Exercise 1.5: Planning the journey Part 2

Exercise 1.5: Planning the journey

Go on a journey.  This needn’t be a long journey but make it a journey you haven’t done before.  It could be to a market in the next town or to a church across town.  If you like to travel then go further by all means, but it’s the process of planning and examining what’s there that you’re engaged with in this exercise.

What will you record?  The transport? The people?  The places?  Who will you meet?

Familiar things – post box, war memorial, bridge – often reveal themselves in more detail when you to a different place and look at what’s around you with a fresh eye.

Produce a series of images in photo essay form.

The photo essay tells a story through linked images.  If you were writing a story you would tell the story by introduction, characterization, scene setting, plot, etc.  The photo essay works in much the same way.  The images must stand alone as great images but reveal more when they are linked together.  Again, you’ll need to make a contact sheet.

Analyse the editing decisions you’ve made in your learning log or blog.

In Lyme Regis we are equidistant between Exeter, Taunton, Yeovil and Dorchester.  The journey to any of these towns is approximately 25-30 miles and takes up to an hour by car.  I decided to journey to Exeter by different modes of transport, eg, foot, car, train and foot again rather than just drive to the city centre and park the car.  To the west of the city the River Ex runs through a series of quays and, as I had never been further than the city centre, this seemed a good place to aim for.

Trains run to Exeter every hour at 3 minutes past the hour so I had to organise myself to leave my cottage in plenty of time to get to the station, park the car, buy a car parking ticket and a train ticket in time to catch the 10.03 am train to Exeter Central Station.  We live in a very narrow street in the centre of the old town and have to park our car in a central car park half way up a steep hill.  Lyme Regis is built on several steep hills which test your knees and hips every time you go anywhere.

My journey would consist of the following steps:

1.     Leave cottage and walk up Hill Road to central car park.

2.     Drive 6 miles to Axminster to our nearest train station.

3.     Park the car and buy both a car park ticket and a train ticket to Exeter Central train station.

4.     Catch the train which then calls as several stations, eg, Honiton, Feniton, Whimple and Exeter Central stations.

5.     Alight from the train into Queen’s Street in the middle of Exeter.  Walk along Queen’s Street, South Street and Coombe Road to The Quays.  Coombe Street leads down to the Quays through a pedestrian tunnel and pathway split between pedestrians and cyclists.

6.     On arrival at the Quays there are many cafes, restaurants, an antique centre and small shopping outlets housed in the long tunnels where goods would have been stored when the quays were used as somewhere to load and unload goods.