February 3rd, 2010 
Relocation 
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A glimpse at my last blog entry shows me I haven’t exactly been keeping things up to date here for a while. The reason is I’ve been moving, slowly but surely, from Spain to London.
The last few months have flown by in a flurry of flat hunting, studio hunting, packing, furniture buying, closing accounts, opening accounts… all we’ve got to do now is wait for the delivery of our stuff on, I’ve just been informed, Tuesday (a week late!) and we should be in business. Oh, and unpack everything of course.
So the new work space (office? studio? not sure yet) is at Clements Yard, London SE17, near Kennington tube. Drop by and have a cup of tea. You can help us unpack.
Tags: Clements Yard, london
November 11th, 2009 Uncategorized admin no comments
LAST POST
by Carol Ann Duffy
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too –
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –
and light a cigarette.
There’s coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
November 10th, 2009 Books, Exhibitions, Galleries admin no comments
When I picked up Robin’s book at the London opening of his show last week I was chuffed to see he’d elected to put my picture on a spread opposite a Bill Brandt. What a complement!
I don’t know if it’s fate taunting me after I mentioned Brandt in this blog last month, but now I come to think about it, it’s a little intimidating. Quite a lot to measure up to! Still, all in all I’m thrilled.
For anyone who hasn’t been following the story: Robin is the man I have been using for my printing recently. He’s probably the most respected printer in London and, to mark his 35 years in the darkroom, he selected some favorite pictures to go in an exhibition. I was very flattered to be asked to contribute, especially considering the exalted company I would be amongst. The book is effectively the catalogue of that show.
The book is available from the gallery.
Tags: Books, exhibition, gallery, london, Robin Bell
October 21st, 2009 Exhibitions, Galleries admin no comments
Robin Bell’s Silver Footprint show is moving to the Richard Young Gallery in Kensington, London – and it includes the picture of mine that Robin chose:
Kapitulska, Bratislava, Slovakia. November 2003.
I’m looking forward to the opening, and seeing the book which the exhibition has spawned. Drop by if you’re in London, the show is on from 5th to 28th November at the Richard Young Gallery.
Tags: exhibition, gallery, london, Robin Bell
October 14th, 2009 Photography, Projects admin no comments
I’ve finally got around to scanning some more pictures from the Theresienstadt story.
Administration office in the military prison used by the Gestapo during the Nazi era to hold political prisoners. Small Fortress, Terezin, Czech Republic. November 2003.
It really was an extraordinary day that I spent there in 2003, and quite unexpected. Have a look at more pictures here, or download the PDF, in which you can also read my thoughts on the place.
That day sparked a long term project about the prisons used by repressive regimes to suppress opposition. I’m hoping to do some more work on this over the next year.
Tags: political prison, theresienstadt
October 13th, 2009 Photography admin no comments
I’ve been going through old contacts because of a submission I’m compiling. One of the joys of this process is seeing the pictures you missed the first time through. In this case I found one from Sarajevo that I really like. Perhaps it owes more than a little to Brandt though…
Sarajevo, February 204.
You can see more pictures from Bosnia here.
Tags: bosnia, website
October 7th, 2009 Workflow admin 1 comment
Sadly it seems that a combination of the rapidly changing marketplace for photographic services and the tailspin that has taken control of the Spanish economy has caused the sudden closure of my local professional lab, BN Profesional in Valencia.
Known to many simply as ByN, the Spanish acronym for B&W or Black and White, this lab had been the prime professional resource in Valencia for many years, and I have been a client since February 2002 when I moved to the city. Obviously B&W processing, which had once – judging by the name – been the main business, had diminished in importance over the years. I sometimes got the impression that I was the only old-school customer they had left. But the company had invested heavily in digital output. They could produce the huge colour prints so beloved by galleries these days, but also even larger prints for the commercial market.
A company that was looking to the future, then. So what went wrong? Who knows. All I can tell you is that after a few days calling and getting an engaged signal I visited the place on Monday. The familiar office had the appearance of a place rapidly vacated. The piles of papers always on the desks had been knocked over, display stands upset, that sort of thing. It wasn’t as if the place had been trashed exactly, just that the occupiers had left in a hurry. The security shutter hadn’t even been pulled down.
Meantime I’ve been digging out my old dev tank and trying to track down a photo shop that still stocks chemicals.
Tags: darkroom, lab, valencia
October 3rd, 2009 paulhardycarter.com admin no comments
Well, after months of pretending things were going to get better just by themselves, I’m putting some time into making the Client Area of the website work properly. It’ll be back up and working in a couple of days.
You don’t have to be a client to have a look by the way!
Tags: website
July 7th, 2009 paulhardycarter.com admin no comments
I’ve had big problems with my web host since Affinity sold my account to Hostway a few months ago, and I’ve been trying to find a new home. The good news is, I’ve found one! I’ll discuss this more later, but right now you may notice some problems with the site, in particular the Client Area isn’t working.
Please be patient – I’m working on it!
Tags: website
June 23rd, 2009 Photography Paul 6 comments
A few weeks ago a regular email bulletin from Magnum announced that several Magnum photographers would be holding portfolio reviews in London, ahead of this year’s AGM. There was a fee to attend – £135 – and you got to select which photographers you wanted to have critique your work. Finding valuable criticism is a big problem for me, as it depends on who is giving it. If your friends are complimentary about your work they could be just being loyal, if someone else doesn’t like it, it could be they they simply don’t know what you’re trying to do. So the idea of getting the opinions of three people who knew what they were talking about, and had nothing to lose by giving it to me straight, sounded like it was worth the money.
So I pitched up at the new home of the Photographer’s Gallery on Sunday morning clutching a copy of The Constant Eye, a pile of work prints and a large bag of curiosity. I was to see Larry Towell, David Alan Harvey and Susan Meiselas. I’d never met any of them before, but of the three it was Towell’s work that I was most familiar with.
The café room of the gallery was full of people already and Fiona from Magnum’s London office, who had organised the whole thing, greeted us all, introduced the photographers, and got us organised. Suddenly I was sitting at a little table facing Larry Towell, with my book lying between us. I think we were both wandering what was supposed to happen next.
Well – we caught our breath – and Larry looked through the book. There were some pictures he thought were good and some he thought shouldn’t have been included. He took a lot of care over explaining to me what does and what does not work in a book – the captions, the design, the visual impact of the pictures. After many minutes had passed I realised that we hadn’t really discussed the merits of individual photographs, and I asked for his views. What struck me, as he described what might have been improved in certain pictures – a change of composition, a shift of focus, a vertical format instead of a horizontal one – was that I already had, in many cases, the improved pictures he was describing. They were on the same rolls of film, a few frames either side. I had eliminated them during my editing process. Clearly, I need to work on this aspect of my photography.
In the blink of an eye our allotted time was over and I was packing up my wares. I thanked him for what had been a very helpful review. It put certain things in their correct place which I, working away on my own at my own work, had overlooked. “I sometimes wonder” I said, “whether I really am a photographer.”
“So do I,” he replied. “I wonder whether I’m really a photographer too.”
Back down in the café I met Mark Seymour, who had also just finished his first review, and Marcus Brierley, who was waiting for his scheduled time to go in. I was buzzing with the ideas that Larry had sparked off, and Mark, who had just seen Constantine Manos, was similarly excited. I’d never before met Mark or Marcus, but one of the great things about gatherings like this is the people you bump into.
After lunch I sat down with my book at a little table again, this time with David Alan Harvey. David understood quickly that The Constant Eye, Vol.1 is purely a collection of pictures from the last few years, and that what I really needed to do was a book with more of a story. I hadn’t realised how much David had worked in Spain – the work prints I’d brought, from my Bous al Carrer project, sparked interest.
He suggested I should approach my next book in the same way as I would a novel. Don’t be too tied to a strict journalistic approach – let the story live it’s own life. “It’s not the story that is interesting, it’s how it’s told,” were his parting words.
Again, I felt I was buzzing, more excited about my work than I’d been for many months, and ready only to give myself the time to sort out all the thoughts and ideas generated by talking to these folks. Time for a quick coffee then back in the review room with Susan Meiselas.
Susan’s opinion of my pictures contrasted in some ways with the earlier discussions, which re-enforces what a subjective business this is! She was very clear about the pictures she liked and the ones that shouldn’t be there, and why, and also why I should work on a book with a common theme. The landscapes in The Constant Eye were the most comfortable, she noticed, which is dead right. I am much more comfortable taking pictures at a distance, for instance:
River Sava, Belgrade, Serbia. February 2004.
and
Karadjordjeva, Belgrade, Serbia. February 2004.
work better than:
Elmeyer Dance Academy, Vienna, Austria. November 2003.
Susan was also the only person other than myself who has ever said they liked this one:
Michaelerplatz, Vienna, Austria. October 2003.
And so, far too soon, my part in the review was over and I could go away and think through all that I’d picked up. I have to say I was amazed to find there were spare places available during the day, and that some people paid but didn’t turn up – this was the most valuable day I’ve spent for many years, and I’m very glad I was able to go. One irony is that many of the things I was told were actually things I already knew, but had lost sight of or forgotten in the course of the daily grind.
I’m very excited about getting my next book out, and the discussions of format, selection and theme were invaluable. And I love the idea of actively engaging the reader in a story. As Susan said just before I left: “Let’s see Constant Eye 2!”
Thanks Larry, David and Susan, for your time. I’m pretty sure you weren’t there for the money!
Now – what I want for my birthday is a good picture editor!
Tags: london, the constant eye
