Only in Plymouth

I have been focusing on my project for the last few weeks hence why there has not been many blogs over the last few weeks.

Check out the full series  ONLY in PLymouth

I have been photographing people around Plymouth for the last year and half, I have been working this project which has gone from a street style to a documentary style project. I have become increasingly interested in the social dynamics within anthropological society. The Plymothians have a very extrovert way of presenting themselves with the 1950s architecture as the back drop for my Portraits, I wanted to create a meaningful project.  

Plymouth

Originally, Plymouth was 3 individual large towns and villages: Plymouth Dock (now referred to as Devonport), County borough of Plymouth and Urban district in 1928; the three towns became one thus being called Plymouth City. Plymouth is one of the largest cities in West Country; Devonport put Plymouth on the map as one of the leading ship yards in the UK. Commercial shipping in Devonport handled imports from China to America the contents of the imports were copper lining, clay and many other mining exports. 

Now fast forward a few years! 

History

1940 to 1944 the city of Plymouth was bombed 59 times during World War 2; this meant that the city (shopping area) was almost flattened through this period of time.  In1941 lorries ferried the children of Plymouth up to little villages on Dartmoor to protect the future of the city; 1,172 civilians were killed and 4,448 were injured. Now 263,100 people live in Plymouth, making the city the 30^th most populated area in the UK. I believe the city has survived astonishing times, as a result, the people of Plymouth has become very diverse and out spoken but also unique and individual therefore making some real great street photography moments. 

The Architecture

Most of the buildings within Plymouth have become Grade 2 listed, with a grey face to most of the buildings in the city which gives of a bleak feeling when walking around the wide roads of the pedestrianised area which occurred in the late 1980’s. The reasoning behind the wide pedestrianised space was for; aesthetic reasons and shoppers safety while reducing traffic congestion. There are less bus routes in Plymouth and more roads designed again to minimise congestion.  1950s was the time of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, this is really projected through the architecture around Plymouth. Kevin Mcloud said that, “Plymouth will be poorer if it loses theses 1950 building and becomes a faceless city.” The future of Plymouth will be regenerated by 2021 losing much of the grey, over powering buildings. The Civic Centre, which can be seen by the image below, was planned to be demolished but has now been saved by giving it a Grade 2 listing, it’s said that the very top floors would sway slightly in strong winds; it was once an architecture master piece.  With all this churning around in my mind, the prospect of photography around Plymouth is almost immersive of 1950s architecture allowing me to capture images that look ‘stuck’ in the past, the unique subject then bringing a modern twist to the images.

Why boring pictures of shops?

 “These are my own thoughts and theories”

I have noticed within Plymouth the divide between the different social classes is increasing. The new Drakes circus shopping centre is where the more expressive and premium shops are with the likes of Apple and other big named shops as Boots and high-end jewellers. When photographing people who are eccentric or have an independent style, I find it hard to place context to the location or rationale of series street portraits. When I started to photograph around Plymouth on a regular basis (often for long extensive days), I was often looking at the shops and wondering why there would be three betting shops next to each other and McDonalds then KFC. The location I photograph in is called the west end with a big indoor market which was once the life line of Plymouth, over the last few years the market has had 1.3 million in renovations. As I was walking around Plymouth from Drakes circus (often referred to as the top of town) to the West end (often referred to as the bottom of town) I noticed that there wouldn’t be any bet shops up at the “posh end” Drakes shopping centre. I believe that the more economically deprived population are choosing to go down to the West end of the city centre as there for more shops targeting the poorer population. Data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals there is now one short-term loan store for every seven banks or building societies on the high street.

(https://www.theguardian.com/money/datablog/2014/mar/12/payday-lending-shops-boom-in-uk-the-full-data)

I started to research theories around keeping the poor poor and the rich rich; by doing this the shops at the West End are targeting that fact that people are increasingly in need of money and require quick loans, but Drakes shopping centre is advertised as the go-to place in Devon for shopping whereas the west end is not mentioned. Through the project, I have found out many people do not venture to the west end of city shopping area as they feel out of place, do not use those shops or are afraid of the types of stereotyped people that shop or hang out in this area. However, having said all of this, Plymouth University has spent nearly 300k on a big screen that is attached to a building called the Box, unfortunately they are unable to display any images because of a dispute over moving images adjacent to a major road. I know money comes from different pots and streams of funding but over the last few years, there has been an increasingly massive investment of money into Plymouth from visitors and students that certain areas like the west continue to be deprived therefore similar style shops continue to target the more poverty stricken residents. So, with the theory over, I have started taking photos of the shops around Devonport and the West End in a straight format without adding too much excitement. I have been inspired by Martin Parr’s “Boring postcards” and Simon Roberts “Motherland”; I thought it would be a good idea to start to add depth to my street portraiture by adding these images that contextualise to the location; I am creating a back drop and story to the people and letting the viewer immerse themselves in the city of Plymouth.  

Project focus

My project starts off by photographing the people of Plymouth; initially I was intrigued by the style of the people of Plymouth; they don’t necessarily conform to current fashions. Having had my work published in digital camera magazine; I felt empowered and enthusiastic to return to my “Only in Plymouth” project. I started photographing purely ‘subjects’ but in order to relate it to the Plymouth area I moved onto photographing buildings and other interesting things in and around the City. I would like my project to be taken seriously; I am based in the West Country and while it isn’t necessarily hard to photograph “street”, to make a project feel urban and have a ‘bit of grit’ to the images is often difficult; I feel this is due the back group of the sea and coastline in many of the coastal towns. For example, I find that the City of Exeter (45 miles from Plymouth) has a very different culture and environmental feel as Plymouth. The overall focus of the Plymouth series is to create a dynamic and interesting series of images depicting one of the biggest coastal cities in the UK, I want the viewer to look at the series and be able to feel and have a sense of being in the middle of Plymouth.     

Plymothians 

The term “Janners” now almost exclusively applies to the inhabitants of Plymouth, it is commonly used and many are proud to say they are a ‘Janner’. From my experiences I have found the people of Plymouth the most interesting and fun to observe and photograph; I think this is because of the interesting and disjointed lay out of the city centre encouraging the shoppers to almost wander aimlessly between the shops making it very exciting to photograph. I have had very few negative vibes from photographing people in a street style. When I first started photographing people in Plymouth the overall feeling of the architecture felt oppressing, but I have grown to really enjoy the feeling of Plymouth and the interesting subjects that call this super cool city home. The most part of photographing the Plymothians have been really enjoyable, the only thing is often I’m looked at oddly because I’m the only one on the street photographing the people and city. The city has a theatrical feeling to be able to walk around the city and create my own view has been greatly enjoyable.  

Devonport 

Devonport has had 13 retired Royal Navy submarines few of which were removed from service almost 30 years ago. According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), a further seven sit rusting waiting to be recycled at Rosyth in Scotland, meaning that means a total of 20 Navy submarines are waiting disposal there could be at least seven more returning from duty by 2030 to rust away at Devonport. 

The MoD says the rusting submarines in Plymouth - whose number include the HMS Conqueror which sank the Belgrano 36 years ago during the Falklands War - are “safely stored” and subject to rigorous checks. .Also, the people of Devonport and Plymouth have no measurable increase of nuclear exposure

With all this in mind, I wanted to go to Devonport to photograph the houses and town surrounding it. I found the area very quiet but it had a cowboy and western feeling; I just needed a tumble weed to roll through as I walked around. The lack of people around was possibly because most were venturing into the city centre as Devonport has been hit hard from the recession and has not recovered. I photographed interesting buildings and shops that, in their day, were very grand but now look very run down.  I found the area very interesting visually because of the empty streets and the very Victorian and industrial feeling parts of the area gave me. I chose to photograph the buildings in a pictorial way with straight lines and face on; again taking influence from: Martin Parr, Simon Roberts, Nick Turpin, Zed Nelson and Murray Ballard. I feel my photography and style is greatly shaped by these professional documentary and street photographers. As I reflect on my walking around Devonport I felt depressed and very negative from this area, however, I will be returning. But for now, the images I have captured speak volumes about the overall feeling of this area.