The Auspicious Journey in Tipton

Thursday 18- Sunday 21 August

Following on for the huge success of our week in Small Heath and the great interest from taking part in the Birmingham Mela, we decided to take the boat to the Black Country for second stage of creative workshops. Moored up at Watery Lane Bridge in Tipton we opened up the doors for a long weekend of clay workshops and tintype photography portraits.

Mahtab was keen to visit Tipton as he had produced work in the area before, during his previous project The Quiet Town of Tipton. He already had contacts in the area and knew of people that would be interested in the project.

Mahtab Hussain joined the boat for the four days and took this opportunity to experiment with new chemicals for the photography process. Using the new chemicals meant that the black was much deeper and there was greater contrast between the light and dark in the portraits, the effect that Mahtab had been aiming for. Due to the unpredictability of the process it had taken Mahtab a huge amount of trial and error to get to this point.

The weather was very wet during the time we were in Tipton, which meant that less people came to visit us unfortunately. We still met some great members of the public though and with the boat quieter, it meant we could spend more time speaking to them and sharing our stories about the project. A huge part of this project is talking to people and discovering their stories, and it was a great experience to have the opportunity to do this.