On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

the centre:MK (erstwhile Shopping Building) could shortly be in line for a grade II* listing which would prevent unsavoury (ok bias immediately present there) additions and changes to the central shopping precinct in the city. Some may say this all started the moment doors were put on the place; but its real degredation really begin with Midsummer Place, an extraordinarily ordinary building plonked next to the original 1970s Miesian building.

Unfortunately even the building’s management have described it in less than savoury terms, presumably because they want to be able to hack it about within an inch of its life to add more shops to the building and further the break-up of the orthogonal grid in Central Milton Keynes by closing the Secklow Gate flyover. This is the only flyover in Central Milton Keynes (and indeed most of MK, apart from the few junctions on the A5D and of course the M1) compared to other new-towns such as Peterborough and Runcorn that are full of high speed grade seperated junctions and flyovers.

Of course, much a-do about this listing has caught the interest of the Conservative leaning papers. I’ll bear my political clothes here but I am right leaning myself; but then I don’t have much time for politicians full stop but that’s another matter.

Between comments of ‘surrounded by concrete flyovers’ and ‘concrete eyesores’ – it doesn’t take much to work out what the papers think. They live seemingly in the romantic vision of England loved by Prince Charles and his somewhat disturbing Poundbury. Compared to most shopping centres in England, the centre:MK has is bursting with natural light, intricate but seemingly simple detail, elegant loading and unloading for deliveries (at first floor level hence the Secklow Gate flyover), the amazing steel-work and glass cladding and extensive interior planting that is by no means an after thought. Of course there was Queens Court at one time, but now that public space is being overturned into privatised space; squeeze the pounds out of every square foot is the mantra of business at the end of the day.

Maybe what they should be thinking of is building a counterweight. It’s no big secret the only reason the shopping building is the complete opposite end to the station of the 2km long city centre is because they had to guarantee that the project wouldn’t be cut down in size and trashed by short-sighted British incompetence. (And yes it is incompetence, short-term quick buck making for people who largely couldn’t give a toss.) And it worked as CMK now exists in its fully intended size but it needs an injection of life into the western end; so why not push the boat out architecturally and create a counterweight to the the centre:mk away from the heavily loaded eastern end?

There is plenty of room (because the designers thought about the future!) to do this if they had the vision but that doesn’t seem to have ever figured in the imagination.

You only have to see Midsummer Place (the extension built in the late 90s, opened in 2000 I think) is an alright looking thing but no work of art and certainly pretty run of the mill. The Shopping Building however is far from this uninspired building.

The book “The Story of the Original CMK” may be a little too rose tinted but it does deliver on 120 pages worth of excellent material the scale and sense of vision those guys had, if a bit naive – they created in part due to that what we see today. What we will create afterwards will likely as always be run by bean-counters but will be a watered down piss poor architectural tour-de-force in butchery.

Of The Times excelled themselves, take a look at this rather grotty picture of Central Milton Keynes:

It does look pretty rank from that photo, but there’s a small problem here given it is an article about The Shopping Building.

What’s the problem?

That picture DOES NOT CONTAIN any view of the shopping building!

I leave the final sentiment to Derek Walker, the shopping building should never have had bloody doors fitted on it. And the moment that happened, public space became private space…

• The Telegraph : Characterless Milton Keynes shopping zone at centre of culture clash
• The Times: English Heritage in move to save ‘concrete eyesores’ (you may note though I don’t disagree with them over Brum library but I never liked brutalist architecture)

I haven’t written anything here for ages have I!

I guess I have been so busy enjoying the world.

In fact I cannot write a great deal now but only to say that I am hoping to get started on scanning in my North Downs Way slides this weekend. It will take me some weeks yet as there are about 500 or so to get through although I have already marked off the winners from looking at them projected.

I just cannot believe it is already four months since I took the first step on that 160 mile hike across the South East of England.

I’m already looking back on it with melancholic whimsy of , “what I did then. That was the day!” And I realise, that we all do this, looking back on a time when we did some when we were free and the memory paints it with warmer tones and it was just fantastic. Almost an American Beauty moment of looking back on the job flipping Burgers in the summer or being asked how you feel, and when you look back on it all. We all have those moments and they seem to stop at some point. Trapped in the wildfire of bills and general working life, and families and so forth. It seems apparent to me to never stop having little adventures; after all, why stop if you’re still free? It makes looking back not so painful when you are absolute in the knowledge that you can still strike out and do your own thing to this very day.

I don’t know what I’m going to do next year. Maybe Southern France, maybe/probably the Cotswolds Way, maybe the USA again – I’m just not sure. Just so much to do in such a short amount of time it seems. There’s so much to see and do, breathe and live! I’m glad I made it through the shit-storm I found myself in 2006 and moved on from all the crap that got towed out of that year; life is a much better sweeter thing. I’m not rich, I scrabble to pay bills, my socks now have holes and the hoovering needs to be done; but I couldn’t be happier with my lot and it’s not much but it keeps me content

Olympus OM2n, Ilford FP4+, Zuiko 28mm, Lee RF75 + 0.6ND Hard Grad

Kodak seems to have mislaid one of my rolls of Kodachrome which I shot walking the North Downs Way in June. Ahhh good times, sun, the open track, hard graft, great views and a sense of achievement. Wonderful, much more meaningful than a lot of the crap in day to day life I guess.

Anyway, if anything it’s a blessing in disguise because I’ve been feeling a bit sad that my adventure for this year is over. I had a tremendous amount of fun as ever, I guess I just love being out there and free.

So, in lieu of me feeling a bit melancholy and missing that adventure, having lost a roll of film and indeed the weather on the day concerned being what we call in the trade, “thoroughly pap” (i.e. crap) I thought I’d walk it again one weekend in August.

That’s basically Ranmore Common to Westerham via Box Hill, Reigate Hill and Tandridge Hill. I have 5 rolls of Kodachrome still in the fridge so I can take two rolls, shoot it, do a good job on some good weather and hopefully not have Kodak mislay these rolls (in fairness, this is the first of however many rolls of KR64 I sent them that got lost, I’ve probably shot around 80-100 rolls of Kodachrome in my time…)

It’s a bit crazy as I know the day I walked from Ranmore Common to Godstone was a long old day but damn was it good fun. Hard going fun.

The kind of thing that makes life thoroughly amazing and worth living. The best things in life have to be worked at, and are often hard going. But there was never any sense of accomplishment of watching Jeremy Kyle. Though, on second thoughts, anyone who can make it through a whole episode of that without wanting to throw the telly out the window has my admiration.

So, back off to the North Downs then

All in between me enjoying the South Downs and finishing my B&W Photography Magazine, B&W Photographer of the Year entry… Eeeep!

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?

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.

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.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently on the 2nd of March 2009, my lickle blog was rated by WordPress 84th for Growing Blogs.

I’m not sure what that means but it sounds good. Maybe some one does read my inane drivel hehe.

March 2nd 2009 : growing blogs

I should qualify that, modern life in the UK and probably many other countries too. (The USA and Canada I guess, probably much of Europe etc.)

It’s this whole dispersal of family thing.

My parents live 180 miles away (or I live 180 miles away) and I only see them in snippets each year, it’s like being a family in ’sneak-peeks’ three or four times a year. It would be so much better if you could be closer to family. But the work is where I live.

It makes me feel sad driving away after a week with them. I do miss them…