Three

Follow me in my quest to have my photograph taken at 3pm every day during 2003.

Three was part of Brighton Festival Fringe 1 - 23 May 2004.

"A unique picture diary" - The Argus

Intro

This all started back in December 2002 when I was sat at work having a conversation about modern art with Jim. We argued that pretty much anything can be considered art nowadays, so long as you're able to bullshit enough about it. This got me thinking. I'd long hardboured ideas of doing a photography based project but didn't know quite where to begin. I'd seen the movie Smoke years earlier in which Harvey Keitel's character takes the same picture outside his shop at the same time every morning. This quirky idea had lodged in my brain ever since. With a new year fast approaching this seemed the ideal opportunity to start such a project, as I liked the idea of working on something for an entire year. It was time to define some rules.

There was just no way that I was going to be in the same place at the same time every day, so I needed to think of something different. I liked the idea of having these photographs at the same time every day, but soon decided if it was only me snapping away in my own little world then it wouldn't really add up to anything at all. I needed another constant - me. By putting myself into each photograph I would be documenting a whole year in my life, and by allowing the people around me to take these pictures there would be scope for many different interpretations - or so I hoped. The time of 3pm was chosen as this was a fairly sensible time of day to work with - too early and I might be asleep, too late and I knew I'd encounter too many problems. Plus, in the middle of the afternoon I'd more often than not be stuck at work. What better way to capture the year in the life of my workplace at the same time? So with the blessing of my boss I was ready to go.

The equipment I used was a Fuji Fotonex 200 APS camera which I've owned for many years now. I wanted to prove that you can do something like this very cheaply, so there was absolutely no point in splashing out on a brand new camera, especially with there being no guarantees that I'd even complete the project. Developing too was done as cheaply as possible, using mail order companies - until Truprint ruined that idea - and later, local high street retailers. The picture quality was never of paramount importance, for this project the idea itself was king.

The Rules

1. All photographs should be 6 x 4 horizontal shots.
2. All photographs should include me somewhere in them.
3. All photographs should be taken at 3pm.

Credits

Special thanks to the following:

Chris Collier at Nomark Ltd
Andrew Southon Photography
Brighton Dome Box Office
Holly Payton at Brighton Festival Fringe
Frankie Taggart at The Argus

And a BIG thank you to all the friends, colleagues and complete strangers who took photographs for me.