Have your passports in order, we're paddling across the pond to meet photographer Phil Bebbington, a prolific produce of Unofficial Music Videos. Hailing from Bath, in the county of Somerset, Phil is a self-taught photographer whose work has been shown in the United States and Greece, as well his native England.
Curiously, a perusal of his portfolio at philbebbington.com (heartily recommended!) could prompt a visit to Google maps. The artist's nook-and-cranny fascination with America is explored in vivid detail, and it fuels his sepia-toned videos for somber indie-rock acts like Black Heart Procession, Red House Painters, and Willard Grant Conspiracy.
It was a pair of Phil's videos for the latter band that first snagged my attention. Upon learning of the recent passing of WGC singer-songwriter Robert Fisher, I stumbled across "The Suffering Song‚" and "The Ghost of the Girl In The Well‚" on YouTube™, and was captivated by the stark archive footage providing the visual landscape for Fisher's forlorn lyrical musings.
"Mostly these videos are emotional responses to the music and my mood," Phil says via email.
"The lyrics are rarely considered, as is often pointed out by people that view them.‚"
For Phil, words and tempo are distant considerations, behind tone and mood. His work qualifies as a mashup approach, but it's more like an organic, historically correct film score set to a Ken Burns joint.
"Oh, I was drawn to WGC through other stark Americana (music), or was it WGC drove me to other; not sure," he muses. "I love music that scratches the underbelly of a place or helps us retreat into ourselves.
"The videos are rarely linked to the words, I'm not that clever," he continues. "I tend not to generally connect to lyrics, but, more to the mood of a song. The selection of footage would be with mood in mind.
"It's a fairly organic process with the video sourced from different places," Phil continues. "Often I will see footage on YouTube™ that I feel I could use with a tune I love.
"Other times I use royalty free archive sites and sometimes I shoot the video myself whilst travelling with the aim to perhaps use it at some stage. "The Suffering Song‚" was, I'm fairly sure, a public information film from an archive site."
For his photographs, Phil is keen on Hasselblad and Holga medium format cameras, as he's partial to "the pace it imposes on him.‚"
"[For videos] I have used Windows Movie Maker in the past. In recent years I have been working with an old version of Sony Vegas. Really anything that allows [you] to cut tracks and isolate audio from video works fine. I'm sure that there are far simpler programs out there than Sony Vegas!"
Several songs utilize footage from Phil's annual sojourns across America, and while it's anything but frenetic, the steady cam perfectly captures a slow roll set against dreamy terrain that appears empty, but is actually anything but.
"I love small-town America, I love to photograph it," Phil says. ‚"I have tried to get over at least once a year over the past 7 or 8. Usually alone — and just drive for a few weeks. I can usually do about 6,000 miles in that time."
Happy trails, Phil! Take a picture, it'll last longer.
