A game of chess in progress at my house on an overcast Sunday afternoon.

Fuse box on the wall of an abandoned military base in Stanton Harcourt. The evening light was wonderful for this shot, and I like that it’s nice and uncluttered.

This is a hideously-cheap version of those prosperity cats you see in Chinese restaurants – I bought it in Berlin a few years ago, and this is the object that turned out best on an extremely grey day for shooting pics. The multiple views of me taking the photo in its reflection are quite fun, though, despite the terrible lighting.

Here’s a shot of the grille of a JCB parked up by an abandoned cement works just outside Kidlington in Oxfordshire. I thought this bit made for a nice couple of abstract shapes, and the contrast between the yellow paint in the evening sun and the blue sky is lovely.

This is a shot of the gents’ in the British Library, which had a pleasing symmetry to them. And this sort of shot is surprisingly difficult to get – a completely unoccupied set of urinals is a rare thing indeed, unless you’re in the cleaning business or operate unsociable hours. Anyway, lines and textures and that, blah.

A dinnertime silhouette, taken on the balcony of my flat on a long June evening.

Oh look, it’s the American Flag. This is from a war veterans’ graveyard near Rosedale in Mississippi – the tattered and faded flags dotted around various graves showed how long it’d been since anyone visited them, and one of the graves had a tree growing around it, like it was always meant to be there. Anyway, this one framed itself nicely, and I had it printed at A4 size for a photo exhibition at Oxfam this week, and it looks pretty good.

This here is apparently the actual crossroads of legend, where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in return for mad guitar skills. Our new friend, the chair of the Mississippi Blues Society drove us miles off the main road to find this unassuming spot, without even a plaque to mark it (I was expecting at least one gift shop – c’mon, Graceland has fourteen of the things). This was my favourite photo that I took there. I kept hold of my soul, though given my mediocre bass playing skills, perhaps it might have been well invested.

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]]> http://thespiderhill.com/2010/05/the-crossroads-mississippi/feed/ 0 http://thespiderhill.com/2010/05/shady-door-rosedale-mississippi/ http://thespiderhill.com/2010/05/shady-door-rosedale-mississippi/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 12:45:05 +0000 Stuart http://thespiderhill.com/?p=1280

OK, I’m not sure why but I really like this photo. The way all the lines turned out and how the colours and textures work in black and white make me happy. It’s just the side of someone’s house taken on a beautiful sunny morning in Rosedale, Mississippi, with the shadow from some power lines crossing over the front. Incidentally, nothing ever happens in Rosedale, MS. Nothing. Someone also reminded me when they saw this photo of the old song title from my band, ‘There Are Already Enough Photographs Of People And Doors’. Oops. Have a listen to it here.

I’m back from the USA, touring some extremely photogenic, if not exactly full-of-life, parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee (well, Memphis at any rate), so I’ve come back with a few pics. Here’s one from the famous Beale Street (home of the blues and all that) in Memphis. Beale Street is so widely-photographed that I tried to avoid straightforward photos of neon signs and street blues performers, and found this an interesting angle, as it takes in the Beale St. name, the famous lit-up signs and of course part of the enormous police presence – placed there by the state to stop tourists getting hassled by beggars and con artists, and therefore to protect the huge income to Memphis from tourism. I think between Beale Street and Graceland there must be at least half of Memphis’ income.