New Photography site

A Photography friend of mine has created his own web site promote and sell his photographs. Check it out here.

The Big City

Saw a fantastic production of "All's Well That Ends Well" last night at the National Theatre. I woke up this morning contemplating my time so far in London and I'm starting to come to the realisation that I really am a Big City boy at heart. Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and now the biggest of all: London. This is not particularly good news at all.

I love my time at home in Bristol but Bristol seems such a 'sleepy' town compared to the rest. I've always had this thought at the back of my mind but I feel like I've been in denial because I'd finally chosen to live and settle in a place and put down some roots with the purchase of my first house. I've also got some good friends in that part of the country and one in particular. I know how valuable it is to have good friends and how easy it is to lose touch with people when moving around. Now I feel unsettled again and I don't know what to do.

If I followed my heart, I'd move myself and anyone who wanted to join me back to Scotland as that is the place I most felt at home in. I feel a draw to Scotland that I can't explain. My head tells me that the South of England is the place I should be for the rest of my working life. I have a mortgage that won't be paid off until I'm 60 years old with my current repayment plan.

That could mean another 15 years in Big Cities, and as I have said, I am a Big City kind of person just like my Dad. He always wanted to move back into the centre of Liverpool but hasn't done so, so far.

Great comedy site

Just been introduced to this new comedy site featuring this clip amongst many others.

Obama Sexyback - watch more funny videos

Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America

I read this article this morning in the Guardian about a photograph of a young soldier fatally wounded in Afghanistan. It made me think about the role that Photographers have in reporting military conflicts and how important it is for the rest of us to see these images. At the same time it must be incredibly difficult for the family of this poor man. I can't imagine what they are going through.

The photographs of the late Philip Jones Griffiths (one of my heros), that great Welsh Photographer who reported on Vietnam, were credited by many experts as having a major influence on the American people and the movement to end the war. This illustrates how important it is for these images to be shown however difficult it is for the poor people directly impacted by these photographs.

The South West Coast Path

The South West Coast Path starts in Minehead in Somerset. It follows over 600 wonderful miles of the English coast line across 4 counties: Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. You can walk the whole way if you have the time. Some people chunk it up and spend years of their holiday life 'bagging' parts of the path.

At the beginning of the path in Minehead, there's a fabulous sculpture designed by Sarah Ward depicting a pair of hands holding a map.

12 happiness-enhancing activities

These 12 activities were published in the Guardian this weekend. I thought I would jot these down for us all to remember and work towards together.
1. Express gratitude.
2. Cultivate optimism: visualise a future in which everything has turned out the way you want it, then write it down.
3. Avoid obsessing over things or paying too much attention to what others are doing.
4. Practise acts of kindness - more than you're used to.
5. Make time for friends; be supportive and loyal.
6. Develop coping strategies: write down your feelings when you're feeling upset and try to see that traumatic events often make us stronger.
7. Learn to forgive.
8. Immerse yourself in activities and be open to new ones.
9. Savour life's joys - linger over a pastry rather than mindlessly consuming it.
10. Work towards meaningful goals.
11. Practise religion and spirituality.
12. Exercise.

All words courtesy of Sonja Lyubomirsky (Professor of Pyschology, University of California)

Walk on the Wild Side by the BBC

This is so bleeding funny, it had me crying with laughter. Can't wait till I next speak to my Brother. Me and my Dad have a plan to bombard him with this when we speak to him on return from his holiday. Alan! Al! Al! Alan!

Not the Balloon festival

There's been quite a lot of festivals in Bristol over the summer as usual. This photograph was taken at the Harbour festival which happened the weekend before the internationally acclaimed Balloon festival. Although you could be mistaken for thinking otherwise.

Once Upon a Time in the West

I managed to get to see Once Upon a Time in the West last night at the National Film Theatre. If I’m not mistaken, this film was Sergio Leone’s first western made outside Europe. Although he had used American Actors in his Spaghetti westerns in Spain and Italy, he had never filmed in the United States before OUTW. His use of Charles Bronson and Jason Robards in familiar roles was reasonably safe casting but Henry Fonda as the evil Frank smacks as very risky.

Fonda, known mainly for more wholesome roles, plays directly against type and looks like he relishes the role completely. His tall, slim frame is mainly clad in black throughout the film and he chews tobacco and spits in the true spirit of the evil, rough, tough, gunfighter that he represents; his brilliant, tortured blue eyes caught magnificently in the extreme close up shots that Leone made one of his trademarks. It really is a terrific performance by one of Hollywood’s greatest Actors.

The film itself is a simmering, epic story that takes its time to deliver a typical good versus evil yarn in the true sense of the Western genre. It’s triumphant and sprawling and self indulgent and grandiose and takes such a long time to get going that at one point I almost gave up on it. I’m glad I held on.

Loosely speaking, it’s a tale of a man’s ambition to join the Atlantic with the Pacific by building a railway line from one seaboard to the other. However, the main themes in the film are really about the smaller tales of the men and women that get in the way of this ambition.

Charles Bronson plays Harmonica, Jason Robards plays Cheyenne and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale plays Jill McBain – the wife of the tragic Irishman who invites her to live on his humble farm with its rich secret. The musical score from Ennio Morricone is incredible and the first time we hear the piece that introduces Claudia to the audience must go down as one of the most beautiful film accompaniments of all time to one of the most gorgeous looking Actresses; it really made the hairs on my neck stand up.

The best line in the film has to be the one by Jason Robards. Upon receiving a first cup of coffee in a while from Jill McBain, he says, in his usual sardonic style, “You remind me of my Mother. She was the best whore in town and made my Father, in his hour or whatever amount of time he had with her, the luckiest man alive”. Brilliant stuff.

Getting Around London

In a city with such a good transport system (some might disagree), it doesn't make sense to the people I work with that I choose walking as my preferred mode of transport rather than the myriad of choices that London offers.

I have touched lucky for the time being in the place I'm living in Lambeth near the Oval Cricket ground. The Oval Kennington is just across Vauxhall Bridge south of the river Thames. The walk is approx 3 miles and takes 45 minutes from the flat to the office which is near Victoria railway station. The equivalent journey on the tube would take me probably at least 30 minutes including the walk to and from the tube stations and waiting for trains. It's a no brainer for me and from next week I'll have my Leica with me to take some photographs along the journey, which is another reason to keep walking.

However, as I found out last night, I shouldn't rely on walking too much especially after I've had a couple of beers after work and I'm on a mission to the BFI Southbank to see Sergio Leone's epic western - Once Upon a Time in the West. There aren't many toilets on the way that I'd choose to use and the walk from Victoria to the BFI was as much an epic as Mr Leone's film.

Suffice to say, three quarters of the way into the expedition I decided I'd missed too much of the first part of the film and I'd write off the £9 I'd spent on my pre-paid ticket; put it down to experience I told myself. Now I have the dilemma of whether to pay another £9 and therefore £18 in total to see a film I've seen many times and even own on DVD.

I think the chance to see such a great movie at the home of the British Film Institute (somewhere I haven't been before) is enough to inspire me to try again.

Sam Rockwell plays ‘Beaten Up’ really well again in Zowie Bowie’s film directing debut

I first saw Sam Rockwell in a film called ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’ – a film my friend Matt introduced me to. It was a film directed by George Clooney about Chuck Barris(played by Rockwell), an average comic who famously invented the Gong Show and was suspected of working for the CIA. Sam Rockwell was superb as Barris, a man whose accelerated fame and predictable fall from grace was part comic and part tragic. Sam Rockwell’s ability to play Barris as a schizophrenic, womanising misfit called on all of Sam’s deep and comic acting abilities. I wouldn’t have said he had a dangerous mind but he did give us an insight into how Rockwell’s, if not Barris’ mind, works.

Equally, playing another Sam, this time in Moon (Rockwell’s latest role), we get another insight into what’s going on in his head. He gets to play a contractor on a lonely moon base whose coming to the end of his solitary 3 year contract. Sam has a tall order in getting over to the audience the feelings of a man who has been away from his young family for three years without anybody to communicate with other than an unsophisticated robot called Gerty. But it says something of the charisma of the man that he carries it off without losing the audience’s attention.

Human interaction does enter into the plot further on in the film and without giving too much away, it’s a clever method for showing several sides of the man’s talent without increasing the acting budget if you get my meaning. It’s also a good vehicle for showing how well Sam Rockwell plays a beaten up, knocked about, downtrodden, world weary person. He did it in Confessions and he does it equally well in here especially in the shot of him puking up blood and teeth into the stainless steel bowl of one of the moon bases’ lavatories.

A special mention must be given to the robot Gerty who made me laugh a couple of times. Gerty is voiced by Kevin Spacey in a typically dry, cynical style. Apart from the tone in Gerty’s voice, the only way we are made aware of how Gerty is feeling is by the animated smiley face on his shoulder which represents his mood. Being a subservient robot to the only human on the station, he has a very limited range of emotions which are mainly negative. These are represented by a smile (sometimes with teeth), an animated look of worry which uses a frown and diagonal mouth to good effect and a look of puzzlement which is a real rabbit in the headlights look. It’s a neat little trick and works to good effect.

Sam Rockwell also had a part in the recent Jesse James film with Brad Pitt and, although it was only a small part, he stood out in an average film with a very strong supporting cast.

Apart from the excellent performance by Sam Rockwell, Moon is a very good film directed by David Bowie’s son. Go see it.

More Words of 'Wisdom' from David Beckham

I like David Beckham as a Footballer but as a spokesman he is a complete twat. Kids out there should be inspired by his ability with a football but I hope they don’t trust his wisdom. I make a point of not listening to his interviews because I don’t believe his words. However, I couldn't resist reading an interview in today’s Times in which he advises John Terry to stay put and resist the lure of money. Also, I couldn't resist a bit of a rant at Mr Beckham’s expense.

John Terry is the Chelsea Footballer and England captain who is supposedly considering a move from his Champions League qualifying club. Manchester City, a mid table Premiership team who won’t be playing European football this season, but have big aspirations backed up by pots of money from their Arabian owners and high profile board members – the famous Gallagher brothers, has offered to buy John and increase his weekly wages from £125,000 to £200,000.

David Beckham is reported in the Times as offering this advice to John Terry: “If you’ve got passion to play for the club you’re at and if you’re at the club you have always wanted to be at (sic), then that goes beyond any money”. What utter shite Mr Beckham. Are you expecting us to fall for that one? Who are you trying to kid?

I remember a certain Mr Beckham offering advice to another Footballer whose ability with a ball I admire, but whose other human attributes are extremely questionable. Wayne Rooney was a player who lived and dreamed Everton (my club), and famously exposed his undershirt after scoring a goal that read “Once a Blue, always a Blue”. Wayne was a young passionate kid off the rough streets of Croxteth who had dreamed of playing for his team – Everton, for all of his short life. He didn’t want to be anywhere else other than Everton and when he played, he played with enthusiasm and zest which often boiled over into over-exuberance and, on lots of occasions, very bad behaviour. For all his faults, you could never question his commitment and passion for doing the thing he loved and playing for his devoted club. I really admired that level of passion. Money, fame and fortune would surely not get in the way of the man’s passion for his club which would help to elevate our once great club to dizzy heights yet again.

Then there was talk of disharmony between Wayne and our great boss – David Moyes. Wayne decided he wanted to go and cited a breakdown in his relationship with the boss as the reason for him wanting to leave. And then along came Mr Beckham with his famous advice, which I will paraphrase: , “Yo Wayne, if you want to play at the top level geezer, you gotta aim higher than Everton init?”. What about this talk of passion for playing for the club you always wanted to ‘be at’ Mr Beckham?

Manchester United (Beckham’s ex club) came knocking and Wayne was sold for close to £30 Million. At the time I was disappointed that Wayne left but I would never hold it against anyone who wanted to better themselves and Everton is much bigger than one man as has been proven since Rooney left.

The whole point of this rant is to say, John Terry don’t take any advice from David Beckham because his belief system is confused and motivated by how he feels on one particular day at one particular stage in his career. Also, the possibility of Terry moving to Manchester United’s city rivals wouldn’t have anything to do with your advice of the day would it Mr Beckham.

Bill Brandt

A new exhibition of Bill Brandt’s photographs is on display at the Chris Beetles gallery in SW1. I went along during my lunch break and endured the masses of people around Piccadilly circus for the first time. It really was worth a look though. I’ve seen some of Bill Brandt’s work before on the web and in books but the pictures are truly memorable in the flesh. This is partly down to the exceptional job that has been made by John Wells who is the Master Printmaker behind the reproductions on display here.

Bill Brandt, German by birth, went through life shunning his roots and pretending to be English. He certainly captured facets of Englishness that suggests that he was truly assimilated into our culture. I love his abstract nudes, mostly set on Sussex beaches, but his wonderful pictures in minimalist London flats are fantastic too. The picture of the bleached female legs extending towards the open French windows is a memorable image. I also love his bold graphic style which is in evidence in his pictures of the Bermondsey copper and Battersea bridge. Bill was a real advocate of gritty, high contrast images, all black blacks and white whites. This is a style that I also like.

All images in the exhibition are silver gelatin prints with prices from £2300 to £6900 per print. They are all limited editions of 35 per print. So, there is good business to be made in printing. Not sure whether dead Bill will see any of it though. It’s great to see prints using traditional methods being hung in galleries in this digital age. Bill Brandt’s negatives have been around since the 30s and are still producing excellent prints. The detail in these prints at such a large scale is excellent and really inspires me to do more printing in the darkroom. If only I had the time.

Street Art

Bristol's reputation as a centre of Graffiti and Street Art is well known. I'm a bit reluctant to photographic it as I feel the art is with the Painter in painting the subject not in it's reproduction in a photograph. What do you think?

Hey Ritchie, who's your pal?

I saw this picture on the Guardian website today and it made me smile and chuckle. Firstly it's a great iconic photograph of 2 of the greatest tennis adversaries of all time. In the picture Borg is the ultimate figure of calm, Scandinavian cool. He looks like a great Norseman wearing Fila. By contrast, McEnroe looks like some spotty New York toe rag who's just left a frat party. Secondly, the game between these 2 great players was one of the best games of tennis I have ever seen. I liked Borg and I thought McEnroe was a twat. I now recognise that McEnroe was an incredible player but he was still a bit of a twat.

My chuckle came from Borg's great look and uncanny resemblance to Ritchie Tenenbaum, AKA Luke Wilson in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums film.

Suspension Bridge in Snow

Concentrating on Cyanotypes

We've been concentrating on cyanotypes of late. Set up a darkroom in the bathroom and we were off. Just a couple of results.

BBC - BBC Sport: Robbo Robson: Big business as usual

BBC - BBC Sport: Robbo Robson: Big business as usual

Couldn't have put it better myself. Spot on Robbo!

It's a Hard Pill to Swallow

It's difficult for me to look at the Chelsea millionaire players in this picture and not feel bitter about the result yesterday. I'm sure every neutral football fan in the country was rooting for my relatively poor team to show them up for being such spoilt, rich, cheating twats. Sorry Mum, football still brings the worst out in me.

I was hoping Phil Neville would knock seven buckets of shit out of Didier Drogba for being the worst culprit but he's too much of a nice guy although he did get stuck in and played for the shirt. Where is Peter Reid when you need him?

Alas it wasn't our day and our history of not beating Chelsea in 9 years continues. At least we did achieve one record on the day and that was the quickest goal ever to be scored in an FA Cup final. It was scored by Louis Saha in 25 seconds and what a goal it was too.

I couldn't bear watching Chelsea celebrate with the cup and stuck the Gears of War game in my Xbox and annihilated a whole squad of John Terry and Michael Ballack look-a-like aliens with my chainsaw rifle and frag grenades; the only thing more satisfying would have been if they were all wearing Chelsea shirts.

De du doh don't de doh!

It was 1979. I was 14 years old. I was working at the local Royal British Legion club on a dump of a council estate called Cantril Farm in Liverpool collecting empty glasses. I was, what's known as, a Pot Lad. In the club I spent a lot of time listening to cabaret bands and watching audience members crooning to Patsy Kline numbers and Mack the Knife at every opportunity they had to get on stage. It was fun in a kind of innocent way and I made friends with lots of nice people.

I was just starting to get into music for the first time and one of the lads I was working with at the club was a drummer called Steve from another nearby council estate called Kirkby. Steve was a year or two older than me.

It was 1979. My sister Lesley had just had a house party to celebrate her 13th birthday, Elvis Costello had been on repeat the whole night singing Oliver's Army on an old Decca record player and one of Lesley's invited friends was thrown out of the house by our Mum for French kissing on the sofa in front of everyone. Things were heating up.

It was the end of the 70s, Punk was dead, thankfully, and my drummer friend Steve had learned some new drum patterns from this new band that he'd just started getting into. I bought a pair of drumsticks and copied Steve trying to play drums like his new hero Stewart Copeland. The band were The Police. They were the first band I really got into and it was all because of Steve who introduced me to them.

I loved the Police, they had an attitude that appealed to me, unlike Punk. Ironically I'm more understanding of Punk and it's meaning now that I'm an adult than when I was a kid and in a position to join in its revolution. The Police had a great sound. Their music was a mixture of rock and reggae, branded White Reggae. Sting sang with an Afro Caribbean vocal edge and he was very cool. He was also from the North of England which didn't make much difference to me then but seems to now that I'm older.

It's now 2009, 30 years after I first heard The Police. I'm 44 now and sitting in an air conditioned office a couple of hundred miles away from the old council estate. I've recently replaced my old vinyl copies of the early Police albums. Message In a Bottle, The Bed's too Big Without You and So Lonely have just been playing on my iPod and I'm transported back in time. The smell of stale beer is lodged in my nostrils and I'm playing drums on upside-down drip trays with Stewart Copeland again while Patsy Kline sings I'm Hurt for the umpteenth time this week. Someone strangle that woman!

De du du du, de dah dah dah, that's all I want to say to you.

The Mighty Unicorn

He just floated there, helpless, and waited for the huge, cold shadow that loomed ahead to engulf him. That great, white crested form reared up in slow motion like another mighty stamping unicorn, thrusting its chest forward until its mass would crash down on the beaten body in its path.

He didn't know how many more of these monsters he could endure. He was exhausted from scrambling to the surface after each wave dumped six feet of cold, Atlantic water on top of his head.

It was some minutes now since he got into this desperate situation, flung from the insignificant survival aid that was his windsurf board and rig. He'd never thought of his kit in this way before but now it hit him; the equipment that he had used regularly for the past however many years to have so much fun in the blue waves of South West England was, in fact, his only ticket out of this sorry situation. And he'd lost it, carried away by the mighty Unicorn - Hector.

He'd named the wave that had carried his board away after a most powerful Greek God. It had seemed the right thing to do at the time, but looking back now, it seemed absurd.

Hector toyed with him at first allowing the board and sail to loll about in the lee of his mighty mane of white hair, then as the man stretched to grab the tail of the board, Hector would tug the plastic composite form from his grasp and send it scurrying forward out of reach.

That was about 10 waves ago and now he hadn't seen his life raft for quite some time, gone who knows where, but he didn't care anymore. His thoughts had moved from survival to his wife, waiting in a delivery ward to deliver their first child, a child he now realised he'd never see.

"Why am I here and she there, both of us on our own with separate battles to overcome", he thought, just as number 11 smashed down and shocked his senses yet again.

This time, the rise to the surface was even further than before. He wasn't going to make it this time. Through the deep, dark water ahead, he saw his wife cradling their newborn child in her arms and he saw the Unicorn rearing its beautiful head in defiance, commanding the man's respect. The man dropped his head and made a vow to the great, Greek God - If I survive this torment, my respect for you will be symbolised by the name of my first son.

A sudden welcome hand grabbed the man's arm and he was dragged away by a kited angel.

Studio opportunity

To quote the immortal lyrics from Phil Collins...... Suh Suh Studio

Actually his song was called Sussudio or something daft like that but anyway I'm really excited about a potential studio place that may come available in quite a high profile Arts complex in Bristol.

A friend of a friend is an Artist and Silkscreen Printer and she is looking for someone to share the expense of her studio. My friend and I thought it would be a good idea to join her in a sort of Artists Cooperative. My friend is interested in fabrics and clothes design and I'm interested in photography, cyanotyping and alternative photographic printing methods.

If we could work out a process for printing onto fabric and other absorbent materials, we may have an opportunity to combine both into a marketable product.

Avoiding Pomposity

I recently became conscious that as I get more confident in writing, I may have the tendency to become verbose and pompous. I hate both of these traits. However, I like the sound of my own voice and I may tend to show off a little in my writing. A good Writer will resist the temptation to show off and put down on paper more than is necessary in getting across his/her thoughts. This is something I need to be conscious of.

On that subject, I came across the following example that illustrates that verbosity and pomposity are not welcome and get in the way of good communication.

The Hydrochloric Acid Letters
The following letters were exchanged between a New York City plumber and the Bureau of Standards in Washington:

The plumber wrote the Bureau stating that he has found hydrochloric acid good for cleaning out clogged drains.

The Bureau wrote him: "The efficacy of hydochloric acid is indisputable, but the corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic permanence."

The plumber replied he was glad the Bureau agreed.

The Bureau tried again, writing: "We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residue with hydrochloric acid and suggest that you use an alternative procedure."

The plumber again said he was pleased the Bureau agreed with him.

Finally the Bureau, realizing that they had not written in a language that was understandable, wrote to the plumber. "Don't use hydrochloric acid. It eats hell out of the pipes."

A Calling......

In 2001 I visited British Columbia for a 2 month winter adventure. I spent most of my time learning to snowboard in the winter playgrounds of Whistler and Blackcomb with my friends Jimi and Nicole. However, during my time there I looked up a distant relative who lives a modest lifestyle with his Welsh partner near the X Files studios in the hills of North Vancouver.

Bill is an ex Royal Marine who settled in Canada when he finished in the armed services. When I met him, he had just turned 70. I couldn't get over how fit he was. He was a great outdoors type; probably a hangover from his time as a Marine. He would go on these huge treks into the wilderness which was basically right outside the main door of his house.

Bill had a retreat on one of the Queen Charlotte islands off the coast between the mainland and Vancouver Island and took the ferry over to the island from Horseshoe Bay or one of the few ferry ports along that part of the coast. In the summer, Bill and his partner would load up the camper van and head south down the Pacific coast through Washington State, Oregon and California to Mexico. It was a relatively simple existence and one that I seem to envy more and more as I get older.

When I met Bill, I had just come out of a lengthy relationship and I was still living in Scotland. The trip to Canada was my way of dealing with the aftermath following the breakup. I was a bit mixed up and didn't know what to do with myself and the Canada trip gave me an opportunity to have some fun and delay any decisions regarding my future. I ran away for a while.

During one of several trips to Bill's home he talked about his plans to canoe north up the Pacific coast to Alaska via the Inside Passage; a long series of deep fjords flanked by snow topped mountains that headed north east into Alaska past towns and villages still inhabited by the ancient First Nations, the original aboriginal tribes that inhabited this part of the world before the white man.

This subject was very interesting to me. I was interested in the history of the displaced natives (maybe due to my Scottish and Irish genes) and their traditional methods of expression through music, dance and various art forms such as the use of totem poles. I was also interested in their current political standing in society and the social and cultural injustices this race of people have had to endure under the white man's rule. I read a lot about this while I was in BC and visited the fine Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.

Bill was looking for a co-pilot for his canoe trip and thought I might be interested; I was. Unfortunately, as things turned out, I had to return from my trip early due to my spending all my tax money on the 2 month trip and I never got the chance to take Bill up on his amazing offer. I came back to the UK and thrust myself into a job to pay back the money I owed to the taxman. Regrettably, I have never had the chance to return to see Bill and join him on his Great Alaskan Adventure.

Which leads me on to a very moving and profound film I saw again last night - Into the Wild. The real life story of Richard Johnson McCandless (AKA Alexander Supertramp) brilliantly realised by Sean Penn who directed the film and Emile Hirsch who plays Richard with incredible virtuosity from a young Actor. Richard, disgusted by the consumerist society surrounding him, decides to turn his back on all things associated with this way of life and embark on his Great Alaskan Adventure. He would live off the land and exist without reliance on modern comforts and any obsession with possessions.

This film is difficult for me in that it shows how shallow I can be and how reliant I have been on personal possessions to make me happy. I am guilty of living by the ethos that Richard rebelled against. I have analysed this on many occasions and have come up with many causes for this dependency. They don't fix the problem but at least they help me to understand it.

Suffice to say that the film made me think that my unrealised Great Alaskan Adventure could have led to a more spiritually enlightened journey than the one that presents itself to me today.

It's never too late to go on a journey and change an ethos is it?

Maiden Roll

Yesterday was a bit special. I helped Wendy process her first set of negs from her newly repaired Olympus OM1. It's a lovely, old, metal bodied, fully manual camera. Wendy managed to liberate the camera from the repairers last week before we went to Cornwall. So I gave her a bit of tutoring and we ran a roll of Kodak Tri-X through it while we were away.

We processed the results at home yesterday. I think she was really pleased with the results. She has a good photographic eye it has to be said. I was particularly pleased with the shot of me above. It makes me look like I know what I'm doing.

I was using my Nikon F60 loaded with infra red film. The deep red filter that is used with this type of film kills most of the light entering the camera, so that even on bright sunny days a tripod is always necessary to avoid camera shake. The results can be stunning for landscapes and urban architectural shots with bright foliaged trees and deep, amost black skies and clear, white fluffy cumulus clouds. This is my first attempt at using this type of film.

Despair Amid Tales of Sci-fi, Aliens and William Shatner's Extra-Long Assignment

I've just been reading about a great British comedy actor called Simon Pegg. I've been a fan of his stuff since I was introduced to Spaced by my friend Matt. Simon Pegg plays Chief Engineer Scotty in a new Star Trek movie that comes out today. I can't wait to see it. As well as a Simon Pegg fan, I'm a fan of the early Star Trek series too. Reading about Star Trek reminded me of a cruel tale told to me by my Dad and and an episode in my life for which I can never forgive him.

Star Trek had a relatively short life as a TV series. It only ran for a couple of seasons but I was mad on it. It was a low budget sci-fi story about the crew of a USS starship and its ten year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations and to boldly go (probably the most famous dangling modifier used in a TV strapline), where no man has gone before.

The starship's crew was made up of a mixed race and mixed species group of specimens from planet Earth. However, it was Captain James Tiberius Kirk that I liked the most. He was charismatic and good looking (helped along by lots of soft focus, especially in some of the romantic episodes) and very hammy. He was brave and daring and got lots of respect from the other crew and attention from the females. I wanted to be Captain James T Kirk.

I watched the show whenever I could. It was fantastic escapism for a young lad.

Then along came a bombshell delivered in typical insensitive style by my Dad; Captain James T Kirk, an American Spaceman, the winner of many a Klingon battle, my hero, was actually an Alien. No! How could it be so? He had an American accent, he looked like us, he behaved like us (well in my dreams).

When my sobs had subsided, my Dad went on to tell me that after a certain amount of time in Outer Space (and Captain Kirk was going to be away on business for quite a long time), a human being ceased to be classed as such and was regarded an Alien. Hence, there was no coming back for Captain James T Kirk. He would never be one of us again, he would be different from now on and I would never meet him.

It was such a disappointment to my young mind that I've never forgotten it and never forgiven my evil Dad.

As for William Shatner who played Captain James T Kirk, he went on to play the role in several feature length versions of Star Trek and eventually turned into a bit of a weird looking, bloated fellow with facelifts and injections, not too dissimilar to the Blob. Hmmm, maybe my Dad had a point.

My First Traditional Cyanotype

Nowadays the Cyanotype method of printing is called an alternative process. However, it's one of the oldest forms of photographic printing. It's a contact printing method, which means that a picture is reproduced on the paper by being in contact with the source of the image. The source can be either a photo negative or a photogram.

Photographs reproduced using the cyanotype process are also called Blueprints which is a term we are familiar with when discussing building plans and other images associated with architecture.

The distinctive colour is Prussian Blue and is created through the use of the chemicals used in the cyanotype method. The chemicals used are Ferric Ammonium Citrate and Potassium Ferricyanide.

It's a really easy method to try and it doesn't need a darkroom. It relies on good old fashioned UV light so the summer is the ideal time to try the technique outside in the garden. It's also a good technique to try with kids because it's fast and the resulting image appears before your eyes like magic which is wonderful for the kids amongst us. The chemicals are also easy to get hold of and safe to use despite their scary names

Cyanotyping also involves some painting as well so it appeals to the inner Painter in me. I particularly like the different textures you can get from the use of a variety of absorbent materials. Also, the feathered edges produced by the brush strokes give each image an individual charm all of its own.

Cyanotype photographs look better in real life because they are rough and imperfect but I have scanned one of mine that I produced in the workshop on Saturday just to see it on a computer screen. The Prussian Blue is much more vivid in reality.

Expect to see lots of cyanotypes in my house when you next visit me.

Danny Gosling Sters Huhserfleichs

One of the many highlights of the season. The young Devonian kid from Brixham - Dan Gosling scores the winning goal in the FA Cup to beat arch rivals Liverpool. He's a long way from home and it was Dan's Merseyside Derby debut but what a way to ingratiate himself with Everton fans. It's the stuff of dreams. The Blue half of Merseyside were in raptures and the Germans loved it too....

The Black Cab Sessions

These are great. 2 of my favourite bands playing in the back of black cabs as they are driven round London. What a great idea but where are their seatbelts? Very Rock n Roll. It would be good to get more shots of the outside life as the cabs pass by, especially with some of the London Landmarks. I think the music is conjusive to the City streets.

This year's new best bearded band

After last year's devotion to the very bearded Fleet Foxes, this year's new best bearded band award could well go to the Cave Singers. After Bon Iver disappeared into his Grandfather's mountain shack to emerge 6 months later with a great big beard and his record For Emma Forever Ago, it seems remote retreats and habitats are the new bijou theme when it comes to recording good music and a devotion to that great hairy religion - hirsuitism.

My first pinhole photograph

Pinhole photography is such a basic photographic technique. You can literally make a camera out of a beer can and this we did yesterday. As Justin Quinnell (pinhole guru) explained to us during yesterday's workshop, the technique restores some of the the wonder to the science and art of photography. To an extent, we have become so blase about photographic technology that we don't get that sense of wonder when we look at the LCD on the rear of our digital cameras. Consequently we have lost some of the wonder associated with the medium. Yesterday's Pinhole Photography workshop restored some of the wonder for me.

To be able to produce an image from a beer can with a small hole punched in its side using a pin and a piece of light sensitive paper carefully inserted into the cylindrical can was truly a wonderful and revelatory moment.

The success of pinhole photography relies on using your imagination and leaving things to chance. The images produced are truly unique. Ansell Adams would turn in his grave but who cares.

This is the print I made from my beer can camera. It's a picture of my bike outside the centre in St Pauls. The image that is created on the paper is a negative. I inverted it to a positive using Photoshop Elements.

Foux Da Fa Fa

Is this the best clip of the lot? Splish Splosh.....

Mike, Lucy and I drove to Samoens in the French Alps for some skiing in February and we played the Flight of the Conchords album non-stop pretty much all the way. It cracked us up and was a constant theme for the days we were in France. I think Foux Da Fa Fa was the most used phrase for the whole period we were away. Nobody else got the joke. Trying to explain who the Flight of the Conchords are to a group of Brits in the resort who had never seen the TV series was a big mistake. It was a real "I'll get my coat moment" for me......

Flight of the Conchords

These guys are the biz!

Interesting article on mental health

Interesting to read an article on the BBC website today regarding how the mental health of our nation is deteriorating and what we can do individually to help it.

Like a lot of people, I get down about things. Some of them are serious and some of them are really daft. I get down about being out of work for long periods, long winters and short days, spending too much time on my own, our nation’s fixation with dumb-down TV and celebrity culture, and I don’t like the number of wonderfully sited bookshops that have been closed down in Liverpool only to reopen as pubs. That makes me really angry! These things depress me by varying degrees.

I can really relate to some of the 10 points made in the article and I find it reassuring that I have taken to doing some of these things naturally without considering their effects and without being told that I should do them for such and such a purpose. I suppose some of it is built in and common sense.

I like the comments in the article on gardening. I get a lot of enjoyment out of gardening and I realise that a lot of it is due to the fact that I’m caring for something that needs my attention. Something is dependent on me to keep it alive and healthy and that responsibility, however daft it sounds, means something. It’s by no means a substitute for having kids but I guess it’s a similar feeling.

Taking time to do things properly is also something I really value. My Mum always says “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly”. Applying oneself to a task or hobby and seeing it through to a worthwhile conclusion gives a great sense of satisfaction and pride. And that’s got to be good for one’s self esteem and personal development.

There’s more to being healthy than just looking after what is on the outside and having a good diet. We can’t see how fit our brain is but if we could maybe we’d be spending as much time exercising it and stimulating it as we do to other parts of our self.

Upcoming Events

New Flickr Site for the use of members of, and students from the St Pauls Community and Learning Centre (coming soon)

My friend Wendy Deocque who is a Darkroom Assistant asked me to help her set up a Flickr site for the users of the photographic facilities at the St Pauls Community and Learning Centre in Bristol where she works and I am a member.

The new site will be used by members of the facility and students from the various courses to showcase their work. All members of the Flickr group will be able to post photographs and other work to the site but Wendy will administer the content and the user group to ensure that it is not abused.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day - April 26th

Justin Quinnell is running a one-day pinhole photography workshop at the St Pauls Community and Learning Centre in Bristol on Sunday 19th April. Justin is a very accomplished Photographer in this field of work and I'm looking forward to having a go and hopefully producing a photograph to donate to Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day the following week. If you fancy having a go, visit Justin's website. There's loads of information on there including explanations on how to make a camera at home.

Events Contrive

Often one small happening or event sparks several others that quickly fall into place. It's like seizing an opportunity which has taken so long to come into fruition and then so many others things fall into place with not much effort involved at all. When all events coincide with a change in seasons from winter to spring, it is especially..... well..... special I suppose. Good things are happening in my life at the moment. My creative juices are flowing again in more ways than one.

Take yesterday for instance. Due to the commencement of my next assignment being put back till after the Easter holiday, I took the opportunity to do some printing in the darkroom in St Pauls. I had a burning desire to print some of the photographs that I took in Little Venice last week. The negative of the barge emerging from the canal bridge spurred me on; I had high hopes for that one.

My tastes in images are slowly evolving and maturing. Recently I find that I'm preferring extremely contrasty images. To the point that most of the grey shades have been converted to black or white depending on their density. This makes the image very stark and graphic. It's a technique that works on some pictures and not others. I thought the photograph of the barge would benefit from the extra contrast as it is a very graphic composition anyway.

In the darkroom, I printed from the negative at grade 2.5 for 7 seconds and this produced a very good image indeed. It was nicely toned, perfectly composed with no need to crop and the right amount of depth of field to show enough detail in the distance.

For my second attempt, I ramped up the filter to grade 4.5 and used a 10 second interval. This produced just the kind of image I prefer. My friend Paul, who was with me for the session, had a preference for the first 'Straight' version and I could see his point. It is a very precise, almost perfect, print of the scene as it unravelled. It has all the ingredients that a good black and white image should have using shape, line, tone and light to full effect.

Compositionally, the picture is excellent even if I say so myself. The timing is perfect and shows how it pays to have patience and be in the right place at the right time. I like the way the main elements are separated from each other which demonstrates how important it is to choose the correct vantage point from which to shoot. The dark oppressive overpass streaks, snake-like, across the sky, dominating the scene; the dark structure contrasting with the white sky and the hard edges of the modern glass building next to it.

In the middle ground, there are a couple of cyclists fixing signs to the wall of the bridge and a man walks behind them in full stride. Behind him stand the 2 large male statues facing each other as if they are about to shout "Draw!"

Then in the foreground we have, what I consider to be, the main subject of the picture: the canal barge "Fridiswid", with its two pilots in the rear cockpit. These men stand out perfectly against the black wall of the tunnel from which they have just emerged. The canal boat's white wake reflects against the black water beneath, and the smoke emerging from the chimney, situated midships, floats by, helping to isolate the striding man walking past the cyclists.

I like this photograph very much but I'm still unsure as to which version of the image is better and worthy of being framed and hanged on my wall.

Most Popular on Flickr

Seems to be winning the vote so far.....

No Need to Panic

No major problems processing my latest batch of negatives apart from a bloody scratch on several of the negs due to using a squeegee again. That's not gonna happen again, I've had enough of squeegees. They're useless.

My photograph of the Puppet Maker turned out to be nothing special but I did get some good results especially from beneath a bridge with the bolt heads protruding through the structure quite photogenically and a distant barge drifting by and looking quite painterly.

Click here for my flickr photostream

Leica M6 - 12 months on

I've had such a great year using my Leica M6. I bought it 12 months ago in a fit of extravagance from a small 2nd hand camera shop in London near the British Museum. It's 11 years old now and by its condition it's probably had more use in the past 12 months than it did during the previous 10 years of its life.

I bought it during the time I was attending a 12 week B&W darkroom course at UWE. I'd gotten seriously interested in the black and white medium and the great film Photographers of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier Bresson and his wife Martine Franck amongst many others were all Leica owners. I loved their street photography and reportage work and I fell in love with the romanticism of the cameras they predominantly used - Ernst Leitz's Leica designed by Oskar Barnack.

The Leica M6 is a fully manual Rangefinder camera. The Photographer has complete control over the camera's aperture, shutter speed and focussing; there's no automatic settings here. Indeed the focussing of the Rangefinder was something completely new to me and took some getting used to. It takes much more consideration and forethought to get the image that you are after.

The purity of this instrument really appealed to me. At the time I first became interested in the Leica, I had become bored of "Lets make everything really quick, instantaneous and easier for the user" type of technology philosophy. It had made me lazy and as a consequence my photography had suffered. I had lost interest.

I found that taking things right back to their basics, learning the fundamentals of light and speed and how to use both in the camera and darkroom to record images from my negatives really stoked my fire. I had always had a good eye for composition, but before the Leica, I had relied on the camera's automatic settings to help me with the recording of the image. By eliminating these functions, I had learnt to be more creative especially in low light situations and in the use of depth of field.

As Stephen Gandy of Camera Quest says "The Leica M's reason for being as far as I am concerned is their incredible Black and White work.  If you have never tried it, you are in for a treat. Leica negs will stand out on a light table instantly from Nikons/Canons/Minoltas etc. You will have to process your own film, and print them, preferably on Focomats. But you will be in for a real treat not equaled by anything else I have seen. Shooting B/W and then turning the film and processing over to your local lab is like Leonardo buying the canvas and paint and then turning it over to the local quick sketch artist. If you want the best, if you want to approach an art form, learn how to do it yourself". I'm not sure about his Leonardo analogy but I agree with his sentiment.

Overcoming shyness in Little Venice

I had a great day in London yesterday. I combined a business presentation with some photography around Little Venice near Paddington station in the afternoon. London is a really special place to photograph. My imagination was on overdrive for the whole time I was there. I also overcame my shyness to some extent and got speaking to a very attractive young puppet maker who was working on the towpath next to her barge.

A couple of weeks ago when I was in Devon I missed out on several good photo opportunities because I was too shy to strike up a conversation with people. There was the time when I found a beautiful old black Jaguar motor car parked on what looked like a small plot of land laid aside for travellers. I was taking photographs of the car and its surrounding habitat when the owner of the car drove up behind me and asked, in a very friendly way, what I was doing. We spoke for a while about her pride and joy and then she gave me some directions and I was on my way. Then it struck me. Why hadn’t I asked the lady to pose next to her beloved black Jaguar? That would have made a great photograph.

On another occasion on the same weekend, I remember greeting a friendly woman on the Burrows who was walking 3 Greyhounds that were clad in bold polka dot and striped coats. As soon as I had walked on I realised I’d missed an opportunity to take a photograph of the lady with her distinctive looking dogs because I’d been too slow in seeing the opportunity and a bit reluctant to strike up a conversation with a stranger. This is not like me at all because I would normally talk to anyone given the opportunity. I put it down to:

1. It was very early and I was still trying to wake up
2. I had a camera with me which made me feel awkward
3. I felt a bit pretentious portraying myself as a Photographer
4. I also don’t know any conversation lead-in lines which would allude to my intentions without sounding too mercenary (am I worrying unnecessarily about this)
5. I had been away from my hosts for quite sometime and I had some ill-conceived time pressures which were not realistic (need to stop giving a shit)

Later, when I mentioned the dogs to Laura, she told me of a Greyhound sanctuary which is nearby. I parked that thought in my head and promised I’d make an effort to visit the sanctuary on a future visit and make some effort to overcome the reasons for my awkwardness.

Then yesterday while walking around Little Venice in London with my Leica, I saw this attractive young woman doing some interesting work at the side of the canal. I walked past her at first and then, realising my error, I returned to her and struck up a conversation along the lines of “Hi, do you mind if I ask what you are doing?” She didn’t mind at all and told me she was a Puppet Maker. She was soaking pieces of cane in water and then bending them to make a frame for her large puppets. Later, she would dress the frames in fabric to make her figures. She was making the puppets for the Glastonbury festival and told me the Organisers had agreed to give her a free ticket to the festival in return for her puppets. I asked would she mind if I took her photograph. I asked her to bend forward and drop her head towards me as though she was working because I had noticed when I first walked by that her blond hair was in plaits on top of her head and the shapes complimented the twisted canes that she had in her hands.

She was very amenable and we parted company soon after. I walked away and started analysing what had happened. I was really pleased about how it went and I couldn't have picked a more interesting subject to talk to. I was also pleased that I had noticed the woman's hair and the way in which I had linked the person to the activity in which she was engaged.

However, there is always something else that can be done and I realised I should have also asked her to raise her head for a photograph of her attractive face with the ring through her bottom lip. I'm still not 100% satisfied but at least it's a step in the right direction.

The Violence Inside

Recently, I've taken to eating Rachell's Organic Forbidden Fruits Bio Live yogurt. 2 things have struck me about this "healthy food":

1. They are extremely yummy
2. They make my stomach churn with a violence never before witnessed by mankind

Whatever is live in the yogurt continues to live in my stomach once eaten but it's as though the "thing" has grown to unbelievable proportions and is battling to find a way out after further imprisonment. How can something so large exist in such a small pot? I think that when it gets into my comparatively large stomach it has room to spread out like an adult returning to his own bed after spending a weekend sleeping on someone's living room sofa.

Seriously though, is this stuff any good for you? The noises it creates in my barrelous stomach certainly liven up boring meetings in the office much to my embarrassment. I'm forever having to point at my stomach and explain that the noise is coming from there and not anywhere else.

Is this the most incredible sound that can be made with a guitar?

For some reason I've started listening to Spanish guitar music again. In my opinion, it's the most wonderful sound that can be made with a guitar. Paco Pena and Juan Martin are the only Spanish guitarists I've heard about. I'd love to find out about more.

A mixed weekend

After last weekend's fun and enjoyment, the latest one turned out to be a bit of a disaster. On Saturday I screwed up the processing of last weekend's negatives when I mixed the wrong concentration of developer.

I remembered taking some interesting shots last week and I was so looking forward to the results. There were the shots of frosty Northam Burrows at dawn with the ponies in the cool morning sunshine. There were some shots of Howard and laura's new house taken before the refurbishment begins. And there was the shot taken from the summit of the boardwalk looking down the stony breakwater towards Ho; bright, low sunshine on one side of the ramp contrasted with the shady, cool beach with the lady and her dog on the other. I had big hopes for this photograph considering how good the light was and the subject matter was an interesting mix of textures and atmosphere.

Out of the 40+ bags of negatives that I've processed this last year, this was the first time I'd screwed up. I suppose that's not a bad hit ratio so long as it doesn't mark the beginning of a period of mistakes. And, I must take some satisfaction from the fact that I was able to backtrack and analyse my methods to determine the cause of the error which was important to do. All of this angst, trouble and uncertainty. "Why don't you just use your digital camera?", I hear you say. However, I agree with Magnum Photographer David Hurn when he said words along the lines of "Nowadays film photography may look like some sort of masochistic endeavour but it is the challenge and difficulty that make it so rewarding".

Sunday was a bit better although we lost an hour due to the clocks changing due to the start of British summer time (at last. Yippee!). I never really got it together on Sunday but I did manage to get a bike ride in the morning in the wonderful Leigh Woods with Mike and do some gardening in the afternoon which was useful. I'd forgotten how good Leigh Woods is when it's dry. Some great technical singletrack with lots of obstacles and deep ruts and nobody around. Also, it has a real sense of isolation which is quite a feat given its close proximity to Bristol's urban sprall.

So, a bit of a mixed weekend to be honest. Now I'm making plans for the 4 day break over Easter.

Theo Kelderman

Just discovered a photographer on Flickr. His name is Theo Kelderman from the Netherlands. I like his black and white photographs especially this set of children in regular and improvised playgrounds.

I noticed Theo used Kodak Tri-X on this set which is currently my preferred choice of film partly because it is still relatively cheap £2.71 a roll which is a whole pound cheaper than my next preference Ilford HP-5 Plus.

Theo Kelderman

Awakening from the winter slumber

Just spent a great weekend in Devon at a place called Westward HO with my friends Howard and Laura and their children Hector and Rosa. Lots of insightful chat, playing with the kids in the garden, coastal walking, photography and time spent in the cold Atlantic Ocean under huge, blue, March skies. Paying the price for it today though. I've got a face like a smacked arse, a hip that clicks and chest and shoulder muscles that have lain dormant for 6 months and now want to remind me that they still exist. I can't see them in the mirror but they're telling me they are there.

James Ravilious, Robert Capa and Eugene Smith

The Saturday before last was a real treat for Photography lovers on BBC4. It showed one cracking documentary after another. My favourites were the docs on the English Photographer James Ravilious which I'd seen before, the Hungarian Photographer Robert Capa and the American Photographer Eugene Smith.

Robert Capa photographed in 5 major conflicts including the Spanish Civil war which I've always had an interest in since seeing Ken Loache's film Land and Freedom in Edinburgh in the nineties. What a life Capa had and what a talented man. When I get my first pay cheque I'm buying one of his books as a treat.

The other great documentary was on the American Photographer Eugene Smith. In the 60's Smith was commissioned by Life magazine to come over to Britain and photograph the Clement Atley election campaign. The conservative owner of Life was a critic of the UK's Labour government at the time and wanted Smith to use his trademark gritty style to show a Britain that represented his perceived personal views of maligned post war Britain. Sometime into his assignment Smith got bored and headed for the South Wales valleys were he discovered a subject that would satisfy his urges for dark, gritty heavy industrial landscapes; he found the Welsh coal mines and the communities that worked them. He would go on to say that during that time in Wales he experienced one of the most creative periods in his life. And this from the man who produced the startling Pittsburgh project which is a tremendous body of work and not too disimilar from the subjects he found in Wales.

I recorded both documentaries and I'm sure I will find them an inspiration in my photography in years to come.