We’ll come back to that Stourhead opening shot later. This week I arranged to meet up with Rod Higginson, a photographer I knew only through social media. I suggested a Don McCullin exhibition being held in Bruton, deepest, darkest, Somerset. The meeting of three great photographers, well, one of them is at least. To be totally honest the only appearance Don McCullin is going to make in this blog post is in the following image, you can see the back of his head on the TV screen. I have no idea who the others are in this shot, but that’s definitely not Damien Hirst with the dead cows!
Don McCullin is without doubt a hugely talented photographer. Who wouldn’t want to see some of his work, in print, displayed as it should be in a gallery? Initially the answer to that would be me because this was an exhibition of his Landscape photography and I’m not a big fan of Landscape. I love looking at and being in Landscapes, the beauty isn’t lost on me I can assure you, it’s just that I seldom have any inclination to take a shot. Unless of course there’s some human involvement in the scene. Anyway, Sir Don and Rod (who incidentally is is a big fan of Landscape photography) may have caused me to change my mind. Here’s a couple of shots of Rod I took whilst we were sat chatting at the bar:
What a very personable guy Rod is. Intelligent, entertaining, knowledgeable and full of ideas, for example: He’s read this blog and suggested a name change which I’m giving some serious consideration. Due to the constant contradiction of myself, general rambling and waffling the ‘Leica Biker’ name of this blog is going and we’ll have instead the new title ‘What was I was saying again?’!
He politely listened to me whilst I droned on, unlike the poor chap I was sat next to before Rod arrived who looked like this after ten minutes whilst his wife called their psychoanalyst ;-)
Rod and I agreed that photography gear was boring, irrelevant and of no importance whatsoever, then proceeded to discuss lenses and cameras for half an hour! We ventured into the exhibition and took a look around, dissected the images, for the most part liking the same photographs. The problem I have with well known photographers and I suppose it’s true of any famous artist, is that suddenly everything they do is fantastic. ‘The Emperors New Clothes’ may not be the correct analogy, but it’s as though because others say it’s wonderful everyone else nods their head approvingly. Secretly, like me, they’re thinking “that’s the most boring shot I’ve ever seen”. Perhaps in the case of some of Don McCullin landscapes it’s because I see the exact same scenes daily as I walk the dogs or are out with the family. Come on Don, you can do better than this, oh no, here’s some of his bloody Still Life photography. There’s another thing I’m not a fan of… Hang on a minute…this still life of the flowers, this one of the apples on a table, wow! I was mesmerised, I didn’t let on too much to Rod, but actually I loved them and not only that when I looked again at some of the landscapes it was as though the scales had fallen from my eyes. Beautiful work, really outstanding. Okay, a few of those Landscapes I still thought were crap, they missed me totally, I felt nothing at all. I think it’s okay to feel that way though, surely it’s impossible for someone to like every single piece of work from a particular photographer. It’s subjective. We did come across a few of his ‘people/documentary’ shots from London and the North of England taken during the early 1960’s. Man, I can’t tell you how brilliant they were in the flesh. Of course, you’d have to be around in the sixties to capture this stuff. A country still not in the best of shape after the war and a time when kids played in the streets all day long. Don McCullin is best known for his War photos, the Berlin Wall series amongst many other things. I strongly recommend anyone to take the time and look at his Still Life and Landscape work. What I would call his ‘Street Photography’ is on another level altogether, incredible. Before I move on to the re-think of my own Landscape photography here’s a quick slideshow of this outing. I didn’t take many shots, another thing Rod and I agreed upon, photography is a lone wolf occupation, company is a distraction:
They have a lovely garden at this venue which by the way is at Hauser & Wirth in Bruton, Somerset. Outside would be a great place to find my new appreciation for Landscape Photography I thought…first click was this:
Final click was this:
Well, it’s a sort of landscape. No, I had a think on my way back home and actually the realisation came to me that I’ve taken a few landscapes over the years. Not only that I quite enjoyed taking them, Rod and Don were right. There was that opening shot of this post, taken at Stourhead. Of course I couldn’t manage to shoot in a proper landscape photographers style, it was at f/0.95 using a 50mm with a shutter speed of 1/2000. Looking through my files, which I can tell you is torture because they’re not even slightly in any kind of order, I found these. They’re randomly selected because, well, my filing system like this blog is random.
What was I saying again? Oh yes. I’m going to take the dogs out soon, somewhere different and concentrate on the landscape, even take a few shots. I had a terrific time meeting up with Rod. Don McCullin is awesome. Gear isn’t important. I can tell you that those shots in the slideshow above were taken with either a Canon, a Fujifilm or a Leica, all have them had a lens fitted!
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.
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