On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

A piece of prose…

In Suburbia

In suburbia the mind restlessly wrestles with paved inertia and the beat of life passes by on a horizon distant and forgotten, nothing left in the heart to feel and nothing left to jump at with zeal; so passion and a little life has flown away across the roof tops and gone away into the miasma of haste and mortar. In suburbia she raises her head a little from the passenger seat and peers through the triplex, eyes as glazed as the pane she looks through, distant and longing for something that fell from her grasp so long ago. And he walks with solemn purpose but with no purpose all at the same time in a semi-detached nation of indifference, indecision and inaction. There is a job and a duty but no longer love nor zest to spring forth the dreams that a long forgotten youth once hinted at with an eye’s caressing glint of eagerness. And the drum goes on, the tarmac marches on, the streetlights turn from blank to sodium orange and the sky turns turtle on the mark with racing headlights searching out a lifetime’s journey of déjà vu. In suburbia he longs for the day to break free and make good on the grand promise of travel and writing the book; but turns to the Valium provided for the masses to sedate any hope of breaking from that nine to five he once swore never to be part of. In suburbia she peers into the mirror hanging jewellery from her neck and bunching her hair back waiting for a day to parade in grandeur and pride; But nothing, but nothing. Not even the clarion call to action or the faint sound of a song seeping through that was once felt so deeply inside. And so it goes in suburbia: the pavement cracks and the creeping cats, the windswept parades and vaunted charade of breaking loose. But in suburbia the ring road has you encircled, with your hard-shouldered love waning and verge-side passion wilting before an ever darkening horizon over suburbia.

I have been watching Sugar Rush again the past few days. Whilst the second series got a little bit sillier in parts (it was still good) – some of the dialogue in the first series was spot on; not just from the perspective of it being a coming out story for a young lesbian, but for life and dare I say love (though infatuation is probably closer.)

One of the aspects that always hooks me by the lip is the words in in episode 7 (if I can count) is the sentiment that once a special moment has gone, it was as good as things would ever get; and you want it to on forever, and moreover you want everyone to know – but that sometimes isn’t possible. Whilst that might sound like a disturbing sorrowful thought, it’s actually quite positive in a way that isn’t it just a wonderful feeling when you have something so wonderful happen to you that you just feel this bursting brimful urge to tell everybody about it there and then.

I was just thinking, that probably never goes away – somewhat like your first crush, the world becomes this vibrant, over saturated universe from what was a slightly quirky, grey, indeterminate place. At least I hope it never goes away. I can see why perhaps those who are older seem so much more frustrated by life and at least in the UK.

The past couple of years have been interesting (in fact the past decade has been somewhat interesting really) – I’m finding that hard to express right now; but I’ll find the words soon I’m sure.

I guess I just had a little Zen moment (as clichéd and trite as that now sounds) on the beach earlier on today. It was just peaceful listening to the tide in the distance and the seagulls cawwing in the distance, watching the sun set after I had watched it rise and set on Saturday too, and the world felt a good place. A vibrant universe, over saturated and endowed in silly bright poster paint.

And whilst Robert Peston and the media will have us all believe we’re all going to the dogs, there is some good things still around. And I’m not being harsh or unsympathetic to those being directly affected by the loss of their jobs – I have seen what that does first hand with my own family (in the late 80s and early 90s) – I just feel that you have to at least avert your attention from all this gory badness once in a while, release the pressure almost. Take a walk, take a drive in the car at an ungodly hour, it’s soothing.

It was utterly beautiful to drive down Grand Avenue on Saturday morning at half 5, no cars but mine, window wound right down, a gentle hum of the engine and birds twittering in the Scots Pines, and that wonderful icy fresh air whistling by… I just had to tell you about that, of course…

After all, the last time I was made redundant (in 2005) I decided one day I had enough of endless forms and the depressing state of affairs of having to sign on; so I went for a drive to Bodiam Castle. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Rye. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Ashford. And then up the M20 to the M25. And even when on the M23 I decided to dive off into Crawley and out the other side before getting back… It’s just good to get away from it all and then tell someone about it. The world can be an enriching place, even with its ever incessant march of retail parks, motorways and suburbia enveloping you all around…

This will be a short post as I am tired and need to get some kip.

I recently acquired a Mamiya C330F Twin-Lens Reflex medium format camera. That is a camera that takes an image on a frame larger than 35mm format in a very crude definition. In the case of the Mamiya TLRs that’s a square 6×6cm image, which is over double the size of a 35mm frame. The bottom line is purportedly better image resolution.

I acquired the C330f, a Cokin A adapter especially designed for the Mamiya, the 80mm f/2.8 and 55mm f/4.5 lenses for well, under £150. Seriously good bargain especially as it all has 12 months warranty.

First dabblings – Fulking Escarpment

First experiences with it properly were on Saturday where I went back to my favourite little local bit of Sussex (I have so many, but I’ll settle on one for now) – Fulking/Poynings/Summer Down and the South Downs Escarpment. (Note I didn’t mention Devil’s Dyke — too busy and the pub though a welcome sight when I walked the South Downs Way, is a bit of a blot on the landscape.) Give I haven’t found my spare camera strap I trudged up the steep escarpment slope with the C330f in one hand and it was not particularly easy going as I like my hands free when I am walking.

That said though, it was good working with it. I had it pretty much set to infinity focus and dabbled with metering according to the Sunny 16 rule. I also had my EOS 3 to confirm my estimates at shutter and aperture values — as it turns out I was pretty much bang on most of the time. A result!

After I went along the scarp slope for a while and the back again and down into Fulking for a pint of hoppy brew and read the paper (The Independent no less) in the latent summer sun. Great stuff.

Second Dabblings – Steyning Bowl

I have been looking after a friends house and cats whilst she was away in Cyprus so I was in East Worthing for over a week. That’s about 2.5 to 3miles away from where I am in West Worthing, which is a fair distance to add to a walk if you choose to explore the Downs towards Sompting Abbotts and to the east of Cissbury Ring.

So being as I was over the right side of Worthing that’s just what I did.

I have to say, it is just fantastic out that side of things, utterly beautiful and so peaceful. Largely this is because it’s quite cut off. You only have the Bostal Road from Steyning which touches down on the other side on the dual carriaged A27 bypassing Sompting. Otherwise there are no other roads and it just feels somewhat cut off. It’s a bit like a Devil’s Dyke Road without all the people and the nonsense

Anyway, it was a peaceful walk and again I was pretty much on the ball with getting right exposure off the top of my head (I think, by then I had moved onto Velvia 50 and I think I’ll have screwed up badly as that’s one tough cookie to expose.) At one point a couple of kids with their mum or something came up to where I was looking down the valley and the boy said, “Cool camera!” to which I just said “Yeah it’s an oldie but it does the job” – he said “That’s why it’s cool, it’s retro!”

I must remember the tat that I have is not tat nor is it old, it’s retro.

Once I had meandered slowly up the valley to Steyning Bowl (by now 5pm, I avoided the road you see which means some zig zagging) it was beautiful, warm but with a snap of September chill in the air. I also walked onto part of the South Downs Way that I had trudged along back on a very very hot day at the end of July on the Washington->Pyecombe leg. It felt so special to be back. And actually, I was really quite tearful. And no it’s not pathetic, it was a little bit of pride that this was part of the path I had accomplished something on, but also because I am so lucky to have such a beautiful part of the world within a stone’s throw of my home-town.

Alas the C330f was a joy to shoot with, even though something went very wrong with the Velvia I had loaded up. I managed to partially rescue it but I may only have 3 maybe 4 usuable frames as a consequence (I have no idea what happened, it just went wrong… it didn’t wind on properly etc.) Alas all was fine in the end and it was refreshing to slow down my shooting with such a camera.

I don’t expect masterpieces back this time, it’s more of a dummy run for exposure calculation.

Either way, walking back in the low golden September sun, I walked through the fields still abuzz with butterflies flitting through the cool blue air and it was just wonderful.

I have to say without a shadow of a doubt, that if the Lancing/Sompting/Worthing by-pass ever does resurface or happen, I’ll only support it through a tunnel or through its current path by bulldozing houses on the current route. Houses are temporary, but the landscape is too wonderful to savage with a road. It really is a special bit of Sussex in amongst the Brighton-Worthing-Littlehampton strip (supposedly the second most densely populated part of the country, population of almost half a million) that just feels like you could be miles from anywhere.

I’ll keep you posted of the results!

x x

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7249135.stm

So some clever sod thought they would cause a huge fire just for a laugh or because they are a sad wanker with nothing better to do.

Get a fucking life and grow up. Be thankful that the fire you caused didn’t hurt anyone or that any one you love and care for deeply (even though you’re “far too ‘ard and cool” to admit that) wasn’t involved in an fire made all the more worse because you were being a dick on the sea front diverting important emergency services.

Seriously, what is fucking wrong with some people?

Oddly enough the two things I wish to write about are interlinked by one word. Zen. I’m sure most people will have come across it or heard of it, some may even think of Zen Buddhism but that isn’t the scope of this post. Instead I start with a ‘definition’ from Wikipedia which is quite nicely put:

Zen. ‘emphasis on mindful acceptance of the present moment, spontaneous action, and letting go of self-conscious, judgmental thinking‘

The two things are something I watched today and Zenwalk – a Linux distribution. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had a right busy week me. It started on Saturday which I will go onto, then Sunday I put together my new wardrobe. On Monday and Tuesday I roamed the seafront with my camera snapping with glee and painted two walls of four of my front room which is good progress. Last night admittedly I was creamed* and tonight I have just sat about watching telly and cleaning up. And now to update my blog.

If you’ve been living under a rock, or just generally not heard any news – you might be aware of a ship called the Ice Prince that sunk off the Dorset coast shedding a lot of its cargo of timber. Long and short of it is that a wood slick was heading east for the English coastline and it so happens that my dear town of Worthing with its five miles of coastline was hit the ‘hardest’ with timber stretching as far as the eye can see and further still.

I had a bit of a ‘heads up’ on this as I put the press release out on the worthing.gov.uk website on Friday (not that I’d be the only one to know of course even at that stage) so I duly headed off down to the seafront Saturday morning. Took a number of snaps before the wood really came in. You only have to do a search on Flickr for Worthing and order it by most recent to see that practically every photo for nearly a week has been of the ‘wood slick’ for photos tagged with Worthing.

As such I got this shot of the pier and a few planks (no not me) that were starting to come in early on Saturday before the beach was closed and well the scenes you can see from Flickr occurred:

Taken on the EOS 3 with XP2 at ISO 400 and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II. Worthing Pier is in the background. I also got rather wet taking this photo. My bottom for one (bending down to angle the tripod’s elevation) and feet the other (my trainers I was wearing have one or fifteen holes…)

A deserted house on the foreshore at West Worthing. This one took a while for me to get right by which time I had it framed and the gate just right (which I didn’t move… Just worked it as-is) an estate agent said to me “You need a hand there?” — I said no no, just taking photos. He thought I was interested in the property (which I was but not to buy) and explained the problem with squatters.

Again taken with the EF 50mm (great lens for the money – nothing basically.)

And finally a Holga-esque inspired homeage to a photo in January ’08’s Black & White Photography magazine:

Worthing Palms

This came out much better than expected. Again the EF 50mm at work. (Eschewed the wide angle the past couple of days.) The light was fading fast but this was a cracking sunset on the foreshore at Worthing and the palms so still in the winter sun with a striking shadow just caught me whilst everyone was fixated on the washed in wood. This was probably taken with a slow 1/10th sec shutter speed if I remember rightly and it was a dead difficult job to get enough DOF while keeping the camera steady (caught without my tripod as I was walking home from work) — in the end the slight blur has given it a fantastic quality. This has been blown up to 16 x 12 and I am pleased as punch with it. For the living room no less.

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So there you go. All shot with Ilford XP2 Super 400 C41 process B&W 135 film on Canon EOS 3 with EF 50mm f1.8 II lens. The XPS film does induce some grain but it gives a bit of quirky character I find in these. A very enjoyable and creative week photographically.

Check out my Flickr page for more shots and a growing catalogue!

With the recent 2,000 tonnes of timber that washed ashore on Worthing beach (which I went down to see on Saturday as I live in Worthing) the BBC have been reporting the situation.

However they’ve gone and got EAST and WEST Sussex around the wrong way. Apparently WEST Sussex is on the east….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7199667.stm 

Ok, ok I’m not going to dig out that Michael Fish video (I happen to believe the guy…) but tonight is the 20th year since the Great Storm of ‘87. I’m sure many of my UK readers will remember this event as it was pretty darn horrendous.

Tonight on ITV at 9pm there was a pretty good documentary about the whole affair focussing on a number of affected people and groups, one of which was Worthing High School on their field trip (they were in Chesil Beach, nr. Weymouth, Dorset) and the footage was just astonishing. Especially of Worthing itself, the devastation was just awful.

Thankfully tonight 20 years on it looks pretty calm tonight; but even so–spare a thought for those who lost their lives. Mind you I recall the 1990 storm as being worse; but that might be my memory. But the descriptions of the winds were quite harrowing, evoked something in my mind…writing wise that is.

Anyway, final shot near enough was of a boat that’s down on the beach about 15 minutes from here, same one that sits on the front page of www.worthing.gov.uk actually (which is no accident as I chose it…!) Made a change to hear a perspective from the ‘poor cousin to Brighton & Hove’ for once

I wonder if it’ll be repeated as I’ll record it then. (On good old VHS!)

Note: not having a dig here just being flippant, but Brighton & Hove does get the lionshare of mindshare usually with the Great Storm with regard to the storm.