declined along with that industry. Like many seaside towns it has partially been reinvented as a retirement town. Coney Bay Amusement Park, pictured in the collection, is a legacy of the traditional function of the town.
5. From left to right Anthony Hopkins, Michael Sheen and a youthful Richard Burton. Hopkins and Burton both trod the boards at the Plaza.
6. Adult permission for image sought and granted.
7. The boardwalk is 320m long and cost £300,000 - the largest project the Rights of Way department of the council had undertaken (shear-design.com.) It therefore cost nearly £1,000 per metre to create a walkway that avoids the edge of a golf course. As a result of different budgetary priorities, the Plaza is not to be refurbished, as set out in uncompromising terms by a local councillor on a BBC news item.
8. Wells (2011, loc 2244) refers to late 19th century US landscape photographers whose images were often 'characterised by solid grey skies because plates were exposed for detail on the ground rather then intensity of light above'. Camera technology has progressed much since then but no cameras have anything like the dynamic range of the human eye, thus disadvantaging image production in full sunlight.
References
BBC News, (31 March 2016) Tata Port Talbot steelworks closure 'could hit 15,000 jobs', Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35930158. Accessed on 22 May 2016.
Farley, Paul and Roberts, Michael (2011) Edgelands; Journeys into England's True Wilderness. London: Vintage Books
Shoard, Marion (2002) Our Beautiful Edgelands
Sinclair, Ian (2003) London Orbital. London: Penguin
Wells (2011) Land Matters: Landscape Photography. Culture and Identity. Kindle Edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment