picture by Russell Davies

I went to see a real live moonwalker, the second man on the moon talk at the Royal Festival Hall. Given the original future-looking optimism behind the growth of both endeavours, it seemed like the appropriate place to hear him. This was especially reinforced not only by what Aldrin talked about, but by both the men interviewing him, Rick Stroud and Andrew Smith. As Smith said in his introduction, "They had to make everything up as they went; it was a gargantuan feat of imagination" which is something that is all too frequently forgotten. This imagination seems to be Aldrin's driving force to an extent, at least as a credo for living:

"All we need is the determination to define the best course, the imagination to set bold targets, and the willingness to take risks. The future of space exploration begins, as always, with imagination."

I actually didn't take many notes, because sometimes Aldrin would manage to ramble off on personal tangents that were hard to follow because they seemed to come out of nowhere. Other times, he talked entirely in soundbites like the one quoted above, which I suppose is to be expected given the number of times he's probably had to answer the same questions over and over again.

Ironically, the one question he's asked most is the one that he still struggles to articulate an answer to; that one about what it feels like to walk on the moon. His answer to this seemed the most genuine part of his performance (and make no mistake, up on that stage he was certainly performing), but unfortunately was the one where I didn't manage to take any useful notes of what he said. Aldrin's answer in this Guardian interview [via Russell] comes quite close to the answer he gave on stage, but it's more succinct:

"People want to know what it felt like. They want us in a few words to generate the enthusiasm that the world had as they contemplated what we were about to do. Well, what it felt like is something that we trained for. We were trying to treat it as calmly as we could and perform to the best of our ability. We tried to repress feelings of exuberance, of disappointment, and be proud and responsible people accomplishing the task that was given to us. That sounds kind of boring. Except that what we did was kind of earth-shaking."

Which reads as such understatement that you don't really grasp the sheer enormity of the achievement, especially if, like me, you were born enough years after the event for it to have entered into our culture as part of history, and therefore out of our grasp. Hearing him talk about it on stage, as he struggled to describe the sensation, and dropped the soundbites out of his conversation, I finally felt it. The idea that only eleven other people had done what he had done. How can you describe a sensation like that to people who not only have absolutely no commensurate experience, but are never ever likely to?

picture by Matt Jones

A couple of days later, I went to the BLDGBLOG book launch at the AA, which seemed quite appropriate, given that blog's approach to, well, everything. If there's one theme that unites all the posts on BLDGBLOG, it's the idea of exploration, and of finding new ways of looking at stuff that has always been taken for granted — which is of course, an idea that I have recently been exploring on this blog, too.

It was interesting launch, with talks by Area Code's Kevin Slavin and, of course, BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh. It was typically as full of fascinating new directions and ideas as the blog itself. Even though I've sworn not to buy any more books until my shelves have some space, I couldn't resist buying the book, and have forgone the two books I was already reading to dive into all the exciting features on urban exploration and architectural speculation. So far (I'm on part two at the moment), it's been a thoroughly stimulating read, although I do have a couple of minor objections about the book's design. It's been laid out along similar lines to a magazine, and while sidebars work in that format, it's a bit frustrating to be really into a piece of writing, and then lose the pace of it through having to turn over several pages in order to get to the rest of one sentence. That aside, I highly recommend it.

I'm not really a fan of Annie Leibovitz's photos (I don't always like the way they're lit, and find that they tend to lack a certain spontaneity), but I like this quote from her: "The camera makes you forget you're there. It's not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much."

This quote came via Ward Jenkins, who recently posted some great pages from his sketchbook, and shared some nice insights on his creativity:

"When I draw and sketch people and places around me, I lose myself in the process. Even though I have a certain knowledge of how to start each sketch or drawing, it's still a surprise to me how it turns out. [...] I'm constantly surprised by the results I see on each page, each drawing. [...] Even though I might approach each drawing differently, I know that my overall style comes through, creating an overall artistic signature, or 'voice', that can't be denied. The end result might look similar to the viewer, but, I know personally, I took the 'road less traveled', and that my artistic journey was one of newness and wonder with each page, each drawing."

I don't entirely lose myself in the process of photographing in the same way that Ward describes himself doing when drawing (and the same way other people have mentioned doing), but I do find that properly looking at things — and for things — sets off a chain reaction of finding even more things to look at. It's a simple fact: the more you become aware of your environment, the more of it there is to be aware of. (Shilpa has a recent post on colour and serendipity which illustrates this to great effect.)

People who wield cameras on a frequent basis might relate to this experiential way of seeing, but it's often inexplicable behaviour to those who don't. Friends who don't experience it often get confused and even a little annoyed by the way I might suddenly stop in the middle of the street, or run off around a hidden corner when I've spotted something that they had not only not seen, but can't understand why I would want to capture anyway. As they see me crouching into an awkward pose, or rearranging sauce bottles on a cafe table, the reaction is often along the lines of, "is there anything you don't photograph?" The tone of voice is often one of surprise, and even slight disgust, as the subjects I am usually most fond of are those that most people would consider "boring" — but that is what I like most about those subjects.

Even other photographers have had a similar reaction, as they wonder why I would bother with such inconsequential details. Ironically, this reaction has often come from those people who cannot experience a single thing (particularly social gatherings) without taking a photograph of it. Sometimes those people are so busy shooting that they aren't actually looking, and I can understand why other people get annoyed with them. There's a certain detachment, of holding everything at arm's length by hiding behind a camera; eternally being the observer but never the participant.

I think my approach is different. I like to focus on things that are usually overlooked or considered unworthy of attention because they are too mediocre to even consider — things like brick walls and sauce bottles, cracks in the pavement, paint splashes on concrete — not to keep life at arm's length, but to treasure the tiny details that people take for granted and show that they are worthy of not being forgotten.

It's interesting to me to find new ways of looking at these things in order to bring out their attractive qualities; whether it be the colours or the shapes or the textures, or a combination of all three. Of course, even though such subjects may be an unlikely focus to the casual observer, they've been done to death by other photographers — and therein lies the other challenge: how to make such images look fresh and new, and imbued with your own personality. This can be much harder to achieve with a camera than it is with a pencil; everyone can develop an idiosyncratic drawing style, but a camera is designed to ostensibly be impartial. Of course it isn't impartial; for one thing, what I consider to be attractive qualities is entirely subjective and will differ from the person standing next to me (which is presumably why I get these questions in the first place), but it's surprising how often one photographer will frame the same subject in exactly the same way as another, without having been aware of the first (as I unintentionally did in the pictures linked in this paragraph); whereas a pair of people drawing the same thing will usually come up with different illustration styles (in life drawing sessions, for example).

"I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste." -Marcel Duchamp

This second quote Ward mentions in his post is a good reminder not to get too complacent in one's work, too, and is one I've seen espoused by a number of creative people I admire. Rian Hughes said something similar in a recent interview¹:

"Sometimes I’ll purposefully set myself up to work against familiar approaches, just to make things difficult and interesting. [...] I’ll probably find a way to make the technology do something other than what it was intended for."

This attitude is also prevalent amongst a large number of the geeks that I know; the ones who hack stuff to create new and wonderful things. It's something I often admire in others but don't try nearly as often as I should myself: I need to be reminded that it's good to leave my comfort zone once in a while. Unfortunately, it's not something I find easy to do (obviously, it's a comfort zone and moving out of it is, well, not comfortable), and I think it's something I'll continue to resist until I have some external encouragement. As it is, I can only be envious of those who seemingly manage to do it so easily, apparently even without the safety-net of a support network to encourage them. I'm not confident enough to do without a support network, but I'm also not good at asking for help from others, either. It's a stupidly self-destructive habit; whilst outwardly it may seem like I'm being resolutely independent, really I'm just muddling through and not always successfully. It's important to have a constructive response from your peers; in particular, that those people whose work you respect and admire also notice and appreciate your own efforts, especially when you make the effort to try something new.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this actually. Just some ideas I needed to get out of my head. I suppose having done so, it would be good to know what other people think. That would be in keeping with what I said in the last paragraph, after all.

¹I've had that link bookmarked for ages and kept forgetting to post it; it's worth a read, if only for the fact that he's finally made an announcement about his upcoming return to comics (whoo!) — news which I've been sitting on but desperate to share ever since he told me about it nine months ago! And I've been looking forward to his two books on design for almost a year; he had the run of the IPC magazine archives for his source material, and I can't wait to see the results (especially as at the moment there's almost nothing about them online).

Yep, I know just what he means.

I've known Jill Allyn Stafford since about 2002, when we first started chatting on the original SK8 Jesus messageboard. Like me, she had an interest in many forms of visual arts and funny anecdotes, and even when I stopped being active on any messageboards, she was one of the people I made an effort to stay in touch with, mostly via her Flickrstream.

In the few years since I first met her, Jill has taken great strides with her own creative life, garnering a significant collection of work, and becoming heavily involved in the running of a local gallery, Vox, in her home town of Sacramento. I'm delighted she agreed to be interviewed because I find her attitude very inspiring, and I hope you do, too.

AJ: Who (or what) inspired you to start making collages?
JAS: In 1995 my husband and I were in New Orleans, visiting a friend of his from childhood. His friend was showing us the town, and we stopped in some touristy store so he could buy stamps. I saw the postcards he was mailing and they were all self-made, and they were all collage. I thought they were the coolest things ever and figured that I could do that. About four years ago I started getting into it seriously, and participated in my first art show in 2007.

AJ: What other artists/people inspire you now?
JAS: Oh wow, so many people inspire me. I absolutely love the artistry behind David Mack's work. Hannah Höch. Graffiti artists. And all those people who push me. Charity Larrison and Jeremy Love were key in originally getting me to put myself out there. Laurenn McCubbin gives me new ideas and just really, wow, challenges the hell out of me. She's amazing in her support.

AJ: How do you decide which images and scraps go best together? Is it just an intuitive thing of trying out different layouts, or do you start with a distinct idea of what you want the final piece to look like?
JAS: I start a piece by picking out one or two images that really capture me. From there, I decide how I'd like to progress — either by color schemes or shapes, or whatever. There really is no specific method to my madness. It always depends on how I'm feeling that night.

AJ: Do you ever find yourself looking for a perfect image to tie the collage together, and having to make do with something else because you don't have what you want? Are you generally pleased with the end result anyway?
JAS: It's funny that way, I rarely run into this problem. When I'm working on collages, my brain goes into this weird kind of zen mode. I lose track of time, and basically I just play with scraps and shapes and colors until it all seems to fit. So there's rarely this idea of making do. Everything either works for me or it doesn't. If it doesn't I'll set that piece aside and work on it later, and generally at that point I can finish it to my satisfaction.

And yeah, I'm almost always pleased with my end results (and even if not, I'll sometimes incorporate that piece into another, so there's never really anything that I give up on).

AJ: Do you think of those situations as happy accidents, or are you frustrated that it isn't exactly what you were after?
JAS: Always happy accidents, everything is a happy accident. I never start out with any specific plan in mind. It all comes together as I work. Which is probably why it takes me so long to finish the smallest of pieces.

AJ: You use a lot of vintage and found images. Where do you source them?
JAS: I generally find old pictures or magazines at antique stores. My husband, though, has always made the best finds. He went to an antique store in rural Alabama and came back with some amazing war ration stamps, vintage African-American photographs, and even an old book on spells.

AJ: What's the appeal of using old images rather than more contemporary ones?
JAS: Ha, easy, no copyright infringement. That's it really.

AJ: Do you feel nostalgic for the past?
JAS: Nah. While there are certain aesthetics that I have nostalgia for — 1920s and 1940s style clothing and art for example — I much prefer the time we're in now.

To quote Gogol Bordello, "there were never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow, it's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow".

AJ: So, are you basically the same person you were when you were younger, or do you think your personality has undergone radical changes?
JAS: I'm definitely not the same person. I was shy, no self confidence. Somehow magically that has changed (in most arenas at any rate). When we're throwing an art show and I'm playing hostess, I can talk to anybody. Something that I never thought I could do.

AJ: The art shows are at Vox. Tell us about them — how did you get involved with that?
JAS: I got involved in Vox simply by accident. A client at the law firm where I work saw some of my artwork and told me I should introduce myself to some of the people who threw the Vox shows. I did, and they asked to me participate in their next show. I participated in a few more, and got to really like the people.

I sat in on some of their organizational meetings, and they talked extensively about wanting to be a non-profit corporation. With my background as a legal assistant in a law firm, I had plenty of experience forming corporations. I helped them set up their corporate entity, and somehow I also became an officer and a member of the board of directors.

AJ: What sort of responsibilities do you have running a gallery business? Do you have any advice for people who'd like to do something similar?
JAS: Our responsibilities range from finding artists, to hanging their work, advertising for the show, booking musicians to play, prepping the venue for the shows, tearing it all down when the show's done (we share space so we can leave work hanging for one night only), helping the artists price their work, and coming up with themes for shows.

The biggest thing I can emphasize is that you really need to go into this loving what you do. Since we're a non-profit, we personally make no money and spend so many hours making things happen, so it really is the satisifaction of throwing a great show and making a difference in people's lives that has to make it work for you.

AJ: You have limited space, so how do you decide which art you display? Do you take anyone's submissions from anywhere, or is it only people who live in Sacramento?
JAS: One of our goals is to help people who have never shown before, or never played before, and provide them with a venue where they can gain some experience and maybe some self confidence to continue putting their art or music out there. We have a really big space, so it's never been a matter of too much art. We show everything an artist that we've booked brings in.

We do accept submissions from everyone, but because we are a one-night-only venue, it's easier and more cost effective for locals to participate. That being said, we'd love to show work from all over the world.

AJ: What have you got coming up?
JAS: I currently have two pieces in the Centenary of Collage exhibition at the Arison Gallery in Manchester [more information here], and will be showing at Vox Sacramento for our April Second Saturday show on April 11.

AJ: Okay, one last question for fun: what would you do with a time machine?
JAS: I'd go back and hold my children when they were babies. Sniff their heads and just really soak them in. And then as soon as it was time to change a diaper, I'd come back to the future.

For more of Jill's work, take a look at her Flickrstream.

What are your favourite things about your local area? And what are your least favourite?

I love the atmosphere of the South Bank, the river, the architecture, the tourists, the kids who come from miles around to fall off skateboards… Someone once described it to me as London’s promenade, and I think that’s about right. People take their time and are happy to be seen, you can walk a long way without crossing a road, and the light is incredible when it sets on the Thames to the west. There isn’t much I don’t like about it. A little too much trumpet, maybe.

I think most of your photos are black and white. Do you actually shoot in b/w or do you shoot in colour and edit your pictures later? What's the appeal of monochrome?

I primarily shoot digital, so I shoot in colour and convert to B+W later. As a rule of thumb, unless the colour is one of the main features of the picture, I'll lose it. B+W tends to emphasise the structure of a picture and can remove a layer of distraction. Although other times, colour can clarify a picture that might be confusing in monochrome. One of the joys of digital photography is that you can always try both.

One accusation that is often levelled at so-called street photographers is that they are voyeuristic rubberneckers. Do you agree with that opinion?

I think that would be quite fair in my case! In the strict sense, all photographers are voyeurs in that we like to look. But I don’t think there’s anything unseemly about that. I’m not peeping through windows! I’m primarily interested in how people behave in public, so there’s rarely if ever an expectation of privacy at play.

I did have pause for thought last summer when I was taking pictures of Blackfriars for a "Week In The Life" composite, and in the middle of the week, someone threw themselves off the bridge. Perhaps I should have excluded that event from the record, or started again the following week, but both those options would have undermined the point of the exercise. And the public nature of the suicide felt like a significant part of the tragedy, so I included elements of the police search shortly after he jumped and the recovery of the body at low tide the following day. It became a very different picture from the one I’d had in mind, and one that I genuinely agonised over. [See the montage here.]

Have you ever had someone get really angry at you for taking their picture? What did you do?

No, I've never had someone get really angry, but then I'm most interested taking photos in ultra-public places so it’s seldom an issue. However, I did shoot a collection for an exhibition in Whitechapel last year and met some resistance in some parts around there. But that’s fair enough, and if someone doesn't want their picture taken, I won't take their picture.

You tend to mostly focus on the area where you live and work, along the South Bank. Are there any places or people you dream about visiting to photograph?

The truth is that I don’t think I’m close to over-fishing even a small part of London, and it changes faster than I can photograph it. I love cities though, and would like to photograph a few more. San Francisco always looks ridiculously photogenic, I’d like to see Venice, and Tokyo looks incredible… but I think I’d always wonder what I was missing back at home.

As far as people go, I’d like to overcome my resistance to posed portraits. Most people just don’t look like themselves when they’re acutely conscious that they’re being photographed. And it feels ridiculous to pretend that it’s not a weird situation. So I have this idea of embracing that awkwardness and doing a collection of studio portraits of people hating having their picture taken. Obviously there’s a bit of a Catch-22 to that plan.

It's true, it's really a very weird situation. I hate having my photo taken by anyone else, as I almost always look awful if I know my photo is being taken (and sometimes if I don't know!). I think most photographers tend to be the same; they get uncomfortable if they're on the receiving end of the lens, because they don't have complete control over what they're going to end up looking like. Good lighting can go a long way to appease that worry, though! How do you feel about people taking photos of you? Are there any you've liked?

Maybe I should recruit you as my first subject then! You're right, photographers are the worst at having their photos taken. I hate it too and have huge sympathy for my subjects when I'm taking portraits, and endless admiration for people who are comfortable with it. People who think that models are talentless husks simply don't know what they're talking about. I think I've probably got a bit better since I started taking pictures of other people, but I'd still make a terrible model.

I've only taken a handful of self portraits and that was only when there wasn't a model who was available and patient enough to put up with whatever I was experimenting with. And I still can't look at those pictures objectively. In fact, with some I had to flip the image upside down on screen to process it, otherwise I kept getting distracted, thinking "Aaggh, it's me… Aagh, it's me…" It's almost certainly simple vanity, although I find looking at myself in the mirror slightly eerie too.

So no, no one has ever taken a picture of me that I like. They always reek of self-consciousness and gah.

This is a good point to talk about your burgeoning fame as an international street art icon, thanks to French street artist, C215. That must feel quite weird! I found it quite weird when I found out about it, and it wasn't even me it had happened to, but it demonstrated how small the world is sometimes. It felt weird because I'd seen the image on a wall in Brighton, and thought it looked familiar, but it took a random and unexpected comment from your brother on one of my Flickr contacts' photos for me to make the connection. If it was me, I'd probably be trying to find photos of it all over the world, just to see where it had been stencilled. Have you done that? Where was the best place?

You know what, I've not seen a single one the the flesh (paint?), even though the ones in London went up not far from where I live. I have my own copy though, and there are so many photos of them on Flickr that I never actually felt the need to go out myself to see them in situ.

Given how I feel about pictures of me, it does feel a bit weird. I saw that one was sold at his last show in New York, and the idea that a picture of me might be hanging in some fashionable Brooklynite's home feels odd to say the least. But I also feel reasonably disassociated from it. The stencil is such an awesome piece of work in itself that my role in it feels very minor. And as you say, unless you know about it, you're unlikely to make the connection. I might feel differently if I was getting recognised. C215 has made stencils from a few of my pictures, each more mind-blowing than the last. And we're planning a more concerted collaboration this year, so overall I'm very happy that it happened and am looking forward to what's to come.

Oh, cool! That answers one of my next questions, about whether you have any projects or experiments coming up in 2009 that you're excited about. I hope you keep us posted on that when you're ready to talk about it!

Last year, you put together a book — what made you decide to make a book? I've had a few ideas for books myself, and I've really been struggling with choosing the pictures and the layouts. It's not as easy as it looks! How did you choose a theme, and the pictures? Was it an easy process for you?

I first used Blurb to make a book because I'd done the unit photography on a short film called Stiletto, and wanted to give the cast and crew a souvenir. I threw together a simple book of 10x8s and was really impressed with the result. It's also a lot cheaper than getting prints and putting them in an album.

The web is a gift for photographers, but there's still something nice about prints. I've made a few books since for particular projects and having a big big coffee-table book of some of my favourite pictures of London has been a great way to show people a sample of the kind of thing I do without having to dispatch them, URL in hand, to find a computer.

As far as layouts go I'm a believer in keeping it simple. With the London book I selected half of the images to work as a full bleed 13×11, and the other half are cropped to best advantage and sit on the facing page against a black or white background. The hardest part was choosing the order but with a bit of playing around it's surprising how naturally a flow emerges. It's actually a lot of fun.

Buy Jon's book here, and see more of his work on Flickr.

I first got to know Jon through mutual drinking buddies a few years ago. We'd occasionally see each other at the same social events, but it wasn't until we discovered we were both avid users of Flickr that we really became friends. Since then, looking at his street photography and painterly compositions has helped to rekindle my interest in parts of London that had previously seemed clichéd and boring.

Although Jon agreed to be interviewed because it sounded "like a laugh", our correspondence became a fascinating discourse on being bitten by the creative bug, as he made some very interesting and intelligent points about the craft of photography. Each point he made inspired further questions and considerations, many of which were in directions I hadn't even considered. In fact, Jon's answers were so detailed and inspired so many supplemental questions that I've had to split the interview into two parts — and stop asking more questions, or the interview would probably never even have made it this far, even though I could happily have continued the conversation for a while. I'm interested to know what you think about it, as well, so please do leave comments if you have anything to say.

How long have you been taking photos? Who (or what) inspired you to pick up camera?

I’ve always taken snap-shots, like everyone else, but I first picked up an SLR in November 2006. A friend of mine had recently taken it up and was making nice pictures. To be honest, I expected it to be a fad…

You mean that you expected your interest was a fad? So I guess you never expected it to lead to doing photoshoots for other people. How does that feel — is it something you're keen to pursue further?

Yes, I've never been a natural hobbyist, and I half-expected my camera would start gathering dust in a drawer somewhere after a few weeks. I certainly didn't imagine that I'd get to the point where people would pay for my pictures.

I'm still a little ambivalent about doing it for money, or at least I think it can be dangerous to imagine that you can make a living only doing things you enjoy. So on one level I always want to remain an amateur photographer (in the sense of doing it for the love of it), but if I could also make a living using a camera, then I can think of many many less appealing ways of paying the rent.

Who inspires you now?

I’m a big fan of Flickr (and had been for quite a long time before I started taking pictures myself), so I can find almost endless inspiration from countless photographers there. I also love ffffound.com.

I don't often find myself feeling uninspired but when I do, just going for a walk is usually enough to get me excited about taking pictures again. Failing that, the Tate Modern and the British Museum are very photographer-friendly and I rarely leave one or the other without a photo or an idea for a photo.

Flickr is such a great visual resource; I can get lost in there for hours and hours. Who do you like on Flickr? How about some recommendations?

There are so many and I discover new ones every day. Singling individuals out feels capricious but if consistency is a virtue (and I'm not sure it is — there are some killer pictures to be found in some unpromising looking photostreams), and excluding friends of mine who I'm naturally going to feel a bias towards, I'd recommend:

Doyle Shafer
Rob Randerson
Tony Day
madeinsheffield
Sannah Kvist
Jeremy Walker
Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Greg Funnell
Noah Kalina
Jean-François Juteau
Ronya Galka
Sarah Sitkin

I could easily go on, and I'm sure I've missed key people out, but all these guys struggle to take a bad picture. Also, someone who is not on Flickr but is worth a mention because his street photography sets the bar for me, Matt Stuart.

Wow! That's a lot of work, and a lot of other peoples' lives, to look at. Would you describe yourself as a curious person?

Who wouldn't? But, to be honest, I don't think that I'm unusually curious, and when I'm taking pictures I'm curious on quite a superficial level — I'm more interested in how things look than how they are. If I see a nice moment, I almost don't want to know exactly what the story is, because imagining that is part of the pleasure of the picture.

I think that sort of visual experience, where the work speaks for itself in whatever voice the viewer hears, is usually more successful than the kind of conceptual art where you have to know all the reasons behind its creation before you can appreciate it. It's as though there's less ego in it — that the work is the important thing, not its creator. Would you say this is true about your work, or do you think you impose your own ego and personality on it at all?

That's a good question and hard to answer. On the one hand I like pictures that are internally coherent and self-contained, even if they're ambiguous. I think the photographer should arrange the furniture to accommodate an audience, and the viewer shouldn't be required to bring anything to the party. But I know other people disagree with that, and I think there are certain situations (when building a series or collection of pictures, for example) where context is going to be important.

As for ego and the role of the creator, that's tricky too because while I basically agree that the picture is the important thing, not the person who took it, it would be disingenuous to claim that I'm not imposing something on the scene. For me, photography is all about editing. And while a photograph isn't like painting where you start with a blank canvas, it is always extremely selective. As soon as you put a frame around something you're imposing yourself on the scene. And there is a role for ego here — I want to present things that I've seen, that I think are interesting or amusing or beautiful or whatever, and I'll process an image to conjur as closely as possible how I saw it. So in that sense it's all about me me me.

I've read a few interviews with artists who say that their biggest joy is in the creating, not in the finished work. Taking photos is different, isn't it, because the creation of the work often has to happen in a split second to capture a scene before it changes — certainly with street photography, anyway. So, you have to be able to spot events in time to capture them quickly.

Do you think that using a camera has changed the way you look at your surroundings at all? I know that I actively keep an eye out for interesting combinations of shapes and colours since I started to take photos of urban abstracts and focus on small details that often get overlooked. But I don't take many pictures of people in the street, so I feel like I don't have the "eye" yet to find the good shots. Is it just a case of looking from different angles?

You know those actors and directors who say that they never watch their own films once they're finished? Well, I'm nothing like them. I spend more time than I should probably admit looking at my own pictures. So I can't pretend I'm not interested in the finished article. I do enjoy taking photos but I think that's about the promise of getting something good. Although walking around London is a pretty nice way to spend some time.

I don't think using a camera has changed the way I look at my surroundings much, because before I carried a camera everywhere I'd still see things and think, "That'd make a nice photograph". I expect most people do that. I think the difference now is that I think those thoughts more in terms of exposure. I pay less attention to things that will be hard to photograph, and more to scenes that would be photogenic. I never used to loiter around a nice patch of light like I sometimes do now, for example.

As for the photographic "eye", I think quite a lot of guff is talked about it. Taking a photo is like hitting "pause" – I don't think it's a rare instinct. Same with "looking for different angles"; if there's something spoiling your view, you move, don't you?

When you put it like that, it seems obvious! And yet, I still get frustrated when photographs don't come out the way I see them in my head. Many of your photos have a sense of composition that suggests you have quite a considered approach yourself. You also take a lot of candid pictures of strangers, too, so I suppose you must "shoot from the hip" a lot, as well. Which approach do you prefer?

Shooting from the hip is more a matter necessity then preference. If I could freeze time then I’d frame every shot just how I want it, but in reality you have to react quickly when the moments present themselves. I shoot most of my street stuff with a 50mm or 35mm lens and with practice I've got pretty good at aiming and visualising what they're going to see. Sometimes the composition is changed later when cropping, but the arrangement of elements in a scene is often a big part of its initial appeal, so that composition becomes the reason for hitting the shutter. I like actions, faces, gestures and so on, but generally it’s the way they relate to each other that makes the picture.

Thanks Jon!

Tune in later this week for part two….

photo by Adactio [cc licensed]

That looks and sounds a bit pretentious and incomprehensible, perhaps, but is easily broken down:

craft = the skills in creating things, be they books or blog posts
bioinformatic = us and our branes
origami = complexity and more skill
unicorns = a bit of the fairytale

I think these are actually easy notions to get to grips with, despite the unwieldy nature of the phrase. It was a fun(ny) line to sum up and end the day with, anyway.

After the summations, we all tripped off to the pub where Penguin generously plied us with booze, and I had a better opportunity to get my box of mini-comics out for people to have a look at. It was nice; people wandered over our table and had a delve, getting excited about paper texture or ink, and even getting nostalgic in some cases.

It was funny, too, as I discovered that some of the people at BookCamp were friends with, or familiar with, some of the small press comics people I know. Ben Read and I not only bonded over a mutual love of Scary-Go-Round, but it turns out that he's mates with Matt Brooker and has "always wanted to go to Caption!

In the afternoon BookCamp sessions I went to, I sat next to Alex Milway, who writes and illustrates children's books (unfortunately, I missed the session he ran, which sounded pretty good). He's friends with Sarah McIntyre (who's just posted this great mini-comic on the pleasures of paper and pens), and acquainted with some other folk from the DFC like Gary Northfield and Woodrow Phoenix, so we had a good natter about them, amongst other things. Looking through my box of mini-comics, he suddenly started talking about the Lady Cottington Pressed Faerie Book that by sheer coincidence of timing I'd been given the day before! (I haven't even had time to read it yet.)

It's always so nice when my interests converge like that, and it served as a reminder for me of something that I wanted to mention before I finished writing all of this up, which is that there are loads of comicsy people doing interesting things using POD technology, papercraft, collaborative stories, and even social media, and I reckon they need to be getting involved with events like these, or at least considering the unconference/barcamp approach for their own events. If, as the Really Interesting Group say in their editorial of Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet, "2009 feels like a year for printing and making real stuff in the real world," it would be superduper brilliant to see more convergence and crossover, don't you think? Let's make it happen.