Patina nr.1

When I was in my foundation year at Liverpool JMU we had a fine arts tutor, whose name I have forgotten, who sat us down one day and explained to us the differences between the three types of art. Basically, he argued that all art can be identified as being either objective, subjective or abstract, and in the 12 years since then I have found he was quite right. In identifying the differences and qualities of each he turned to the window behind him and pointed to the wooden cross piece that divided the window into four glass rectangles. This was England so the wooden cross was very old and had been painted white over white many times. Time had taken its toll regardless and the whole was a mess of peeling layers bordering on the pristine surface of the glass. "Look closer at this" he explained and you have a natural abstract image. "Everything is abstract if removed from all context".

My brain cracked wide open but I didn't feel it at the time. In those days I was stoned quite a lot and my mind was much more elastic than it is today. I learned the lesson though and ever since I've seen the abstract all around me. Being who I am, I naturally found the most beautiful abstraction was in the patina of rust and natural decay and so I began to photograph it. This became an obsession and for each summer during my years at art school I roamed always with an OM-10 camera my father in law gave me. Sometimes I had a 70mm lens on it, but most of the time I had a 28mm. I used Kodagold ASA400 film when ever I could get it since it seemed to give the best results. I only used to take pictures of rust when the summer sun was strong because the light was so good and I enjoyed the heat. I used to go on holiday with my in laws and I'd be clomping about in my army boots and shorts whilst they were all lounging on the beach. The Italians used to laugh at me, but never in an unpleasant way. Looking at these images now brings back memories of the warm afternoon sun and the smell of rusty metal in the heat.


The following images were near are all taken in that period. I haven't taken many such pictures in the last few years since my health has kept me shy of wandering about. Also, Denmark is a poor place to find urban decay. Nothing much is allowed to rot here and the summers are a joke. Everything is quickly reused so its not easy to find the aging detritus which is so bountiful in the UK.
Some of the images were from my father's collection of old machinary and metal artifacts, but I don't recall which ones. I have a lot more such photographs than just these and I'll post other images of decay in the future. For now, see if you can find the fly in this first image, and in nr.15, which is an accidental double exposure, you might just make out my face in the left hand side of the image.