Digest 01_June 2020

Liverpool FC and Westerham Press

< Digested Perspectives >

This is a space where I’ll be posting images that don’t necessarily find a natural home on other areas of my website.

Each professional commission - indeed every day out with a camera in hand - also throws up a series shots without an intended use perhaps, but that bring me some sort of satisfaction that I’d like to share here.

> Iterations of a stadium: Liverpool FC <

As Liverpool FC took the 2020 Premiership title, I became curious as to what had happened in the saga of the proposed redevelopment of their Anfield Stadium or a move to Stanley Park.

Abbreviated; the project has never gone ahead. To cut a long story short, complicated machinations of club ownership, interacted with modern football financial arrangements, and the often murky interface with local politics.

At one point I was privy to the aftermath of a meeting where the structural engineering of one of the proposed new designs had been discussed.

I was fascinated that in an environment often using the most advanced digital solutions, for the hours of that meeting, the most advanced tools were pens and paper, pencils and sticky tape, thumbtacks and tracing paper, hands and brains.

You can read more about ‘the saga’ here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Park_Stadium

> Used blankets/scrap plates: Westerham Press <

Since first visiting a machine tools engineering factory as a boy, I’ve been a massive enthusiast for visiting any persons place of work.

Some of those have been shining monuments to wealth accumulation, industry or learning, and others are often my favourites; they have been located in much more discreet places, and from the outside at least can be visually mundane - to say the least.

What we find inside is often a far cry from the unremarkable buildings that face the street. The Westerham Press in Kent was one such place.

Renowned as one of the best printers in the country and with store rooms stuffed with examples of material produced in years gone by for their high profile clients, I found a workplace quietly and relentlessly producing to the highest quality standards and to the best of their abilities.

Without fanfare, people steeped in years of experience took clients and the process in hand. With care and precision, they pass on knowledge and insights you might not imagine existed by simply looking at a dull brick building from the street.