Pierdom....Simon Roberts exhibition in Brighton

A lucky break while researching the seafront arches in Brighton..I discovered that forty photographs from Simon Roberts' Pierdom were being exhibited at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.











I like piers fullstop. I lived by the sea as a child and visiting the pier was what you did in the summer holidays whether at home in Worthing, visiting nearby Brighton or further afield in Blackpool. 

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More recently I've looked to these piers for inspiration and a resource for some of my OCA assignments. Surprisingly, or maybe not, I found them tricky subjects at the best of time...



I came across Simon Roberts' his three year project 'Pierdom' earlier this year and I had really liked the images I saw online. How would they look in reality? I wasn't disappointed.

 In a you.tube video ( https://youtu.be/z3gdMYXr4qM ) Roberts talks about returning in the footsteps of Francis Frith, one of the last British Victorian photographers to make a record of the piers around the British coastline. Over a period of three years and using Victorian style equipment i.e. a 5 x 4inch plate camera. he looked for and captured the small narrative in the landscape or the architectural quality of the structure. He commented that using a plate camera is a slow process where you need to think carefully about the composition of the image.The result is some very striking and thoughtful pictures.

Worthing Pier

 

 Although my image below of Roberts Southsea Pier is spoilt by the reflection, I wanted to see how his interpretation varied from mine done last year for a Digital Photographic Practice assignment.

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Apart from distance and angle, I much prefer  the way that Roberts image is peopled sparely and in relation to the length of the pier which adds a further dimension somehow..and a much better composition.




                                                                              

I like the abstract quality of this image on the left ...very striking visually ..

while the spare composition above on the left is equally powerful and almost moving in its apparent 'simplicity'.



I came away from this exhibition with strong visual memories of Roberts work and the realization that I should slow down my actual act of taking photographs to think far more about the composition before acting...