A brief trip into the city of Bath and to Exeter this week, why I’m not a photojournalist, how you’re going to see videos on this blog from January 2021 and my interview with a well known Street Photographer…I bet you can hardly contain the excitement.
I’ve discussed in this blog before that I couldn’t be a war photographer. A few years ago we saw, or rather didn’t see, that I was incapable of clicking when a cyclist was hit by a car pulling out of a road junction. I’d like to point you towards the blog post where I wrote about that, it seems a chaotic filing system with my computer archive has now been replicated to my website, I can’t find it. No matter that I had my camera in hand, too much concern for the cyclist prevented me from pressing the shutter release. What would I be like in a war zone? Crap is the short answer to that. I’ve also discovered that my career as a photojournalist is over before it had really started. I needed to get into Bath this week and whilst Sam (my wife) was shopping I took the opportunity to wander around. I headed for the railway station and noted there was a reasonably heavy police presence. No that much, but enough for me to question an officer what was going on, abruptly and with the air of someone totally fed up with police work he revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge or Will & Kate as they’re more popularly known were arriving by train. I had one foot on the pavement and the other on the road. There were no cars, traffic had been halted. “Step onto the pavement”, he barked. I looked at him puzzled. “For your own safety there maybe vehicles” he added. I had to say “I’m almost sixty, believe me if a car is coming I’ll be able to handle it, I understand how roads work”. Well, along came the motor cavalcade, I clicked and got a great shot of the royal protection officer driving the Range Rover. Prince William is sat next to him on the right as you look at the above shot and Kate in the back. That was it, absolutely hopeless. After I’d reassured the police officer that I was “normal”, he revealed that he’d had a long morning, they were there at 7:00am, four hours before the arrival of the Royal Train and it was “bloody freezing mate”. There was a guy across the road sporting a Canon and 400mm lens, clearly in the right place to get a royal photograph. “Did you get your shot?”. “Might have” was his reply. Complete bloody misery guts the lot of them, all of them a bit touchy that morning. After that you can understand why I didn’t run up to the next guy I saw and give hime a big hug:
I bet he would have been much better company than either the policeman or photographer, perhaps I should have. Next time I see him in Bath I might say hello. Never judge a book by its cover. Anyway, the last time I had the chance to photograph royalty in Bath it was a different story altogether. Hardly any interest whatsoever, a few police around and a seated lady totally oblivious to the fact a load of men were parading past dressed up in fancy costumes, a policeman was scrutinising her and one of those guys (left of frame) was the Queens youngest child, Prince Edward.
Anyway, back to that opening shot. I should delete it, unless that royal protection officer goes on to murder the royal couple in the future it’s worthless. I’m never going to make it as a photojournalist or for that matter war photographer, that much is both obvious and evident. I’ll remove it from my archive, if I can find it again that is. Let’s get back to a little bit of Street Photography where it also seems evident that I’m out of practice.
In my defence I’ve hardly been out at all during Lockdown Lite. It’s not surprising that I’m slow to react. That subconscious feeling of knowing when a shot is about to happen has left me. Henri Cartier -Bresson spoke of the “Decisive Moment”. That moment, as HCB explained, happens before the shutter is released, contrary to what some read into his statement. If you wan’t to feel that “Decisive Moment” then you only require one thing…Practice. Currently there’s one thing stopping that:
Hurry up and get that Vaccine into peoples arms, let’s get on with it, have some form of normality. I’m desperate to get out there. Here’s a few more from Bath, it wasn’t a very successful hour :
None of those shots are particularly good, but there you have Street Photography in a nutshell. Often it’s a failure, you come back with nothing of any interest. I’m not sure that matters very much, I’ve said before that it’s the process I enjoy. Although it would be nice to have something for the effort. I also needed to get down to Exeter in Devon earlier in the week. I tried, though essentially I’m walking along with my Dad, quickly grabbing whatever I can:
I’m going to need to do a lot better in 2021. Word on the street, or in this house at least, is that Father Christmas might be bringing me a GoPro. Let’s hope for some interesting content. I will make clear that if there’s any commentary involved, and most likely there will be, anyone in the mistaken belief that I have a cut glass English accent will be hearing someone that for the most part sounds like a pirate. I’ll be able to take videos of my journeys on the motorbike to wherever I’m gong, massively edited so you hopefully see the interesting parts and get a feel of the places. Yesterday was a good example as I travelled through some truly stunning scenery and my heart stopped momentarily as two deer jumped over a hedge and into the road in front of me. We have to remember that on a motorcycle we don’t have the benefit of a steel cage wrapped around us as we do with a car. My walks with the dogs will be documented, I can finally show you Lacock and Avebury and of course life with my family. A couple from this week:
As you can see they’re already in Christmas mode, a little early perhaps, but we all need something to look forward to. Finally I’ll be shooting some POV videos as I walk the streets. I’ll need to be on my game if there’s going to be anything worthy of uploading either to here or my YouTube channel. Incidentally I’ll still be writing and photographing, I think it might be interesting to see it all in motion. If nothing else you’ll be able to see people being miserable when I speak to them!
Speaking of being worthy. I did an interview with my friend Jeff Chane-Mouye. He’s used me as a guinea pig, a bit of practice before he gets to interview the really serious street photographers out there. If you’re interested in reading it here’s the link John Harper Revisited.
I need to begin going through my twelve favourite Street photos of the year, traditionally that’s what I do. My only concern is that it might be slim pickings to choose from a very small amount of Street Photography during 2020. Here’s some links in the meantime from previous years. It a good exercise I feel, an extremely difficult one to perform because self curation is so tricky for most of us. There’d be different selections for those years now, I’m positive of that. Just click on an image below to view that years selection…
Twelve 2017
Twelve 2018
Twelve 2019
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 28mm Lens fitted.
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