Darkroom "Making Of" Photographs

Just a quick post to share a few photos of the darkroom. Lots of work left to do but we're slowly getting there.

Keys To The Darkroom

I have at last managed to gain access to the unit that I am set to use to establish my darkroom. So, now the hard work begins! I’m currently without electricity, but I’ll see what can be achieved in the dark. It’s a great space and it should have everything that I need to create a fully functioning darkroom that can be used by the whole community. It has running water and only two very small windows that can easily be blacked out and is therefore ideal. The unit is at 182 Chervil Rise - right on the precinct, though the darkroom will be in the basement. I will update the blog with some photographs soon. Keep watching!

Working with ReEntry

For me, the success of the project was always dependant on the sharing of knowledge and involving other local people in the project. Therefore, it had always been my intention to work with a group of young people - using the need to create an archive as an opportunity for young people to learn skills that might benefit them in the future. I am very glad to say that this is now underway.

Re Entry is a charitable organisation who act as a ‘probation’ service, taking responsibility for young people who have been unable to attend school for various reasons and ensuring that they continue their education and development.

Some months ago now, I was contacted by David “Cookie” Cook of the All Saints Re Entry base who had heard about the project and was interested involving the young people they work with in the project. We met (at the pub) discussed our visions for the project and what we hoped to achieve and found that these were compatible and decided to try to work together.

I’ve now been working with ReEntry for several weeks and have so far loved every minute of it. 

More importantly - the young people really seem to enjoy it too.

I’ve so far been teaching my pupils using only manual film cameras. This lead to one or two blank frames in the earlier lessons but now the results that have so far been produced have been hugely impressive. Using manual cameras mean that the young people have to think about aperture, shutter speed and focussing the camera as if they don’t, they don’t get the photograph.

I’ve found that the method of learning that is required with photography - one of exploration, creativity and experimentation - is one that suits these young people very well. For people who have found the classroom environment difficult, being given freedom to learn by doing out in the field rather than being told to sit down and listen, these classes have given them a new outlook on learning, much as it did for me when I started learning photography. Many of the aspects that make a great photographer aren’t the kind of traits that lead to people excelling in standard education, and I am so glad that it is helping them in the same way that it helped me.

The benefit was summed up to me last week when Shania, one of the girls who had been involved in the programme, spoke to me on her last day at the centre before she went back to full time education. I asked her if she had enjoyed it and she told me that she had and that she intended to study media at A level so that she could do more photography. This was a great thing for me to hear. Whether or not she went on to make a career of photography, the experience had been something which she had enjoyed and felt as if she was good at and it had given her the confidence in herself - a belief that she was capable of achievement in the field of education.

I will be working with ReEntry once a week for the remainder of the school year, and possibly even beyond. I am really lucky to have found such a good group of young people and an organisation as wonderful as ReEntry, whom I am extremely proud to be working with and am sure that together we can meet our goals for the project. 

Hope Party In Heath Town

Apologies for the delay since my last blog post - the summer is a busy time for a photographer!

Last week I attended an event organised annually by Hope Visitor Centre in Heath Town. It was great to see so many people out and about in Chervil Rise, and I got, what I think, are some great shots. I decided to take these using black and white film in preparation for the installation of the darkroom, which is now set to be situated at 182 Chervil Rise. The equipment has been sourced and is ready to go - all that’s left is to sign the paper and then the work can begin! I’ll soon be able to start producing hand prints of these images, and so soon will others who would wish to! Having such interesting pictures showing members of the community having a good time at this great event to work with only gives me more reason to be excited about the new darkroom. 

Below area a selection of the images from the day - enjoy!

Inside The Car Park

As promised, Jez (after a myriad of phone calls) managed to attain, on my behalf, access to the disused car park that sits beneath Chervil Rise. The car park is closed apparently due to health and safety reasons but, anecdotally, the purported reason is that it was closed by the council as a security measure when it was believed to be a production site for petrol bombs during the riots of the 1980s. The sports centre which is situated next to the car park has also now been closed down following a violent incident that occurred there.

Being down in the car park was quite an experience - it has clearly been abandoned for a long time. The entrance has long been bricked up and closed, yet the open windows (which I assume served as ventilation for fumes) remain unclosed. This meant that the car park was surprisingly light and also that the sounds of children playing on the nearby football fields floated in and filled the space - both of these factors rendered the environment far less frightening and intimidating than it could have been otherwise. Despite this, I would still have struggled to call it pleasant - when trying hard to avoid brushing my head against one of the waxy stalactites of indefinable grime which hung from the low ceiling as I went about my business.

The car park covers a large area and I was amazed that, like many of the other facilities in the area, was denied to local residents. It seems to me that social disorder is treated like a virus - one which, in the belief that it will prevent its spreading, the course of action is to cut off - isolate - the areas in which these events occurred. These places become quarantined in order to prevent negative incidents happening again - not realising that the factors that cause these problems are not down to geography or architecture - they are social issues that are the result of other factors that cannot just be closed down and shut off.

I believe that it is this mentality that has accelerated the need to redevelop Heath Town. There is a belief that the area has been tainted by certain events (some of which happened as long as thirty years ago) and stigmas which are now too difficult to erase. I agree that a fresh start will be of benefit to residents, but wonder if the necessity to rebuild could have been avoided had different decisions been made in the past.

I’ve included the images that were taken in the car park below. Please feel free to leave comments - let me know what you think!

Black Country Make

This week I had the opportunity to meet the group of young people who make up Black Country Make, led by Jez Monk-Hawksworth. Black Country Make is a project which places power back in the hands of the community. Jez has been working with the residents of Heath Town teaching them the skills required to design and affect their environment in the way that they want to. They have learnt how to use 3D printers and are in the process of building their own laser cutter which will provide them with the means to produce whatever they want. Black Country make have plans to build their own housing which, with a small amount of invested capital, would be financially self sustaining - producing their own electricity at next to no cost - meaning people would be able to live there rent free. It is an incredibly exciting project, managed by a group of driven and promising young people, which has the could well be an early example of how we all live in the future - with production, and therefore control of our own lives and environment, back in the hands of the individual. 

I intend to work closely with this group, setting up the darkroom in the same unit that they occupy - using their determination as a means to kickstart my project, hoping that their enthusiasm rubs off on others to create further interest in the project - getting residents involved in developing their skills and being involved in bringing a benefit to the community and to themselves.


Jez gave me a tip in regards to an interesting place I could look to find more photographs - the now closed car park and sports centre which both sit beneath Chervil Rise. Jez agreed to help me gain entry. Until then, I thought I’d take some photographs around the perimeter which give clues to the presence of the now unused facilities. Here are some of those photographs. Expect to see more images next week following my exploration of these abandoned areas!

My Role at Croome

It is at this point I feel like I should introduce the ‘Croome’ of the project’s title. Croome Court is an 18th century mansion and landscape garden situated just outside of Worcester. Croome has a rich and very varied history, but came to the brink of collapse before it was taken over by the Croome Heritage Trust. In 2005 it was leased to the National Trust who then embarked on a project of restoration. 

The story of the house started with the 6th Earl of Coventry. Upon inheriting the estate, he began renovating and developing the house and grounds enlisting talent to help realise his vision. The house and gardens were designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, with Croome being his first major project. Capability Brown went on to become of England’s most highly regarded landscape gardeners of all time and it was the 6th Earl who gave him his first opportunity. Many careers began at Croome, including that of Robert Adam who designed several of the court’s interiors and its follies.

The court remained in the hands of the Coventry family until the end of World War Two, following the death of the 12th Earl following his involvement with the D-Day landings. The estate has since been owned by the catholic church, who used it as a residential school, and a Hare Krishna convent; both of whom made their own changes to the building, and their presences are therefore still felt at the court.

In order to keep Croome afloat during its turbulent history, nearly all of its furnishings were sold off to private collectors and therefore the house was left completely unfurnished. This presented a unique challenge - how should the house be restored? In reverting it to an approximation of how it would’ve been two hundred years ago to the 6th Earl’s specification, centuries of subsequent history would be erased. Therefore The National Trust is taking a different approach in its restoration of the property - enlisting Tom Bennett as creative director of the Croome Redefined project.

Croome Redefined aims to continue the legacy of the 6th Earl by giving new talent an opportunity, giving young up and coming artists the chance to show what they can do as they aid the restoration of Croome, producing individual projects that use artistic means of representing the history which will create a visitor experience that gives and insight to the history of the house and the individuals that shaped it.

For the past six months I have been working as a member of the creative team on the Croome Redefined project. My main role is to create a document of the development of the site over the five years of planned restoration - photographing the changes to the building, and also to make a record which gives insight into the development of each of Croome’s individual projects. I will be doing this while I work on my own projects in an around Croome, including Redefined and Redeveloped, but also on a project which aims to produce a portrait of every individual who has directly contributed to the Croome project as a whole - a list which will run well into the hundreds!

One of the main reasons I went in to the career in the arts was because of my enjoyment of the whole process of a project - starting with an idea and seeing it through to produce a tangible outcome. Croome Redefined is the largest scale project I’ve worked on to date and it’s an honour to be involved. I can’t wait to see what Croome becomes.

If you would like to know more about Croome Redefined, please read Tom Bennett’s blog - creativecroome.blogspot.co.uk

Meeting My Mentor

As a part of The National Trust’s support of the project, they had pledged to arrange for me a mentor who could give me help and guidance throughout its duration. I was asked to produce names of artists who I would be interested in working with. One of the names on the (very) short list I gave was Stuart Whipps, who I am delighted to say accepted the offer to mentor me.

Stuart Whipps is a Birmingham based photographer who has exhibited in galleries such as Ikon and Flat Time House in London. One of his most recent projects, Reference Works, was exhibited in at Birmingham Library alongside the work of three of other artists.

I was invited by Stuart to visit his studio in Digbeth so that we could discuss what I wanted to get out of the experience and how I envisaged the process working. I have previously been to many of Stuart’s exhibitions, been aware of his work and have followed his career for many years, but had never before had the pleasure of meeting him, and meeting him was exactly that - a pleasure. I found Stuart to be very down to earth, and clearly very knowledgable both about topics both directly related to his practice and those outside of it. I found his studio a pleasure to be in - furnished with tables and chairs recovered from Birmingham’s old library, passed on to him during his time working there as a part of his project - you can see the influence of his practice on in his space, and can see how the environment must inspire him while producing his work. Stuart and I sketched out a blueprint of how the sessions will unfold; one which will include discussion, critique and advice; aid with accessing equipment, and making contacts in the galleries that I aspire to exhibit in.

Having spoken to many graduates, both those who have turned their degrees into careers in the arts and those who haven’t, have all told me the same thing; that leaving university was hard, and that they initially struggled to find direction and define their practice without the support network that they had become accustomed to. In Stuart, I will have a mentor who will guide me through this period and will be someone with whom I can discuss and develop my ideas. The aim of art is to provoke response and discussion and, I find, this is the best starting point for producing work also, so am very glad to again have someone that I can bounce my ideas off in order to help them evolve into fully realised concepts. Stuart becomes another in the line of inspirational artists who I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with and learn from, and I can’t wait to get started with it.

The Heath Town to Croome project, like the Croome Redefined Project, is all about mentoring and developing new talent. As I pass on skills to the participants of the project, I will be developing my skills and as I mentor, I will be mentored also. It’s this cascade of knowledge that I hope will create new artists and see the potential of individuals to become realised.

Heath Town to Croome - Redeveloped and Redefined

In this blog post I would like to introduce my latest project, which has just received the backing and funding of the Arts Council of England, The National Trust, and Wolverhampton City Council. The aim is to create an large and revealing archive that not only depicts the aesthetics of an area, but include imagery, along with testimony, which gives insight into the lives of those who reside within it; imagery created by those who know it best - the residents themselves. The project in underway now and production will last for roughly a year before it is exhibited. I will be using this blog as a means to document the project as it unfurls.

Here is a short brief which details the aims of the project.

The project aims to provide young people from Heath Town with the opportunity and skills required to examine, consider and document their experiences within their own, familiar, environment, and one that is very different, through photography. Participants will produce work of a photographic nature that documents the ongoing developments of two sites (inner-city Wolverhampton and a National Trust property) that are both currently undergoing change, from a multitude of different perspectives. The resulting body of work will then be exhibited both locally and nationally.

Tutoring young people (16-25) from inner-city Wolverhampton in photography skills and guiding them to create their own projects. This will include working with analogue photographic equipment (such as film cameras and darkroom), and guidance in how to create an artistic body of work. The images created will be a unique perspective of the contrast between the lives and landscapes of inner-city inhabitants and the faded glory of the rural gentry. This work will be exhibited in a number of locations from the Heath Town estate to city galleries and National Trust properties. 

Documenting these two changing environments will provide a testimony from the Heath Town community, creating a body of work with a potentially remarkable depth, intimacy and contrast. In doing this, there will be a widening participation in the arts for an under-represented group, giving a group of inner-city youth a set of skills that could provide them with the confidence to pursue a career in the arts, or acquire a set of skills and portfolio to aid them in an application for further/higher education.  This project will provide an opportunity for members of the Heath Town community to be involved with an arts project, both as participants and audience, in a way which will leave a lasting legacy for its residents.

The project is still currently looking for participants from the Heath Town - Heathfield Park area, aged 16-25. If you would be interested in being involved with the project or would like further information regarding it, please contact me via email at jack.nelson86@gmail.com