If we put to one side the Covid-19 situation across the planet and the fact that once again racism, which I have detested my entire life, has raised it’s ugly head in the U.S. They’re both extremely serious matters, this isn’t the blog post to discuss those. After that, much more trivial, comes not having any money (thanks for the support HM Government!) and no chance for any Street Photography. I can still announce that “It could be worse'“, not including Covid and Racism naturally.
To begin with the weather has been exceptional. February was one of the wettest months on record in the UK with an absolute deluge of rain. From March to the end of May we usually get around 430 hours of sunshine. Since 1929 only 10 years have topped 500 hours of the golden stuff, none over 555. This year has seen 620 hours of glorious sunshine for the last three months. All those statistics came from the BBC, if they’re wrong then blame them. That’s more than we get for most summers!
Incidentally there’s no staging of photos here. Those bubbles in the opening shot are coming from Louis, he decided to bring some with him on one of our walks. It’s funny, they’re so grown up sometimes, I hear them speaking to their friends and yet they’re still big fans of bubbles. I chose that opening shot mainly because of Amélie’s expression. Not particularly flattering, but she’s wowed by the bubbles.
That’s the beauty of having young children, they just do their own thing…actually the older ones do too. Anyway, for example on this walk Amélie decided on wearing a pair of bunny ears on her head.
I just let them be themselves and click the shutter. It’s really simple photography, hold on I shouldn’t be saying that, anyway, if I had any clients I’d be doing much more of it. Next week I’m going to see if I can have a marketing push. There’s no reason a family couldn’t have a photo shoot, go to a field and do what they like, I’ll just stand there pressing the shutter release, hopefully at the right moment and of course, I’d be two metres away. All photographers know what two metres are, my camera’s is manually set to that for the majority of the time.
That is unless I’m using the Noctilux, which I rarely do, but when I blow the dust off I’m wide open (f/0.95) and focussing as quickly as is humanly possible. I wrote about the Noctilux here some time ago. When the money gets really tight it’ll be gone rest assured of that. What I really need to do is get it paying it's way again. Another walk, and it features Amélie. This time she decided to bring her magic wand and I brought the Noctilux 50mm.
Again, they’re not posed, I let her run around and capture it, if she stops I click that too:
I need to be proactive on the photo shoots that’s for sure and we’ll leave it there for now. I need to finish painting the front door.
Great weather, more time than we know what to do with and lockdown was eased slightly last week. The great British public headed for the beach which is what we had planned to do. I saw the photos of the beaches, packed like sardines, not a lot of Social Distancing going on. It was an easy decision, we were allowed to see one person from another household and we wanted to see my sister and my brother-in-law. Okay, that’s two people technically, alright not technically it is; “Perhaps we saw them at different times Guv, honest, we’re not rule breakers”. Seriously, we’ve been in lockdown in this household since around the 16th March, we needed a quick day away from it all. No better place than Budleigh Salterton. It’s on the World Heritage “Jurassic Coast” in Devon, some say it’s still inhabited by dinosaurs. Let’s just say there’s certainly an older clientele. It’s beautiful, I love Budleigh and nearby Sidmouth, for those U.K. readers think of the fictional Walmington-on-Sea from the T.V series set during WWII, ‘Dad’s Army’ and you’ll be there. Nothing much has changed since the 1930’s. Before we travelled down I asked my sister what it was like there since the arrival of Covid-19, anything changed and she replied “Nothing really, life is the same as it always is”…sounds perfect. Even on an August Bank Holiday, with 28c and blue skies it’s quiet and of course the day we chose was no different:
A beautiful day, it felt like I’d been on holiday for a week, as they say ‘A change is as good as a rest’. Okay, I know everyone likes sand, pebbles though have their advantages. They add texture for photographs to start with and guess what? No grains of sand getting in your sandwiches, between your toes and other unmentionable places.
My sister and brother-in-law swim in the sea everyday, I dipped a toe in and the children tried, Liquid Nitrogen springs to mind whenever I think of British sea temperatures. You can always tell when someone has been in for a dip, not so much a healthy glow, more of a blue tinge to them.
Essentially with this blog post I’ve got a huge amount of photos from the last few weeks of our lockdown and part of this process is to get them off the hard drive. I wish I had lots to tell you, adventures on the Street, but it is much the same old here. We try to get out as much as possible, the first two series were made in the field across the road from us on my daily walk. We’ve had the beach and now another walk which I’ve mentioned before on this blog, there’s a search bar at the bottom of the blog posts, just type in ‘Avebury’ and it should pick up anything that’s relevant. So, onwards and upwards to Avebury, home of the neolithic stone circle, not far from Stonehenge itself and the 5,000 year old thoroughfare known as ‘The Ridgeway’. The Ridgeway is where I was once accused of being lost ending up in a huge 10 mile walk in the heat of the day, all because there was some kind of a mutiny and refusal to follow, we had to retrace our steps, that’s how little faith there was in my leadership. Of course this was absolute nonsense. I knew exactly where I was, however there appeared to be some ‘Dissent in the Ranks’ from my fellow walkers. No getting lost this time, we followed a familiar path, which it should be to most as that path is 5,000 years old! Here’s Amélie, once again, leaping with joy on the previously mentioned thoroughfare, perhaps she’s just happy not to be lost:
Be warned, there’s a couple of ‘selfies’ coming up. Now keep in mind that I told you before that I was like a ‘Greek God’ before I started my Lockdown exercise regime, obviously those exercises were short lived, mostly because I didn’t need them ;-) Fortunately these are head shots, what I will say to you though is that a 28mm lens held at close range isn’t flattering, my nose looks a lot bigger than I thought and I blame the lens, that said it appears the children seem to look absolutely the same as they usually do…how strange!
Here’s a few more from that little trip and a reminder for me to concentrate on taking more shots of Louis. I want to try a session with him out walking on our own. He used to walk with me every day before he started school, just me and Louis, now he hasn’t got any school there’s no excuses.
It really is superb up there, we are so fortunate to live where we do. Walking along the Ridgeway is one of my favourite routes, I know it so well, and so now I’ve said that let it be the end of people claiming I got lost!
Finally we dropped into Bath. Before I show those shots, I met my friend Kev in Bath on Friday evening at Victoria Park, opposite the Royal Crescent. Normally it’s a night where we’d meet up at a pub in Bristol. We took our own beers in carrier bags and sat there on the grass like a couple of old tramps. Although I noticed Kev had also brought along a glass, this was to avoid any confusion for passersby apparently, lockdown has taken it’s toll. He needs a haircut and grown a beard, he tells me the last time he met up with another of his friends in a park someone dropped a few coins as they passed by! I tried taking some shots as the sun was setting, but as I’ve said so many times before; “Photography is a lone wolf occupation”. I try to combine conversation with spotting a few shots, but I can’t concentrate and generally the conversation with Kev is much more interesting. Here’s the only one I managed worth a look at:
Bath, as I wrote before, is still a Ghost Town. Okay, a lot of twenty somethings sat in that park on Friday evening, obviously I don’t count myself or Kev in that twenty something category. Otherwise it’s virtually dead.
Once again, it is a change of scenery for the children. Tried and pretty much failed at some Street Photography. Firstly Sam and the children were my ‘Street’ subject matter. Funny thing, I seem to be back to ‘just people walking along’ with my Street Photography, which really isn’t and shouldn’t be confused with actual Street Photography :
In the end we found an Italian Ice Cream parlour that was open. I clicked a few shots that could be classified as Street Photography and called it a day. It could be worse. I was with my family, we’re all relatively healthy, the sun was shining, we had ice cream and I got a fleeting moment to shoot on the Street. I’m excited about the future, hopefully things will turn back to a small degree of normality over the summer and autumn, we can all get out and I can document what I see.
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. One series starring Amélie with the Noctilux 50mm.
If you're interested in receiving new Blogposts via email please subscribe using the box below which is titled ‘The Latest Leica Biker Blogposts Delivered To Your Inbox’.