In 2007 I self published the photographic book 'On Class Street'. The book was funded by the prestigious Wingate Foundation. Becoming a Wingate Scholar was one of the proudest moments in my career. Some research was undertaken between 1997 and 2007 and formed part of an action research enquiry. The book disregards discursive arguments about photographic genres. Instead, it combines forms of expression and realism. The book also puts into context the relativism of cultural meaning with references to historical, social, cultural, and the biographical.

My constantly developing photographic practice has allowed me to explore existing, new, and emerging cultural diversities and the rapidly changing facade of an area that I knew intimately. My research, and my interpretation and understanding of other influential writers, photographers, and artists (from home and abroad), has been a most important aspect in the creation of most of my photography. The work of Walker Evans and James Agee and the Farm Security Administration 'New Deal' programme, was one such influence, and informed this, my first published work, 'On Class Street'. Similar to Agee and Walkers work, through this body of work, it is possible to reveal how a range of social, economic, and political factors shaped the lives of people, it also shows the varied modes of visual representation as seen from the point of view of people who had experienced living there rather than serving the needs of those in power.
 

The book documents, creatively, what it was like growing up, living and working on an extremely large council estate called Beswick, in inner city Manchester during the eighties. It is ironic that one of the main areas of employment for local working class people (a large industrial estate) was called Class Street. This book takes the reader on a journey through one of the most dramatic periods of social change that Manchester has ever seen. The area of Beswick suffered extreme high unemployment, and just as badly from the negative stereotyping of its inhabitants. Parts of the book successfully counter these negative stereotypes. Beswick is an area that is representative of many other council estates across the United Kingdom.

Of course, the area has been partially regenerated, successfully it must be said. The Commonwealth Games were held there and then Manchester City Football Club took over the stadium, M.C.F.C. now stands on the ground where this industrial area once was. This regeneration is a massive improvement and has brought with it many untold benefits including employment for local people. The housing stock is also being improved for local people. This book though, is also a stark reminder of what it was like before regeneration took place, and is perhaps the starting point for a creative response by other artists, to what will be a long reflection on the madness of social planning in the latter part of the twentieth century.
 

The title of the book suggests that there is political and sociological content based on a social class system within society. It does this, but it also does much, much more.
 

The Photographic Portrait. A fragment of reality. In the book 'On Class Street', seven portraits are shown. The 'reality' of these portraits forces all of the men shown into the typical archetype of the inner city ruffian, the thug, the drug dealer, the marginalised plus other derogative identities. These men have been asked to pose and then photographed against a pebble dashed 'backdrop', the architectural make-up of 1980's Beswick, the place in which they had grown up. They did not build this place. They just lived there.

In the real world the men featured in these portraits each have different lives to the ones which we would give them. They have families, jobs, hobbies etc, they are not the typecast which we assume. Had these portraits been taken against the backdrop of, say the countryside, would they still be perceived in the same light? Regular photographic workshops were delivered over a ten year period in inner-city Manchester. The seven portraits shown in the book formed part of these workshops. These workshops formed part of an action research enquiry and conclusively showed that if photographs contain codes or signs that are stereotypical, then a dominant or popular representation will most certainly form within our minds. The observer always projecting, seeing what they want to see as a cultural sign or symbol. As observers, popular media can help us understand the world in which we live, it can also help us to misinterpret this world, controlling how we see people because of the area in which they are seen and/or the style of dress they choose to wear. Mass media conditions us both consciously and unconsciously. Our history and social circumstances also help to strengthen these stereotypes. These men have been 'given' an identity because of their pose, which is in effect how they have been seen in reality. Their pose is their (our) reality.
 

The book is a myriad of visual metaphors and symbols. Even the type and cross processing of the film stock I have used is a metaphor. I have also made use of literature from different fields of academic expertise such as psychology, social anthropology, the arts and sociology, with a heavy reliance on semiotics. The dual models of what Roland Barthes named studium and punctum are of particular interest to me in my work. The former refers to the political, linguistic and cultural elucidation of the photograph, whilst the latter represents the personal factor that facilitates an immediate association to the item or individual contained within it. Some of the metaphors within the imagery are obvious, whilst others need the reader to work harder and use their creative thought when deconstructing them.
 

The texts that I had chosen to use in my book, were from books that I had read and were very influential in the creation of the imagery. The carefully selected texts from these areas of specialism are juxtaposed against the imagery creating interplay between both image and text, and text and image.


There are not any notes or explanations within the book, to help guide the reader. Instead, I wanted the reader of my book to gain more knowledge and a deeper understanding by researching what these texts and photographs actually mean and fully understand the emotion and depth of feeling with which these images were created. Thus, allowing, the reader to form interpretations based on their knowledge and not just superficiality.

In addition, parts of my writing contain textual metaphors. As I mention above, some of these texts work with the images, or vice versa. The following two examples explain how I have integrated specialist literature and used these as metaphors in my work.

 

Example 1.
In my book I wrote that my father would often be sat at home supping Orwell's Opium. For those that have read 'The Road to Wigan Pier' written by George Orwell (formerly Eric Blair), it may be immediately evident what 'Orwell's Opium' is, those who have not read this great piece of literature, stereotypical assumptions may come into ones mind! Was my father a drug addict? Certainly not! 'Orwell's Opium' is a cup of tea. As George Orwell stated, and which is still probably the case, an Englishmans opium, is a cup of tea. For many, hard drugs and working class areas, when mentioned in the same sentence, convey images of drug abuse. Therefore, as one can see, knowledge is the key to full understanding.


Example 2.
Firstly, let us assume that photographs are akin to mirrors, when we look at them, each of us interprets them a tad differently, by using our knowledge and experience, we project a little bit of ourselves onto them, and interpret them subjectively. We also rely heavily on symbols and signs, visual code that the vast majority of us have been 'taught' to recognise. Many of the images in my book are reliant on this fact. Also, we all have a tendency to make assumptions about people and/or places and sometimes see the world in a prejudiced way. Reinforced over time, and through various aspects of media, stereotypes help us to make sense of the world.. Working class children that live or have lived on inner city council estates have probably at some point in their lives, been stereotyped in a negative way (as have many other people). Even now, a child wearing a hooded top (hoodies) could be wrongly accused of being a deviant, and this is before anybody has spoken to him, let alone knows him. I have used a quote from the theoretician and psychologist, Winnicott. It is next to the photo-montage at the top of this page (when I look, I am seen so I exist...), it is also used in my book, on page 70. This particular quote concerns mirroring and the gaze of the mother. Winnicott's (and others) concept of mirror reactions is also about the infant 'gaining' an 'identity' through the mothers gaze. My use of Winnicott's idea has been put to use in a metaphorical sense. The infant (me) and important role models from within my local environment (surrogate mother). The quotation is juxtaposed next to an image of me in which I have undergone a psychological transformation, taking on an unreal identity (phantasy). This is how I was made to feel when I was a child, a part of my (and others) fragmented identity. Once an identity has been found, this identity 'exists'. This identity, or this 'other self', was not 'created' by me alone. Rather, I had internalized and synthesized the 'gaze' of various institutional figures from religion, law, and education during the course of my childhood development. It was how I perceived that I was being perceived by certain figures that played important roles in my life. The image reflected in the mirror is not entirely my own, but the complex gaze of the 'surrogate' mother.