The idea of a specific time reserved for leisure originated in the1930’s. Contemporary medical theories believing in the benefits of fresh air and sunlight encouraged the pursuit of open-air pursuits and led to the establishment of a number of outdoor pools with amenities. The more elaborate examples were called Lidos, a term borrowed from the famous bathing resort at Venice. The South Bay Pool at Scarborough was designed by Harry W. Smith, Borough Engineer (1893-1930). It was the largest outdoor pool in Europe, construction was begun in 1914 and completed the following year. The changing rooms with their pillars, tiles and circular windows, the pool fountains and various associated bungalows were added in the 1930’s.

The pool reached it’s heyday in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s. School swimming Galas were still held there in the 1970’s.

The pool was finally closed in 1989. It lay derelict, festooned in barbed wire throughout the 1990’s, an obsolete reminder of a different way of life.

Hand developed black and white photographs taken during the summers of 1997-2000 show the pool and it’s surrounding buildings in the last throws of disintegration. Festooned with barbed wire and Keep Off notices the water is black and oily.

I took photographs at the Scarborough South Bay pool whilst it lay derelict in 1997, in fact they were amongst some of the first photographs I had ever taken with an SLR, which at the time was a Pentax K1000 and shot on Ilford HP5 black & white film, hand processed and printed, the photographs here have been created with digital scans from those negatives.

The site had been closed off to the public and upon my visit there was a large amount of graffiti and the roof of the old locker room had been partially ripped off exposing the lockers you see in my shots in the main gallery, also the old cafe door had been broken into by vandals and was left open for exploration.

I could also gain access to the changing room which led to a staircase going down to the entrance of the main pool, which is the photograph of the metal gate seen below. The place had a very eerie feel to it as it was yet another place that used to be full of life and laughter from my childhood and my parents childhood that now lay in ruin’s.

As a child I remember spending the best part of the summer swimming there, the water was always highly chlorine filled because of all the sea water that flooded the pool and I will always remember cutting my feet in the paddling pool from all the broken tiles at the bottom.

Listing for the South Bay Pool was turned down in the summer of 2002, and the pool filled with rubble and sand in the summer of 2003.

This is how the area looks Today.

“Butchers Clutch”

Digital Artwork from the “Childhood Darkside” project

]]> http://firstfocusphotography.com/2008/04/21/butchers-clutch-neonchaos/feed/ 0 http://firstfocusphotography.com/2008/03/04/the-birth-of-neon-chaos/ http://firstfocusphotography.com/2008/03/04/the-birth-of-neon-chaos/#comments Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:46:26 +0000 Wedge http://blog.photogenius.info/2008/03/04/the-birth-of-neon-chaos/ Here are some of my latest pieces

Birth of Chaos -  2008

Fear Inside -  2008

I have recently been working  on a number of different themed projects incorporating Fine Art, Photography, Fashion, Performance and Digital photo enhancement to create visual imagery . Although the images we have created are presented in photographic form for you looking at this computer screen, the images themselves and how they are viewed forms a part of the Art process as a whole, to date they have been produced as 20″ x 30″ canvas prints played on a 40″ HDTV monitor and would be intended to be incorporated into an installation piece consisting of an interactive display room/set with back and front projection onto textured wall surfaces and a a digital audio piece to create an experience for the viewer with live action and video played out together.

Dark Mill Project

Reflections upon the past

I have in the past produced artwork along similar themes and processes in 1996 I created a video piece for my BTEC National Diploma Foundation Art & Design course entitled “Break and Enter” which combined many different elements that were combined together and presented as a video piece. This process evolves by layering different elements and creative processes together, then taking what you have created and placing  it into a further artistic medium then repeating the process again and again.

For example I would firstly create drawing and storyboards of the images and themes I wanted to portray , I would then find locations and models / Actors and photograph them separately. I wold then combine these elements together firstly using traditional cut and paste techniques and later photoshop. I would then film elements of the location and also film the images I created photographically using a rostrum camera then edit sequences of live action and stills together and add soundtrack elements at the editing stage.

original storyboard sketches for “Break & Enter”

original background photographs for “Break & Enter”

Eno & Laura -original studio shots for composition

composite examples taken from sketchbook

I would then take what I have edited, filmed and photographed and put it back into the original environment and re-film the environment . The final result would then be presented as an installation that is a recreation of the original environment and involve interaction from the viewer. Sounds complex?, maybe so, but the end result is the feeling that is created from the mixing of mediums and realities, leaving you questioning what is real and what is really there. It is all about the emotions created by the complexities of reality.

Break and Enter was created in 1997 and was my first student film, edited in a cupboard with basic editing equipment, digital composites were created on Photoshop version 2 which I discovered for the first time in the graphic design department and was not being used by any photography students in my college. My final piece consisted of elements of Fine Art, Photography, graphic design and video production . This had to be jointly graded by three separate tutors from different departments of the collage and to my knowledge and the information that was given to me by the tutors I was the first person in the college to combine many different elements of digital media , video and photography to create artwork. They later introduced a course element based on these methods. Remember this is before digital cameras existed and before Photoshop was commonplace among photographers the world over and  its only 12 years ago!

Wasteland – 2007

Nightnight – 2007