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Photomovie . Dark 1.30 mins

Music . Vitalis Popoff
Photography . Tony Hall

0531

PhotoVisual Meet . Royal Festival Hall . #darkmtn

Our second meet up was attended by Eithin Somhairle Kelly, Emily Wilkinson, andy broomfield and Tony Hall.

The Royal Festival Hall is quite busy and noisy in the evening which makes it difficult to have a small group conversation. But we managed to talk about the values and pleasures of walking and exploring with a critically creative eye.

We arranged to meet again at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 21 January from 1.30 to 4.30, with a walk & talk from 2.00 to around 3.00. We also came up with this weeks theme, which is 'Dark'.

Images can be posted to Flickr adding keywords 'dark' and 'darkmtn' + any other keyword that may be useful. These keywords will gradually evolve patterns of images that may in some ways inform this creative journey.

If you can't make the 'visualising' walk & talk maybe you can still contribute to this weeks theme by adding your 'dark' images to the Dark Mountain flickr group - we thought a maximum of one a day would be enough.

*This picture within a picture is by Simon Lewty in an exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall until 18 February.

I email the photograph to myself as part of process of writing that relates to this photograph, and write some 'starter' notes:
- went to the Royal Festival Hall with my iPhone.
- tell myself, 'give yourself five minutes to get into thinking about writing that relates to your photograph'.
- imagine yourself into thinking about 'writing'; translating disparate 'visual' thoughts into a sequence of words, a sentence, a paragraph.

I write.
This photograph, like many of my photographs, means little in itself.
In a sense a photograph for me is part of a social process, an experience that is not observed in itself, a reference point between conversations.
So what does this photograph mean for me?

In one way this writing (and photograph) is about learning to make a photograph with an iPhone 4S. The 'Info' in Apple's iPhoto shows me the photograph is 3264 x 2448 (pixels), 3.0 MB, ISO 800, 4.3 mm (equivalent to 33mm in 35mm format - Shea Chen has done the maths ) and 1/15th of a second.

I found an object to rest the iPhone on (to keep it steady) and still have an image near to the original framing that initially 'caught my eye'. A fence post acts as a support.
The clock face and the light stay framed in the 'eye', a latent thought about a 'view' of space-time manifests itself in the image. A visual note to be saved for possible later thought.

In another sense the photograph relates to a blog post, a comment, a meetup, a tweet and a conversation about the possibility of a group of people becoming involved together in making and thinking about our photographs.

A third meaning generated by this photograph references my thoughts and feelings around the time I made the image. A good memory of a cold, crisp, blue day. Using the Underground to travel rather than my bike. My back being 'wobbly' which makes me less confident cycling. First time I've visited the Royal Festival Hall at a weekend for a long time - the place wasn't too busy, but I suspect will be when the weekend events seasons get going. I have a wander, sit down in the Green Side (feels like a non-place) on the second level and write some words that are milling around in my mind - iPhone Photowalk. Leave my bag at home. Make A Photograph . Make A Paragraph . About?: 1. Getting out 2. Between 3. Being 4. Presence 5. Relationships 6. Dreamwork - theory/fictions 7. Continuities 8. Implosion 9. Inhabit 10. Home 11. Public 12. Debt/Credit - human economics 13. Collective / Communal 14. Critical Theory - Here/Now 15. Thinking as Dialogue 16. Photography as Dialogue 17. Public Screens 18. Edges . 19. Nature 20. Reflective 21. Reflexive Photography 22. Photographic Praxis 23. Ground 24. Autobiographical 25. Cafe 26. Royal Festival Hall 2-4pm 27. Something happens each week 28. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Posterous, 29. interactive Wall 30. Collective Memory 31. Bruno Latour / Networks 32. Living On The Edges. 33. Connections 34. Critical Practice 35. Ambient 36. Contemplate 37. Doubt 38. Gardening - metaphors 39. Rhizomatic, Trope? maybe

And so on throughout this year. And I say to myself, that's enough.
I have a glass of water and head for the Waterloo Underground station. As I cross Belvedere Road, behind the Royal Festival Hall, an image catches my eye and captures my imagination.
And now I send the email to flickr to share in our conversations.

0476

Photomovie . Museum 3.14 mins

Music . Keith Jarrett

Photography . Tony Hall

7822