pete mcgovern

One day I will remember to have the camera ready and approach less noisily than a shuffling elephant when I go to photograph this windswept old tree. The hidden birds perching in its branches, observing the plain below, explode their black shapes into the air, twisting in all directions as they take flight whenever I get not even very close. Memory has failed me on three occasions this week: 1. I went to photograph this tree three days ago but had forgotten the camera. 2. I got to the till in Lidl yesterday and realised my bank card was at home in the inside pocket of my puffer jacket. 3.

It's vegan cheese. It's okay. Apart from the financial aspect.

Hats off to the generous gallery staff who, on a bitterly cold evening, had watched the official 8pm finish time sail by so as to let everyone get their turn with Ansett for a natter. The show: It's big, it's bold and, most unexpected of all, it has happened in Lincoln, (where?). Well done, Mr Ansett.  Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize Academy members, where are you? It was a treat to catch up with Jason B and Paul G from the Take One A Day & Man Up photography exhibition last year, Ben the videographer who put together some street footage with an impressive interview, and Andrea, exhibitions manager, who has breathed new life into this quiet, provincial gallery.

“From 1995 to 1998, I worked on a series of photographs of isolated houses in the desert at the east-end of the Morongo Valley in Southern California. As I meandered through the desert, a dog would occasionally chase my car. Sometime in 1996 I began to bring along a 35mm camera equipped with a motor drive and loaded with a fast and grainy black-and-white film. The process was simple; when I saw a dog coming toward the car I would pre-focus the camera and set the exposure. With one hand on the steering wheel, I would hold the camera out the window and expose anywhere from a few frames to a complete roll of film. I'll admit that I was not above turning around and taking a second pass in front of a house with an enthusiastic dog. Contemplating a dog chasing a car invites any number of metaphors and juxtapositions: culture and nature, the domestic and the wild, love and hate, joy and fear, the heroic and the idiotic. It could be viewed as a visceral and kinetic dance. Here we have two ...

Coming to photographer Sally Mann's second book of writing about her photography and life, 'Art Work', immediately after finishing a collection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield, (1888-1923), I can't help but imagine they would have been firm friends should they have met, and keen admirers of each other's oeuvre even if they had not. There is striking commonality between them in regard to their choice of subject matter, both intently engrossed in the familial while effortlessly able to extend beyond the familiar .  Mansfield only made it to age 34, while Mann is 74 at the time of writing and going strong. She has had the span of life to rummage around for other, but still specifically local themes that resonate for her, moving to landscape. This may be a consequence of that first significant body of work, images of her children, which brought initial acclaim quickly followed by sharp criticism. While the fiction writer is rarely held to account for intimately...

Vegans, (upper case V , always). Hm. Yes. And what makes it worse is that those god-like beings act nornal. They don't particularly bother being smug about it. Whereas with us vegetarians (lower case v ), let's just say if we get into a conversation with someone new, give it 30 seconds and we should be well into pontificating modestly ahout the subject, in passing, It's a well-known phenomenon. First of all, I acknowledge someone, HG, for leading by example decades ago. I traipsed behind her skirt-tails and at least made it to the non-meat consuming side of the food intake equation. No fuss, no words, she was just doing her thing. I never even asked why. More recently, maybe three years ago someone at work, a smiley, overly well-adjusted person (as Vs always are), never declaiming their holy status, mentioned some weekly vegan meet-up thing, a sort of community cafe, a bring you own home made, healthy food sort of event, and suggesting that I might like it. Obviously it sou...