Thinking ahead

For a project of this kind, there is a lot to be said for planning. 

 Elliot Erwitt

The main planning is pretty broad and requires a lot of leg work. So far i have needed to find toilets and approach their owners. This has taken me all over the city, to bars and cafes, into museums and universities as well as the public toilets of the city. Asking for permission is a whole other mission, and a simple no means going right back to the drawing board. The second leg of the planning is finding my lovely sitters. Here i have decided to ask those i know personally so there is already a link of trust.

However, I could have everything organised and still mess it all up. There is a third type of planning to be mentioned. This is visual planning. Finding and taking inspiration from images from all kinds of sources. You can imagine the difficulty in finding images that show exactly the kind of photos i want to take. For research it is a big ask to discover images of toilets blended equally with portraiture. In fact, you really dont want to be getting your hopes up too much from a Google search.

But that is really exciting, knowing there is nothing else out there like what you are trying to do. And inspiration can be taken from anywhere, especially for portraiture. Magazines and books are a start. Films are an overwhelming motivation. Photographers and photography is so embedded online there is such an infinite source of imagery to absorb. Images from all purposes and all eras can give great leverage to idea's of format, colour, framing, lighting and stylisation. It just so happens, i've been pretty lucky on the toilet front too...

 Jo Metson Scott

 Alias Johnny Stiletto

 Venitia Scott

 Elliot Erwitt

 Nick Waplington

 Jeremy Cowart

 Gary Salter

 

 Richard Billingham

 Sarah Lucas

 Sarah Lucas

Mario Testino

Yulia Gorodinski

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Location location location

First things first. I need toilets. The only question is "whose?"

Since they all invariably belong to someone, it is who i know and who will allow me to use them. The most obvious are the +30 public toilets in Edinburgh city. In one phone call yesterday i was granted conditional use for all of them (the condition being that they need to be closed to the public, which means some P.M photo action at closing time.) That is instantly 30 toilets, the whole project! So today i took to the streets and hit as many up as i could for research. Taking photos of anything in a public toilet is very hard to disguise with a simple cough and a swift look to the ceiling. I am notoriously shy in these circumstances too so there was a a few drawn out hand washes at the sinks or a number of  extra precautionary hand drying. In one case a guy appeared so abruptly when i was holding a spring-hinged cubicle door open that there was nothing else i could transform it into, except pretending to be testing all the doors for my favourite. I think he relaxed when i found one i liked way down the end and disappeared inside, camera still flapping on the strap, and waited for him to leave.

But why not use just the public toilets? Because they aren't interesting. Sure they cover the spectrum between incredibly polished and squalor, but they are functional and without love. No framed quotes, no reading material, not a vase of pot pourri in sight. Can you imagine!?

So i followed up some tips. My trail took me to the Hollyrood Architectural Salvage near Duddingston (thanks Abbie!). What an amazing place. Full to the dilapidated rafters with gorgeous, dilapidated furniture. Piles of salvaged toilets, and i like the idea of being surrounded with other broken and unused toilets so i may pursue the refurbished/scrap idea further. Any suggestions, drop them in the comments.

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Sitting down for the first time

 Welcome to the blog and thank you so much for taking the time to read up! Bonus points if you have a swishy touch-screen and are actually reading this on the loo. But, so i don't give the impression that i favour technology, triple points if you've taken the time to invest in a print run of soft-back novels of the blog, and are in turn, enjoying them in your bathroom. Um, very nice.

Since this project is at its very beginning this blog aims to document its development. So if you have an aching, silent obsession with the fine architectural details of plumbing or are interested from a photographic level about what kind of work goes into a portrait project then ask someone else  i'll make sure i post as much info, pictures, developments and ungainly tales as they happen. Be sure to leave a comment, input and collaboration are the main ingredients.

What you can expect from this blog is a small journey and all the shades of creativity that complete it. I am very much looking forward to getting it underway and am totally delighted to be sharing. Revealing is, of course, the nature of the project. 

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