Workspaces

I have been taking more photographs of Alan Schofield’s workshop. The areas I looked at were to look at workstations and how people manage space. The colour images is much more successful than the monochrome ones from my previous visit, but without the presence of people, the images are a little cold.

The process of making things has fascinated me as long as I can remember and I look on envy at people who make complex and ornate objects from the simplest of raw materials. Speaking with Rick, the proprietor he suggests that he could make things all day long, and that the products he makes he wants to be perfect. I suppose this is part of the work (photographs) that I produce, they are precise and I aim for conventional composition with even lighting. I actually do not use any false lighting or move objects, well sometimes I do, so to frame the image. I like to photograph what I find.

It is interesting discussing the idea of workspaces, how each person approaches their workstation. The image of the tool laid out on the workbench with clinical precision are almost as if a surgeon were about to perform an operation. This is in comparison to the bench where all all the tools needed to perform the job in a non-logical order, what was it Eric Morecambe said about his performance on the piano to André Previn? “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”