I have spent some time looking to complete this project, or at least produce some more of the work. The project now has a clear direction and the results are reaping great benefits. The photographs were shot on Phase 1, the location is low light and mixed lighting. Having said this Lightroom is a great tool in that it allows precise control over the white balance. I am an advocate of using available light even if it is fluorescent lighting which can be seen as unflattering. There is movement in the images and I am not looking to stop people from working, but to capture the works as they progress.

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.”  

Last week I visited my parents in Brittany, France. My parents have lived there for a number of years and I try to go and see them as often as possible; but in reality this is really once a year, I wish it was more of a regular occurrence. I have spent the past year or so playing with the idea of how we become more like our parents. I like the idea that when I was a child I could see no physical likeness, but as I get older I can see it starting to happen.

Every year I force my parents to set for a photograph, and each year they protest. I seem to photograph my mum in different places, but I always end up photographing my Dad in his garage. After all he was a mechanic for nearly fifty years.

The following image was shot two years ago (2014)