Alan H. Schofield

A few years ago I completed my MA by Research and to be honest the project
was all consuming. The work undertaken was huge and it took a lot of my
energies. I took a couple of months off photographing and thinking about what
to do next (photographically). I started again by photographing my friends and
it was the quote by Annie Leibovitz who said in her book At Work (2008) that, photographers should start by photographing who and what they
know. I am paraphrasing and what she actually said was that “young
photographers”; I ain’t young anymore.

So my idea is to photograph Men in Shed’s and this is a project I have
wanted to start for some time. I like the idea of people beavering away in sheds
to produce a product or a project that is so personally impenetrable to people
outside an inner sanctum if you will. My idea being that we spend so much time
and energy on producing a thing that the thing is totally irrelevant to others.
My vice, if you like beyond photography and my family (I have to say that) is
Volkswagens; although the order of preference can change. So, these are a few
snaps of a larger (to be shot) body of work. I am dead into the idea of
photographing people and telling a story, it took me some time to persuade Rick
(first photo) and less time to ask Pete (second) from Alan H. Schofield’s, in fact Pete was
posed and ready before I had finished asking.

The images are shot on Tri-X and they are flat, I like the compositions, but I have been shooting medium format colour (digital) for a while and this is a total departure. Okay, I did process and print the images on my lunch hour at work so they are rushed. The images look akin to Ian Beesley’s but you can argue that they are not as good – make your own mind up. I am going to shoot again (and again) on digital, but I have not given up on film; I intend to go back to shooting Ilford HP5+, the old faithful and to get more contrast into the images.