Moments in time

Formation flying

2010-05-17T20:42:00.002+01:00

A different camera

2010-05-03T13:17:00.003+01:00

Some 5 years ago I bought Gill a pocket 5mp metal digital camera with a decent lens from a proper camera maker. She started making images and now many thousands of images later it has been used almost to destruction. Now it has bits of tape keeping the battery and Sim card in and about a third of the screen is greyed out. It still takes pictures though and for what it did there was little to beat it so finding another one seemed a sensible option. However, E-bay only had her camera new from Hong Kong at about £200 or second hand with similar faults and eventually the later model, which had forsaken the direct viewfinder in favour of a larger rear screen, seemed more promising and I duly purchased one for £35.

At the same time my Leitz lens 12mp pocket camera vanished, and in the middle of having a new boiler and central heating system installed I broke my leg so some of the kitchen and breakfast room work is still 'on hand' and we have no ceiling there.

Our local Morrisons supermarket tend to heavily reduce their flowers at the end of the day and Gill makes use of them, so when about 30 red roses were selling for 59 pence they were an obvious buy and duly found themselves being dried. We now saw why old farmhouses and French / Swiss chalets had wooden beams showing in the ceilings as that is an ideal place to hang flowers and herbs to dry. Our breakfast room is also resplendent in unpainted new plaster (not the finish that we were intending but my leg prevented us from using the cladding we intended and since the walls had to be finished before the pipes were installed a local plasterer did the job for us. Now to my mind a natural plaster finish is a great background for images, so this is taken in our breakfast room with a £35 second hand 5mp camera...

Thank you Morrisons.

Under Construction 2 : a long time in the making

2010-03-15T13:16:00.005Z

Sometimes construction work is a long process....

The weather and waves have been working hard on this small isand (off the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland) for thousands of years, changing the cliff face, wearing away the rocks, bringing soil, and creating the gullies where water runs down.
What will the finished construction be like, when will it be complete, indeed will it ever be 'formed'?

Yet here it looks like a new creation emerging from the mists that sweep down and back into the sea.

Check out othe construction images on Carmi's blog

Under Construction... Work in Progress

2010-03-15T10:00:00.009Z

Manchester is a city undergoing extensive regeneration, sometimes worthwhile and necessary ... sometimes dubious and unnecessary... The desire to cram everyone into small spaces near their work, to go for newly created ideals that have no bearing on reality and where 'community facilities' means the chain restaurant, or to assign a totally unrealistic name in the belief the area metamorphoses into its designation. The Green Quarter is not and never will be green other than the colouring on a map designating the area: even the Northern Quarter is not 'North'.

So massive construction, compulsory purchases, tearing down whole streets, development grants, development agencies and groups with the consequential short term or failing businesses as easy access is temporarily denied while work is in progress.

Sometimes though the reconstruction is delightful, the new sympathetically blends with the old, features are retained and history does not become a casualty of progress.

Thankfully the super casino and Las Vegas style quarter for Manchester has been rejected. But why do some in power see the need to advertise for organised crime to have a major stake in the city? Oh the lessons from Las Vegas and Atlantic City have been learnt and would not happen here; neither would the by-products that came with the criminal environment? So to those who wanted this why not have a cheap alcohol city, a cheap tobacco city, a cheap drugs city, a prostitution city ~ perhaps near you ~ as it would help your local economy, improve job prospects and tourism would benefit.

In the 1960s I lived in Portsmouth, about 300 meters from the city centre with WW2 bomb damage and bomb sites all around. Compared with other cities that suffered in the war Portsmouth was left out of the party. Back to back housing was being cleared and signs of ‘Gas Out’ and ‘Elec Out’ painted on derelict houses were common place as horizontal poor housing was replaced by vertical poor housing. Communities went and wind funnels came in, Gog and Magog, the names given to the pile drivers involved in the construction work were relentless. By the 70s much of the work had been completed, hopefully by 2020 it will have been taken down and something better put in its place.

Even our house is under reconstruction as we have had walls taken down, new walls built, plastering, plumbing and central heating sorted out, electricity to be brought up to modern standards, drains installed and then the decoration…

So having ranted here are images from Manchester’s reconstruction. For more images check out Carmi’s blog for Thematic Photographic 92 – Under Construction.

Put on those dancing shoes... Kick off those dancing shoes

2009-12-27T15:39:00.006Z

Carmi in his blog is looking for images of feet so, taken out of context, here are some that immediately suggest the full subject matter...

... a wedding party... and talking of weddings this bridesmaid had been running around on the grass in bear feet and then had to get to her car along a gravel path so throwing dignity to the wind she sat in a (siblings?) push chair...

And more feet from a wedding...

Abstracted memories

2009-12-22T20:32:00.004Z

Abstract is the subject for Carmi's Thematic Photopgraphic 80 so here is an abstracted abstract photograph shown in its location ~ old steps by a canal lock

Better to travel than to arrive...

2009-11-13T11:20:00.009Z

Carmi's theme this week at Written Inc is travel ... so yes I could do the travel brochure images, or the alternative travel brochure images, but this are much more mundane, daily travel to work this month has been by train, only two stops, into Manchester and out again. Commuter travel is often a problem so prefer to arrive and leave later so trains are not so frequent. Waiting is part of train travel ... whether for the commuter train ...

...or crossing Europe

.... while here the train runs so rarely that you walk the tracks.

[Apologies if you have seen some of these previously]

Seeing Red

2009-11-05T22:00:00.007Z

Seeing red is what Carmi Red urges us to do this week.

I dislike Coca-Cola, the drink... the company... the ethos... the ethics, the commercialism, and what they have done to Christmas. In my mind Coca-Cola stands for all that is bad and I hated their drink machines being placed in schools.... so when I saw one discarded...

... and put to a better use collecting rainwater ...

Come to think of it the rainwater, even Manchester rainwater, may be more drinkable than the original bottled contents!

PS. Apologies to those who like the stuff but before you drink it again check out how good it is at cleaning dirty pavements... ... or maybe that is why people mix it with strong alcohol...

In perspective

2009-09-07T18:45:00.013+01:00

Carmi provided the subject of perspective for this week and it makes you stop and think..

Different standpoints on subjects,
....different views of the same subject,
............the traditional infinity perspective
.....................and I suppose the large format camera image that is actually correct optically, but not visually.

So here are two perspectives, first a traditional distance image with converged lines and associated loss of detail at infinity...

By Manchester Town hall lunchtime today ... when it forgot to rain and people were so surprised they stayed in their offices... Really the cobbles should be wet...

While the second ...is an Italian view of security on their border with Slovenia in the divided town of Goriza (Hemmingway's location for a 'Farewell to Arms' ) before Slovenia joined the EU in May 2004 depicted by two images. At this time right wing newspapers were scaremongering that when the former eastern block countries joined the EU millions of their country-folk would cross en-mass to the UK and take all our jobs away...However, long before their threatened destruction of England, Slovenians could cross anytime they wished, legally or through the 'holes', but most of the daily crossing was the other way ~ Italian students living in Slovenia because it was cheaper (and a better standard of living there than in England). The newspaper perspective was simply biased.

... the border fence...Taken from Italy into Slovenia in March 2004 before they joined the EU, the garden fence needs repair...

...and the plaque... on EU day +1, remembering 50 years ago

The border operated with a typical Italian arrangement, so there were many crossings, some for locals and others for tourists, some controlled some of the time and others, well, available to cross over or pass contraband as and when you wanted. The day after Slovenia joined the EU (there was over a month between the photographs) people would come and stand at the commemorative plaque in the now open Plaza for a time, contemplate and then walk away. What the image does not show is that Tito grabbed part of Goriza after the end of WW2, taking the most impressive railway station I have seen and the plaza was, as with the rest of the city was divided by an iron fence / railings.

The final images are for context...

An unofficial disused(?) crossing point March 2004

The station with the open Plaza after joining the EU

The station with the iron fence & wall that ran through the town ~ after joining the EU

Big drips

2009-08-28T20:46:00.005+01:00

Carmi's theme for thematic photographic this week is 'Big'. A very subjective subject and something that is smaller than bigger and biggest...

So here is my image of something on a grand scale along with the human figures in the third image (about halfway up and near the right hand edge) as a key to show you what it is.... and a colour image as well as the B&W one...

Summer Promenade

2009-08-28T11:48:00.013+01:00

Continuing the Summer theme...

I went to see my father in Worthing and arrived for a couple of 'almost summer' days there, although it was breezy to say the least - as demonstrated in the first image taken with a real lens, overexposed and shot out of focus. The remaining images are from some 100+ I took that afternoon through the Guinness can lens on my digital SLR. On the 'Apple' some 50 of them are now in the form of a slide show with accompanying evocative music from Patsy Klein ~ but I've not found a way to produce this on the blog.

I feel these images are so much more effective than those from our local canal (which I then decided not to post) and probably there is a book in them. Some images will perhaps be too large and are best viewed without opening them up; however they are meant to be soft and dream-like and I have over exposed them all on the computer accordingly.

For those of you who have not tried digital pinhole photography the exposure times were 1 to 10 seconds for a normal contrast image at 100 ISO. Focusing is much harder than with a view camera (the aperture is probably around f150) and you are really looking for bright elements to help frame the image in the viewfinder, then trial and error altering the framing after capture. You will need a sturdy tripod! I think a digital back on a waist level viewing Hassel / Mamiya / Rolliflex would be good for framing here. I still have to my beautiful wooden 5x4 pinhole camera with out of date film...

Experimental work: Guiness photography

2009-08-22T23:32:00.002+01:00

I've been wanting to try digital pinhole photography and having found a spare body cap for my SLR a can of Guinness was required to make the 'lens' (for the non Guinness drinkers, the part of the can you use is the black area so one can will make plenty of pinholes). The third attempt produce a reasonable lens with exposures from about 1.5 - 20 seconds at 100 ISO. I'd heard that you could use the priority settings but on the Olympus this did not work except in bright light so manual and test images were required as I forgot my exposure meter to calibrate the aperture.

The images are on my Apple at the moment but will hopefully get them across to the PC to put on the blog.

Summer - What Summner

2009-08-20T11:45:00.008+01:00

Carmi's photographic theme this week is 'Summer'. I would just like to have one this year, not just a few sunny days between May and August 20. Last year we had a proper summer and as my memories of an English Summe: sun, wind sometimes, waves, sand, rocks, camping, messing about on the river, and sitting on cliff tops.

So here is some nostalgic summer from Cornwall ~ maybe I will post something later from one of the sunny days this year...

That feels better...

And More...

Abandoned Mill

2009-08-16T17:01:00.012+01:00

Carmi's theme this week is 'Abandoned'. This is found to the North East of Manchester...

>

2009-05-19T21:08:00.002+01:00

Human Traces

Preconceptions?

2009-05-17T23:13:00.002+01:00

beauty ~ 'A' bomb victim

abandoned ~ united

solitude ~ rush hour

'non Chinese' ~ penholder

1990 Brixton ~ racial tension

How much do we take for granted, how much do we presume we know the answers?
(Yes these are out of context & no there is not an answer, just have fun thinking about them)

Naturally Human

2009-05-14T22:25:00.000+01:00

Comment

Human

2009-05-14T21:14:00.002+01:00

For Thematic Photographic 49 Carmi's subject this week is Human so check it out to see images of people and traces of their existence. You will find plenty of human images in Moments in Time so have a longer browse. Look at images from London ... images that are painful ... those we view through rose-tinted glasses, although the reality was harsh and of course documentary portraits...

Found Yellow

2009-05-09T20:44:00.004+01:00

Some golden oldies.. in the autumn sun...

River Stour in Dorset

Shooting Yellow

2009-05-09T13:42:00.006+01:00

Carmi's latest challenge is the subject 'yellow', a colour occasionally seen in nature and associated with spring, but more often used when something in the material world has to stand out as a warning.

Natural...

So today, armed with my DSLR and only an old style manual focus lens which gave an effective 100mm f1.2 and threw everything out of focus beautifully and, feeling as if I had turned the clock back over 30 years to photographic college, I went to shoot ‘yellow’. Naturally , because my life would not have been worth living had I left him behind, I was accompanied by our GR Dexter, who was happy to leave me to it most of the time but disapproved with great indignity whenever we stopped (and he was on the lead) by the side of the road.

Rubbish, signs, a solitary metal post, barriers, new gas pipes being installed, speed cameras, cycling jackets and of course those little yellow boxes that the postman used to bring containing those wonderful Kodachrome 25 images....

Throw-away Pizza...

Just don't even think of parking here....

Identity Crisis...

Information...

Purposeless...

Graffiti...

Speed control ....

If water is Blue...
...and Gas is yellow ...

...these are....

... going to cause traffic chaos ...

Recycled scaffolding...

Un-recycled wrapper...

Work in progress...

On pavement parking...

The most recognisable yellow box..

DIY....

Yellow for green travel...

Shooting a single colour concentrates the mind and I only deviated slightly, as you can see on Dexter’s blog. I suppose to be really disciplined I should have taken my pinhole camera and taken one good ‘yellow image’, or even a roll of 12 exposures. Of course with digital we could make any image ‘yellow’…

Round 2

2009-04-25T23:57:00.005+01:00

Nature in colour and 'mostly manufactured' in B&W (the fossils are genuine)

Round and round and round: Thematic Photographic 46

2009-04-25T16:30:00.004+01:00

Round ...

For the basis of this check out Carmi's blog and then join in and meet the others...

Thematic Photographic 45- Floral

2009-04-20T20:30:00.007+01:00

For the basis of this check out Carmi's blog and then join in and meet the others...

Weddings ~ a sure place for floral expertise to be on display

Glimpses from two weddings a week apart, one in brilliant sunshine, the other overcast and some rain ~ just part of the typical changeable British summer

For those with a technical bent the soft images are with an older Olympus lens on my digital camera where it becomes an effective 100mm f1.2, at which aperture and focal length you have absolutely no depth of field.

All the best images are made at the most inconvienent times

2009-04-09T19:22:00.004+01:00

Sometimes it is difficult and you have to make yourself make images.

Waiting... tranquility

It happened early on this very still winter Saturday morning about 6 years ago. I lived about half a mile from this point by foot, about 300 meters as the geese flew, the river was shrouded in mist from a clear sky the day before and it was just a case of waiting for some light to appear....

On other occasions you just wait as in this image made at the opposite end of the day from our road... but with a large format camera and large tripod etc

Thematic Photographic 44 Edible

2009-04-09T18:56:00.004+01:00

Carmi at Written Inc has selected edible as his subject for Thematic Photographic 44 where you will find many other offerings on the subject.

This one I suppose you could say is slightly unusual...

The Smithfield Meat Market, London before it moved... far too early in the morning... meat enough here to feed half of London! I was taking photographs for a friend's thesis and just saw the opportunities of this... with an obliging butcher...

The art of persuasion!

Whilst I do not serve cooked Pigs or Boars head as a centerpiece for dinner it used to be a delicacy...

But on a more serious note we often forget how our food arrived ... I'm just glad I am not a butcher

Reflective

2009-04-05T20:11:00.009+01:00

This post was made for Carmi's Thematic Photographic 43 - Reflective where we are invited to link images under his theme for the week. Check it out here .

Sunday afternoon ...the open expanse of sea sky and beach, a sunny day and light breeze, dog happy to walk for miles and my wife and I wandering along.

Don't some places generate a sense of being reflective... the beach, woods and rivers do this for me. However with the theme of reflective, and I have to admit to working with this thought for the last couple of days, I realised just how much we miss... all surfaces apart from a complete matte black are reflective to some degree, but we tend to look for the perfect reflection or mirror image and as I look back over my blog postings you will find many reflection images.

So back to the beach and today faced with bright sun sea and sand at Formby in North West England I looked for the less obvious images...sea coal...no diamonds in this piece unfortunately but as you turn it in the sunlight the shiny surface sparkles... ... and there just could be diamonds there!

The brilliant sunlight also reflected blindingly off the small amounts of water held by the ripples of sand.. ... until it seeped away

graphic images but readily identifiable

Then into the distance and photograph light rather than the image..

Thematic photographic - 'Drab' take 2

2009-03-29T19:43:00.010+01:00

These are further images for Carmi's thematic photographic weekly subject. Have a look here and have a go yourself.

On reflection many of my B&W social documentary images fall within the title Drab either because of the weather or their subject...

However one area that I have always through of as being drab is a border crossing or border area and the hinterland; they become even 'drabber' when they had been the subject of conflict. Part of my masters involved European post conflict borderlands and here are a few ~ mostly these were made on medium format 6x12 film and scanned to a large file size, so here are some smaller email size images.

Near Sangatte France

Gib - Spain

Spain -Gib

Gib

Former E German border town

Just in E Germany by Iron Curtain

Iron Curtain remains - looking in

Iron Curtain remains - looking out

Section of Iron Curtain (by towns it was often a wall)

E Germany post unification abandonment

E Germany post unification abandonment

E Germany post unification abandonment

E Germany post unification abandonment

E Germany post unification abandonment

Cyprus North of Green Line

Cypus North of Green Line

Cyprus North of Green Line

Cyprus North of Green Line

Spanish Africa border

Spanish Africa border

Africa

Spanish Africa border

Spanish Africa border

Former Yugoslavia near Italy

Organised labour and the recession

2009-03-29T14:12:00.010+01:00

Carmi has asked for comment about "Should we be getting tough with unions, and the old-style companies that can't seem to break them? Will this recession finally kill organized labour? Should it?"

As my thoughts are lengthy for a comment I thought it best to put them on my blog and link it to his. It is a big subject and much could be written on it... However...

From a UK perspective the unions are sometimes necessary. I used to live near where the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to death for meeting to organise the opposition to wage cuts for farm labourers exploited by wealthy landowners (later commuted to 7 years transportation to Australia), similarly with the Peterloo Massacre here in Manchester on 16 August 1819, many were killed by dragoons when they charged the crowd on horseback with their sabres drawn for meeting to oppose the evils that were taking place.

I joined a union when a government minister decided we would have miniscule percentage rises while he would a large % rise on his already large salary. I left when they became more concerned over political correctness and fringe rights than their main purpose.

If all businesses were fair and just – no we would not need them. Unfortunately this is not the case and many businesses have strange views of their employees wealth as a human being. Some years ago a French co-operative (80s?) operated on the basis of no one was worth more than three times the lowest paid employee based on a full working week. If something like this came in world wide and those who sought to get round it were very heavily financially penalised....

In the UK we had a bad case where the CEO of a bank which had very done badly and had to be bailed out by the government received a mega million payout on ‘early retirement’ in his early 50s. He refused to give this back despite public outcry and government requests; and whilst some years ago words would probably have been spoken and an accident would have occurred, today it is left to members of the public who in this case attacked his house and car.

I believe there is a case for a strong workforce representation at board level and it should have more influence than the shareholders currently do. Maybe we should make greed an imprisonable offence...

Thematic photographic - Drab

2009-03-25T21:24:00.005Z

Oh Dear!

Carmi suggested Drab as the subject for this weeks thematic subject and just after reading it today it rained... heavily and the wind blew... This was on my way to work.

It would equally have have been grayish buildings, clothes or weather - I just hope are not facing a week of this!

Swiss Blue

2009-03-23T18:39:00.006Z

This is a scan from a medium format fujichrome transparency.

Spring in Switzerland a few years ago when the water took on a variety of different colours from this to a milky green. My father, brother & I enjoyed a meal in a fish restaurant overlooking the lake and I nipped out to make this image when the light briefly changed.

Time, Water, hills and sky provide an ever changing set of images whether in the UK Lake District, a Med beach or in Switzerland and no one can ever say they have captured everything these places have to offer... I read someone saying that they went to a national park made famous by AA and found that he had been everywhere and taken all the images... all I can say is did AA photograph absolutely everything from every angle under every lighting condition ~ I doubt it.

Drinking Water - The other Mediterranean

2009-03-22T16:22:00.007Z

Drink ~ Take 2

How much do we take it for granted that we just simply turn on the tap and clean drinking water flows out in abundance.

North Africa. The stench was unbearable and you couldn't move out of its reach. Sheep, sewage and rubbish shared the 'river' just before it flowed into the Mediterranean where men were fishing from the shore. This was a place of waiting where people came for a chance to get into Europe.

Some new 'building' was in progress but so was a massive corrugated iron shanty town; even the old 'fort' on the beach had a temporary neighbour.

Yet even here the people are fortunate compared with some of those further down into Africa.

Back in 'Europe' (Spanish Africa) I met a man in his 20s from Zimbabwe, all his family had apparently been killed or died. Having walked up from Southern Africa and crossed the border illegally he was now waiting the six months to see whether he would be given a permit to travel.

This was not an easy place to make photographs with a very large camera, but I could go back to my European hotel where there was fresh water!

Thematic photograph 40 - Drink

2009-03-21T15:46:00.014Z

Carmi has selected the subject 'Drink' for this week's thematic photograph

The occasional drink at a pub, sometimes a glass or can of beer or Guinness at home in the evening, wine with special meals... and well Christmas ... I consider myself to be a socially responsible drinker. Yet where we live (England) there are continual problems over alcoholic drink and the inability to legislate effectively for its supply and use. Some roads and areas have become alcohol free zones while others are allowed to have it to excess. Empties are a continual problem ~ with the mentality of why recycle when there is no large ie £5 say $10 deposit per container ~ so is the sight of those who have drunk to excess. Supermarkets sell cheap alcohol, kids wait around trying to find an adult to buy it for them... So my contribution on the images of drink are mixed.

...In the UK they used to advertise Guinness, a dark Irish stout, with the slogan 'Guinness is good for you' and give it to expectant mums because of the iron it contained. Gill and I both like our Guinness so here is one (almost) ... and btw she is not!!

.
..the empties problem... by the canal

...and empty glasses following a meal...

And for something different... Gill & I were in an old French hilltop village about 60 milers from the Mediterranean. We turned a corner into a small square and came upon the village fountain ~ originally for drinking and probably the only source of water in the village ~ but what made this different was the little fairy-like girl with amazing red hair leaning over to touch the water. It was one of those timeless moments... the light was negligible, evening and we were waiting for a storm, the only camera was my wife's small digital one, so three quick images bracing the camera as well as I could and only one successful picture which is slightly blurred. [Yes I have removed a twentieth century sign and the girl was wearing sandals which is another debate earlier in my blog under the title 'Girl at the Fountain' . This image has had the colours partly reduced.]

Thematic Photograph 39 - Transparent - Take 2

2009-03-07T20:54:00.004Z

Carmi has had many posts on the subject 'transparent'... have a look at them...

Today I went into Manchester city centre on a photographic jaunt with a friend and kept the concept of 'transparent' in my mind. We have had much redevelopment here and transparent images hit you from all sides since glass has replaced brick and stone as the favoured exterior surface. Forget the polarising filter as I like the idea of having both reflections and transparency.

Here is part of one such example: Transparent Working

I can only imagine that working there you must sometimes feel like a goldfish in a an old fashioned glass goldfish bowl.

Here is the second example... Transparent Living

I know that I could not live like this in an open window for all to see. Could you?

Thematic Photograph 39 - Transparent

2009-03-06T22:16:00.008Z

Carmi is his blog extols us this week to examine the subject 'transparent'...

So with lateral thinking I soon arrived at politicians, an ex one in particular and thought about a montage with some of his errors / disasters showing through his face... but realised this would be too big a challenge...

...Then 'trans-parent' (others have done this before with a split portrait combining both sets of ancestors in one face) so back to the drawing board...

Think conventionally...no.. that's not me...but until I take something specifically for the week how about this:...

...The notices were intended to be read through the transparent plastic coverings, but urban artists have had other ideas. So now only some of the important information remains 'see through'... while the remainder surrenders to 'K'...

So who was 'K'?
Are you intrigued; ... and what about the hidden notices: ... why were they there? ...What did they say? ...What is private? ...Why university? What ground...And why have they not been made visible again?

I suppose one could say it is a transparent act of vandalism ... but a short distance away was a monstrosity of a building that the graffiti artists had significantly improved ~ nothing transparent here - but wait a minute transparent also means 'obvious' and that really is one thing you can say about the graffiti building...

Thematic photographic 38 - Winter

2009-03-01T13:15:00.004Z

Check for details of this subject under the theme 'winter' and join in if you feel able...

I thought again about this subject - winter - and the images it conjures up: greyness, rain (here at least) cold and then I thought further ~ sometimes we have those exceptional winter days when there is a clarity in the air, no wind and the sky is a wonderful blue...

...or goes pink as the sun sets...

...and finally the aftermath... the canal had been frozen over for some time and numerous objects had been thrown onto the ice just to see if they would break it...the ice began to melt and some of these items sank, adding to the debris on the bottom. But not this crutch... it remained suspended - timeless - forlorn and painful even though released from winter.

So how did it get there?

Had they, whoever they were, ceased using it and brought it along to chuck across the ice?

Had they miraculously been healed whilst hobbling along the towpath and thrown it away in a moment of joy?

Had someone mugged them and thought it amusing to skim it over the ice?

Was it one of a pair, and if so, then where is the other one?

Questions but no answers...

Color or black and white

2009-02-28T14:39:00.009Z

Yes I have looked at the Edward Weston school of fruit and vegetable photography and no I am not up to his standard but it does not preclude me trying.

I am pleased with the black and white (B&W) image ... but has the colour worked:

~ No IMHO....

Why?

Because I see EW's images in black and white and although others have used colour, exotic images of fruit should of course be black and white....

Some - no many years ago I heard a photographer explaining how he had been commissioned to take photographs of some ~ well lets call it industrial transport to save embarrassment. The brief was simple B&W images of the item plus two workmen outside each of their factories so hire a car arrange itinerary take photographs process and deliver finished prints... job done client pleased with results. ... by the way did you happen to take any in colour.... no you just asked for B&W. ... Yes our mistake we realised we should also have asked for colour as well so could you go and take them in colour...hire car ...arrange itinerary ...take photographs etc... apocryphal well I heard it first hand from the photographer along with the clients name and the industrial item.

In those days 'industrial' photographs were B&W - only... and... and this may be apocryphal.... the head of my photographic school renowned for his B&W images and assistants arriving by large van a couple of days before to set up the megawatts of lighting, arrived to take the two photographs (process one first and alter development on the second if necessary) . When he had taken them he was very timidly asked if he would mind terribly also taking the image in colour. Request rejected ~ probably along the lines that there were other people could take snapshots if they wanted some .... Yes B&W was serious stuff and colour was for your Kodak Retinette or Instamatics.

So what about this image of a Stygian pond in the woods...

The water was black, well almost but not photographically black and I tried for an impressionist type image:

Well impressionism was colour ... so would this have worked in black and white. I did not think so at the time but a recent file conversion makes me wonder...

If only they had had access to digital photography when I was a college!

A Different Perspective: The World is a Pattern

2009-02-27T10:34:00.003Z

Sometimes you just need a different perspective.

It was easier then... hire a plane and tell the pilot where to go... and as long as you kept to 1000 or was it 1500 feet over towns you were OK.

Now ?

Selective Views

2009-02-26T22:34:00.005Z

My view of a city is different to yours. This city was sad.

I have come from a different place
....................with a different background,
......................................a different viewpoint
.............................................and possibly a different agenda.

What was my agenda?

Could I have arrived with the idea of showing 'Vibrant and colourful Xxxxxx 'or 'New Xxxxxx 'instead of 'Depressing Xxxxxx with its poverty, oppression, dilapidation and fear'?

The factory, the street, and the canal were not the sum total of Xxxxxx, so is it fair only to have these representing it.?

In presenting these images am I pushing my emotions on you?

Where does nostalgia come in (these are not current images) to take over from my selective documentary?

Politicians' Buildings

2009-02-24T23:02:00.006Z

Forgive me Lord I have not been political.

In The Bard's day calling someone a politician was an insult of the type that may well have involved meeting the recipient with their companion at dawn the following morning... a possible translation being 'a dirty evil schemer'. I will leave you to consider the appropriateness for today?

Utilitarian 60s buildings - remember the stories... Just done a land deal lets put this up and when we have finished decide whether it will be an office block, flats, school or university - no takers - oh well its a car park for the moment. So lets reduce it to its plain form by contrast and produce an almost abstract image... then we can pretend it is not there.

It is your error - not mine. An example...

Sometimes IMHO buildings are where they should not be (and not where they should be ~ sounds like the words from the old Anglican service...) so please look at them differently...

A road to nowhere except up into the valleys on foot or motorbike. How close are the houses together ~ count the chimney pots. Let's close the ...... it is not profitable today, for a few hours...

Someone lived and worked here....

.............................Another way of living but I would have found it very difficult ...

...as I would this. Who would want to pay the odd half a million for one of the 18, I think, stacked summertime goldfish bowls, even though they are on the beach. Who would want the awful family with crying sunburnt children resting against your glass panels for their eight hours mandatory occupation until dinner. Winter may be better, but I would have preferred the original bungalow or house that these replaced.

The trouble is the area is/was one of the most expensive in the world and the stomping ground for undesirables, 'wannabe important people' and the retired or not so retired villains (whether caught and convicted or just should have been). ...

So ....free the villeins and give them these apartments ....and the motor yachts. Convict the criminals.... no not the youngsters with alcopops.... or those cycling on the promenade: but those: involved with serious crime who have been living on the proceeds and those whose greed is so unacceptable that society needs to do something about it.

If society does not... how long before the best beaches become privatised ...and most people are excluded?

Yes strong feelings... so how have they come out photographically speaking.

I have taken this in the style of the Brand and Hild Becher and cropped it in the camera (the sea is good for cropping images since it defines your angle of view if you have no wish to be up to your waist in water with a large format camera). The building has lost most of its location. It could be somewhere on the east coast, say near Newcastle (sorry Newcastle) and no longer in superrichmansland.

Taken or Made

2009-02-24T21:58:00.008Z

Sometimes an image is waiting for you to stumble across it, everything has arrived at exactly the right time and all you have to do is press the shutter ...well a bit more than that but you get the drift.

This was the case with images 1-3.

1 Yes I realise the river had flooded as I was getting wet. I was looking for images, but not expecting to find three cheerful ladies who look like they had been auditioning for Last of the Summer Wine, shoes discarded sitting on the bench. As for the leader posing on the back like a fourteen year old... They had no chance with a Nikon F, but then they seemed quite please to be my subject, unlike Mr KGB man earlier who looked like his meet had been interrupted, first by the river and then the photographer.

2 Early evening, arriving at the trattoria by vaporetto and there they were patiently waiting for me. A 6x12 is not a fast camera to operate, centre filter on, lens hood, use hand held meter and transfer to camera, judge and set distance, cock shutter, take image. They waited patiently. Oblivious. Thank you, especially for arranging yourselves as you did.

3 Perhaps it was the only place he could get a signal.... Sometimes you are drawn to a place or view and another element creeps in and translates it into something out of the ordinary. Yes it does look as if it was commissioned for an advert for 'Our network has 99.99% coverage of the UK', but it also speaks in more worthwhile ways ...Peace... solitude... harmony... nature beauty...

On other occasions you work hard and bring the components together ~ images 4 & 5

4 Preconceived. Collect friend who will model for college assignment on 'boots'... 90 miles to Dover... day crossing on hovercraft to France... train journeys... find suitable train to suggest that these boots are what you wear when travelling across Europe, images made have meal back to Dover... 90 miles... return friend.

5 Working with identified subject ...College project...Travel to Wales and sleep in car. Find colliery railway leading to pit that is being dismantled... hitch ride on train... meet railway workers... persuade one formally pose for me ... move to appropriate place... take image (and many others at location) ... how did we get back to the car???

Crossing Borders

2009-02-24T21:32:00.002Z

WW2 finished later round here... it was really nowhere important... just a few houses

A hire car... park up and make some images... the house(s) are a bit dilapidated and worthy of more attention... but it was the (and here I show my botanical ignorance) blossom on the tree that caught my attention... almost too perfect...weighed down and hanging over the road...

So whoever planted it there or was it just a wind blown seed?

We all have mopeds in our rooms don't we? Yes I can remember taking a scooter engine to bits in our hall but there is just something sombre about this one. Probably beyond repair, as is the house.

And why is there only one piece of wallpaper left? Who is going to pull that inviting piece?

A motorbike stands for freedom ~ a long way down and Easy Rider ~ it should not end its days framed as if in a picture by the window.

Rose Tinted Nostalgia

2009-02-23T19:11:00.005Z

I think we can safely say that these are now a documentary record of past places or practices.
What history would you understand if these were the only images left from the 1970s?

1 - 3 are the Thames at London, 4 the railway going up to the then disused colliery at Maesteg and 5 near Leeds

Do you see progress or just a difference?
So who will archive all the images taken today on mobile phones and P&S digital cameras?
Is there any point?
Who will search through them in fifty years time?
How many thousand negatives do you have?
What will happen to the history they contain?

Dividing Lines 1

2009-02-23T18:43:00.005Z

About two miles apart.

About two thousand years ago... the Romans forded it.

About a thousand years ago ... a dividing line separating two ecclesiastical areas as towns had not been built.

Today ... a place of leisure and tranquility... where bridges abound and only cows have to ford on their way to milking

I could never be a fisherman... but I could watch the river... and be in its presence...

A place to return to and no longer a dividing line.

When images are painful - 2

2009-02-22T22:01:00.005Z

Over 25 years...

It was more than 25 years after I took these images that I printed any of them. Yes I had contact sheets and knew the images were good, but they were painful because the people in them had been discarded.

They were the unwanted.

I still find it hard to go through them without emotion.

I prepared a portfolio of the images for an interview for my MA a few years ago and this image made my interviewers stop for some time before saying that it was a great portrait. When on the course I showed a colour version the same thing happened. Why him? There were more gut-wrenching pictures, more emotive ones: this was just a portrait of someone sitting outside the home on a spring day.

When images are painful - 1

2009-02-22T15:25:00.014Z

Sometimes you have to make painful images, sometimes images become painful through time. Alfredo Jarr has talked about his images of Rwanda being left for a couple of years before exhibiting them in boxes, while Tom Stoddart refers to taking images when it hurts because that is what you are there for and what you can do. Sebastio Salgado ceased being an economist and turned to photography as a means of telling the world about what was happening outside of BBC24 and CNN. Some people will not photograph the unlovely; others find an element of beauty to capture from within it. Simon Norfolk’s images of sites of genocide contained the most beautiful images as he looked back through history, whilst his work in Afghanistan presents at one level an amazing collection of landscapes to die for until at the second level you realise that is just what happened. With his image of a balloon seller you require the key that balloons were not allowed under the Taliban. So do these painful images speak and what do they say: if they don’t speak how do you obtain the key to unravel them?

Consider these two images:

Do you require the key?

It is not a shed and a billiard table.

This was 1975 in North East Austria near the Czechoslovak border. We had entered the place in late afternoon and heard the main doors close whilst we were there. Everything appeared new, freshly painted just ready for occupants. We thought we heard a wolf in the forest and we were told there were still no birds around.

Picture 1 is of a ‘guest’ room, Picture 2 is of a dissection table.

Do you need more?

This was one of Hitler’s ‘medical experiment’ concentration camps: twins, dwarfs, and any other group that became undesirable were suitable subjects for research both whilst alive and shortly afterwards:

Mauthsausen.

It was kept as a multinational memorial to those who died there and we saw some communist bloc officials who came over regularly to attend their memorial on the site. A couple of yeas ago I saw a a documentary about a classical concert given in the camp quarry, a place where many died 'working'. As a fit 20 something it was not much fun climbing down and back, but they had to do it with heavy rocks on their back... in all weathers... for long days... with little food... and in atrocious living conditions.

I could show you images of the towers, the ovens, some of the prisoners' items or someone I met in a home where staff told me he had survived being one of their brain experiments of the "how much can we remove" variety ... and who reacted violently to hearing the word "Mauthausen".

I believe these speak more.

Here shortly will be two other photographs from Mauthausen. They do not require any key to speak.

We were very quiet when we left.

Girl at the fountain

2009-02-20T14:14:00.004Z

Should I have removed her sandals?

Well since IMHO it was not documentary or reportage but art I could have done.

In the South of France less than four years ago, a storm was brewing and the light had fallen as we turned a corner in this medieval hilltop village and went back in time over a hundred years. and saw this ~ well almost this...

The only camera we had was a small digital without manual settings, so no flash and bracing myself as best as I could I made three quick images. This was the best but there is still some movement in it. Some photoshop work (including moving a small twentieth century notice on the fountain).

Should I have removed the girls' sandals? I decided not to at the time and .... Sepia, B&W, colour and part colour images followed.

Two weeks ago someone saw some versions of this image and asked if they could have a copy to produce an image in copper.

Last week his wife gave us the copper image and he had removed her sandals!

And now for something completely different

2009-02-20T11:17:00.006Z

So how do you see colour?

Is it natural, subdued, garish, subtle, vivid, a single hue, complimentary or contrasting? Essential or unnecessary? These are my scans from transparencies and are reasonably faithful to the original image. They are my colours from the shoots (from 1970s to 2000s), where would yours have been?

I learnt about colour (and movement) from looking at images by Ernst Hass in the days when paint was normally magnolia unless you had 60s/70s colours of brown, green and orange. EH seemed to find colour where it did not exist and produce subtle images from scenes that I knew would have been vivid. And for any with intellectual tendancies (why are you reading this blog then?) check out his philosophy as well... And remember the Mateus Rose images... and attempts to replicate them.

The red image was almost certainly Kodachrome 2, the Fuji may have been Velvia or 100, the others I am not sure, probably Ektachrome or Agfa 120 for the ballet dancer and sunset with Agfa 35 mm for the building. The films certainly had different characteristics but colour just does not happen any more than a casserole prepares and cooks itself. I started real photography as colour was developing although black and white remained my favoured mode for most subjects.

It is easy now with colour temperature settings in camera and raw editing or Photoshop, but what I see and my resulting photograph are different from yours: neither is 'right' and neither is 'wrong'. I made myself take the Fuji image ~ a set up picture with the intention of producing this result and deliberately took the building roof because the colours were so vivid / garish, but the others were more in keeping with my way of seeing.

Photographers, equipment and technical stuff

2009-02-20T09:24:00.008Z

Some photographers will be able to tell you everything technically about any photograph they have taken; however I have never been like that and whilst I may remember peculiar instances and general trends that is about it and whilst digital will tell all, I rarely look at those details after the event. Whilst there may be the odd comment about equipment after today's piece this blog is about mainly about photography and generating interest in the '4Ws' (why when where what) rather than the 'H' (how). I will, subject to my technical ability include some links to other photographers.

Perhaps it is getting older and possibly a little bit wiser that provides this different perspective. When asked by friends and family 'what camera should I buy? or I am wondering about buying a *****xs mk 24 I respond by asking questions around:

What sort of photography do they they want to do?
Does that camera feel comfortable in their hands?
Does the camera / outfit feel comfortable to carry?

It is not me getting touchy / feely, just put it down to experience and learning a lesson the hard way. I had had a number of medium format SLRs, relatively heavy by modern digital SLR standards but often used on a tripod with a waist level finder. Having had 6x6 Hasselblads with the 110 f2 medium portrait lens when I went digital I bought their H1 and a digital back. The trouble was that I had about two years of right shoulder / elbow trouble and the H1 was designed to be held in your right hand at eye level. By the time the fabulous 110 zoom lens was attached the kilos were rising exponentially and there were many days when I was simply unable lift the camera anywhere near eye level, so now old Hasselblads with waist level viewing and a digital back seem so sensible.

I also recall picking up a Contax RTS when they came out. Nikons were angular rough bricks covered in sandpaper in comparison and the Contax was so smooth nearly I dropped it. Once you were used to this it felt great, but you always felt it should have been in a showcase at a design exhibition rather than being one of two cameras slung round the neck on an assignment.

So Nikon, Canon, Leica, Contax, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta ( the Leica R series cameras were based on them) and now Sigma, Panasonic and Sony all produce great cameras and lenses, so do those who make medium and large format cameras and while I have personal preferences they are mine for my photography and body, not yours for your images and your body. And while you can now do most things with a digital SLR what it does not do is slow you right down, make you methodical and give you that upside down image that works with the artistic side of your brain ~ you really need large format for that.

So here are some simple large format images, scanned from the split toned prints:

Cell 2

Secure ensuite accommodation available

Here I can tell you that the lighting was mixed fluorescent and daylight, a 210 mm lens and camera movements were used, the aperture was probably around f22 and the exposure was long. I also lent against the alarm strip setting it off, but that was not a requirement, just a problem you may encounter in small spaces!

So ... How would you photograph a prison cell?

Do you think less is more in this instance?

How different would it be if it was captioned as:

'Condemned cell'?

'Dr Crippin was here' ?

Yes a picture paints a thousand words, but adding a word or two can paint a thousand different pictures in our minds. Perhaps that is why some photographers provide little information and deliberately leave the viewer to read the image. So now having been told that it was neither a condemned cell nor one inhabited by Dr Crippin where is your mind and your viewing of the images? Your mind probably raced away with both those thoughts. Supposing I had captioned it:

'This is not the condemned cell'

or

'Dr Crippin was never here';

what images and thoughts would have gone through your mind? Would you have preferred to see the prisoner details filled in on the board adjacent to the door or know more about the piece that these images came from?

Streets of London

2009-02-19T23:05:00.000Z

London ~ you love it or hate it ... ... or want to laugh or cry at what is happening. Having lived there for a couple of years I suppose that I never saw it with a tourist's eye

Who is behind the bars? The viewer who is looking out on the tourists or the tourists who are being watced by the viewer?

Bresson's 'decisive moment' and the contradiction between the advert for affluence and the man with his plastic raincoat....

...While whenever you've got the odd moment (for Bourneville chocolate), the no waiting, the bus stop and the 'queue' are in conflict.

Going...

You could wander around London taking photographs wherever you wanted of whoever you wanted with a camera held up to the eye or looking down into the waist level viewer.

Waiting...

Wanting

South East London

2009-02-19T22:26:00.000Z

1973 with an old Nikon F

and an older Bronica

in a children's adventure playground...

You would no longer be able take photograhs in the same way and this type of childrens' playground falls short of today's legislation.

Lausanne - Geneva - Lausanne

2009-02-19T22:15:00.001Z

Rotating an old twin lens reflex camera on time exposure whilst travelling to and from Geneva airport in January 1973, and a quick revisit in photoshop: photography or art?

We all live in little boxes

2009-02-19T19:43:00.000Z

This was the final image from a roll of film ~ probably in 1973 or early 1974.

The youg boy had been showing off in the concerete playground constructed from building materials as a sop to being child friendly. He eventually sat down on the edge of the facility, looking at the wall of houses towering like prison cells for some twenty floors above him.

Was this to be his future... living in his little box and only allowed out to the concrete jungle for play or when older to work.

Perhaps in the 70s this was acceptable in the same city where the ousted **** MP swore at and berated the electorate before the the winning ****** MP was allowed to speak.

I know because I heard his rant through the PA system...

My first published photograph...

2009-02-19T19:26:00.000Z

With an Ilford sportsman camera and local chemist's processing. My parents kept on telling me to take the picture 'now', but I resisted, waiting for the perfect moment when the image was balanced. I won 7 shillings and sixpence (37p but the equivilent of several weeks pocket money as a 10 year old in the early 60s) for the Church of England newspaper's holiday picture of the week.

I dreamt I swam through the door...

2009-02-19T14:09:00.000Z

Experimenting with old polaroid film and image transfer, this one that did not work as intended produced a surreal and timeless image.

Reflections on minus 2...

2009-02-19T13:00:00.000Z

I really should have used a tripod with a proper camera, not a digital P&S, cropped the image in camera to remove the bottom rh corner of the quay, and added a circular polarising filter: yes it is so easy to be self critical with the benefit of hindsight, yet reality is that the dog would not have had his walk had I been 'professional' and the light would have changed by the time a real camera was set up. Reality is that there would have been no image without the P&S which slips into my dog hacking jacket and despite limitations will produce reasonable results under reasonable conditions and print to A3+.