This week, today in fact, is the end of an era. My access card to the UCS campus ceases to be valid after midnight. Times have moved on however. As a part of my re-integration into non-academic life I joined the Contemporary group of the RPS. Their ethos for image making sits comfortably with me as I have naturally, when I look back on my work, taken to repetitive vistis to the same subject matter or location in order to build up a photographic story of whatever it is that has my attention at the time.

Attention spans can be quite limited. I noticed this in my recent academic phase and I believe it is the maturity and discipline of a working career and also nuture to a degree that has seen me apply myself to a task and commit to it whether that was long distance commuting or 5-6 month self-directed photographic projects.

It was with this in mind that I and a gaggle of other RPS members met up on the docks in Ipswich this week to kickstart a collaborative venture to make a body of work that reflects the changing nature of the Wet Dock in Ipswich. I had been a customer of Coffee Link well before the UCS building opened and I was surprised to see how many staff used the place as we met this week.

I have been going through my archive rooting out images I have made in and around the dock . I am flabbergasted at the rate of change and stagnation that is showing up over 6 years. I am minded now to repeat my recent rigorous routine of re-visiting more or less the same viewpoint over time to make further records. My wet dock experience to date has been to try and capture something unusual. I am finding that the passage of time over a lengthy period can produce a very good pictorial story and now that things are happening again in the vicinty of the Winerack, I need to get down there more.

Take a look at http://www.contemporarytimes.net/eacg/