I take pictures: Graffiti

I'm editing my digital photos at the moment in an attempt to free up some space on my hard drive and seeing all the pictures I've taken in a five year period over a few evenings makes me aware of themes occurring in my work. I'm a bit alarmed by the number of pictures of my feet or shoes that I've taken (perhaps a future blog), one constant that has also survived from back in the day when I'd shoot in black and white on 35mm is photographing graffiti.

What fascinates me about graffiti is akin to the urge scratch your name in the school desk, or even taken photo's, it's about making marks, and in terms of images you can argue that it has it's origins in the cave painting, so for someone interested in visuals I guess there's this primal link, maybe I'm thinking too much...however in the history of photography, I'm not alone in being interested in graffiti, a quick peak at my library shows that Elliott Erwitt was partial to the odd shot.

Tonight's images were all taken in Venice last year, I can't remember the exact locations, but at least two of them were taken in the loo of a bar that incongruously had McEwans on tap...