Tripping with Lynch

Photography is important to my enjoyment of cinema - in fact in terms of making an impression and influencing me in styles that I would like to emulate in still photography it possibly gives me more to think about than time spent wandering galleries. In the age of the DVD it certainly is more accessible.

Two days ago I started watching David Lynch's film, Inland Empire. Like many other Lynch films the dense hallucinogenic weirdness of the first 15 minutes, suddenly a mood shift, opening up into something approaching light reality (only Lynch reality) for the next 45.

Then last night, not knowing how long was left in the film I sat down to watch the remainder.....

After 30 minutes of a claustrophobic oppressive battering of the senses I did not have a clue what was going on. My son (15 years old) was watching too - he had not seen the first hour but I remember thinking that I probably know no more than he does. An hour later we were still both there watching Laura Dern's confused and horrified face echoing our own thought process of "What the **** is going on?". A half hour more and the trip was over - in total three hours of confusion, nausea and stunning photography (all captured with a handheld cheapo home video camera often held by Lynch himself) and it was over, finishing with a credit sequence with all the lightness of a pop video.

I've watched Mulholland Drive 3 times now. Lost Highway twice. But they have some narrative to identify with even if it does not make sense.

Inland Empire was a gruelling experience; Lynch letting rip with his artistic vision and damn the commercial consequences. Why do I want to go back for more?

(Want to understand it? Reading reviews does not help!)

Photography as Art at Kingston Hospital

Last summer I was commissioned by Kingston upon Thames Hospital to produce artworks to decorate the new wing. Another photographer, Dominic Pote, also produced a selection of works and with him I returned to the hospital yesterday to put titles on the images.

Here is Dominic looking happy that his images printed on Aluminium are finally in place on the corridor connecting the Surgical Wing to the operating theatres. His work was chosen for this area because of the soothing effect that it might have on stressed patients being wheeled to meet the knife...

The labels were Letraset - that Dominic had organised - but these transfers are oh-so-delicate and letters were disappearing or (worse still) being accidentally transferred to the wall in places that they were no meant to go.

Having dealt with the images elsewhere, in the Physiotherapy department I was confronted with local officialdom and stopped from doing anything so I will have to go back. It would have been nice to have someone say "It's lovely to have these here to brighten our corridors" but the bureaucracy of the PFI scheme meant that there was a blanket ban on any markings or posters (blue tack = sack) on the walls...

I'll have to go back. Maybe.

Anyway, here's some more images, this time my work (as is any without Dominic's sunny face), or as the label says on several, "Scott Hortop and Meeyoung Son" ('Son' works with me as an assistant or co-photographer on some of my assignments).