screen grab

(C) David Foster 2010

Everything until the memory ran out.

The 76

Angry and frustrated by London Transport I aimlessly start snapping from the top deck. The result is immediately captivating.

I had been trying to work out a way of visualising London for ages. And suddenly here it is. Monotonous chaos in the patterns of grey paving stones. Concealed figures. A view combining surveillance and vulnerability. Just photos from my everyday life.

I can already imagine a number of way I can develop such a series of images. I think I will probably start a London blog to accommodate them. I'll post the link when I get it sorted.

Capture More

To check or send a message on my new phone I click the control to the right. However, by pushing upward the camera phone mode is initiated.

I took a photo each time I accidentally entered the camera phone. The images quickly built up a picture of my domestic geography. The places where I was intending to write or read a text.

The story is ongoing.











Images (c) David Foster 2008

Bad Idea Publications

My article 'The Architecture of Illness' is now published in the Bad Idea anthology. A new piece on the experiences of foreign nurses and care workers in the UK is in the new economics issue.

Both available now in bookshops or here www.badidea.co.uk/shop

I'll put some extracts from these pieces on the blog shortly.

I’m doing a photo project about healthcare workers for a UK magazine called Bad Idea and I’m looking to follow it up with further stories about the UK healthcare community.

I ring the communications officer of a brain injury charity who I’ve had some contact with. He tells me that the only projects that he would be interested in would be those that would get the charity national media coverage to his target audience.

I can see his point – that’s the economics of running a small media office for a national charity. It’s good to be immediately asked ‘What’s your target publication?’ ‘Who have you contacted so far?’ It’s a good way to identify what a weak or a strong project is. However, it does mean your juggling external interests right from the inception of a project - It needs to be sufficiently justifiable to both the news outlet and the charity on their differing criteria.

The problem is that the photo story is pretty much extinct in this kind of national context.

If I’m going to do a self-initiated project then it’s got to stay true to my trusty question : ‘How can I see this subject in a unique way?’ – ‘Why does this project belong to me?’ Keep to this and the strength of the pitch should see it’s way through any obstacles.