North Downs Way

I haven’t written anything since I got back about my sojourn across the North Downs, a 132 mile hike from Farnham in Surrey to Dover in Kent via Rochester and Canterbury. The biggest reason as it stands has been my:

• Very busy couple of weeks since I got back
• The depressing fact that a year on I have still to pull my finger out and finish writing about the South Downs Way which I did almost a year ago now.

But there have been other reasons. When I started the South Downs Way I knew and still will produce a photo book on the South Downs Way but the flaw was trying to shoot it all in ‘one-sitting’ and whilst this is true to the journey, it has produced some of my favourite photos but also some that I am less than enamoured with. The upshot is that I’m going to need to re-visit the trail and photograph it again. Not exactly a bad thing in my book! So this project whilst very much swept aside for me to get on with impression:mk is alive and I am sticking with it. I just have to get these things right and there is no need to rush (unless of course I die tomorrow in which case i need to get a shift on!)

The other reason is a biggie, but that hasn’t stopped me getting on with it in the same way that say my birthday, barbeques, the pub (a few times admittedly!) and doing some extra work outside of the day job has done. But it has made me stop writing about it in yet another diary like fashion. Why?

I have long shrugged off or indeed acknowledged/struggled to find that any work of mine (photographically or written) has a philosophy, there is one but it’s not exactly obvious and probably still isn’t to me. But I do know what I am interested in and I’m now old enough to not give a damn about whether people think it’s odd, weird, deranged or obsessive. Which is a good start because there is nothing wrong than wanting to say photograph in black and white maybe the underside and underbelly of industrial Birmingham with its urban motorways and canals and decayed industry and social housing but not being able to do so because you’re worried a friend or all your friends are going to look dimly on it. Now, the latter is also something I will do (when I get time) but I’ve completely got over the whole keeping up appearances for friends, I am what I am and if you don’t like it do yourself and me a favour and kindly show yourself the door darling.

But behind this in the things I have attempted to write, and the things I do photograph of my own volition have been informed by something, or a series of somethings that are never entirely in isolation but do quite often float in the ether encapsulated all by themselves. Quite often these things are entirely subjective, subvocal, hidden and emotional and its hard to explain them except through a photo, or a sentence/paragraph that forms part of that overall patchwork of experience which describes where I am at this time, and what has gone before to bring me here in this frame of mind.

Without drifting needlessly into the obtuse, walking has always given me the freedom to think clearly. Whether that’s drifting around London or Brighton, or out in the wilds of the Downs or indeed the North Downs it hasn’t really mattered. The car, and to a lesser extent the train give you a sense of movement and an interesting perspective on how the landscape and your viewpoint shifts with that movement, but it’s nothing like the view you get when walking, which awakens and feeds that curious appetite. The bus for me does none of these, there’s no romance or emotion in that transport. It’s as utilitarian as a girdle (unless you have a girdle fetish, not that I am suggesting bus buffs are… Someone help me out of this hole!)

Walking this time seemed to sew up some kind of philosophy, it’s very quirky but it makes some sense. And so rather than write just a series of daily diaries of each day on the North Downs Way I’ve decided to work it into a wider remit on photography, subjectivity and philosophy of an art form and indeed maybe even a little of life. It’s hard to explain succinctly otherwise there would be no point in writing a book but it’s non-fiction and most definitely not a Kerouac-inspired journey dialogue. It is really a photography book, it might not be “Mastering Photoshop CS4’ or ‘The Dummies guide to Digital SLRs’ (I have no idea if those books exist but I bet they do, and I bet they are really really boring, bit like what I write then *chuckles*) but it’ll be interesting none the less.

The photo that summed this up for me is one I am still waiting back for, but maybe that’s it, a photo can make sense even with it not present if the thought behind it is sound. I was sat at Gatwick Airport station, on the final leg back home to Worthing, Day 14 of walking and I had done it, I had walked every inch from Farnham to Dover. And I was sat on the floor of the platform in the sun, it was nice to stretch out the legs but you get interesting perspectives on different levels. Ahead a lady, perhaps a flight attendant still dressed up glamorous strolled down the platform towards the incoming train and ahead a train was moving north to the far-side platform, the sun was bright. And it was hot (never start a sentence with a conjunction – except when it works for effect.) Long shadows carrying the cerebral and emotional baggage we all hide following in tow and the sky was pitch perfect blue. The departure board scrolling across for the Brighton 1842 or something like that fringed by its bright yellow metal armature which burst out uncontrollably against the navy skirt-suit of the what I have now decided is most certain an air-hostess. And in that pitch perfect blue sky a plane is coming into land taking people back from their escape, and the train is here to carry some away too on a hot Sunday noon. Why and what is all this for, each little step and snatched glance, with every uttered word what are we doing it for. Are we always In Search of Sunrise?

And photo sums it up for me what this book is about and that’s the book concept/title too, In Search of Sunrise. It’s a quirky idea but it makes sense. It’ll be a good antidote to ‘1001 Digital Photography and Adobe Lightroom Skills: The Ultimate Guide to everything.’

A Leica, 160 miles hiking – How they fared

First things first: My Canon EOS 5 and then 3 never fell apart on any hike. But then I hadn’t walked 160 miles with either in one go, but they proved to be tough cameras. So the Leica’s first outing on a hike through Surrey and Kent in South East England for 2 weeks around my neck covering at least 130 miles up and down on the trail and 30 miles to and from pubs, accommodation and around towns would give it a gruelling challenge.

The result was the M2 holding up perfectly apart from one screw going walkabout somewhere in Rochester probably.

Love, lust, sex and cigarettes

Excuse the slightly more obscure postings of late, I have been feeling lyrical…

At some point in my life I will no longer be young,
and that wanderlust in the recent past will become not a memory but forgotten history.
And in history we become ghosts and a poetic whimsy unconnected with the present.
But in love, lust, sex and cigarettes there is a future.

And why in cigarettes the being of death immortalised in smoke and tobacco-paper smoke is there future?
Why in any of this immortal chasing is there any future in the sand-prints of our time,
And if any of those shoreline marks do make the difference
Then a small plume of post-lust cigarette smoke won’t make the slightest dent on us yet.

Life so short of small pleasures which often real ecstasy is replaced with the subversions of solace
And in the birds’ twitter and the squirrels’ scamp lies a crooked eye
Self preservation pulsing and this is the small pleasure of life that replaced lust, love and cigarettes
Cocaine, ecstasy and the riding thump of the darkened night so long ago in those unimportant youthful pasts

Though for youth that unimportant past you look down on isn’t so throwaway
It ain’t so impermanent as to be the smoke from your cigarette that is so gone away by now
It’s the formation of four score and the to be permanent and formative moments of a lifetime
A lifetime of step forward, step back, hand up and hand down, of love, lust, sex, and cigarettes.

You are our past and we are your future, we all want to stamp our mark in those sands of time
But those sands they shift and twist, hell-bent and despotic they stride in the annals of time
We’ll all be forgotten given enough strokes of the big hand.
So why is a cigarette after love, lust and sex so bad after all?

Rockwell Distortion Field

As I have said before, there are few things in the world that get people’s backs up: religion, politics, the EU and Ken Rockwell

His website is an enjoyable read, it isn’t some statement of fact in all cases and apparently using Windows is like living in a Communist country. Well I better go get myself a Trabant and start talking about how good the ballet is in Prague this spring That aside, he’s just published his top ten peeves about amateur photographers.

Now I am an amateur in the sense I am not professional i.e. I don’t take photos for a living (or my main income) but I’m not an amateur with regard to knowing what I am doing, though…

Not quite sure why he gets a bee in his bonnet over it but that’s his own perrogative! A few points though did make me think, eh?!

• Backpacks:

  Number on his list is the backpack. That makes some sense to a degree but it’s a bit naive to assume that most people with cameras lumber around for a couple of miles and then pack it in. I’ve been known to walk 25+ miles in a day and there is no way you can shoot all day without a backpack carrying some supplies not just for the camera but also you. Backpacks may not be a fashion statement but photography isn’t about some fashion statement or looking the part, it’s about the journey and the photography. And if I can do more of the latter because I have water and food, and a stack of film in my backpack then I’m all for that. It’s also a good place to keep a purse and mobile phone as I don’t know of many women who carry their purse in their pockets all day long like a man does with his wallet.

• Camera worn directly over the neck:

  Again I’m not at all sorry if I look a nerd because my M2 is around my neck but for me it works, also walking long distances with a large backpack and the camera slung over one shoulder does not work, the backpack (which if you’re walking over a number of days like I’ll be doing in a week’s time, 135 miles worth) restricts access to the camera. Frankly if you’re worried too much by how you look to others carrying a camera over your neck, seriously take a step back and figure what you’re more bothered about: feeling comfortable taking pictures that work for you, or looking cool. It just so happens that being really ugly I don’t have to concern myself with looking cool

• Lens caps:

  Largely I don’t bother either, I have an 81B on most lenses and that’s the cap. However on my Summar, with its large unprotected easy to scratch front element that’s just been repolished, I’m not going to have my lens ruined by not protecting it with a simple lens cap. As I’m not a sports photographer I have no desire to throw lenses in my bag. Largely because I don’t have a large income, have items sent to me for review or get things sent to me for nothing, but because I have a day job like most and lenses take a large chunk of my salary — I work them hard, but I respect them. Press photographers don’t have this, it’s provided by their employer and if it breaks, they don’t usually pay. If I broke my CV Ultron, it’s me who pays.

That said he also talks some sense. Just like I do on the odd occassion.

The ones I do nod in agreement with though is the assessment that some people freak if they haven’t got every mm of range covered and the old logo on the strap thing is real sucky. In fact the logos on most cameras suck full stop which is why I love my M2 in that the front of it has no daubings at all to identify who made it and what model. All those names and model numbers do is serve as a free advert, it’s not like you wake up some days and think “Ooh now which did I buy again, a Nikon D300 or D700?”

Either way, Ken’s doing Ken’s thing, expressing his opinions — even though some of them are curious. The most amusing thing lately is how his glowing review of a “$15 Olympus 35RC” ended up pushing at least one such 35RC OVER £340 on eBay. In perspective, that’s £40 more than my M2! I’m sure Steve Jobs would be impressed at how Rockwell appears to have managed to get someone to pay way over the odds for something you could do with another camera for about £330 less.

Anyway, keep up the good work Ken, we love you really, although its back to my communist country seeing as my iBook has been stolen.

Trouble in paradise

There’s a chance if you read closely (which is presumably not many) that I have some peculiar or rather different interests. I’m also intrigued by the less salubrious underbelly or overlooked aspects of people’s lives. There was a great quote in Sugar Rush in series one, which aptly described some people living life as though it was a Disney movie, but the reality was closer to a gangster porn flick.

And in some aspects life really is mired in the less than good or aesthetically pleasing.

This is a nagging thought with the Milton Keynes project impression:mk — MK is not necessarily anywhere worse than anywhere else but its new-ness does a good job at hiding the underlying problems of where social deprivation is taking hold, where drug usage is rife (I sadly know about this one first hand) and the built environment doesn’t fit the anticipated of a beautiful impression. These are far from unique issues to MK but they exist like they do anywhere and to ignore them would be doing a greater injustice than showing things as they are, how they appear.

We can remember

I’ve been thinking now, back to then, when warming filters make it glow

And when was then? Some distant guitar strung halcyon I’ll forever chase.

Catching the catchlights in the eyes’ of the distant past, and somehow I now stand lost.

I know I once held THAT eclectic electric that ignites in their lustful eyes

The excitement of the kiss and the first gaze of wanderlust and now it seems so distant and commonly cold

I know I am trying to find my way in the acerbic realm of the twenty first

Can you remember that feeling? A feeling so deadened since ninety-seven.

And now all I chase are the fragments in new towns and the rays of suns since set

I know I am still trying to find that wonderland long since lost and where is my mind in this quixotic democracy

But it is still flickering in those sideway glances on the M1, 421 and Secklow Gates

And while I still chase those steady recollections I remain alive pacing through the days of daily adult revelation

Where did that glowing world go and from where did innocence cross the rooftops?

I wish to be lost in your eyes and try and find that spark that seems so dampened now.

And where is excitement, that gentle caress in the lonely night in the Travelodge.

What in the hell is all this for and who am I trying to replace in this photographic mind of mine

I’m still searching that electric connection I left behind in O’Hare that is fading now like that day in eighty-seven

So should I walk away from you girls with your sparked destiny crossing your eyes as you kiss?

I think not.

So should I leave this bizarre democratised landscape where I am at least roaming free with a smashed vision?

No.

At least definite answer in sodium city lights.

I wish I could touch that jean belt hip.

I wish I could connect beyond my own.

I wish I could impart what I see to them out there.

This woman’s become an island since o-five.

I just want to cross those rouge lips again without the crush of nine to five.

And no energy pours from inside where the bill paying denizen resides.

I can’t do well when I’m stuck inside clawing at the windows to be free from AD 2009.

When am I going to leave this realm?

Just let me touch that shoulder with my Kodachromed gaze and I’ll be fine

When I’ve escaped this nightmare realm and touched those elusive lips again

Try as I might, this bucolic gaze has become hackneyed

But I know its lustful electric is real.

A day with the Leica M8/M8.2

I was lucky last Thursday (7th May) to take part in a workshop with Black and White Photography magazine in London. The workshop was simply a Leica one and in this case for the M8 (which for the sake of brevity by that I mean the original M8 and M8.2) which is their only digital rangefinder. Leica’s two other production M modies, the M7 and MP are 35mm film systems.

Relief

My impressions as an M2 user were favourable. The camera isn’t that much larger than an M2 (read: it is a bit bigger in all dimensions but not by a huge amount) and the build quality is excellent, but not quite the solid hewn out of granite and steel feel of the M2. Mind you, the M8 is probably one of the best built cameras out there on the market, it just so happens my 1958 M2 comes from an age where things were built to last. The otehr big difference handling wise was the lack of film advance lever, that for me is a natural thumb resting place but I soon got used to it. Ergonomically, it’s like any M — not that comfortable to start with compared to a modern Canon or Nikon SLR but soon becomes just fine.

The Milton Keynes Project – 23 years in the making

As some may be aware, I’m finally hunkering down on a project that most people I’ve told about it are scratching their heads about in equal measures of bemusement and amusement. A photo study of Milton Keynes. Unusual for someone who generally really likes landscape photography but not that unusual if you know me. I’ve got quirky interests and I’m happy for it to stay that way.

• New 3/5/09 : Milton Keynes: The Future

Why am I doing this?

I’ve always had an equal appreciation for the built environment as I have the rural landscape. I know what I like and I don’t. I hate the Twyford Down cutting, but I love the spot near Greatham Bridge. I feel somewhat repelled by Leicester but thoroughly enthralled (obsessed perhaps is closer to the truth) by Milton Keynes. It is bizarre but there you go. I can only explain it’s because the many times I went there when I was little and the massive impression it made on me when I was little. I’m trying to explore that wonder in this current work.

What is it? Aims and Goals?

It’s a mixture of landscape photography and street photography. I’m seeking out what I find pleasing and even beautiful about the place, and also the people that truly make the place. I’ve gone in with a fairly open mind and acknowledge (and you will see it in the final book) that not everything is perfect and that some of the commonly cited ‘issues’ with MK on a couple of counts have some decent grounding behind them. My aim is a personal one, to capture why I like the place so much and why I feel it is important to Britain as a whole. Goals are for ambitious people and I am not doing this for world peace or something profoundly impossible. My goal might be for a few people to pick it up and have their perceptions changed or at least a seed of intrigue to be sowed.

I’m very cautious of ending up with a Pittsburgh Project and if I am utterly honest: I think this is my Pittsburgh Project, but I’m putting a start and end on it for impression:mk – for my own sanity and the project’s success. I’m not suggestion I have even 1% the brilliance of W Eugene Smith, but I can see a thread of similarity. After all, arguably this is a project I started when I first visited the city in the 80s, thought about photographing at school and then began slowly in 2004 before taking a 5 year hiatus on the project. I was meant to start again late 2006 but other issues tainted progress.

Where can I read more about this project and inter-related issues?

• Book preface
• Milton Keynes: The Future

What does the project name mean?

Milton Keynes is abbreviated MK all over the place, and I can’t think of anyone who lives in MK that wouldn’t know what you meant if you said MK to them. The impression part is in the literally sense an impression, a subjective view of a topic/subject. It’s also a direct nod to impressionism and one of my all time favourite paintings: Impression, Sunrise. Finally, as with many current developments, the names of them seem to follow a pattern e.g. Stadium:MK, the hub:mk and the centre:mk

How am I doing it?

Largely I am using my Leica M2 and I’m visiting often, all seasons and spending weekends and sometimes longer (depending on if I can get time off work and annual leave allowance permitting!) staying in the city and walking and driving around. I’m a very keen walker so some visits I have walked upwards of 30 miles in one weekend but its one of the few ways to really get to grips with the place. Intentionally you can’t see much from the car from the grid roads.

I’m also using a Canon EOS 3 for the night exposures and any telephoto based shots (which are minimal.)

Unusually for me, the project is largely in colour although I do have some very nice black and white shots but I’m inclined to keep them back as I’m concerned that consistency will not be achieved by mixing between colour, duotone, black and white etc.

So far I have used colour wise: Kodachrome 64 (bulk of daytime work), Fuji Provia 100F (remainder of daytime work and pretty much all night time long exposure work) and for black and white  Kodak Tri X at box speed and pushed to 1600, and Fuji Neopan Acros for the finer daytime work. Black and white development has been by myself (originally using ID11, now using Xtol) and processing for Kodachrome has been done by Dwayne’s in Kansas, USA. E6 processing by Peak Imaging.

eBay Extortion?

In the last ten years since I joined eBay, I have grown steadily annoyed over their practices.

This one stung me big time. They took 15% clear profit. On, what, a large expensive item? No. A £100 laptop.

A personal obituary : JG Ballard (1930-2009)

Today is a sad day in the world of British literature, one of its giants passed away in the morning of April 19th 2009. JG Ballard was one of Britain’s most influential writers of the twentieth, indeed the twenty-first century. Many an author owes a debt of gratitude to a man who plumbed into topics that no one had dared write before.

My first encounter with JG Ballard’s work was not through his books, indeed some of his most seminal work had been written at least a decade before I was born. Instead it was through the film, Empire of the Sun – directed by Steven Spielberg. I don’t remember the year I first saw it but it was in the early ‘90s on one of those rare occasions where I was allowed to stay up. That film stuck with me for years to come, its haunting narrative of a time and experience I could not possibly understand.

In 1999 I found out the film had been based on a book, Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard. From that point onwards there was no going back on this discovery as I moved on to The Kindness of Women and then discovered his dystopian or more accurately Ballardian novels turned a locked door in me.

My intrigue with the built environment and society within that was something I felt was best kept private, as it was quite a weird thing to be interested in – or so I thought. As it turns out, much of the fiction that JG Ballard penned struck at the very core of what I sometimes caught only a glimpse of in my travels, but in which he burrowed out a mine full of veritable detail and semblance of vision and structure.

For me, Ballard was not a science fiction writer, but rather an observer, an astutely aware person of the interaction between humankind, technology and our environment. Prophetic he may not be in the strictest sense, but he always struck at the core of something somewhat uneasy and unspoken in society.

I know I will greatly miss his work, and I for one am indebted for his contribution he has made on my literary journey, and those others who cite him as influential that too have gone on to be great writers themselves.

My only wish is that he was well enough in February last year to see him at the Southbank Centre, alas his illness prevented him from being able to host the evening. But he did write, and in those words we found inspiration so deeply inseparable from a man with such vision and understanding.

Thank you.

JG Ballard – 1930-2009