Exercise 1.1: This is where I live part 1

Part 1:
Go out and photography your local environment in two ways.

First, go out and record the scene that greets you in your local village, town centre or area of the city.  This could be your local high street, a market or a busy road junction – whatever you like.

Do the work on a compact without a zoom (or just set as standard).

Try to think of the viewer looking at your work in 100 hundred year’s time.  The images should be self-explanatory – that’s what was happening.  Select 12 images to show the place ‘warts and all’.  Respond to the scene.

Write around 250 words reviewing your images in your learning log or blog.  To what extend have you managed to show the ‘truth’ about your town or area?

Now re-visit the same location with your DSLR camera and, this time, apply a craft approach to the scene.  Produce a set of images that shows the area at its best or most intriguing.

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Lyme Regis is a town in the very west of Dorset, bordering on East Devon and in the summer months is overrun with visitors.  The first written record of Lyme Regis was in 774 AD when the West Saxon King Cynewulf gave the land along the river Lym to the monks of Sherborne Abbey to establish a sea salt manufacturing industry. However this area had been inhabited for thousands of years. Lyme takes its name from the River Lym, lym meaning a torrent of water.  The population of the town in the winter is in the region of 4,500 people but rises to a staggering 10,000+ in the summer months.  Visitors arrive into the town in four ways – that of privately owned cars, public transport and walking along the coastal path and by boat into the harbour.  Those who arrive by car can park their cars either in the Park & Ride during the summer months or use the large cheaper parks (£2 per day) high on the hills above either end of the town.  Those who drive down into the town find very little parking which is expensive.  Those who come by boat have the best views but have to pay mooring fees.

I’ve thought through what people would see as they arrive at the main arrival points using the different entrances to the town.

There are three main roads into the town centre – that of the A3052 off the A35 in the East, the B3165 from the north, again off the A35, and the continuation of the A3052 coming from the West otherwise known as the Coast Road.  All three roads arrive at Cobb Square leaving passengers in the lower part of the town, although, if using public transport, coming from the West passengers can leave their transport at the top end of the town bus stop.

It’s certainly been a real challenge to take a different view of Lyme, using my two very different cameras, but it was a project that I have found challenging and stimulating.   My main camera is the Nikon D5200 SLR, which I bought last year, and a Nikon 1 v2 compact, with both a standard lens and a zoom lens, which I bought earlier this year.