Advanced photographic procrastination techniques.

A healthy adult female laps spring water from a fresh water supply. 2008

Uncharacteristic salute-like motion. 2008

The adult female surveys the horizon for possible prey (which includes cat biscuits, meat paste from foil packets and the occasional mouse or other small rodent) 2008

Researchers are struggling to understand the above behaviour. 2008

Images taken using advanced animal scanning technology. 2008

Picture panic led me to do an audio slide show about a local evangelical church – the Glorious Revival Eagle Ministry. Here’s a little selection of the images.  Please follow the link (GREM) in the side bar to see the full show in glorious technicolour with HR sound, or copy this address into your browser – www.richardquickdesign .com/samstrickland/church

Sam Strickland 2008

After my first idea was shot down with all passengers and crew killed I decided I wanted to make a film.

My good friend and colleague Mr Adam Patterson expressed (after much cajoling) interest in the project and so it began. After discussion Adam came up with the idea of “Work Is”. This was to be a theme whereby each person featured would at some point in their interview being a phrase “work is ……shit” for example.

 It seemed like an good simple way to enable us to go gallivanting around Elephant taking pictures, shooting pictures and recording audio. It wasn’t. We put hours and hours of work and effort in. This included: making countless contacts, shooting, recording audio, collecting tripods and cameras, arranging an editing suite, a poet, a roller bladder, meetings, me almost coming to blows over a copy of Final Cut Pro (God bless America), Me and Adam almost coming to blows on a number of occasions, drinking lager and on one occasion offending a gay man with a crippled dog (me not Adam). All this didn’t end in a film but it did result in this lot (credits in italics):

Sam Strickland 2008

George & Esmeralda Sam Strickland 2008

That’s Carol. She wants to be an actress. She was born and raised in the Elephant. We said we’d shoot some head-shots for her if she gave us some contacts and an interview Sam Strickland 2008

Adam Patterson 2008

We booked a studio at LCC for three hours. She turned up two and a half hours late. She seemed to lack the foresight to give us enough time to take some good pictures (strange as she is able to smell the future). We were left fighting off repeated attacks by a plastic hand. It was terrifying. 

Sam Strickland 2008

Adam Patterson 2008

 The founders of StrickPatt Global – a photographic organisation reminiscent of Google (apart from the wealth, influence and power)

  We also took pictures of a fruit seller, a lecturer, an Evening Standard seller, a guy called Brutus, his kids and some artist who was building a front room outside the Heygate Estate.

Adam Patterson 2008

Sam Strickland 2008

This is tiny sample of the 1500+ images taken, 10 hours footage and a couple of hours of Edirol recordings. As the hand in neared Adam became interested in his squatter project and I started an underwhelming project about the Glorious Revival Eagle Ministry. The film didn’t work so I turned to Jesus. That is the film that never was.

While working on the Film that Never Was I met this guy. He’s Joe McDavid and he works for ”the Holy Agenda of Jehovah.”

Sam Strickland 2008

14oz Bundle of Feathers  

Pigeons have been raced in the UK for hundreds of years. It is a family affair that can often be traced back through generations. But the sport is now in decline with ageing pigeon fanciers dying and their children and grandchildren more interested in computer games and television than following the traditions of breeding and caring for the feathered athletes.

The fancier is an expert. He knows the birds individual foibles and abilities, the best type of feed for different types of flying and the best pairings of male and female for the best offspring. It is his knowledge of little details and minutiae that can mean the difference between victory or defeat on race day.

Fancying is a social affair with meetings, events, shows, races, auctions and presentations and, although the sport on the whole is in decline, there are still many fanciers around the country who, every Saturday, wait expectantly for their birds to come home. The pigeons are capable of remarkable feats of athleticism, intelligence, endurance, and above all navigation, finding their way home to roost from hundreds of miles away.

Sam Strickland joined fanciers all over the country in the build up to the 2008 racing season. Text and photographs by Sam Strickland.    

A pigeon chick hatches in Alby Stockwell’s hand. “In your loft you’re God.” Manor Park, East London.

Keith Turnbull lures young pigeons into his lofts with a distinctive high-pitched whistle. The birds come to associate their owner’s calls with food which helps them to be coaxed in on race day. Barnsley, South Yorkshire. 

Bernie Bennett examines a young bird’s wing while deciding which of his newly bred pigeons he will put into the 2008 pre-season auction. Dagenham, East London.

A cock escapes from its crate in the back of Shaky Jutla’s white van on route to a release point for a training flight. Junction 14, the M11, Cambridgeshire. 

Birds await the auctioneer’s hammer during a pre-season auction at the Leyton House Club in Stratford, East London. Pigeon events are always accompanied by beer: “Pigeon racing is probably the greatest excuse to drink in the world. Most wives winge about the time their husbands spend with their birds. I don’t know why their moaning – while were in the shed at least we’re not playing about with dirty tarts, not unless were a bit lucky.” Big John, Stratford East London.  

Boxed and labelled pigeons ready for collection after being sold at the Leyton House Club auction. Stratford, East London.

Bernie Bennett releases a new purchase at this Dagenham lofts. Bernie is known countrywide for his column “Notes from the Igloo” featured in British Homing World magazine. He has written about the sport for almost half a century. 

Inside view of Steven and George Chalkley’s loft in Forest Gate, East London. “Pigeon racing is a great leveller – a poor unemployed man can often beat the millionaire, if he works hard enough.” – George Chalkley. 

Derek Smith and Brian Foster vaccinate a young pigeon against Paramyxovirus which can cause serious respiratory problems in the birds. Dagenham, East London.

Shaky and Vikram Jutla give their birds a final training flight before the first race of the 2008 season. The Indian cousins who live in West Ham, are among only a handful of Asian fanciers in the UK. Trumpington,     Cambridge.   

Graham Burton shows the wing stamp of one of his birds. Pigeons are often lost during races and have been known to land, exhausted, hundreds of miles off course, on oil rigs off the coast of Scotland. The birds are returned by riggers, sometimes months after the race in which they were lost. 

Nigel and Susan Smithson watch as a young hen flies from her basket during training near Cambridge. 

Members of the London North Road Club ring pigeons the night before the first race.  Each bird has a numbered ring placed on its leg which will be quickly removed when the bird comes home from racing and inserted into the fancier’s clock to note its time. 

Pigeons are loaded onto special transporters late at night. Leyton House    Club, East London.

A panorama, made up of three photographs, shows a young family watching the liberation of 639 pigeons from the East Anglian Federation of Racing Pigeons. Wanstead Flats, East London.(PRESS FOR LARGER VERSION)

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT SAMSTRICKLAND 2008

Street. 2008

I have some nice friends:

“Mummy, mummy there’s a nasty man with a pitch fork in garden” “Don’t worry Timmy he’s just stoking the fires of Hell.” 2006

 

A man performs a remarkable feat of balance on a lamppost. London’s South Bank. 2008

A young man glued to a giant black Swiss roll is watched by giggling young lovers in a shed in Bermondsey, London. 2008

Much hilarity is had as a young woman comes unstuck after being mistakenly glued to a grinning man’s neck. 2008  

My dear friend Adam Patterson (second from right) with his brothers Patrick, Paddy and Sean. 2008

I had the great pleasure and honour of being invited for dinner at Philip’s house in Shepard’s Bush. The food was horrific (grey slime courtesy of a young Belgian photographer) but it was truly wonderful to get the chance to talk to PJG just a few weeks before his passing. Shame about the average picture. R.I.P. 2008