Victor Burgin - Photography, Art and Common Sense.

Well, here goes.

I have been meaning to start this blog for ages now; I wanted somewhere where I could talk about my favourite photographers, share interesting things I've learnt or seen, where I could exhibit some of my own work and, well, get my writing out there instead of here, in my head.

Phew, well now that's over, heres to the main topic of my first blog (!): Victor Burgin.

Ever heard of him? I hadn't until yesterday when one of my lecturers started raving about him, and then again today. It turns out, that he is a photographer, author, lecturer, and man who founded the photography course at my university. This was the first university photography degree in the country. Coincidentally, our university's cinema (located on Regent Street) was the first place in Britain where a film was publicly screened - this was by the Lumiere Brothers in 1896!

This made me realise that I am very grateful for what this man started in the University of Westminster. If it wasn't for him, my course would never have existed, and I wouldn't be learning what I am, meeting the people that I have or be so continually enthralled by the worlds of photography and moving image. So thank you, Victor Burgin!

With this in mind, I made a trip to the library to see what I could find.

This: 

A book of Black and White photographs of the city and our relations with the city. I liked it immediately. I don't know about you, but I love the city, and I think I would struggle to live elsewhere. I love the lights, and the movement, and how much is happening. I love how a place so big and so busy can be so empty and so quite in the same day. I love how you can feel so alone, surrounded by so many strangers, but relish in the fact that you are a stranger too. Burgins first sentences emanate this "Our relations with cities are like our relations with people. We love them, hate them, or are indifferent to them." It's true, when you go to a new city, you often make a decision about how you feel about it. Often, people ask you "what did you think of this place" so you weigh up it's elements, judge, and decide. Much like we do when we meet new people - first impressions, etc. "A city may be revealed to us only as we leave it forever, just as people who have been intimates for many years may glimpse certain aspects of each other only in the moment they part." In the same way, a city we've grown up in and left, will still feel familiar when we come home again, like the way strong friendships stay, even when contact isn't so frequent.
But I guess that this isn't solely true for cities. Home is home, wherever it is, and it'll still feel familiar when you go back, right?

"Unlike the promises we make to each other, the promise of the city can never be broken. But like the promise we hold for each other, neither can it be fulfilled."

 "The street is where we involuntarily shop for replacement parts.
'Love at last sight' Walter Benjamin called it, reflecting on Baudelaires poem 'To a Passing Woman'.

The essential is that one should pass.

The disillusion of love is almost invariably guaranteed by the passage from the generality of the image to the particularity of the individual.

We may not always do what we say, but we always say what we do"

America looks so inviting, even in black and white you can see its vibrancy and life.

 Perspective - straight lines tunnelling into the distance, seeming to meet at some point unseen. Somehow the open road seems so much more appealing that the city photographs on the left page... Maybe because its open? It can lead anywhere, to freedom, to exploration, to life?

A photograph overlooking the city of Grenoble in France.

A city in the shadow of mountain, but holding its own. Its that whole thing of feeling so small in a world so big, you know, when giant rock faces that have stood for millions of years tower over you, you can feel somewhat, insignificant.

It reminds me of something Eddie Vedder once said "I'm small, so small, how can this trouble seem so big?"

And this one is from me. Present day London. A balloon attempting to float off into oblivion, but not before it weaved its way through a busy Picadilly Circus, a happy, yellow ball trailing pink, satin ribbon.