My blog post titles can be random at best, a bit like the author, then you already know that. Often it’s whatever track I’m listening to when I sit down to write, this time it was one from a band that I’m not even a particular fan of, namely Genesis, but I do like a couple of their songs. Anyway, it’s equally true to say that the titles reflect my current thoughts, especially photographically. After the title has been “realised”, I can then try to tenuously link it to whatever I want to say and show you.
I’ve watched the skies a lot this last month, at this time of year sunrise is around 7:45am and just the moment I’m walking the dogs. Let’s face it, I’m never going to be one of those landscape photographers that get up at 3:30am and hike for an hour to get a shot of a sunrise. I’m unlikely to see any in the summer months, but I can enjoy the beautiful light it creates during mid-winter. Plus I can take photos and there’s absolutely no need for any of that boring post production, just as I like it. In true Landscape Photographer style I take a tripod, set up my shot, meticulously frame it all up, slow the shutter speed to 30 seconds or so and spend two days on Photoshop…you know I’m joking, right? Walk as you shoot, 1/1000th second shutter speed, f\11, one minute in Lightroom. Of course I could make a million adjustments, bring out the shadows for example, we could then see Dottie more clearly in the photo below, but that’s not being honest, this is more how it was to me. I adjust the camera settings to record and reflect what I’m seeing or feeling at that precise moment.
The only downside is that if you’re interested in people you don’t see any. That can be a deal clincher if like me it’s precisely what you’re interested in photographing. Very rarely someone will wander along, but other than that you’re on your own. Believe me that isn’t always a bad thing. If you want to maintain some form of sanity in this crazy world my advice is to take a morning walk, the only fly in that ointment is I’m always accompanied by two practically insane dogs. Hey, you can’t have it all and I deal with the crazies, better known as spaniels Bertie and Dottie.
I’ve been fairly lazy this last month. January isn’t my favourite of the year that’s for sure, this one has been dour on all levels and I’ve lost little of my desire to visit Bath or Bristol for some Street Photography. I’ll talk in a moment about regaining that infatuation/lust/desire. Wow, I should be a therapist or at least a marriage guidance councillor…those that know me well will perhaps say maybe not. I’ve been married twice, engaged thrice. I was down at the Jewellery shop so often they used to call me “Lord of the Rings”! This month I’ve just been snapping whenever I felt like it, actually now I come to think of it December was pretty much the same and often I didn’t feel I wanted to. Talking of ‘Watcher of the Skies’ here’s a some snaps of my father-in-law and his light aircraft. He visited the other day, we have a very small airfield near us with a grass runway at a farm near the village of Wadswick. I call it “Wadswick International”. Well, he did fly up from Wales and that’s another country.
And it is another country. They even have different Covid regulations than England, even though we’re all a part of the U.K. One of the more bizarre and as always illogical rules to curb the spread Covid was that over the last six weeks if you went to work in Wales you could be fined £60, it was perfectly okay to go to the pub though. My son Louis is still busy trying to catch Covid in an attempt to get off school for a week. I may have told you that when his sister (Amélie) had it in October he was by her side constantly. One night I watched as she was brushing her teeth before bedtime, he stuck his fingers in her mouth and smeared it all over his face. Zero infection and not the desired result. We have to take regular tests, schools insist on it and he’s yet to be positive. We all know what a lateral test looks like, thin red lines denote whether you're positive or negative, similar to a pregnancy test. What it’s not like is a thermometer. This photo below (I hope you can see it) is of what I found the other morning before he got ready for school and left by the sink. His latest attempt to skip classes, besides anything else I’m fairly certain that he’s been banned from having ink pens or any kind of permanent marker:
Of course his stock answer is “I didn’t do it” à la Bart Simpson. I then have to remind him that no one likes a liar, it insults the intelligence of those who have to listen to those lies. We all know people like that. I’m still undecided whether he will become a billionaire or prison inmate. I often wonder what kind of career/rap sheet he might achieve. Though now I think about what I’ve just written he’d be perfectly suited to a career in politics. Our current Prime Minister, the glorious leader that is Boris Johnson, is all of those things. He lies, has money and soon will be interviewed by the police regarding the shenanigans that have taken place at 10 Downing Street. Regardless, the world keeps turning.
Whilst that world is turning its inhabitants are going about their lives and I want to photograph them. Incidentally we’ve moved on from Genesis, we’re on Nick Drake and Kula Shaker now. I’m using Spotify via my AirPods and as you might know, they defy the laws of probability. There’s one for your left ear and one for your right, you’d think that there’s a 50/50 chance when you pick them up to place the correct one in the corresponding ear. I’m here to tell you that it’s not like flipping a coin, it doesn’t equal itself out, oh no, far from it. I can confirm that I’ve only got it right a couple of times and the wrong AirPod ear combination hundreds of times. Where was I? Oh yes. Street Photography.
In the last few weeks I’ve only managed 15 minutes of Street when I stopped on my way back from getting my motorbike repaired in Bristol. The watcher of the skies briefly turned to the watcher of people, it was hurried, but he liked it. There’s only so much sky watching you can do and photograph after all. I’d almost forgotten the feeling of stalking the streets, stalking may not be the right word, maybe hunting, nope, walking the streets is better. Working the streets? Now I sound like a hooker. Observing and documenting life on the streets with a camera, that’ll do. Whatever. Photography with a purpose. Not just snapping when you can be bothered. You go out specifically to document, nothing else is going on, there is no need to think of anything else. Total escapism with complete absorption in the process.
I have resolved to make time. We all know that precious commodity on this planet is finite, I love street photography, now just get on with it. If I have another fifteen or so years where I’m active or fit and my eyes are functioning then I’m going to cram in as much as I possibly can. I know there’ll be a lot of crap photos, disappointments, but there’ll be those moments when everything comes together and there are few better feelings that I know. This is the point where I would leave you with a closing shot to demonstrate one of those perfect moments. I had fifteen minutes and consequentially don’t have one. It’s just someone sat in their car that I spotted walking back to my bike.
Instead I’ll leave you with a snap of another car inhabitant, my dad. No one smokes indoors nowadays, I let him have a cigarette in the car, it made his day.
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 made using a Leica M with Summicron 28mm Lens fitted.
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