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<\/a><\/p>\nIn truth, there\u2019s not much to see. Shouts reverberate from the football pitches and the air is high with rose and honeysuckle. Now that virtually everyone owns the means of film production, my camera goes unremarked by the few passers-by. Besides, in this city it\u2019s assumed that anyone out shooting with more spec than a mobile phone is working on the TV series, Taggart<\/em>, whose lead actor, the late Mark McManus, was a regular at the nearby Queen\u2019s Park Caf\u00e9 on Victoria Road, the pub, not the ice cream parlour.<\/p>\n At the Queen\u2019s Drive entrance I plant my tripod to shoot the wide tree-lined avenue and the staircase leading to the park\u2019s summit. Now the light lies low, casting long shadows across the path. Unable to commit to shooting in colour or black and white, I take my time to meticulously duplicate each shot. At this stage of the project, I\u2019m still debating with myself about how these moving\/not moving images will eventually look. The photographer, Walker Evans, favoured monochrome and believed colour was \u2018too emotional\u2019. The filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky, also referred to the emotion of colour and tended to desaturate the colour in his work. Personally I\u2019ve always maintained that Glasgow is made for black and white photography and judging by the work of the city\u2019s documentarists – from Thomas Annan to Oscar Marzaroli, Joseph McKenzie and Harry Benson, I\u2019m not alone, though to me the city\u2019s palette is less about shades of grey than dark and light.<\/p>\n As I muse on this, in the distance, two cyclists tear downhill towards me, male and female, somewhere in their mid-20s. Bemused, they pass the camera then screech to a halt, breathless, waiting for the explanation. A long story, I tell them, noting how their cycles are brand new and identical. The guy sees me eyeing the bikes. Forty quid each out of Tesco\u2019s, he informs me, total bargain. I hope we never spoiled your shot, offers the girl, if you want we can do another take, adding, will it get shown anywhere? Take? Everybody\u2019s in on the jargon, I think but don\u2019t say. I hope so, I reply, and thanks for the offer. Well, if we end up in your movie, don\u2019t forget – the name\u2019s Brian Mackenzie, says the guy. And I\u2019m Gemma, chirps the girl, Gemma McManus. McManus? No relation surely to Mr Taggart? No, I won\u2019t forget, promise, I tell them and they speed off \u2018for munchies\u2019, says Brian, winking at me as they go.<\/p>\n I\u2019m left looking for signs, anything to help me make sense of this place. Camphill Earthworks is a significant place in Harry Bell\u2019s Glasgow Network of Aligned Sites<\/em><\/a>, a main spur linking several other sites. Tired now, I haul the kit up the main avenue, passing a young woman in full black sack, walking alone, almost spectral. Pausing at the foot of the steps, I note the curious wrought iron railing, a set of double unclosed circles each with an upward-pointing arrow, subliminally phallic. I take my shot and mount the stairs, buckling under the weight of my thoughts and my load. Then, on the ground I see a sprayed message \u2013 UNT \u2013 closely followed by a second UNT. If the graffito\u2019s designed to urge the viewer into filling the blanks then it\u2019s as bold and provocative a piece of art as any I\u2019ve seen lately.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n