Urban Wild

URBAN WILD A SELECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLES THAT PORTRAY URBAN AND RURAL BRITAIN

VICTORIA CARTER

URBAN WILD

‘Urban Wild is about being able to use photographs to allow the viewer to ponder the narrative that is embedded within the visual journey. It is about seeing past the immediate and obvious to the stories within.’ Victoria Carter Photographer and Author of Urban Wild

THE LADY BEHIND THE LENS I began this project with the idea that I wanted to create a book that would successfully depict my photography style. My focus was to create a book that would depict urban and rural Britain in the most visually exciting manner possible. It soon became clear that my fascination for the subject was what was going to truly allow me to portray my photography skills, not the other way around.

Throughout each collection of photographs I have included a brief description of my experiences and reasoning behind the images. Each shoot provided me with a new lease of creative life and I have aimed to provide you, the reader, with this invigoration.

Urban Wild has been an incredibly exciting, educational and rewarding journey. A journey I aim to continue and a journey I hope will inspire others.

URBAN CRAFTSMAN

TATTOO ARTISTS I was greeted into the tiny tattoo parlour based in Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, by the owner, who was quick to inform me that there was going to be a customer coming within the next twenty minutes and that I should be ‘buzzing’ about what I was about to see. Initially, being the squeamish individual that I am, I wasn’t sure that being within inches of a needle on flesh was something I was going to be able to handle. Nonetheless, when the client arrived and the tattoo creation began, I soon became fascinated by the skill and was absorbed by the precision of the art. I aimed to capture the personality of Dan, the owner of the shop (the ideal stereotype of every tattoo artist), concentrating on the determination he put into each pin prick.

I was also blown away by the design of the parlour; interior designs that I soon discovered were created by the owner.

The artwork and bizarre and random features I found scattered around the parlour were what set the scene of this alternative abode and it was these features that I focused on within my images.

GRAFFITI ARTIST ‘We ain’t having our faces on show, love, he’s only just got out of the nick for doing this’ was my introduction to the graffiti artists of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Needless to say I was a little apprehensive when I started photographing this group of young men.

Being a young female photographer forcing an oversized lens in the faces of a group of people who have not been given the most positive of stereotypes was unlike anything I have ever done before. Nonetheless, the creative in me took over and the adrenalin kicked in. After my somewhat alarming introduction, and a few shots of warming up it soon became apparent that this group of young artists were more than willing to co-operate and were as bright and bubbly as the art work they were spraying onto the building. I used a variety of angles to capture the artists at work, aiming to replicate the shapes and angles of their work. For them, graffiti is about showing off who they are as artists, the colours, typography and shading they choose is what represents them, this is not something they do to offend the public, in fact, quite the opposite. Given the spontaneity of this shoot (I bumped into them by co-incidence as I was driving by the building they were working on) I was unsure how these images would turn out. Nonetheless I am excited by the outcome of the photographs, every time I look at them I feel the adrenalin I felt when I started photographing. The style in which I chose to shoot has successfully captured the moment, and the personality of the truly urban artists.

THE CITY

LONDON The built environment, in general, is about man-made construction whereas rural is wild and free. As opposed to simply placing the focus on the architecture and the stereotypical cityscape views of London, I decided to draw attention to the less commercial and more incidental features of the urban environment. I have always had a great love for London and its versatility and I wanted to try and capture this versatility through my images. From the graffiti- covered back streets of Camden Lock to the abandoned coffee cups resting on a handrail of Westminster Bridge, it is the unobvious and quirky features of Britain’s capital city that allowed for photographs that truly accessed real urban living.

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Having lived in Newcastle for three years I have become well established with the less known and quirky features of the city.

As opposed to drawing all of the attention to the popular landmarks of the city, the quayside, the Tyne Bridge and the angel of the North I decided to document the city in a way that is representative to me. Placing focus on the old cobbled streets, the architecture and the endearing litter scattered back alleys of ‘The Big Market’. I love the city for all of these reasons. You can be walking up Grey Street with views of the breath taking ‘Monument’ one second and with a turn down a side street you will find yourself lost in a completely opposite, alternative and undiscovered version of the city.

FOOTSTEPS IN THE CITY I particularly love these photographs for the fact that they were completely unplanned. I took these images the same day I was roaming the streets of Newcastle, looking for inspirational locations to photograph. My friend, who was accompanying/ assisting, stood in the way of my camera lens as I was photographing the cobbled back streets of the city. After my initial annoyance I realised I loved the image and the story that it told, and thus ‘footsteps in the city’ became the focus of my shoot.

DOWN TOON

URBAN FASHION Urban Fashion – this title alone set my creative waves flying! There were so many routes I could have taken. I chose to base the shoot in the back streets of Newcastle Upon Tyne, ensuring that the feel from the documentary and cityscape shots were depicted. The idea behind this shoot was to summarise the urban environment through the means of fashion. I chose to style the model in young, casual and carefree attire – styles that were inspired from the tattoo and graffiti documentary shoots. The locations for the shoots were predominantly located by chance. All the time bearing in mind the ‘less commercial and incidental features’ theme that I went by when photographing London.

RURAL CRAFTSMAN

GLASSBLOWING Within seconds of walking into the tiny warehouse set in rural East Midlands I was struck by the over-powering heat that was circulating in the air. I was welcomed into the building by the intrusion of the oversized heat furnaces (furnaces I later learnt reach up to temperatures of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit) and was drawn to the bright light behind the furnace doors. Glass blowing is something I knew very little about and was intrigued to begin learning.

I was overwhelmed by the speed that the glassblowers worked in , a technique I later learnt was to keep the glass from hardening.

The tools, machinery and different techniques that were being put at use baffled and excited me and it was these elements that I chose to focus on.

EXTON BAKERY A 4am start to the day is not my ideal. Nonetheless, any early morning moods I had that day were put to rights once I walked into the bakery and was struck by the smell of freshly baked bread.

I was welcomed by the cheery, flour dusted Master Baker who was quick to inform me that he had been here since 11pm the evening before (they had a lot of orders for the next day and needed to be prepared) and therefore had dozens of batches of bread he needed to show me. After several minutes of photographing (and tasting) the bread I was intrigued by the art that must have gone into the baked goods and began to focus on the procedure as opposed to the product.

I documented the bakers work by zooming in on the use of their hands and by exploring the many different tools they rely on in order to be able to create their masterpieces. Each tool requires a different expertise, most of which require precision and the skill of avoiding being injured. The 5 inch razor sharp ‘Wilton’s Baker’s Blade’ that is used to slice, chop and scrape dough and the scorching hot log burned ovens are just a couple of examples of the dangerous tools and equipment that are used within the art.

This particular group of bakers all had huge personalities (witty and outrageous jokes would be thrown across the room to one another every 10 seconds) but they worked impeccably as a team. I feel each of the baker’s personality has been conveyed within the images as well as their connection over pastry.

NORTHUMBERLAND Like London, I have always had a soft spot for the North East countryside. Northumberland is beautiful and striking, offering scenery shots that could blow anybody anyway. However, there lies the challenge of taking something natural and beautiful but turning it into a more contemporary statement and this is precisely what I aimed to achieve with these images. As opposed to placing focus on the natural beauty of the rural environment, I have drawn attention to the less obvious and more exclusive features to reveal the true wild of the British countryside.

THE COAST This collection of photographs have been taken across Britain. I wanted to capture the versatility of the British coast through the use of colour and texture. Given the natural beauty of the British coast, it seemed like the easy option to simply photograph the coastal views. Nonetheless, similarly to my urban and rural images I wanted to explore the less obvious features of the British coastline as well as the beautiful scenery.

BY THE POND

RURAL FASHION It seemed only obvious to photograph this shoot in weather that was truly representative of the Great British countryside, grey, raining and atmospheric. The model’s natural makeup, damp hair and simple styling were inspired by the landscape and documentary images that appear earlier on in the book. In comparison to the bold images of the urban fashion shoot, the idea behind this shoot was to generate an aura of nature and innocence. The location for this shoot was set in the heart of the North East countryside. I loved the versatility of the location, offering the backdrop of the lake, forest and shrubbery.

Modern day Britain is a place of absolute extremity: we can live completely different lives depending on the environment. Urban Wild presents these differences through photographic documentation of the working lives of craftsmen within rural and urban locations. This photographic journey focuses on the detailed elements that go into the process of each skill.

Through a variation of depth of field, soft focus and alteration in focal length, focus is drawn to the detail of the tools, technique and of the uniform and equipment that is involved for each trade.

Urban Wild also explores the abstract scenery, shapes and textures that represent their urban or rural surroundings. Both settings require different approaches to draw out what distinguishes them as well as balance their differences by naturalizing the shaped and shaping the natural.

The Urban Wild journey is complete with fashion shoots that are illustrative of the urban and rural way of life. These fashion shoots depict elements of both the trades and scenery of the two environments.