A Happy New Year and I hope a great 2020 lays ahead for us all, hopefully with some 20/20 vision photographically speaking…see what I did there with the title? There aren’t any New Year resolutions here, they never last, a few days or weeks at best. However, I have vowed to spend more time on the Street and make better photos over this coming year. I need to develop, grow as a photographer. It’s all becoming a little predictable. Additionally my intention is to post on this blog some more personal photographs, thoughts and stories. Don’t Panic, there’ll be none of that self pity, introspective nonsense, my mother would go crazy. I’d be in big trouble If she thought I was entertaining any thoughts apart from: No grumbling, no fuss, just get on with life, whatever it may throw at you.
Before we move on to the personal side of my Christmas, let’s get this out of the way…
Over the festive period I did some reading, which in turn got me thinking. Here’s a few quotes concerning Photography, which by rights should include the source, but I forget who said them and in any case often they’re attributed to the wrong person. Who cares. It’s not important, however they may trigger some retrospection within my own photography or how I photograph. All fairly obvious, but very poignant, especially that last quote as we enter a new decade:
All photographs are self portraits
Photographers record their own feelings
Great Depth of Field isn’t enough without great Depth of Meaning
Open a photograph and you open a door into the past, a unique moment in time
Blink and before we know it Christmas is over, the New Year has begun. Time flies during the long, some may say far too long, holiday that is Christmas and we’ve already forgotten lots of those moments. Every year I try to document them with mixed results, I’m always surprised when I finally open up the SD card and realise that without photography they wouldn’t have been recalled at all or at best just a hazy, sort of memory. Of course, as photographers we are in the business of capturing those memories. As I say, it’s obvious really.
Here’s a really quick slide show of a few shots from our many walks over the last few weeks:
Our Christmases follow a familiar pattern. Amélie, if you ask her, will regale you with every little detail. I can assure you it’s not a good idea to get her started. On those walks she would tell us all how things will be on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, travelling to Aunty Jane’s (my sister), in particular her mum would be getting all of this, over and over. Ironically Sam is the one who organises it all and so pretty much already knows how the routine for Christmas goes. She would stop eventually after a few miles and the walk was over. Essentially it’s this: We go to the pub on Christmas Eve with our lovely neighbours, Christmas Morning we get up early. I say we, in fact this year I was the first awake at around 6:30. Tiptoeing through the bedroom to check if the children were awake I must have slightly disturbed Sam who still half asleep questioned “Father Christmas?”. I really would like to know what she was dreaming about. I resisted replying “Ho, Ho, Ho, have I got a surprise for you!”, went down to the Christmas Tree, picked up the sleigh bells and then ran around the bedrooms rattling them. That got them up. Presents were opened and we set off for Budleigh Salterton in Devon for a Christmas Lunch and a few days staying with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Here’s another very quick slide show:
My parents were there too. Both will be 90 years old this year and neither are in the best of health, they look pretty good in those photos though.
Louis had a metal detector for one of his presents. I knew he couldn’t wait to experiment with it. Talking of which, I did tell him last week that our bathroom is in fact a bathroom and not his personal laboratory. “It is a laboratory old man” was his reply! This is the type of respect I command in this house. He conducts all sorts of experimentation in there: general breaking of things, taking stuff to pieces to see what makes them tick, seeing what happens when you pour boiling water on to batteries and that kind of thing. So on Boxing Day I took him down to the Beach at Budleigh Salterton, a short walk from my sister’s house. We scoured the beach for a few miles. He spent a lot of time around a Car Park Pay Machine on the logical basis that people will drop money occasionally. Eventually he’s announced “Not even a tin can, this is rubbish”. Passing his metal detector to me “Hold this” he barked as he emptied his pockets and decided that it was “Time for my archaeology gear”. A magnifying glass, some kind of chisel and other detritus tipped out. I’m surprised a hat and a whip wasn’t amongst it. Indiana Jones would be proud. He got really fed up with it by the end though and I really wanted him to find something. That said I did notice a few stones loaded into his pockets which, no doubt, will be smashed to pieces once back home in his Laboratory, sorry, I mean our bathroom. Another quick slide show:
You can see in that last photo that the bank that leads to the beach could prove to be a good spot for some Street Photography. It probably is, but I really only achieved some silhouette type shots, which are big on impact, boring on content and short lived in anyone’s memory. So I walked around it trying to get something interesting and concluded with, you guessed it, silhouette shots. Not really Street Photography in my opinion. Slideshow:
I bet you’re glad I posted all these images as slide shows. Saves you having to plough through them individually. On our way home from my sister’s house we stopped off along the coast at a little town called Beer. I always have the same thought when I see the signpost stating ‘Beer 2 Miles’…Good, I could do with one, but of course the pubs were closed and we had for a quick walk along the beach. I’ve always liked this part of Devon, not that we could see much now the fog had set in. Once again a very quick slide show:
Amongst all this, I’m trying to get in some Street Photography practice. The opportunities were very far and few between to be actually on a street, on my own and I can concentrate. Just grabbing what I could, as in the Vermeer iPhone selfie earlier. I was stood in a shop, foolishly thinking that Christmas was over and therefore the spending must be, suddenly I saw a potential shot. Actually grabbing shots isn’t too bad. As you walk past and see that fleeting moment you can stop, get it, move on:
The thing is that if you wait around too long, and I’m a big advocate of waiting for the shot by the way, you draw attention and the candid moment is gone. Again I’ll contradict myself and say I sometimes like that, by which I mean people in the scene looking at the lens and there’s almost always someone. In the first shot there’s four including the woman in the window, the second one is obvious and in the third the girl with the hat, along with the guy right of frame:
All though some purists may not like that, I find myself almost willing someone to look at me. I’m not a fan of seeing peoples backs as they walk away in Street Photography, I’ve made plenty like that, it’s too easy. Having someone look at you is something we definitely need if we’re photographing portraits, weddings and the like, perhaps that’s why I stand on the Street thinking to myself “Right, everyone looking at me please…looking at me…” Naturally not everyone is willing to “look at me” and eye me with some suspicion:
Our friend Tim there with his daughter Isla concludes this blog post from Christmas 2019. Let’s see how the whole 2020 Vision thing goes, I’m sat here typing this with my reading glasses on…
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are taken using a Leica M with Summicron 35mm Lens fitted.
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