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What started out as a series of Photobooks to showcase different aspects of my photography has evolved into several books in their own right.
As well as publishing an historical pictorial record in the form of The Ancient Water Meadows of the River Nadder, I am about to publish an extended version of Notes on the Offbeat, a book I created some while ago featuring some of the more remote and unusual sights I have recorded with my cameras whilst wandering around the middle of nowhere over recent years.
I developed a liking for reading later in life having been well and truly put off for many years by some absurd and often unpleasant individuals masquerading as English masters in the 1960's Grammar School in which I found myself.
It is only upon looking back over my extensive collection of books that followed this new found interest that I realise that I have been constantly drawn to the offbeat lives of those who have chosen to 'go it alone' despite those lives in the majority of cases having backgrounds or careers that engaged them with the mainstream establishment. A strange conundrum which again in retrospect happens in many ways to mirror my own passage through life.
The likes of Laurie Lee, Dirk Bogarde, Robert Edric, Edward Thomas, RL Stevenson, George Orwell, Sebastian Faulks, Laurens van der Post, Jack Hargreaves, Somerset Maugham and William Boyd. An eclectic bunch if ever there was one yet all able to conjure up the most vivid scenes of unusual worlds and often solitary lives with the simplest of words. The seamy side of life, the dispossessed and the soul seekers, again brought to a reality in an apparent effortless stream of uncomplicated prose. An art in itself and I remain in awe.
Despite these clear influences, my writing style, as with everything else remains very much my own and devoid of any need to comply with anything gone before. Notes on the Offbeat includes some 'poems' which hopefully add a further dimension to the visual records. Each of these writings takes the form of a stream of consciousness written rapidly over the course of around 5 to 10 minutes and left largely unedited save for some minor tidying up.
The result is I acknowledge a very personal viewpoint yet I hope will connect with those that enjoy the quiet contemplation of some of the stranger things that surround us and appreciate the ethereal and ever changing quality of remote landscapes and derelict places.
Apologies to everyone else. Each to their own.
The books should be with me shortly. I will post another article on the Blog when I have seen them.
The middle of nowhere.
Out of the ordinary.
The sublime.
The ridiculous.
Random yet somehow connected.
Some insights into my rural wanderings with a camera.
Some words that these inspired.........
In the meantime, some of the Photobooks can be seen as a 'Flipbook' on my website.
Click in the link below and scroll down to the book.
https://www.paulwatts.net/commissioned-work/
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