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I like this idea, I think it's sweet.

Very nice idea.

I hope you get some feedback from people who see the shots.

Top idea again, Chris. Really great progression of the first idea. Top banana.

I think the business of leaving Polaroids lying around is a good plan, but that's a very condescending attitude to take to people, to assume they don't find and experience beauty in their lives because they commute and work and generally live the way you imagine you never will. That's the way it comes across to me, at any rate. If you went up to most of these people and told them they needed enriching, they'd be entirely justified in telling you to piss off. If you followed that up by pointing out the beauty of a cracked paving slab that may have nearly killed them a week before on their daily commute, I dare say you'd be risking a violent rejoinder. It's like a Viz strip come to life.

It reminds me of the time I was reading Richard Billingham's excellent Ray's a Laugh at work and a colleague came up and said "I just don't understand how people could live like that," completely missing the entire point and suggesting to me that Billingham's subjects will see more beauty in their lives and their world that she'll ever notice in hers.

That's not to say you shouldn't be creating these little pockets of wonder, I'm all for that and good luck to you, I hope you get plenty of feedback. I'd be delighted to stumble across one of your Polaroids. But I think people deserve a little more credit than you're giving them here. Trying to discern and appreciate the beauties they see might be a more edifying exercise...

Because I've not read it, I'm assuming the people in Ray's a Laugh were completely happy with their lives, aye?

I'd imagine a lot of the time they weren't happy, seeing as the father is an acoholic and they appear to live pretty close to the breadline. The photos stand on their own and they don't really make any discernible statement about the family's happiness (or perhaps more accurately, they're ambiguous). But that says zero about their ability to perceive beauty in the course of their lives.

If you like photography, it's worth tracking a copy down, at least at your local library. I think it's an astonishing book.

Thanks Rowan, some good points there - for a long while I wasn't going to add any justification to leaving Polaroids but I decided to in the end. I'm not trying to be condescending - in fact if you look at the actual Polaroids I will be leaving they really only just say a very humble thanks for looking - it's only in my site that I justify my reasons, yes the 'finders' might (I doubt, but you never know) look at my reasons but to be honest, I really doubt that the people I'm trying to reach (here I go again!) will take more than a second glance.

I don't know - I don't think I'm a better person than the next man but I really do appreciate everything in life. Those cracks in the pavement, I really do appreciate them. I spend hours just looking at clouds - the shapes the move etc. everything like that I take in like a sponge. This thing, whatever it is, is a continuation of my earlier experiments with people in the street. Did you see that one? It's linked in my first post. I left polaroids in the street and photographed people looking at them, after a while you could really tell the people that might be interested and stop for a proper look. Most businessmen and women would just march on through. I don't know if they didn't care or were in a rush but I didn't snap one suited person and there was plenty around. That's what led me to this - it was an effort to reach those people.

Also, 'little pockets of wonder' - I love that!

But they might see beauty in something you yourself disregard; for example, there are undoubtedly people who encounter a great deal of beauty and value through their religious beliefs and practices, which I suspect I will never be able to understand or experience. Those same people might not care at all for something I find beautiful, but that doesn't mean they don't see as much beauty around them as I do.

That's another good idea, I'll go and check that out now. Again, though, I don't think you can really draw any conclusions about people from it. Some of those people might find beauty in a high street sea of corporate logos, others might abhor that and consider it the very opposite of art and beauty.

I always find with projects like this I appreciate them more if such intentions and assumptions are left unstated. I just went and checked out the first Polaroid project, I love it. But all I need to know about it are the basic details (what they're looking at) and the photos themselves. Anything beyond that - your objectives, conclusions etc. - is unnecessary for me. The results are more than capable of speaking for themselves.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't rub you up the wrong way, I felt pretty mean after my first post. I think you're doing a great job but I have a tendency to want to defend the masses in these situations. I think everyone has an equal capacity for finding beauty, but some of those discoveries are bound to be alien, mystifying or terrifying to many of us, and much of the time I think I'd rather try to uncover a person's idea of beauty than demonstrate to them my own...

That's cool, I understand where you are coming from. In a way, I very much agree. When I was wondering what to write on the pictures I had plans to write a miniture essay on the back (stick a sticker over the black part or something) all about what I was trying to achieve. But in the end I just went for the simple because nothing else needed really.

Right, off now. Project Leave Some Polaroids On A Train commences! Wish me luck!

Aside from the points above, this is the first i've read about either of your polaroid experiments.

I think they are both good examples of public art. I hope your feedback is good.

I think if I were to happen across one of these I'd be inclined to think it was an advert for something, dreamt up by some wacky ad exec so would be wary in visiting the website, or indeed texting to your number. However, that doesn't detract from the fact that I would get some enjoyment from actually seeing it, so for that, well done. Fantastic idea.

You've got a great career in marketing ahead of you, kid.

"Right, off now. Project Leave Some Polaroids On A Train commences! Wish me luck!"

Good luck! I should add that I grok your policies completely, I must leave at least ten cryptic messages or drawings a week in library books while I'm working with them. I think it's good to give people little unexpected bonuses.

Maybe you could try asking people to leave them on trains for the next people. And maybe leave them on trains bound for places as far afield as Scotland. Then you could get feedback, hopefully, from people all over the place. Would be cooler than just local trains.

"I think if I were to happen across one of these I'd be inclined to think it was an advert for something"

Now that's really interesting, and having thought about it, quite true and tragic. Well, maybe not tragic, it just means the artist has to adapt to the situation, which is good. Excellent observation, anyway. Maybe we can get people thinking that adverts are actually art projects, that would be quite an achievement.

I also thought that particular paragraph was quite condescending but then I thought "Who cares? Maybe there are people like that".

I quite like the idea. It will be funny if some end up on e-bay!

What would be theoretically interesting would be to leave packs of prepaid disposable cameras and SAEs lying around, asking people to use the film and mail back the results (or just the cameras, I guess). I wonder how many responses you'd actually get. And also how upsetting they'd be...

Ah you legend :)

Lovely idea. Like has been said, never assume that the person looking doesn't think the things you do.

I'd love it if I went to your site after finding a photo and just got some lovely images and definitely the phrase "pockets of wonder" and maybe just some nice abstract clips of text.

Sometimes explaining something takes away the magic of it.

However, to leave you on a positive, I really think its a cool thing to do. The whole thing reminds me of a flower shooting up from a crack in the pavement. If you can make one person smile then you've done a good job. smile.gif

This reminds me of the guy who stencilled text into the black and white crossings on the streets of Paris. Absolute genius that was.

Yeah, Think Don't Think that was and a very big inspiration for me in this project. I love that.

:( No feedback yet, although I did see a train guard pick one of my pictures up. He had a proper look and then flipped it over and read the back. Was thinking about stopping him and asking for it back but I decided I'd let him have it. :)

Also, please note that most of the above comments have been copied across by myself from a different location which explains the dodgy looking timestamps.

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