Mail Shots 7

Sneinton, Nottingham, January 2017

It's time for the mail-slot slot again.  These never really go anywhere, other than to top-up my prevailing love of formal geometry  and Modernist frontally.  Nevertheless, they're always there, in the background of nearly every urban photoshoot I conduct - and so my collection slowly grows.  These were captured over recent  months - mostly in Nottingham, (supplemented by one from my own Leicester back yard).

Central Nottingham, September 2016

They form a kind of, largely unexploited, notional sub-theme, at this stage.  Doubtless, one could construct a thesis around their symbolism as conduits of faltering, analogue communication, or as organs of admittance.  Somewhat simplistically, it's difficult not to read them as oral simulacra.  I'm also aware of an implied dialogue between notions of impassive closure and gaping vacuity.  That, in turn, seems to trigger a slew of related fantasies about the status of whatever spaces lie beyond.  Either way, I'm equally attracted to the smartly-painted-green-chequer-plate, and the rotted-plank-and-wire-basket iterations.  

Former Cattle Market Site, Nottingham, April 2017

The pretension and allusive prolixity of all this is deliberate and unashamed.  It is, however, equally valid to suggest that these images represent little more than some periodic recourse to a visual comfort zone.

West Leicester, April 2017

It also occurs to me that, in time, they might also come to form a surprisingly comprehensive catalogue of physical urban texture, revealed via the medium of building materials, and construction techniques.

Former Cattle Market Site, Nottingham, April 2017