Jim Mortram - Small Town Inertia

[Musicman]

I participated in a thread a few weeks ago that was kicked off by this comment from Elines

At my photography evening class the teacher often makes the point that you don't need to travel miles to some special place to take good photographs - he refers to this as using your 'Local Locality'.

I mention this because for the past few months I have been following a photographer named Jim Mortram both on Twitter and his web site Small Town Inertia, through which he posts his images taken within a three mile radius of his home in Dereham, Norfolk.

There was a two page feature on his work in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago.

They do say the best stories are often found on your own doorstep. Mortram, who is the primary carer to a mother with severe epilepsy, fell into documentary work more or less by accident, and works exclusively within his local community. "A friend gave me a camera and told me to get out of the house and use it, so I did. At first, I was taking pictures of people I saw around town, just as something to do. Then I started getting to know them and being invited to their homes. I often get asked how I find people, but I don't view people as subjects, and I certainly don't go out looking for anyone because they'll make an interesting story. What has invariably happened is that I'll be working with one person and then they'll tell me about a friend of theirs and put us in touch. An organic network gradually sprang up."

His work is first and foremost about telling stories; the stories of ordinary people whose voices are often unheard. The photographs, while powerful in themselves are best read as photo essays in conduction with the accompanying texts, which are drawn from interviews with the people Jim photographs. The reading is sometimes difficult, because the people featured often have to deal with difficult lives, but it also often shows their resilience in the face of those circumstances.

One passage that resonated greatly, as a very visually oriented person myself, was from the story of David: Postcards from the Black, a man recently blinded in a cycling accident:

“One of the strangest things is waking up from a dream. In dreams I can still see. I can see everything. I wake and feel I can still see for a time, then the black seeps in and I realise I am awake and in darkness again, where the reality used to be filled with sight, now my dreams are. Where sleep was without light, now that’s my waking life. Everything is upside down. Now being awake is like the dream. My awake nightmare”

.

Anyhow, I thought I'd throw it up here for other people to see and appreciate. I think it's worth a look (and a great antidote to discussion about MTF charts, metering and 'good vs bad' bokeh )

An exhibition of photographs from the series opened yesterday at the Arts Centre, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancs, and runs till March 28th.

http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/events/2014/03/03/exhibition-small-town-inertia/

 

[Pookeyhead]

Your teacher was correct. So many people think along the lines of "If only I coudl go to great locations, I'd get great photographs". So wrong. Of course, when they do finally get to go to these great locations, they take the same crap they'd take anywhere else of course. A place is a place. All places are interesting to someone, it's your job as a photographer to make them interesting, surely.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Thanks for the link, I knew of the photographer but not the exhibition which is not far from me - which is good because I have an aversion to travel!

The hardest part about photographing locally is to become unfamiliar with the familiar. If you are nosey inquisitive then you have a head start.

 

[Elines]

Thanks for posting this - I'll let the teacher know

 

[viewfromthenorth]

I've had a look at the website and will return to it. It's not easy reading or viewing, there are some difficult issues being dealt with on there. Thanks for posting.

 

[simonblue]

Thanks for the link