A Sort of Journal

The Call of the Highlands

2011-02-15T00:29:00.002Z

The pipes are calling. Point the car north and drive till the rain stings and the midges bite. It's been far too long.

A Change in the Weather

2011-02-13T20:36:00.006Z

What a difference a few hours and a few hundred miles makes.

Thursday morning, 10.30, speeding across the Venetian lagoon on my way to the airport.

Thursday afternoon, 15.00, speeding along the M25 through Surrey.

Now which do I prefer?

Lately a Latte

2011-01-18T22:32:00.002Z

It is probably a character defect on my part but if I'm left alone with a coffee for more than five minutes, I will photograph it.

Getting Up Steam

2010-03-31T23:10:00.006Z

The periods of time between posts in this journal - a serious misnomer given the word's Latin root - grow ever longer. I've no idea why. Perhaps there are too many other demands on my time due to my quest for continuing mental stimulation, the essential offset to the depredations of advancing years. Certainly I've taken on new challenges of late - well, one new challenge at least, the others are old ones, like getting out of bed at a reasonable time and not eating chips.

I've become a voluntary guide at a stately home. A couple of days a week I get to pretend that I own a large Palladian mansion in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside. I can swan around from room to room, chatting to our clientele, raising a laugh and singing. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to sing but the room acoustics are tremendous and irresistible. And nobody has complained yet.

Suddenly there are lots of facts to stuff away into my crowded brain, that same brain where now, after sixty years, some of the storage rooms have become locked and keyless, their contents mouldering away, never to be retrieved. Wouldn't it be great if you could shuffle through the repository stuck inside your head and throw out all those memories for which you no longer have a use? In my case that could be the registration numbers of all the cars I've ever owned (and some of my Dad's), the phone number of one of the flats I lived in Bristol or the best pubs to drink in in the West Country in the early 1970s. All redundant knowledge but still there, clogging up the neuron pathways, pathways which might be better occupied with the names of the 6th Earl of Coventry's wives or the methods of production of cylinder glass.

Still, what does it matter? If I don't know the answer, I can always make something up, one of the benefits of being relatively well-read and knowing not quite enough about a lot of things. And so I do. Constantly, such drivel as would make you weep.

Enough of that. It's patently obvious that there have been insufficient images of steam trains on these pages. So here is one. While viewing this picture, try to conjure up a bitterly cold December day with the scent of snow in the air. Then smell the rich, overpowering, exotic tang of hot oil and coal smoke, and hear the hiss and splutter of steam erupting from a straining safety valve. When you have that in your mind, you will understand how, in one way at least, I experience perfection.

Gaslight Alley Revisited

2009-11-19T15:28:00.007Z

Currently I'm working in Mayfair, an exorbitantly over-priced area in the West End of London. Not far from my location is an abandoned Underground station at Down Street, closed in the 1920s because of lack of custom - even then the inhabitants were too well-heeled to contemplate travelling on a public transport system.

I was going to initiate a diatribe against the parasites on society who live here with their personalised car number plates and private clubs but I can't be bothered. People sponge off society at both ends of the spectrum and that will never change so I'll not waste my breath.

Despite the fact that I'm working to past two in the morning, I've still found time to visit some of the attractions of the big city. Yesterday I went to the Tate Britain to reacquaint myself with the highlights of late eighteenth and nineteenth century British Art, a period when the craft of the artist was paramount.

Today I visited Tate Modern. It was a brief visit and, as in past visits, I searched in vain for something that was more than 'The Emporer's New Clothes' and something that demonstrates the craft skills of the artist. Still I'm sure there are enough people living in Mayfair with money to waste who can keep these modern paint daubers in the substances of their choice.

Anyway, just to emphasis how essential light is to a subject, be it in painting or photography, I revisited the small square with the gaslight that I photographed at night recently. Not too exciting now, it is? Where's the atmosphere and the drama? It's as flat as the proverbial pancake.

Gaslight Alley

2009-11-11T17:14:00.008Z

I was wandering the streets of London on Monday - actually trudging would be a more accurate description of my activity - when I came across this Dickensian alley close to the busy throughfare of Piccadilly. Although I'm used to seeing gaslights in use close to home in Great Malvern, I hadn't realised there were still a few left in the Great Wen. What's more it wasn't in a particularly touristy area; it appears that this minor public right-of way, and the courtyard it leads to, has escaped the passage of time and the onward march of progress.

Which is jolly nice.

Added November 12th.

I've now identified exactly where I was standing when I took this picture. It was in Pickering Place, off St James's Street. It was home to the Republic of Texas's embassy until it joined the US union in 1845. It also has two claims to fame - it is the smallest public square in Britain (I can attest to that - cat-swinging was not an option) and it was the last place in England where a duel was fought - walking back twenty paces would have been a bit tricky.

Two Forks

2009-06-15T18:24:00.004Z

I'm at an age where I am easily confused and one thing I expect from an eatery is that if they're going to label something, they get it right. Fortunately I was so engrossed in my newspaper (and the exquisite taste of the ham, cheese and mustard panini I was eating) that I didn't have chance to commit the faux pas of pushing a lump of food into my mouth on the end of a knife. There's no doubt it could have easily happened.

You may have noticed that there are a couple of items left on my plate. The tomato is a question of texture as much as of taste; I'm happy to eat them cooked (and so long as they no longer look like tomatoes) but raw, or even worse, from a can, is beyond the pale.

As for the cucumber, I imagine there are people who would stand up for this ridiculous vegetable, poor misguided individuals that they are, but I'm not one of them. If you must buy them, I suggest you clean them thoroughly and then slice them carefully with a sharp knife into thin roundels; there's no need to pare off the skin.

Once you have completed this process, gather the slices up in your hands and throw them in the bin. Then go and find some real food - almost anything else will be more appetising (except raw tomato).

And cabbage.

Caught in a Tune

2009-06-12T22:59:00.006Z

Peter and I ventured south today atop the tortured tarmacadam of the M5, Britain's premier route for caravans and camper vans, sloth-like incarnations of a living hell driven by bespectacled denizens of late middle-age, arrayed side by side with their feverishly knitting spouses.

We went, with just a minor deviation via Severn Beach, Gloucestershire's lost (or last) resort, to Clifton. Here, amongst the trendy delis, antique shops and intermittent signs of the Belle Monde, we fell into a guitar shop.

I am not a frequenter of such places; they belong to people of Peter's digital dexterity, whose fingers need to do more than just press a shutter release. But they are wondrous places, full of shiny toys and all-enveloping sound.

Guitars are an image-makers dream, emblazoned with reflective surfaces, often crafted from natural wood, full of arboreal depth and grain.

And they work well in black & white. Yet more hearkening for a lost age.

Words Lost on the M11

2009-05-30T18:30:00.008Z

I suppose I ought to be making the most of this undoubtedly brief respite from blogger's block, or so I thought as I was driving down the motorway early this morning. And, just at that moment, a subject came into my head and I roughed it out in my mind, ready to commit it to digits later in the day. It was a cracker with the potential to be both provocative and witty.

Yet now, when I'm not dodging the traffic on the A12 and I've time to write it down, I've absolutely no idea what it was that I was thinking about - not an inkling.

Incidentally, an inkling; it's a strange word and nothing to do with diminutive inks - they would be, I imagine, small, dark, dank creatures that lived in wells and, despite their unprepossessing looks, essentially friendly so long as you didn't give them a nib in the groin.

Anyway, I'm digressing from my digression. The word 'inkling' is usually taken to have come from a 13th century original spelt 'ninkling', meaning an indistinct hearing of the use of one's own name. I often get an inkling that Pixie is calling me but I can usually move out of range - the garage is fairly soundproof.

Later today I found myself in Epping again, looking for somewhere to eat on a busy Saturday night. As I passed the Raj, the Indian restaurant I ate in last week, I noticed there was a table for one left in the window. I entered, sat down, and, just for a change, ordered exactly the same meal as I had last time.

It was delicious. Again.

The image has no relevance to today's touch of nonsense. Nor should it have. It's still nominally a free country.

Almost Monochrome

2009-05-29T20:05:00.002Z

I spend an excessive amount of my working life in enclosed, dark spaces; it's a bit like being a coal miner but without the physical labour and the danger. It is not a career choice for claustrophobics or for those who cannot find ways of amusing themselves during the long periods of time when everything is running smoothly and there are no knobs to be twiddled or lamps to bash.

Today I had my camera with me so that I could download some images I'd knocked off during a meal break. Sitting at the other end of the lighting box, my colleague, Craig, inadvertently presented me with a glowing bottle of orange, neatly back lit by a desk lamp and contrasted against a monochrome DVD image on his computer. Why it should grab my attention, I don't know but I can only say that after several hours of watching pictures of people playing poker, any diversion is welcome. I wound the ISO setting on the camera up to 3200 (I told you it was dark in there) and this was the result; it's a bit noisy/grainy but I like it. With these exquisite little pleasures, the long day passes.

Monochromatic Urges

2009-05-25T22:44:00.004Z

I was sat in my hotel room, having finished one book and picked up another but barely started it, when suddenly this compulsion came upon me to make a monochromatic image. No idea why. Some people feel the urge for a pint of real ale or a chocolate hobnob. Not me; I'd been to the gym earlier for 30 minutes of sweating and limb creaking and all that blood swirling around had opened up a black and white pathway.

There it is. Hardly earth shattering but gently pleasing in a bucolic, rural sort of a way - a misty vista and a group of three.

And then there's this, photographing a platelayer's hut in a reed bed by a railway line in Norfolk. Obviously something else I felt was a better use of my time than sitting in a waterside hostelry with a foaming glass of Adnam's best and some sausage and mash in a rich onion gravy.

I really must get these aberrations looked at.

(Second blog this month - whoa)

Far Eastern Semi-Solids

2009-05-24T10:22:00.005Z

For many years I've had a fondness for what an old friend of mine called 'Far Eastern Semi-Solids'. By that he meant food from India, China, Thailand, etc. Unfortunately Thai and Chinese, as least as served in the UK, are not to my taste but Indian or Bangladeshi, that's the business.

I had my first curry, a chicken biriani, in a restaurant in London Road, Leicester. That was in 1970 so quite a few more have passed my lips and lined my stomach since then. Over the years I have developed a standard by which I judge all Indian restaurants. It consists of a chicken dhansak with pilau rice, a bombay aloo and a stuffed paratha. By these dishes I measure the desirability or not of a repeat visit.

This less than perfect picture (taken on my phone - you get some funny looks if you start photographing food in an Indian restaurant with an SLR camera) is of the offering at the Raj in Epping, Essex. It's probably my fifth visit. The same meal every time. Enough said.

That last sentence worries me a little because, as I've mentioned before, I'm paranoid about slipping into ruts, even fur-lined ones. It's bad enough that Pixie and I almost always have a home-cooked curry on a Monday. Reluctance to embrace change, particularly once you've entered the bus pass years, is the slippery slope to mental decrepitude.

So many people are reluctant to welcome something new. For me the ultimate shock/horror headline in my local paper would be one that read 'Local people welcome new town/wind farm/supermarket/red light district'. It doesn't matter what is proposed, the human instinct it to resist it. Occasionally this is the correct reponse but not always, or, I would argue, in general. Resistance to change is not the recipe for a secure future.

Next in Line

2009-04-03T19:13:00.006Z

Narcissus strikes again. Must be my theme this year, getting my ageing physog in every one of my meagre outpourings. Still there is a younger component - Pixie by a smallish and undisclosable margin and Tiggy, my first grandchild, by about 59 years, 7 months.

A Radiant Patch

2009-01-24T17:32:00.004Z

I had to use a devious route back from Cheltenham today owing to an outbreak of horse racing at the local track. The weather was on the gorgeous side of acceptable so I sidetracked myself down to the Saxon chapel at Deerhurst.

I was lucky that I had one of my favourites models with me. He's quite happy to trot back and forth and take up any sort of a pose (within the confines of decency) and asks for little other than the occasional coffee and a good fry-up on a Saturday morning. Unfortunately, as he'd be the first to admit, he's not the most photogenic of creatures and the upturned collar on his coat hides a multitude of chins.

So there he stands, apparently warming himself at a sunny window, bathed in a soft glow, surrounded by one thousand-year-old stonework. Take off the coat and he'd freeze to death - the deception of a winter sun.

Workplace

2009-01-18T23:35:00.003Z

I spent ten days in the Bahamas earlier this month working on yet another poker tournament. How exotic, you might think! Unfortunately not. This is where I spent up to seventeen hours a day. What is more, where I'm sitting is actually a corridor. I'm facing an identical wall to the one behind me - a wall of beige. Also the carpet comes with its own health warning.

The banana is my attempt to prove to Pixie that I eat fruit when I'm away from home, rather than hash browns and pizza. Obviously this is unbelievable.

Smooth Operator

2009-01-01T17:31:00.001Z

And a Happy New Year to all.

Four (or three)

2008-10-03T14:04:00.004Z

Once again I sit here bereft of words. I was thinking about having a bit of a rant about flying. A couple of weeks ago I returned from Barcelona in three hops instead of two, thanks to the inefficiencies of Swissair (obviously they were on cuckoo-clock timing rather than Omega that day). I could mention the yelling child, the unnecessary security checks, the cramped seats, the unexpected visit to Paris, etc, etc (and what a dump Charles De Gaulle Airport is), the fact I'd worked to four in the morning the night before. However, somewhat strangely, I'm not in the mood for whinging about air travel. That said, I'm off to Rotterdam on Sunday so the next flight might just tip the balance.

I was up at six this morning and it's now six in the evening; I'm not a morning person. I'll be working for another three or four hours yet, perhaps more. I'm only months short of my bus-pass and I should be into the pipe-and-slippers phase of my existence. My bonhomie will turn to malhomie. The slightest thing will make me scowl and mutter and my expansive view of the pleasures of life will contract into a tiny malodorous corner of my mind and fester away to itself. I will become a lesser person. And I'll eat.

See. I've just opened a bag of crisps (chips to you, Pauline). Do I need them? They are an upmarket brand. They're low-fat, low-salt, but they're also low-need. I'm eating them because I'm bored, underwhelmed and because I can.

There, just had another handful. What do they put in crisps to make them so moreish? And whatever it is, would it work in sprouts? Or cauliflower? Or chicken legs?

The image, by the way, could be a three or a four - your choice.

(I've just sealed up the remainder of the crisps. They're sitting on the desk in front of me. A strange, Satanic power is emanating from the seemingly innocent bag. Despite every force at my disposal, within the next thirty minutes I will reopen it. There is no power on earth that can resist the presence of crisps. It is the One Ring That BInds Them All. It is my burden, my Precious, and my stomach is Mount Doom.)

Just Like Buses

2008-09-30T17:57:00.005Z

This journal is a bit like waiting for a bus; nothing passes for a few months then along come two one after another. I’ve no idea why that happens – famine then feast. It’s a fairly unremarkable sort of feast though; a couple of chicken drumsticks perhaps, some soggy crisps and a chickpea-based dip that will have you leaping from bed at three in the morning and dashing to the bathroom.

See, now I’m in a quandary. I’ve started this posting in a lull at work, a lull that started yesterday at about 3pm and is still going strong at 9pm this evening but little is tasking me at the moment so I’ve nothing really to talk about. Sure the world’s financial markets are in turmoil but since no-ones rung me for my opinion, I might as well let them stew for a bit longer. They’ll sort themselves out eventually - the rich will stay rich and the poor will get poorer. It was ever thus.

Despite anguished cries and much breast beating from owners and estate agents alike, house prices continue their downward spiral to the sort of prices they ought to be, had rampant greed not taken hold. I suppose that does wind me up, the way people become so incensed because a nonsensical situation has been corrected to one that more justly reflects the relationship between the price of your home and your earnings. And unless you have to sell it, it’s all virtual money anyway. Surely nothing has a value until it’s bought, sold or bartered.

Anyway I’ve no idea what the residential accommodation shown in today’s image could be bought for. It looks pretty picturesque but I would imagine the garden gets a bit soggy at times and it will be a touch on the noisy side when there’s fog about.

Slippery Socks

2008-09-30T17:57:00.002Z

Slippery socks. If I was of a class that warranted a valet, that would be one of my requirements each morning. At best I would insist on brand new ones or maybe some delicately crafted in silk; I’ve never tried them but they sound ideal. At worst, I’d want socks that had been pre-worn so that they slip on the feet with ease; second-day socks, it you like, pre-stretched and rid of their post-wash stiffness. Socks that just glide on rather than stubbornly resisting their destiny as the intimate cushion between skin and shoe.

I suppose this is yet one more irritation that comes with age. Your extremities become more remote, more dependent and more demanding. I think this is particularly true of feet. They become wilfully malcontent, unprepared to serve just as useful terminations to your legs. They constantly beg for attention, no longer shrugging off the predations of ill-fitting shoes or laughing in the face of in-growing toenails. If your body has thickened with age, developing impediments to bending as mine has, feet seem to belong to another country, an exotic land of corn and fungus, where bed-posts leap out to molest toes and boots, which once fitted like soft, kid gloves, now rasp and chafe. They fight back. And you lose.

Until, with barely a whisper of discontent, you enter the age of woolly, fleece-lined slippers.

No images of footwear. Instead, an old gin distillery in east London. With its products both you and your feet could drink to forget. With enough swilled, your head and your feet may even reach the same level.

Trick of the Light

2008-07-13T17:38:00.005Z

Many, many years ago, when I was making first tentative assays into lighting as a career, I'd arranged to meet my mentor, Howard King, at the BBC Rehearsal Rooms at North Acton. He waited until I had sunk my teeth into a jam doughnut before appearing and, without a word, beckoned me to join him at the lifts. We descended several levels and entered one of the large rehearsal spaces on the third floor. It was empty, except for a number of props, such as tables, chairs, beds, etc, which could be used to populate the marked-up set outlines on the floor.

'What do you see?' he said, words which instantly filled me with dread; he was always putting me on the spot and the doughnut's sugar rush had not had time to kick in. I looked around. The room was filled with light from the sun coming through large south-facing windows and casting bright patches onto the linoleum floor. I could feel the tension. Just as I imagine he was about to give up on me, I spot what this little jaunt was all about. Against one of the walls was an old-fashioned coat stand. Its shadow was going up the wall rather than down, thrown by light from a patch of sun on the floor. This would be quite natural for rooms at night when a table lamp might produce that effect but we are conditioned to see shadows cast downward in daylight. It looked strange and Howard's point was that, although it was perfectly natural, it would not appear realistic if reproduced in an image, be it a painting, photograph or television picture, unless it was obvious to the viewer how it was being generated.

And my point is, I can hear you chanting in exasperation, assuming you've got this far? Well there isn't one really except to stress the importance to anyone in the image-making business of constant observation. I never stop looking at what the light is up to because it's fickle stuff and not to be trusted. So when I was standing in a stairwell in Sheffield a few days ago, waiting for an art gallery to open, history repeated itself. There, in a corner of this lovely art-deco building, the sun came romping in through the window and struck off up hill.

Nature doesn't do that (unless there's some water about). But a glass roof outside the building does. Unfortunately the BBC would never allow me to put up sub-titles explaining why I'd lit a scene in a particularly obtuse way so if I'd reproduced this image in a televison studio, it would have just looked odd. And an unwarranted strain on the viewer's suspension of disbelief.

No-So-Sunny Norfolk

2008-06-07T20:41:00.003Z

The weather has been a hot topic in the UK yet again with a threat of further flooding and a general feeling of malaise in the air. Our lucky country has been blessed recently by most major forms of non-frozen precipitation, ranging from basic drizzle (misty and penetrating) to horizontal sheets of the stuff.

I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being on the east coast of Norfolk this week where nothing (including the unhelpful flatness of Holland) stands between the Russian steppes and me. In winter it can be a bleak and unforgiving place, as it can be in spring, (and summer and autumn). Nature has seen fit to give it a seascape offshore that indulges itself in a wide-ranging and riotous display of hues, running the whole gamut of colours from sludge-grey to mud-brown. On a good day the green slime on the rotting breakwaters adds just the right degree of putrescence to an otherwise dull vista.

Before I completely destroy my chances of leaving East Anglia alive, I must point out that inland, when it’s not raining, it’s very pretty, resplendent in a rich history and a feast of water-borne entertainment in the shape of the Norfolk Broads (that is not broads in the American sense but open areas of water formed in centuries past by extraction). Jolly boaters swan around in their cabin cruisers and yachts, mooring up at waterside hostelries and sinking vast quantities of gin-and-tonic. Or so I’m led to believe.

The image today shows the coast in the month of June in all its glory. Note the happy crowds cavorting on the beach, the rows of deckchairs and the ice-cream sellers wending their merry way through the devoted sun-worshippers. Note also my vivid imagination.

Australian couple subjected to strange cottage pie

2008-05-30T22:50:00.008Z

Little do Lee and Margaret suspect, as they chat to Peter and Sparkly, that they are about to do battle with one of my infamous Italian cottage pies, a combination of potato and bolognese sauce (and beans) that would be enough to bring any Tuscan chef to their knees in supplication - 'please, please, Senor Dave, please make only the bangers and mash or the spotted dick.Please leave our beautiful cuisine alone. We beg of you, for the sake of our mothers.' No wonder I can only travel to Italy in disguise.

Without the power of the internet, we would have remained complete strangers but blogging will out - I think Lee and I first made contact in January 2006. It's taken a while to get to the eyeball stage (a horrible expression from the days of CB radio when passing truckers would shout 'eyeball, eyeball!' into their microphones as they narrowly avoided running each other off the road).

Still it was worth the wait. We had tracked their adventures around the globe over the past few weeks and now here they were in almost sunny Worcestershire. The rain held off, the wind died and everything in the garden was lovely, except the lawn.

It was grand, as they say up north and a right pleasure.

And so to the next leg - bon voyage.

Upside Down

2008-05-01T17:32:00.002Z

I have an unconquerable desire to turn reflected images upside-down; I'm sure it could be classed as some sort of 'philia'. There again, perhaps I have a phobia about inverted reflections. We may never know as I imagine that it would be way down at the bottom of any list of pressing, psychological, research projects.

It has the look of a double exposure, the sort of thing that happened in the cameras of days gone by if, for some reason, the film didn't wind on. Often arty types would do this deliberately. Oh, what fun!

Unpleasant beasts, cobbles, a antiquated trip-hazard for the careless pedestrian or wearer of stilettos, and an uncomfortable and slippery surface for the cyclist. Motorists, however, do get the pleasure of a modulating thrumming noise as they drive over them so all is not lost. Also they do look the part in front of an old building like this clock tower at 3 Mills in east London.

Incidentally there is an election in London today for Mayor. The choice seems to be between a rogue, a buffoon and an also-ran (or two - I've no idea who the minority candidates are). Doubtless it is the same everywhere and it is no wonder that so few people bother to vote. In most contests, and to be honest I'm tempted to say all, the sort of individuals who put themselves forward for public office are just the sort who would not make it onto your Christmas Card list. They generally distinguish themselves by being undistinguished.

I suppose someone has to do it. It has been said that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship and if the human race ever breeds one, I'm sure we will be mightily relieved.

Just don't hold your breath.

NY, NY

2008-04-25T19:43:00.005Z

On April 16th I completed 40 years working in the broadcasting
industry. For the most part it's been an enjoyable experience. I took
fourteen years to get to the top of my chosen path, sat there for
about another eight years and have been sliding gently back down
ever since; that's why I'm now lighting poker tournaments instead
of prestige dramas. Production methods have changed and my skills
are no longer in demand. That doesn't worry me; I've proved to
myself that I can light anything that's thrown at me (except
sitcoms). I'm afraid that I'm guilty of losing interest in things once
I've mastered them to my satisfaction (which can be a fairly low
level of expertise!). That's why I no longer do su doku puzzles.

Too many people live in the past, lamenting what has been,
dredging up old slights and grudges. Cast them aside (easy to say, I
know). Baggage is not for carrying through life, it's for losing at
Heathrow Terminal 5. And issues? That's what magazines come in,
usually with a special at Christmas. Resistance to change is one of
life's greatest stumbling blocks. Don't lie in the road in front of the
bulldozer – learn to drive it. To counter the lack of challenges in my
television career, I developed sidelines that fitted in with a reducing
workload. For a few years I was an antiques dealer. Now I have a
another career as a photographer.

As usual I've reached the point where I've no idea where this
chuntering on is leading. So I'll change tack.

I took a few photographs in New York but not as many as I might
have. Aside from the fact that it's not fair on Pixie if I'm diving off
every few minutes to prostrate myself under a building or dangle
excitingly from a bridge parapet, I felt that NY was too familiar. I
didn't feel the urge to acquire images of something I'd seen so often
in films and books. How many pictures of the Flatiron Building or
the Empire State does the world need? Even if I could find a new
angle, why bother?

Still I didn't return empty handed.

Grand Central

2008-04-15T18:36:00.004Z

In terms of railway architecture there are few places more iconic than Grand Central Station in New York. Pixie and I popped into the concourse last week, at the beginning of our brief trip to the Big Apple (or is it a moderately-sized banana, an undernourished kumquat, a decidedly sparse kiwi fruit, who knows?). Following the clamp down in recent decades on both cigarettes and steam locomotives, it no longer has the shafts of sunlight-through-(or thru)smoke so beloved of the photographers of this building in the thirties and forties. However it is still an impressive space and cried out for a tripod, which I didn't have.

We both have an aversion to tourists and queueing, even when touring ourselves, so most of the time we spent making our own itinerary. Not for us standing in line at the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island; there are some things that become just too familiar through the medium of film and television. We did venture up the Empire State building, going early to avoid the crowds, but not doing so would have been an equally good option, and cheaper.

Overall we liked NY - wouldn't want to live there, however, unless we could disconnect every car horn and teach them how to brew tea (and coffee).

User Friendly?

2008-03-20T23:56:00.005Z

I was very tempted to break the silence of the last few weeks with yet another ecclesiastical image; I've spent a lot of time recently hiding from the wind in churches. However I don't really possess a cruel streak so I've passed on the organ pipes, gothic windows and hymnals. Instead an image from the new religion.

To be honest I'm not sure what this is. I think it might be a super-thin Apple MAC. Very neat but where do you put all the bits that make it work? The big hard drive, the card readers, the DVD ROM, etc. Perhaps they're hidden round the back somewhere; I didn't look as the machine didn't really interest me.

I've always found MAC owners to be very defensive. They seem to have some personal vendetta against Bill Gates who, despite his leanings towards world domination, is one of the world's great philanthropists. Also the MACites are always bleating on about how superior their toys are. They probably are. So was the Betamax. Enough said. What if Windows does crash at the slightest provocation, like a change in the wind direction in the Outer Hebrides or you accidentally putting the milk in after the tea instead of before? It's not a perfect world - that would be boredom personified.

Incidentally this isn't a product shot I ripped off - I took it while setting the lights for a television programmes called The Gadget Show. It was a change to design the lighting for something that didn't involve poker players.

Churning Away

2008-02-26T19:13:00.009Z

I'm back from my three-week stint working in London and so have less time to pound the keyboard - do I hear a sigh of relief?

Today there was a tasty bit of light floating around and I thought a camera outing was in order; I fancied knocking out some images to upload to iStock, the photographic stock agency I shoot for. Pixie wanted to pop to Alcester (I think popping means a trip of less than two hours but I'm awaiting a precise definition) so we set off over the Lench Hills. This range is to the north of our village, rising up from the River Avon; they fall far short of mountain size and are of a gentle, pastoral nature. I like the Lenches; they're understated and very English, in reality more like hillettes, although very demanding to a fat man on a bike.

On the way I clocked that this old pair of milk churns (well screwed-down to the platform to deter the light-fingered) were rather gorgeously lit. I took a few pictures with just the barest hint of grovelling then we set off again (gosh, this is all so spiffingly exciting!) In Alcester the sun was still shining. Rather than retiring to the somewhat eccentric coffee/curtain material shop I patronise, I meandered around, squirting off the odd photo and having a good time. The town has a strong Georgian heritage - that's Georgian as in mad king and not as in former outpost of Russian imperial might.

Several years ago, when BritishTelecom attempted to replace all the traditional phone boxes with perspex and aluminium monstrosities, towns and villages with a bit of history quite rightly protested. As a result some of these red icons were kept on although I doubt they'll be in existence for much longer given the irresistible rise of the mobile phone. These instruments of refined torture are so ubiquitous that it would seem that they're issued at birth. Still the old boxes give you a place to shelter in a heavy rainstorm, particularly if you have a liking for the intimate odour that often pervades them.

I ducked into the church, searching for old monuments to immortalise in digits. As I snapped away I became aware that my shutter seemed to be very fast for the light available. Checking the camera I found it was set to 1000 ISO (I usually use 160). This is far too fast a speed for anything I might want to submit to iStock for sale because of the amount of graininess caused. All my efforts to find something commercial had failed.

Never mind. We stopped off on the way home and I had a very scrummy toasted teacake - there's no disappointment that can't be cured with food.

Party Time - Not

2008-02-20T11:35:00.005Z

I'm not gregarious enough for parties, at least not for anything involving more than four people (and that's stretching it a bit). The thought of an evening spent surrounded by balloons fills me with gloom. Drinking warm, weak beer from a plastic glass is just one more facet of the devil's work. Anything vaguely edible on a stick or with a bone in it, needs to be cast to the winds. Life is just too short for enforced merriment. If hell exists, it will not be a place of fire and brimstone; it will be a flatly-lit room full of drunks talking about sport, their jobs, their kids or their neighbours. The food will be tepid and taste of cabbage.

I haven't been to any parties recently, thankfully. These thoughts were triggered by this image of balloons snagged on a barbed wire fence. The scene conjures to perfection my view of large scale jollity. Dull. Monotonous. Gloomy. I used to go to a lot of after-show shindigs where we joined the lovies and stood around telling each other how marvellous it all was. I was usually the first to leave; going home to Pixie was always going to be more entertaining.

If I'm at a party with Pixie - a very rare occurrence - I am made to behave myself. For a start I'm not allowed to indulge in my usual party activity which is to find a book or newspaper and retire to a dark corner (I have been known to take reading materials with me). If she catches me playing games on my PDA, I'm also in trouble. Nor am I allowed to eat too many cold sausages, pork pie segments or crisps. And I get told off if if I start talking her into leaving within 15 minutes of getting there. Also I'm expected to mingle. What an obscene activity that is! I'd rather hit my thumb repeatedly with a giant hammer.

Being antisocial is a real chore but it's worth striving for. Eventually you stop being invited to anything.

Now that is worth blowing a balloon up for.

(Oddly enough I'll talk to anyone I don't know it it's one-to-one; always up for a chat with the postman, girl on the checkout, bloke in the street. It's the group thing I can't cope with. No doubt there's a word for it in the psychological lexicon).

Shhhh

2008-02-19T12:44:00.004Z

Some trains in the UK have a 'quiet' coach. Within its supposed cocoon of silence, the passenger, or should I say customer to use the modern jargon, should be able to relax, untroubled by tinny iPod headphones or mobiles with jaunty tunes.

Of course this admonition of 'shhhh' is totally ignored by those sorry dregs of humanity who lack respect for their fellow man and are too lazy to go out to the vestibule between the coaches. No, for them, the broadcasting of their intimate call to the mistress arranging a little bit of 'how's your father?' later, followed by the thinly apologetic excuse to the wife - 'working late, dear' - is for us all to hear. Makes men of them, I suppose.

However the vocal garbage of these cretins is as nothing compared to the train announcements. At every stop, and there are nine or ten between Evesham and London, a weary-sounding female voice goes through a litany of tedium concerning what company it is, what service it is, what to do during the expected crash, where the buffet is, where first-class accommodation resides, the position of the family coach and also that of the quiet coach. She then procedes to list what can't be done in the quiet zone. Unfortunately that doesn't include making repetitive, loud and banal announcements. I timed her outpouring once; it lasted 1 minute, 48 seconds. And you get one at every stop.

All this is grist to the mill to an old reactionary like myself. Technology for technology's sake. I used to be able to get on a train and travel without any on-board announcements whatsoever. Also I got to where I wanted to be, often, strangely enough, on time. While on the train there was nothing that important that I needed to communicate it instantly. If I wanted entertainment, I read a book, an essentially quiet mode of passing the time with only the gentle swishing sound of a page turning. A real human would pass through now and again, dressed in a natty uniform, and remind us that we needed to be in the front five coaches if we wanted to get off at Evesham. No disembodied voice warned us of the dire consequences of leaning out of the window, of opening the door before the train had stopped or the perils of leaving your belongings behind. As an educated person, you just knew these things. And if you didn't know the first two, then it was one less idiot in the gene pool.

Oz Groups of Three

2008-02-18T12:09:00.005Z

I was thinking about Australia this morning, as you do from time to time, and also about groups of three (ditto); it beats thinking about how bad the traffic is and whether I really should eat any more Chocolate Hob Nobs. These thoughts sent me off to my back-catalogue of images from our last trip in 2005 - any excuse to wring some more mileage out of them.

The first is for Lee, and any trainspotters who may drop in. There's a roadbridge just to the north of Spencer Street station in Melbourne which is ideal for a bit of locomotion photography. I found an excuse to be there both at sunset and sunrise.

The pelicans are at Bateman's Bay, on what I believe is called the South Coast but it's on the east facing edge of the country - all relative, I suppose.

Lastly perhaps the most over-exposed icon of the Southern Hemisphere, if not the world. Incredibly expensive restaurant. The building is copyrighted and cannot be sold in photographic form without permission, even in a long shot. Normally I'd be inclined to remove it in Photoshop and replace it with a grasping hand but today I'm feeling generous.

Incidentally the ferry, named Queenscliff is, like others on the run to Manly, named after a famous Sydney surfing beach. Isn't that a refreshing change from deceased Queens, Princesses, etc.

Heavy Dapple

2008-02-17T17:37:00.002Z

A week or so ago I talked about dingle, the bits of tree, branch or twig that cinematographers and photographers place in an image to form a frame, to lead the eye to a point of interest or just to break up an otherwise blank canvas - a swathe of blue sky for example.

Dingle has a mate in the break-up stakes. It's name is Dapple. I know that sounds like the name of a horse from a particularly soppy kid's story involving a wicked step-mother, a flaxen-haired girl and a street urchin from the wrong end of town, but I can assure you, it's also the name of a lighting technique.

In my business we create dapple by making suitable shapes in sheets of wood or metal and shining lights through them. Like most things in life, Nature can do it better although, as we know, not consistently and certainly not when you want it. In the image above, the plane trees in the town of Uzes in southern France have treated this building to what can only be described as the heavy version; Somewhere in this dense shade is a wall and three pairs of shutters.

And just out from the wall, a table, four chairs and some ice-cold lager.

Posts per Month

2008-02-16T14:16:00.002Z

As a nerdy exercise, I've produced this graph (click here).

Proof if proof were needed.

Losing Muse Alert

2008-02-16T10:46:00.006Z

I think I can see my creative muse waving goodbye. It's standing on the other side of the studio, wreathed in mist from the smoke machine, the twinkle of the star cloth reflected in its glasses.

Glasses? Interesting concept. I'm always complimenting Pixie when she wears her glasses. I wear specs myself, have done so since I started learning to drive- my passengers insisted on it as the words 'Is there anything coming' as I pulled out to overtake were apparently a little unnerving.

I should have worn them at school but vanity prevented it. As a result I saw nothing that was explained on the board and suffered academically. The astute amongst you will be asking why I didn't sit at the front of the class although you already know the answer. Pride - the kids who reckoned they were something sat at the back.

But would a muse wear glasses? Shouldn't they be symbolic of perfection? Maybe so but Pixie reading is the image I'll keep in mind for a muse (and she is perfection!).

So why do I think my writing muse is taking leave? Difficult to say. I've noticed that the inclination to write these posts comes and goes and rarely lasts long. Perhaps I'm just too fickle, always waiting for the next challenge and easily tiring of the present one. Low boredom threshold? I don't think so although some may disagree. I used to be into a lot of apparently mind-blowingly boring hobbies - train-spotting, ham radio, bird-watching, all activities where the ability to sit in one place and await events was essential. Maybe I've grown out of it. As you get older perhaps you have only two choices - settle into routine and wait it out or scrabble after as much new experience as possible. I'm more tempted by the latter.

But it won't include pot-holing. I've not got many phobias but one definite is a fear of being trapped in a tunnel or hole underground. I don't mind being below but it has to be in an area where I can stand and, should I feel the urge, leap. Darkness is OK but anything involving hands-and-knees is out. Dragging myself on my well-proportioned belly through rocky passageways is not on the menu.

So what is on the menu?

Well, it's Saturday and, as a result, the restaurant where I'm working is shut (anyone who entertained any thoughts that the UK might be awakening to the idea of service take note). So it's Tesco's again, a miserable choice of sandwiches, cold pasta and ready-meals. What I wouldn't do for a plate of sausage & mash with mushy peas; actually I wouldn't be allowed sausages as I had them for breakfast - it's one of Pixie's more interesting rules for life.

So there you are. I started this post assuming my muse was off on an extended break and then, with its assistance, I've managed to put together an long rambling missive about absolutely nothing.

Ah, now I look more closely, I can see that it's just signaling that it's popping out for a Cappuccino and would I like one?

Fat chance - the canteen's closed.

It's a beautiful, sunny day in London so here's an image of a rain storm on Dartmoor in Devon - Yin & Yang.

Routine

2008-02-15T11:38:00.007Z

I’ve used these pages in the past to foment some ill-conceived drivel about routine and its insidious corruption of our lives. This morning I realised that, when I’m staying away from home, I slip into one that fits like a glove; it’s called breakfast.

The time at which this routine takes place varies according to my work schedule so it is not like some rituals I’ve come across, such as not having a cup of tea because it’s not four-o-clock yet.

When working in London I stay at a comfortable hotel on the outskirts, in Essex. I arrive at the dining room and I’m shown to a table – I don’t mind where they put me but they know I need to be on my own; breakfast is not a companionable meal of the day with strangers. I position my copy of the ‘Times’ to the left of the neat, white, linen napkin and its set of three utensils. Then I head for the cereals, emptying a packet of Kellogg’s Special K into a white china bowl, adding semi-skimmed milk and then collecting a glass of orange juice.

I return to the table, spread the pristine napkin across my lap and read the front page of the paper while slurping the cereal and quaffing the juice. A waitress arrives with coffee. I pour a cup.

By the end of page three, I’m ready for the next stage. Off to the buffet, collect a white china plate and then approach the covered, chrome receptacles. Here the ritual can suffer a slight set back as they’re not always in the same order and I don’t know what to expect until I slide back the lid. However at some point, from the twelve different items on offer, I will remove two pork & herb sausages, two hash browns and a mess of baked beans – I ignore the ordinary sausages (taste of chemicals), the bacon (too salty), tomatoes (too squishy, and they taste of tomato), eggs, (all forms – allergy), black pudding, (too melodramatic) and the mushrooms (too watery).

I don’t have toast and I look longingly at the croissants and Danish pastries but I don’t partake. Back to my place, spreading the crisp napkin back across my lap (to catch any stray baked beans that do not come to rest on my stomach, leaving a reddish trail down my sweater). Then I set too with the knife and fork. It normally takes me up to page six to finish, depending on the quality and interest of the stories offered in my newspaper of choice. Then, and here the routine can vary, I may have another cup of coffee. Or I may not. Discarding the napkin and gathering up my paper, I leave, exchanging pleasantries with the staff on the way.

That is how routines are made. I shall do exactly the same every day, for twenty days. It will not bore me. And I will grow bigger, but not as gross as I would if I didn’t pass by those pastries, with their tempting fillings of cherry jam, or apricots, perhaps a pecan or two and some maple syrup.

No! Get thee behind me, Satan!

I’d forgotten, on Sunday I have to start work at 0600. I will miss breakfast. I made need counselling.

I haven't got any images of routines or breakfasts handy, so instead here are some silver shoes, UK size 3, and obviously not mine.

Pink Nut

2008-02-14T14:35:00.003Z

It is time I veered off on to another course, away from the swirling maelstrom of bureaucratic idiocy; it has exhausted me and this current burst of loquacity is at risk of withering away.

But whither?

Stuck as I am in a TV studio all day, I’m short of opportunities for image-making. Poker players, in general, are a pasty-faced, unprepossessing lot, spending far too much time indoors, eating poor food – ah, that sounds just like me at the moment. They don't make good subjects for my camera.

On the other hand, coconuts do, especially if someone has taken the trouble to slice the tops off and fill them with some sort of pink gunk. Just place empty vessel on a pristine beach and await arrival of photographer. Absolutely irresistible to anyone whose usual diet of things on sand is seaweed, pebbles, driftwood and the detritus of modern life.

As usual I got my trouser knees wet (wearing jeans, not shorts, you see. I was off to work later and no gentleman goes to work in shorts, unless they’re a lifeguard - whatever country they live in!).

Back on the Soapbox

2008-02-13T12:29:00.003Z

When I was about nine or ten, I wrecked my Mum's bike. At the time there was a craze for attaching bits of cardboard to the front and rear forks so that they got flipped by the spokes going round, making a very satisfying noise; offcuts from Kellogg's Cornflake packets were favourite. The day of the incident, I was wearing sandals - yes, I know, but we all did back then, along with short trousers; fortunately the trainer had not yet been invented. As I rode along it occurred to me that I might get the same sort of noise if I gently poked the front of my sandal into the spokes of the front wheel. Seconds later, I was lying on a gritty road surrounded by the mangled remains of my Mum's pride and joy. I was bloody, bruised and apprehensive; I could here the words already - "Just you wait until your Dad gets home!"

I learned something that day, to do with respecting other's property (my Mum still mentions it fifty years later), and to do with sandals; they're not a substitute for cardboard. I also learned that falling off a bike hurts; the next time I did it, the injuries were so traumatic that I fainted the next day during school assembly, the only time I've ever passed out. Since then I've fallen off several times, once as recently as two years ago when I went into a bramble hedge. Riding a bike is risky, whatever your age, but think of what pleasure it gives. Why should we, or the petty officials who blight our lives, deny ourselves, or our children, the elements of risk that are concomitant with the fulfillment of a life richly lived?

I'm aware that this is a hobby horse of mine and I'm relieved that, in the UK at least, we are finally waking up to the damage we inflict on society by over-regulation, particularly in areas of health and safety. My concern is that it is too late; the bureaucracy is entrenched and, due to the very regulations they enforce, we will not be able to winkle them out of their funk-holes with anything pointed, mildly corrosive or fattening.

I haven't got any bicycle images handy so I'll have to make do with this trip hazard to illustrate today's theme. Obviously if you avoid coming a cropper on the post, the nasty disease-carrying seagulls will get you. You will never win.

Shadow of a Bridge

2008-02-12T17:53:00.001Z

I apologise for the recent outpouring of vitriol but I find it hard not to comment on the excessive obsession of bureaucracy with Health & Safety - in the long term, unless checked, these petty tyrants will destroy our societies. The human race can achieve nothing without taking risks. A child who has grown up in a protective cocoon will be floored by the first unforeseen hazard it encounters; it will have never fallen out of a swing, been bitten by a wasp, spoken to someone it doesn't know, discovered the pitfalls of life for itself. The child will be totally unprepared.

I stepped over a low wall to get this photograph. It took me closer to the river bank but I was never in danger - I was on a solid, horizontal, non-slippery surface. I did not have a safety line, nor a life-jacket, nor a hard-hat. I was a naughty boy. It felt good.

Bridges make interesting images. This one crosses the River Lee to the gas works that so fascinate me. Those pipes and girders cry out to be intimately caressed by my wide-angle lens but I still haven't found a way to get close to them; a tall fence and serious security wire stopped me using the bridge.

I was attracted by the shadows, the strong one across the water and the pointed one running off upstream. Low, winter sunlight made them possible, a wafting sheet of pale yellow spreading across the Docklands of London. It was gorgeous.

Then I made my way back the the studio, ate an instant meal from Tesco's and settled down for an evening of unremitting boredom.

You Can't Be Serious 2!

2008-02-12T11:33:00.000Z

According to the paper, a woman has now been charged with initiating a bomb hoax on the oil rig.

No news as yet as to whether the management have been charged with the more serious crime of listening to her in the first place - I can think of 'wasting police time' at the very least.

You Can't Be Serious!

2008-02-11T18:06:00.000Z

A woman had a dream about a bomb on an oil rig installation off the Scottish coast - I'll just emphasise that - a dream. As a result the management evacuated 161 employees and brought in up to a dozen RAF and civilian helicopters. Total cost of the operation was about £500,000.

Those of us who have dreams usually have the good sense to keep them to ourselves. What is so totally unbelievable is the management's reaction. I quote - "We are very relieved that this turned out to be a false alarm, but obviously had to treat it seriously".

Obviously? It was a DREAM, stupid! Yet one more example of the extreme over-reaction to anything to do with health, safety or terrorism in our risk-averse, cotton-wool encased society.

(Incidentally, as part of my job I used to have to deal with bomb warnings and with the activities of the IRA and Welsh Nationalists in the 80s and 90s, they were not infrequent. The procedure was to only accept information from a reliable source. At no time, as far as I can remember, did I get any input from someone recently awakened from the land of Nod by the effects of an over-indulgence in vintage Cheddar cheese).

Epic Epping

2008-02-11T11:23:00.001Z

Epping Forest is the largest open space in the London area, a richly wooded swathe of countryside wrested from the clutches of land-grabbing developers by Acts of Parliament in 1878. Despite its proximity to some of the grimmer areas of the city (apparently it's a favourite dumping ground for the victims of east London gangs and the highwayman, Dick Turpin, had a hideout there), it can generate scenes of great beauty .

I caught this image this morning as I was taking a short-cut between the M25 and the M11 (I know, too much detail). An irresistible sun-through-mist opportunity presented itself and, just for once, there was somewhere to park the car without screeching brakes and hooting horns. Obviously I was wearing the wrong shoes for muddy tracks but art triumphed once again over practicality.

Incidentally the locals maintain several ancient rights, including that to collect "one faggot of dead or driftwood" per day per adult resident. The ability of poor and down-trodden lesser mortals to benefit from the largesse of nature has always been restricted; one of my ancestors, Selena Lander, was arrested in Cranham Woods for taking 'green' timber rather than dead. The magistrate dismissed the case when the constable failed to produce the evidence. Keeping warm in a damp, labourer's cottage in winter must have been a daunting task in Victorian times, as it still is today for those marginalised by society or their own actions.

Woman in Red

2008-02-10T14:50:00.001Z

The weather here in the UK is magnificent and that's not a term I use lightly; frosty mornings followed by crisp, warm, sunny days. Spring has sprung and the wildlife is mighty confused. I am, of course, working inside a very large, dark room and so it's all passing me by.

My only taste of this unseasonal bounty is the lovely, misty view I get across the wasteland of the Olympics construction site to the skyscrapers of London's docklands as I make my way into work. I'd like to show you a suitable image but stopping on a flyover on the A12 is not the action of a sane man, or even one, like myself, whose nuts and bolts may be slackening off a little.

On a similar day last year, Pixie ventured out onto the pier at Whitby in Yorkshire. It's fair to say that she is not always a willing model, as witnessed by the look of suffering on her face. I can tell that my quest for the perfect reflection shot is not be being favourably received. Perhaps she was hungry or, judging by the bags she's carrying, eager to renew her assault on the charity shops.

As is so often the case, the only way I could get that picture with Pixie centred in the puddle was to hang in mid-air just off the pier, the North Sea boiling away under my feet.

It's a technique I've not quite mastered as yet.

Prostrating

2008-02-07T19:09:00.001Z

Image-making on hallowed ground again, as sure a sign of winter as the absence of swallows or the arrival of Easter eggs in the shops before Christmas. I am driven into the only public spaces with photographic potential on a cold day.

Prostrating myself in front of altars has not formed part of my plan-for-life but there's a first time for every thing. The carpet was nice and clean and I needed a direct view of the subject rather than relying on balancing the camera upside down on my foot on the end of a monopod.

For ecclesiastiophiles, the church is St Laurence, Ludlow, Shropshire, essentially Norman with Victorian restoration. It is another of the great English parish churches built off the backs of sheep.

And now, strangely, I can think of nothing controversial to say, or, for that matter, do, unless starting a sentence with the word 'and' counts. But, (which is a word regarded with similar malevolence by the sentence police as 'and' when it comes to opening up a fresh line), I should try to think of something.

Thinking.

No, peace and contentment.

Have a nice day.

(And don't get me started on 'nice'. My English teacher, Miss Hurst, exhorted us to find an alternative in all circumstances. 'Nice' had no place in her version of the language of Middle England.

And she was right. It's a nasty word, redolent in laziness of tongue. Put it away, boy.

And see me after school).

Dingle or Thicket?

2008-02-04T14:46:00.000Z

I’ve always had a bit of a thing about photographing nature ravaged by industry or, for that matter, industry ravaged by nature. This old gas works in east London has attracted my attention before but now, with the trees in winter plumage, I thought it worth another look.

It is not that simple though. The site is on the opposite side of a tidal river and an electrified railway line. Despite my well-built, over-generous height of 6’ 3 ¾”, I’m not tall enough. Serious, industrial-grade fencing stops me from getting closer and composing a clean shot.

I could probably get a better angle from a riverside towpath outside the compound I’m working in. I won’t bother to try, though; in this area anyone carrying a camera would be seen as easy meat, a quick source of readies for the next fix or a few more bottles of amber nectar. So I’m stuck with clambering up and down steps and odd bits of equipment in the somewhat futile attempt to make something of what is, to me, a rich source of imagery.

In my business, a little bit of foliage in the foreground is known as ‘dingle’; it adds interest, leading the eye to the main subject. Usually there would be a lot less of it than shown above. Perhaps this array of bare branches would be better called ‘thicket’.

Incidentally, it may appear a bit pedantic, and even pretentious, that I’ve insisted on specifying my height to the nearest ¼ inch. It’s just that I had my height measured recently for the first time in about thirty-five years. To my surprise, I’m ¾” taller than I was in my twenties. I thought I’d better make the most of it before I begin shrinking into senility.

Banking

2008-01-29T23:58:00.001Z

There's been a bit in the papers recently about a French chap who managed to squirrel away 4.9 billion euros ($7bn; £3.7bn) when working at his bank. We Brits always like a good story at the expense of the French although, to be fair, our very own Nick Leeson did to forge the way in 1995. He only managed to lose £827 million ($1.4 billion) but he did get to demolish a bank that was already over 60 years old when the one above was built. The Societe Generale seems to be hanging on at the moment.

Back in the early 18th century, the banks didn't bother to hide their penchant for wasting your money. It was all for show. Give us your hard-earned cash, they'd plead, kneading their lily-white hands, and we'll squander it on some graceful shells and perhaps some fashionable twirly bits. Just whatever is in vogue with that wastrel, the Prince Regent. A shield with the city coat-of-arms would look nice; not cheap though, the very devil getting a group of Worcester Pearmains to look the business. Then knock it all up in a tasty bit of sandstone - none of your plebeian bricks for us. Voila! We get to work in a flash building and you get a lot less in dividend.

It was ever thus.

Three Windows x 2

2008-01-28T23:08:00.000Z

Warmth, and I want to say 'coolth'. But I can't - no such word. We have warm and warmth but not cool and coolth. Am I missing something here? Is this not the right combination?

We mess around with these comparative phrases, even when we have a full set to play with. Why do photographers say that focus is either sharp or soft, instead of hard or soft or, if you prefer, sharp or blunt?

Now you may be wondering what the devil I'm off on now. And well you might. So. It's to do with the colour of the light. The light seen through the north windows of Deerhurst church is a cold blue, a cool, uninviting hue. The light projected by the sun through the south windows is warm and friendly, positing the idea of a picnic under the shade of an old chestnut, bees buzzing, larks larking and the gentle murmur of a languid brook.

As it happens it was blowing a gale outside and there was a nasty touch of wind chill around the ungloved fingers. I've thought of getting some fingerless mittens but I'm not really that pushed. Suffering for my art, and all that.

It's an old building, containing a lot of Anglo-Saxon work dating back to 800 AD or so. Like many churches in this part of Gloucestershire, ancestors of mine have been baptised, married and buried there. The past is strong in me in these places but I'm not subservient to it. Too many people dwell in the past, carrying 'baggage' with them throughout their lives which would have been better abandoned in 'left luggage'. The past is your slave, not your master.

As is the telephone.

Sheep in a Field

2008-01-28T00:17:00.001Z

I thought I should push something out onto the WWW in an effort to defy the woeful lack of posting; a manifestation of Internet ennui.

I was playing around with black & white the other day and this is the result. I've always been a little bemused by monochrome landscapes despite the thrall in which they're held in some quarters. Still this one has, to me at any rate, some pleasing tonal qualities.

I photographed a lot of lambs last year, I've resolved (see, there are resolutions) not to do so again. It was the beginning of a worrying trend that could only lead to images of small cuddly puppies and, horror of horrors, babies.

Quick, nurse, fetch his medication. We can still save him.

More Paganism

2008-01-07T12:05:00.000Z

A day of mixed weather, rain, high winds and now, glorious winter sunlight. Just idling away some time this morning waiting for my colleague, Dave, to arrive so that we can set off together for the three hour drive down to east London for a planning meeting at 5 o'clock. We should have fun in the rush hour both arriving and leaving - oh, deep joy!

I've started the resolution-free new year as I mean to go on; still sneaking lumps of mature Cheddar cheese from the fridge when Pixie's not looking, spending far too long in cafes drinking coffee and reading the paper and wandering into old churches looking for images.

So to start with, the little church at Rous Lench whose door yesterday was, for once, open to the casual passer-by. I posted a picture of the medieval foliate head on the south entrance in August last year. Inside this was refined (if that's the right word) in Victorian times to produce these table-leg motifs.

They obviously like their pagan iconography up in the Lench Hills.

Happy Birthday!

2008-01-03T18:20:00.000Z

Pixie's birthday today so I'm posting a few images I've managed to capture during the past year. She's an elusive subject so every one's a bonus.

The Dedicated Shopper - Totnes, Devon

Reliving Her Childhood - Burlington, Vermont

The "What are you doing now?" look - Sandwich, Massachusetts

Game for a laugh, balance optional - Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

New Year

2008-01-02T18:41:00.000Z

Happy New Year

Right, that's got that out of the way; no resolutions - there lies folly and delusion.

Some observations, which I may have dwelt upon in the past but for which I do not apologise.

Why do some men, often those of advancing years, wear a hat while driving a saloon car? Do they have some deep-rooted fear of suddenly losing the roof?

Why would anyone want to pay to wear clothes which proclaim the manufacturer's name on the outside, rather than discreetly hidden on a label inside?

Assuming (and this may be a big assumption) that you don't personalise your stove/vacuum cleaner/telephone/dvd player/tooth brush, why spend a fortune on giving your car a personal licence-plate that somehow reflects your name/job/sexual orientation/whatever?

Is life in Gloucestershire so dull and uninspiring that the local paper feels the need to publish a 16-page Nativity Play supplement? (Probably would be less grumpy about this if I had grand-children!)

As a humanist I'm obviously treading on dodgy ground posting supposedly Christian images but then my principles are fairly elastic. As far as I'm concerned you can believe what you like as long as you keep it to yourself. Not a position as yet embraced by those controlling organised religion but we can live in hope.

Runswick Bay

2007-12-22T15:21:00.000Z

I usually shoot photographs with a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera with interchangeable lenses. I have at least three different camera bags with which to transport my ever growing collection of bits of glass and camera-person essentials. In theory I should never be in the position of 'having the wrong lens'. So why does that happen so often?

The main reason is that I don't like to be encumbered by a bag. Nor do I like to look like a photographer. So my preferred lens storage place is a coat pocket where it can mingle with the fluff, toffee papers and other detritus. It is not really a suitable environment for a £700 piece of equipment but who cares. My long grey raincoat is ideal, lovely deep pockets that will take not only two lenses but also the camera body, spare battery, cable release, a few humbugs, a piece of cake, whatever. But if I'm not wearing that coat, I can carry only one lens. Often I make the wrong choice, leaving home feeling like it will be a wide day and then finding that all the subjects that present themselves turn out to be narrow.(No, I don't understand what I'm talking about either).

Given that I can only carry two lenses using the coat method, what is the choice? Well I shoot very little with what could be called a standard lens, the one usually sold with a DSLR camera. Instead I have two favourites, a 12mm-24mm wide-angle zoom and a 55mm-200mm vibration reduction mid-range telephoto. In theory not having access to much of the standard range, which is about 18mm - 70mm, forces me to make images that are a touch outside the normal, however that is defined.

I'm not sure it works because I still photograph far too much that is merely ordinary and gets deleted. However the image above, taken a couple of days ago on the Yorkshire coast at Runswick Bay, is one for which I did have the right lens in my pocket. It was taken at the widest angle I can achieve and I got the coat wet in the process. It's used to that. I just like the overall compass that this lens gives me, with the breadth of the sky and the immediacy of the foreground.

And it's pretty.

Mist

2007-12-05T00:23:00.000Z

Going through another quiet, urge-lacking spell hence the paucity of posting (but not, it would appear, of alliteration).

Still it's good to be able to find an image from close to home for a change. Jubilee Bridge is about a mile away, providing a shortcut from our village to the south side of the Vale. I've stopped there are numerous occasions when the light's been interesting. One morning a couple of weeks ago, after a good, hard frost and with a light mist glowing in the low sun, the world (and Pixie, bless her cotton socks) begged me to stop the car and give it a bit of a going over. As always I had the wrong lens on the camera but that was to no avail. Shoot me, shoot me, said the river.

So I did.

Remembrance

2007-11-11T11:03:00.000Z

War Sonnet

Is it not war that drives us to despair
That we will never rise above the mire,
The grim and festering fields of fire,
The smoke, the noise, the shrieks that rend the air,
From men we've sent across the mud to dare
The foe to take their lives amongst the wire,
A ceaseless flow of death that will not tire
Until we have no more, or come to care?
Yet if we found the means to end this game
To fix this dreary picture in a frame,
To paint it as a scene of love and bliss
Instead of blood and hate, would we think this
A better way to live our lives, behave?

Or are the ways of conflict those we crave?

(I posted the above poem a few years ago. It seems appropriate to give it another airing today.)

Abroad

2007-11-08T23:38:00.000Z

Just returned from another jaunt to foreign parts. A couple of images to be going on with - words later, if I think of some.

Working

2007-10-25T14:11:00.001Z

You will be pleased to know, I’m sure, that the condition of the baked beans at my hotel has improved and they can now be described as ‘comfortable’; they are once more satisfyingly gloopy. Also someone has obviously been out gathering hash browns as they were present this morning in abundance. My early morning equilibrium has been restored.

You may have observed, if you are at all interested, that my days must be pretty uneventful if all I can find to comment on is my breakfast. Well, sad though it is to say, it is the highlight; from then on it’s a steady roll downhill before gently nudging up against the buffers of ‘reading in bed’.

Nevertheless my day is not all gloom and doom, although watching people play poker for hours on end is a fairly stringent punishment and unworthy of someone as well behaved as myself. As past readers may be aware, I’m usually lucky enough to be incarcerated with some jolly companions. On this occasion it’s Tracy and Sarah, and what I don’t know now about moisturiser, eyeliner and mascara is just not worth knowing. At some time soon I expect we’ll all traipse off into town to get our nails done.

Misty Morning

2007-10-24T08:49:00.000Z

Yesterday morning, before starting work, I was finally able to succumb to the call of the autumn light. I headed up into the low hills near the hotel, found a farm gate, parked up, removed the camera from its comfy billet in my backpack and pointed it into the sun. I didn’t have long; just enough time to track a few sheep strolling back and fore in front of some misty trees. It was very satisfying.

As for the rest of the day, nothing happened.

This morning I bounded from my bed (and if you believe that you are sadly delusional), opened the curtains and it was dull. Result. I could breakfast in peace, without the nagging little voice in my head saying ‘Go on, get out there, you know you want to’. And so I did, the only disappointment being a shortage of hash browns, and baked beans with a higher than desirable sauce-to-solid ratio .

Then, because I had nothing better to do, I went to work, early.

A Sonnet & A Bit More

2007-10-21T10:40:00.001Z

For a few years I’ve been playing around with poems where the theme is ‘light’. The following piece is one that’s been on the back burner for some time. Last night, while much of England watched a game of rugby on television, is suddenly worked itself up into a sonnet. And then added a bit of something on the end.

I’ve got the feeling there’s a touch of Shelley about it but since I’ve not really read any of his works, I can’t be sure. Perhaps he was also cheesed off by the country’s obsession with sport and paid me a visit.

But then, now I’ve re-read my opus below, perhaps not.

The Palace of Dim Light

Within this crumbling palace of dim light,
No sun-cast shadows break the plangent gloom,
No bright-lit dust motes dance in random flight,
Unseen as draughts sweep through the mighty room.
Grim, rough-hewn columns of enormous girth,
Spring up towards the bleak, bat-ridden vault,
Scarce seen above the floor of beaten earth,
Thrust beams of stone, that light so rarely sought.
But what would turn this edifice so dire,
Once more into a monument of fame?
The fizzing embers of a glowing fire?
A single candle, with a trembling flame?
Would these drive out the all-pervasive dark,
Bequeath the stones the longed-for vital spark?

It is too late
The ground awakes
And with indecent haste
Throws down the walls
Decants the beams
Into the ruptured space
No more a place of dancing dust
No more in need of candle flame
A centre of God-given right
No more the palace of dim light

Bites

2007-10-20T11:35:00.000Z

A gnat’s whisker. An interesting measurement. First catch your gnat. Then find a really good micrometer and some very delicate tweezers.

Unpleasant things, they are; gnat’s, that is, not tweezers although they can give you a nasty nip. And midges, the scourge of the Scottish Highlands, vicious, microscopic bearers of misery. They pale into insignificance, though, when compared to the New Zealand sand fly. The reason I mention them is that there’s an advert running on UK television at the moment that shows a couple strolling hand-in-hand along an NZ beach. As if. They’d be running for their lives if my experience in anything to go by. Glorious sandy strands to look at but don’t get out of the car, or wind down the windows.

In fairness this only seemed to be a problem on the east coast of South Island when Pixie and I were there one December – we walked for miles on the west side without any aggravation. But that advert is still misrepresentation, whichever way you cut it.

Now if you’re expecting a picture of a beach or, for that matter, a gnat, you will be disappointed. Instead here’s a ladybird.

Alan Coren

2007-10-20T11:34:00.000Z

One of England’s great humorous writers, Alan Coren, died on Thursday. He was a master of taking something trivial, like the discovery of Neolithic hut circles in Hampshire, and transforming it into a magnificent flight of the imagination, in that case involving dodgy builders and a god in the form of the Isle of Wight. He loved language and the use of words. Along with the late Douglas Adams, he was a formative influence on my writing style. I am in his debt.

Peeping

2007-10-19T13:19:00.001Z

I wanted to use the word ‘obesogenic’ today but I’ve decided not to. Please pretend you’ve not seen it.

I left the hotel this morning to be greeted by a glorious autumn day. I’d about an hour to kill before being needed in my substitute womb so I nipped off across the car park and knocked out a few arboreal images. This is the time of the ‘leaf peeper’.

Pictures of leaves are pretty but curiously unsatisfying – you just know that they’re not even remotely original; all over the Northern Hemisphere, at this time of year, photographers are drooling over these riotously coloured icons of decay.

Determined to cast aside this lack-lustre subject, I leapt into the car and drove off in search of something more challenging. And didn’t find it. Beautiful light, stunning countryside, but nothing took my fancy. So I went to work early. Such is life.

There isn’t a muse traditionally associated with image making or, for that matter, prose writing so I can’t really blame the absence of any inspiration on their being away on a jolly somewhere. Of the ones that are recognised, Terpsichore; dance – not thanks. Not just now. Euterpe; music? Well I did whistle a bit of Mendelssohn earlier so perhaps she’s still about. Melpomene; tragic poetry – well there was a burst a couple of days ago so maybe she’s also on the scene (and wishing she wasn’t!)

Now if I could get Thalia back from the mall, we could all have a laugh.

Blocked

2007-10-18T11:55:00.000Z

Some years ago I took a creative writing course. The person who ran it implied that we should be able to write something worthwhile at any time, night or day, come rain or shine. I never had the chance to enquire as to which planet she came from but I assume it wasn’t Earth. I can no more write on demand than I can fly.

I’ve been sitting in front of a blank screen for about 30 minutes. My colleague, Tracy, has just asked me if I’m waiting for inspiration. I am. I usually try to hang these posts on an image and at the moment I haven’t got one. Time will have to pass…

…And it has and it’s a new day. I’ve rifled through the images on my laptop yet again and come up with one from a trip to Australia in 2005. Not that it is of much help, as it doesn’t really say a lot. Can a giant air-conditioning fan give me the impetus to pen a witty little piece about the environment, perspiration or fuel consumption in Honda diesel-engined cars? No, it can’t.

The muse is absent again. Perhaps she’s on holiday, sunning herself on a beach in the Maldives or checked in to a health resort in the New Forest. Whichever it is she’s not on hand at the moment.

Not that there’s anything wrong with muses being on holiday – everyone deserves a break now and again. Pixie and I seem to be in a continual state of returning from one, on one, or planning one; I think we’ve got four in the air at the moment and that’s just before the end of the year. You can never have too much travel unless it’s to and from work; most of my work is over 150 miles from home and not commutable. The holidays make up for the long days in the studio and the weeks spent in hotel rooms. It doesn’t matter how comfortable they are, hotels are not home.

The breakfasts are much better though.

Not Lived

2007-10-15T16:50:00.000Z

I'm a fairly cheery bloke by nature, not given to great seriousness, except in my taste in music, so when a sombre moment creeps up on me, it catches me by surprise. That's how it was with the bit of free verse below. I don't know where it came from. I was sitting at the lighting control desk in Maidstone Studio 1, at peace with the world, everything looking as it should, lunch approaching and then this serious nonsense just appeared in my head. Before I could say 'whoa', it was on the page and lurking with intent.

Not Lived

Outside the open door,
The world awaits,
Its warm light beckons,
Come,
Bask in my glory,
It says,
Revel in my scents,
Let me surround you
With sound
I will enchant.

You do not go.
The glow does not extend
Beyond the threshold
Quite far enough,
To touch your heart,
You cower,
In a corner,
Safe, unharmed,
Life limited,
Not lived.

As an antidote I searched out this image from my 'Door Furniture Shadows' collection. Incidentally if you've seen it, or its mate above, before, I apologise. I'm not in a position to shoot much fresh stuff at the moment as I'm working 12 hours a day or more. Also I've a poor memory of previous usage. These were on a disk I found in my laptop bag. Unfortunately there was no chocolate to accompany it, just some oozing Remagel indigestion chews.

Day Out

2007-10-11T19:08:00.000Z

Beautiful day in central England, warm, windless, the perfect weather for a walk in the Cotswold Hills or getting the bikes out. So Pixie and I got in the car and drove to Witney in Oxfordshire to do some shopping; after all, where's the fun in the healthy option?

Pixie and I have well-developed shopping routines. If it's for food, I leave her at home; I just can't trust her to search out the bargains and the new lines. Since I do the cooking it makes sense for me to deal with the acquisition as well, although the aisles at Waitrose are pretty restricting when it comes to bringing down a wild boar.

General shopping, such as today's outing, is also structured. We tend to go our separate ways, meeting up only when there's an opportunity to consume food or drink or we want to show each other something we've found. Today, for example, Pixie took me to a shop to show me a handbag and I took her to a church to show her a 16th century tomb - quite similar, really.

Pixie's main activity will be searching out goods for her business. Mine will be buying the paper, visiting second-hand book shops and, of course, photography. I quite often end up in a coffee shop, reading the paper and sneaking in an illicit muffin or toasted teacake which I may, or may not,take a picture of. I can wait for Pixie for hours as long as I'm occupied and near food.

Other than clothes, shoes, second-hand books and the temptations of the kitchen department at John Lewis's, there's very little I buy on the high street nowadays; I've been an Internet shopper for many years and, almost without exception, it's been a positive experience.

So today's purchases in six hours of exposure to commercial pressure?

The Times newspaper

The latest novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte

A tin of Australian shoe polish (black), found in a shop in Burford - I was thinking I'd have to take a trip to Sydney to get some and that was going to be a touch expensive.

Pixie's haul is a closely guarded secret.

Today's images are a couple of threes from Witney Parish Church.

One That Got Away

2007-10-09T19:05:00.000Z

As previously mentioned, I have a thing about lonely chairs in rooms so here's one I photographed earlier.

In the small town of Rochester, Vermont, is an outpost of the perfect world. Seasoned Books & Bakery runs one of the best bookstores I've been in, and I've been in hundreds, combined with a superb bakery/cafe/deli. It was a place in which to spend a few hours and gain a few pounds. The other plus was it had a vintage clothes shop attached to keep Pixie occupied while I browsed and indulged my passion for coffee and muffins.

That was back in June so you may be wondering why it's taken me until now to post this image; I know I am. Well it's quite simple really. It went into hiding. I must have prepared it months ago and then it slipped off into some nook or cranny on my PC, doubtless intent on a life of excess and frivolity. Today, suddenly, it popped back into view and tugged at my coat tails. 'Use me now,' it said, 'use me now'. So I have - anything to silence its plaintive cries.

Three in Steam

2007-10-08T22:54:00.000Z

I think my interest in railways has surfaced in this journal from time to time. Generally, though, I keep it under wraps, a guilty secret that runs contrary to my arty pretentions. To be honest I'm not that interested in the locomotives and rolling stock although the smell of a steam locomotive on heat is pretty irresistable, the sound sends shivers down my spine and the sight of one at speed is beyond compare. Still, small beer really. It's the system engineering that fascinates me - the routes, signalling, architecture, etc.

This group of three were operating on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway at the weekend. Sorry about the lack of smell and sound.

Fallen

2007-10-04T22:22:00.000Z

It's that time of year again, the time when I can be found on my hands and knees in churchyards and other locations beset by decaying plant life and shrivelled fruits. My favourite haunt is the old graveyard behind the church of St John the Baptist in Cirencester, the place where I was myself baptised - perhaps the water wasn't strong enough.

Burials ceased here in the mid 1800s due to overcrowding. Today it is a peaceful place on a warm, autumnal afternoon, populated only by the birds and the few locals who escape there to sit and eat lunch, or have a quick ciggie. Beyond, the sound of the traffic in the busy town is damped by the buildings, high, dry-stone walls and the enveloping foliage.

The fascination of this place to me is the endless opportunities to photograph leaves and other debris on ancient slabs of limestone, lit by light filtered through aged yew and birch trees. The juxtaposition of these elements with the inscriptions on the stones is the main compositional imperative. I like to shoot what's already there rather than indulge in a festival of arranging but occasionally I have to help out nature. I'm sure she appreciates it.

I’ve added a GV (general view) of the churchyard – thought it might set the scene – just add a large chap in a blue jacket with dirty knees to get the full effect.

Symbols

2007-10-01T22:58:00.001Z

A pair of unrepentant threes today, just because I can.

The first is a revisit to an old favourite, Rickards' hardware shop in Ludlow, Shropshire. Symbolism is a tradition in paintings from the Renaissance period, a feature picked up by the Pre-Raphaelites in the Victorian era. For example, depicting a plane tree symbolised charity, the snail, laziness and smoke indicated the shortness of life. While glass suggests the notion of purity, the main symbolic focus in my image is to do with numbers.

Three bottle-carriers strung out on three hooks in a geometric progression of two, four and six sections. Three has an obvious Christian significance in the Trinity and is also seen as a number of completeness; expressing a beginning, a middle and an end. Perhaps that's what so appealing about threes in visual terms. Then throw in its importance in fairy tales - when do you ever get four wishes? or six?

I'll brush aside two, four and six and their sum, twelve (apostles, anyone?) because it would take me all night and I'm really not that committed to this line of enquiry - sorry. But I will not ignore the faintly lurking seven at the bottom of the glass pane. It is regarded as the second most important number after, you guessed it, three. It gives us, in western civilisation, such groups as the seven ages of man, seven virtues, seven deadly sins and the seven sacraments of the Christian Church. A bit of a cracker, seven and combined with another just the same, as seventy seven, the address on Sunset Strip that will be memorable to all those who watched television in the early 1960s.

It may appear that my interest in religion runs somewhat contrary to my avowed stance with regards to belief in a god. All I can say is that it fascinates me. I was dragged to church as a child, on one occasion wearing a brown corduroy cap, a seminal moment in the destruction of one's belief system, and had formulated a view on the rationality of the whole business by the time I was thirteen. Now, having discarded it for my own purposes, religion is something I can embrace as a dispassionate observer and, to that end, I studied it as part of my degree course in European Humanities. It intrigues me and as long as people keep it to themselves and don't try to inflict their beliefs on others, nor practise their beliefs in a way that impinges on the lives of others, then I'm fine with it.

Now, which direction is Cloud Cuckoo Land?

And so to another three, a lovely faded green door, distressed and in want of TLC, and a trio of letter boxes, ripe for letters from loved ones or bills from the accursed.

Red Three

2007-09-30T23:09:00.001Z

A return to the passion for red, in fact a third-class return. And a pair of threes. You lucky people!

That last phrase, a saying of the mid twentieth-century British comedian, Tommy Trinder, is one I must have picked up from the radio in the 1950's. It intrigues me that it's still in my brain and ready for deployment fifty years later. Another favourite of mine, which I use far too frequently, is 'deep joy'. Only this week I discovered that it’s attributable to another entertainer from around the same period, Stanley Unwin. All those hours listening under the bed covers have left their mark.

A further catch phrase, which both Pixie and I use for no good reason, is 'Right, Monkey', made famous, in the UK at least, by the northern comic, Al Read. We normally reserve it for when we're in France where we've loosely translated it as 'D'accord, Singe'. Meaningless to anyone who actually speaks French but it gives us pleasure to utter it whenever we have to deal with any particularly obstructive facets of the culture on the other side of the Channel (and there are plenty of those). It's an up-and-at-'em phrase, perfect for stirring our Anglo-Saxon blood to greater endeavour in the battle against the old enemy, even if Agincourt is long gone and all we need now is two grandes crèmes and a couple of croissants.

Since the last part of my surname is Norman in origin I can’t really say too much. In my defence I would point out that they were descended from the Vikings, the backpackers of the Dark Ages, roaming at will across the globe, discovering America, and generally having a good time (or at least a better time than some of the people they visited). I suppose the modern-day equivalent would be British lager-louts and their trollops vomiting their way around Spanish seaside resorts.

Or any of the local towns.

Bike Light

2007-09-30T19:41:00.000Z

Chromium plated,
Beacon of light,
Guiding, warning,
Dimly bright,
Pushing the rim
Of darkness, away,

But never turning,

Night to Day.

Manipulation

2007-09-29T22:44:00.000Z

British television companies have been in a bit of trouble recently and not just for producing excruciatingly bad programmes like 'Big Brother' and anything else to which the word 'reality' is attached. No, instead they've been caught engaging in plain honest-to-goodness deception.

The children's show, 'Blue Peter', asked viewers to name a new cat and then rejected their choice (which was 'Cookie') in favour of something more trendy and today. The production team, using their 'just-out-of-media-college we-know-best' brains decided to call it 'Socks'; so much more BBC HQ, so much less everywhere else. In addition several companies have been caught fixing competitions, taking millions of pounds off of viewers phoning in after the winners had been chosen but before the phone lines have been closed.

I'm not sure why all this is such a big thing. The media has always manipulated what it feeds its audience - canned laughter on situation comedies is a classic example, some of which couldn’t get a real laugh out of a guy high on nitrous oxide. It's the way it's done - these people are the modern day gods and our entertainment is in their hands. Picking a winner out of the studio audience and feeding her the correct answer after the phone-in has failed (another BBC gaff) is par for the course - all television must look perfect, failure is not to be tolerated, nothing must be seen to go wrong. If it does, your nice little media career could end up with you working as an advertising copywriter for the Balsall Heath Free News.

Anyway, I can hear you say, what has all this to do with the image above and why is he droning on anyway, hasn't he got a bed to got to? A legitimate query and one which I'm happy to answer. It’s about manipulating the image.

I thought the gravestone motif looked quite interesting with its channels of water glinting with reflected sky. Then I thought, wouldn't it look more interesting with a leaf? So I went and found one and placed it in an appropriate position and lo, it looked better and I took the picture. Then I thought, wouldn't it look even better if the leaf was more central? That thought was immediately followed by another one which was, wouldn't life itself be better if I went and had a piece of Orange & Almond Cake? So I did, leaving the even more perfect image as a figment of my imagination.

If there's a moral to this tale, and you’re going to be hard-pushed to find one, it is probably that while perfection is worth striving for, it’s not worth your soul, nor is it worth anything near as much as a good slice of cake.

Heading into the Sun

2007-09-26T19:52:00.000Z

I've just returned from setting up a TV programme in Holland. It has been three days of almost unremitting tedium, the sort of days that start at about eight in the morning and seem to end about a week later. They have only been enlivened by flashes of wit, cameraderie and the occasional piece of lighting that I'm almost pleased with.

I think I've got a high threshold of boredom. Without it I wouldn't survive in my job; it's not all glamour, parties and fine living at the viewers expense. Often there's a lot of hanging about. Actually I'll reword that. There's always a lot of hanging about.

When it comes to setting up a venue, lighting is the first thing to go in. The sparks and I then have to wait while everything else is built, rigged, aligned and generally fettled into shape. Finally we go back in before the show kicks off to set the lamps for whatever function I've assigned to them. Consequently I'm usually to be found still on the set at the last minute with the stage manager breathing very closely down my neck - we have an interesting relationship in which I have the upper hand; it's difficult to televise something if it's having to take place in the dark.

This job had plenty of tiresomeness but it was also next to a railway station, a chink of light in an otherwise stultifying experience. I took myself off there during a break from hanging around. Low sun straight down the lens and the 18.58 to Rotterdam Central poised to gallop off into the sunset.

Back home, a strange moon, with a halo. First frost of the autumn?

Favourites

2007-09-20T19:03:00.000Z

1. Favourite past-time? Sitting in a coffee house with a latte, a copy of the “Times” and an almond croissant, either alone or in the company of Pixie, Cath, Lou, Niki, Peter, Jane, any of the people whose lives enhance mine. I apologise to those relatives/friends that I’ve left off the list but the deciding factor is the croissant sharing experience (although please don’t get the idea that any actual sharing of pastries take place or that I necessarily put my paper away).

2. Favourite item of clothing? A blue moleskin jacket made by R M Williams of South Australia that I bought several years ago in Leura in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales – sorry about the detail but I felt the urge.

3. Favourite jewellery piece? I don’t do jewellery. When I started work I was shown a safety film which included a lovely shot of a finger, a gold ring and a length of tendon – the point was taken.

4. Favourite month? March – the awakening (northern hemisphere readers only).

5. Favourite number? 4651.

6. Favourite year at school? All years indifferent and marred by unrequited love.

7. Favourite season? Autumn, a time of smells.

8. Favourite hair length? Whatever makes me look most distinguished, a difficult task.

9. Favourite expression on self? Never looked.

10. Favourite expression on others? Contentment.

11. Favourite chips flavour? Plain.

12. Favourite ice-cream flavour? Caramel, from Morelli's in Broadstairs, Kent.

13. Favourite time of day? Midnight.

14. Favourite day of the week? I’ve worked for forty years in an industry where all days are treated equally so I’ve never had one.

15. Favourite movie genre? Anything which moves slowly, gives you time to think, is romantic and/or humorous and possibly features Penelope Cruz, Sophie Morceau, Kate Winslet, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Juliette Binoche, Kevin Spacey, Patricia Clarke, and numerous others about whom I could rabbit on for hours.

The quintet of images of threes comes from a recent visit to the county of Kent in south-east England.

Fading to Amber

2007-09-09T23:27:00.000Z

Just a quickie tonight as it's late and I need my ugly sleep.

Recently I made a slightly derogatory comment about the light in the UK during the summer. Now it's within a gnat's whisker of autumn and things are on the change. Pixie and I decided to have a trip out last Friday up to one of the jewels of the Cotswolds, Chipping Campden. The light was stunning, kissing the warm limestone with tones of amber velvet. A glorious evening.

Later on we sat on a bench on Dover's Hill, looking out at the dying day. It was here, twenty six years ago, that we decided that somehow or another we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.

A special place.

Narrow Vista

2007-09-06T17:19:00.000Z

Vistas seen through openings - aren't they grand? This one is taken from inside the redundant church at Earl's Croome in Worcestershire. It's one of those locations that I return to on a regular basis, a drawing-to sort of place. Some people doubtless get up in the morning and think about going to work, nipping out to do a bit of shopping, maybe a dose of ironing, cleaning the car; I get up and think 'the light looks interesting, I'll go and find a church'.

So I do.

I've been assured that belief in a god is not necessarily a pre-requisite for a career in the clergy these days. So I thought I'd get in a bit of practice. There are lots of things that appeal - the element of performance and theatre, the dressing up, the sense of place, the reasonable working hours (I've always worked Sundays so that isn't a problem). Difficult to think of a downside, really, other than some of my flock might actually expect me to believe in something. And that would be a real drag.

Bits of Chairs

2007-09-05T18:49:00.000Z

We took a trip over to Hay-on-Wye yesterday, the book capital of the UK, to look for a birthday present for a friend of ours. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny with just the merest hint of autumn. As in past visits, I was overwhelmed by the number of books available and suffered the usual lack of will to search miles and miles of shelving. Fortunately I quickly found a specialist shop with just the sort of thing I was after. This saved a lot of tramping around and grumpiness and allowed a lot more time for eating and image-making.

Today's picture, taken looking through the door of an empty pub, does not shriek 'art' at me but it appeals on some level. It has diagonals (which must be my 'Theme of the Year'), reflections and an example of bounced soft-light (the lightening of the area under the window). Simple elements but inherently satisfying, to me at least. Also I find chairs photogenic which just goes to prove that there's nowt as queer as folk.

And here's a group of three plus a gargoyle with a Churchillian cigar.

Cliché & Rant

2007-08-30T21:21:00.000Z

I can't remember when I last posted an image of a sunset. The stock photography company I work for reckon they've got enough and I can quite believe it. But they're irresistible. I can't pass one up, no matter how hard I try. Some evenings I even go out down to the fields at the bottom of our village for the sole purpose of shooting a few of these clichéd images. And then I inflict them on you.

A couple of days a week I work as a volunteer in a charity shop in Pershore, sorting and pricing books. The income we generate supports a local hospice which provides care to life-limited children and their families. It's a worthy cause made necessary by the fact that the British Government provides minimal financial support to the children's hospice movement within the UK, giving them only about 5% of their funding needs.

So given that paltry contribution from our lords and masters, it is obviously important that the people using the shop help out as much as possible. So why, you might ask, do we have customers who ask for a discount, who haggle, who try to get money off because of some tiny defect (these are not new goods, after all, they are all donated) and, and this really does take the biscuit, steal - shoplifting is a recurrent problem.

Perhaps we should have pictures of all the children we help on the wall behind the till. Then we could ask our less generous clientele which particular one they'd like to deprive today. Strangely enough, though, I don't think it would make the slightest bit of difference.

Messing About

2007-08-27T22:40:00.001Z

Somewhere in the preamble to these ramblings I claim that every image shown has been taken by myself. That is true. Since I profess to being a photographer I can see no point in using other people's images. Arrogant, perhaps, but that's the way the dark chocolate digestive crumbles.

Today's picture is no exception except that, in a moment of tedium, I decided to play with it. I was not content. I wanted more than the shallow original (which I will not show, so there). I fiddled with it, manipulated it, opening menus on my imaging program that are best left unopened. I delved into the enormous box of tricks called filters. What wonders lie within! But I chose one of the simplest. We all now what too much excitement before bedtime causes.

The program claims that the result resembles a watercolour. I collect Victorian watercolours and it's not really like any of those. Perhaps they didn't have a filter section on their porcelain palettes. But it will pass for one. Just a little bit of digital magic.

Contemplation in a Flowerbed

2007-08-25T23:13:00.001Z

Pixie and I like objects in the garden. In various places on our small plot, hidden by the rampant post-deluvium growth, there's a Venus rising from the waves, Roman man-about-town, couple of fountains, sort of wheel thing, bird bath, Celtic cross and a sea horse. Oh, and, horror of horrors, at least one gnome. However pride of place goes to Pixie's Buddha - apparently something about him reminds her of me, possibly the bit hidden in the shadow cast by his hands.

Despite a lifetime's career lighting people, places and things, my garden is a bit on the dark side at night. I have ongoing projects in a typical manly fashion; they have completion dates set decades ahead and illuminating the garden is one of them. For the moment some small solar-powered gizmos do the job, fading gently away as the night progresses.

Crisp

2007-08-24T23:05:00.000Z

Found this image the other day and was struck by the crispness of it. It's the sort of crispness that can be found in a really fresh bag of crisps which some of our friends call chips, which, confusingly, are also made of potato and sometimes called fries. All clear? And anyway crisps can be made of almost anything these days - parsnips, swede, beetroot. Why anyone would want to experiment with the perfect snack is beyond me but they do. Why else would we be offered margarine or skimmed milk or any of the other abominations that the food industry thinks up? It's like being invited to imbibe Belgian Chocolate flavoured drinks. Have they got Belgian Chocolate in them? I think not.

Anyway I digress (and that is so, so easy). Summer has arrived in the UK at last and I've switched my desk fan on for the first time this year. It rattles but not in a totally unpleasant way. It's more of a swaggering sound, a 'look what I can do if I want to' sort of noise. It doesn't push it. It knows I could switch it off if I wanted to and then where would its rattle be.

So we're talking about crisp images, not crisp foods, although a nice crisp lettuce takes some beating. The contrail arrows across the picture in a pleasingly diagonal fashion; not perfectly so but striving in that direction. The little pennant on the top of the tower has some miniature diagonals in the letters 'MV', an abbreviation for something that probably has Monmouth in it as that's where I was. It's also very crisp and why is that? It's the lighting - clean, low, sharp, winter sunshine. I doubt it would be the same today; summer light in southern England is not as envigorating, or so it seems to me. It's short on rawness, short on effort; the sun has to try so much harder in January.

Just the Teeniest Bit Creepy

2007-08-19T12:51:00.000Z

I'd finished shooting the organist's hands and decided to revisit the chapel for another tussle with the angels and maybe some more spit. The tomb within was an image-makers gift and, by the standards of the Victorian era, quite restrained, unlike me who likes nothing more than a good cavort around a bit of mucky stonework. As I shifted across to the other side of the recumbent figure, an up-the-nostrils shot caught my eye.

I plonked down my tripod and let fly. On the wrong white-balance setting (Oo, er, mother, he's gone all technical). Daylit room, camera set to tungsten for the reading light on the organ; result, it's all gone blue. And sinister, and just the tinest bit creepy. Day-for-night, Hollywood style. Gorgeous.

Promise of Home

2007-08-14T12:34:00.000Z

Last day. Hotel room vacated, nothing left behind, bill settled, dull, driving rain, flooding at Hackney Wick, road chaos, A12 jammed solid. The promise of an early finish; rarely fulfilled. Demob happy. A parting of friends.

Always pleased to be heading for home. About now I start to see it in my mind – sweeping round the M25 at 75 mph, cruise engaged, looping on to the M40, coffee stop at Oxford around midnight, out into the country, Burford, the deserted uplands of the Cotswolds, new moon, scudding clouds, deep darkness. Dropping through the S-bends of Fish Hill into the Vale. Home, the tedium and frustration of the last ten days dropping away, reunited with my soul mate.

I love driving at night. I like the desertion and the solitude. I never have the radio on. Or the mobile. Cocooned, the world damped by the purr of the diesel and the modulating road noise. Three hours of uninterrupted thinking. Man and machine at one, the ultimate cliché.

Barring mishaps.

Diagonals with Added Circles

2007-08-13T12:40:00.000Z

I’m beginning to think that diagonals are a bit passé so, for today’s image, I thought I’d mix in some circles. This detail shot comes from the canopy of Knaresborough Station in Yorkshire. It is one of the survivals on the British railway network from an age when embellishment was everything. Unlike so many railway buildings this one has been allowed to pursue its remaining years with dignity; others include Great Malvern, Kemble Junction and Hellifield.

I think I give the impression that I’m against modern building but that is far from the truth. There is much to admire; I just wish I could think of somewhere off the top of my head…………..

OK, I give up. Maybe there’s not much but there must be something; perhaps modern architecture is not as memorable as the old stalwarts. I’ll make it my mission to find something 21st century that I like and knock off a piccie or two for your edification.

Pixie is a very elusive subject and I have to sneak up on her when she isn’t looking. This is one of my favourite photographs of her. I’ve dropped it in today because I haven’t seen her for nine days and that leaves a big hole in my life. Also I’m a sucker for women wearing glasses.

Shorts

2007-08-10T19:50:00.001Z

I think it was Shara who was wondering what I was up to this week. So in a spirit of enlightenment, here’s an image of two of my cameramen colleagues at work on the set what I have lit (great bit of English). Although I was bemoaning the fact that I was using pink and blue again, as you can see it’s much more like lilac and blue (and that makes all the difference to my mental state). Unfortunately the broadcast camera technology is not up to the challenge of such subtle distinctions so the picture you’ll see on the tele will be - pink & blue.

I’ve commented in the past on the deplorable habit of English men taking to wearing shorts as soon as there’s any hint of summer. Just look closely at the photograph – my case is proven.

Mirror, Mirror....

2007-08-09T15:53:00.000Z

Contrary to the evidence available in this journal, I’m not fond of photographs of myself. Nor, despite the industry I work in, do I have any desire to appear on television. I have been caught in ‘behind the scenes’ documentaries several times over the years and they’ve always been ‘cowering behind the sofa’ moments or excuses to leave the room and make tea or mow the lawn.

However I chanced the other day upon a rehearsal room fitted with a wall of mirrors and enlivened by a shaft of sunlight. It was irresistible so once again I must apologise for inflicting me upon you.

Incidentally I loathe the b**g word. I’ll go to any length to avoid using it or its derivatives, b******g or b*****r. Hence the references to posts, posting, pages, journal, etc. What’s the point of getting older if you can’t become reactionary and rebellious?

Once you’re in your late fifties, wrinkled and written-off are not on the distant horizon; they’re just outside the gate waiting for the chance to nip up the path and batter down the front door. Resist them for as long as you can.

Nine Chimney Pots

2007-08-08T15:54:00.000Z

Things in threes make regular appearances on these pages. I give no apology for that. Some days threedom rules.

Working away from home I usually have limited access to the Internet. This is not because wi-fi does not exist in the UK. It is because the oft-reported culture of Rip-Off Britain extends well into the provision of free Internet access. Unlike in the USA, as I found back in June, most hotels, cafes, etc will attempt to charge an extortionate fee for a facility that costs virtually nothing. They lack the wit to see that providing something so fundamental to modern living for nothing might encourage patronage.

As an example, the Marriott hotels that I stay in when on business charge £15/$30 a day for wi-fi access, an obscene amount of money for which, I assume, most businesses pick up the tab. I’m not that stupid. Although I like to be able to keep in touch, not having the Internet is not life threatening, just as not having a mobile phone isn’t. We managed well enough twenty years ago.

Fortunately for me, although maybe not for those who mistakenly read these postings, the studio where I’m working this week has free wi-fi in its café. In most of the recording breaks I can be seen hoofing it across the cobbled courtyard, laptop under my arm, to get a quick fix.

Pink & Blue

2007-08-07T20:49:00.000Z

I’m having another of those days when I’d like to write something erudite and informative but nothing is surfacing from the deep swamp of thoughts that lurks somewhere in a lobe just up and back from my largish nose. So I’ll rabbit on about my current project instead.

I’m stuck for eight days in a small airless box built within a large airless box. Six women are sat around a semicircular table playing cards instead of being at home ironing or running a large multi-national company. My colleague, Craig, and I exist in a sensorily deprived state, monitoring the health and well-being of the lighting rig that we’ve put together over the last two days and ready to leap into action if anything goes bang. Most of the decisions that I needed to make of an artistic or technical variety have been made; all we can do now is sit, drink tea, and occasionally fiddle with the setting of a lamp; this is an action that involves selecting it on the control desk, waggling the fader up and down in a subtle manner so as not to frighten anyone, and then deciding you prefer it just the way it was.

After a few days the desire to change things, just because you can, becomes irresistible and it is at this stage that a voice comes out of a talkback speaker saying something like ‘it doesn’t look the same as it did on Monday’. To which you reply ‘No it looks better’ if you don’t care if you work for them again or ‘Sorry about that, I’ll have a look at it’ if you’ve not got another job scheduled until about November 2009. Whichever answer you give, the trick is to do nothing but give the impression you have – holding the show up while you get a ladder out and climb up to knock a light around a bit is normally successful as is trying out every colour you have available and flashing the lamp in every fixture capable of being flashed.

Usually you can get away with this and anyway you’ll be messing it up again in a couple of days time when the boredom once again reaches crisis point. Obviously some continuity is in order. You’re not likely to get away with starting a programme in pink and blue and ending it in green and yellow unless the production asks you to. Even so you should resist this request with all the severity you can muster. Any lighting designer who ventures into the green end of the spectrum has to be on some sort of mind-altering drug. I’ve tried Moss Green once when completely sober and was forced to lie down for some time after. I did have a colleague who could do things with this putrescent colour but he was Scottish and that may have helped.

The problem is that pink and blue are so over-used in television. What we really need is a completely new spectrum with colours like zog, snork and pnuff. That would make it worth coming to work again.

Going Dutch

2007-08-03T18:42:00.000Z

I popped over to Holland for a meeting yesterday, flying from Birmingham to Amsterdam. It involved me getting up at the insane hour of 03.30. That's the time of day which requires two alarm clocks and a standby wife. Still by 05.00 I was at the airport tucking into a good breakfast and surrounded by hordes of people. Where on earth did they all come from? Outside the airport perimeter the roads were deserted and nothing moved save the odd scavenging fox and some likely lads nicking cable from electricity substations, a short but doubtless enlightening career.

What is it about flying that requires you to be conscious at such a ridiculous hour? Eighteen flights left what is an average-sized regional airport between 06.00 and 07.00, eleven of those to holiday destinations. Obviously the great package holiday plan is to make sure that if you're not totally worn out by working every hour nature sent in the previous fifty weeks, the airline schedulers will make sure of it on the day of departure.

Anyway enough of that. My meeting was in Rotterdam, a pleasant journey by train from Schipol Airport which allowed me to see exactly how flat Holland is (and they hadn 't been pulling the wool over my eyes) and also a few iconic windmills. Missing were people in clogs and tulips - perhaps it was the wrong time of year. I spent the evening with a colleague doing some gentle sight-seeing, eating and drinking in Amsterdam. It's a city I've been tempted to visit in the past and now I have, I'm pleased I didn't spend any of my own money to do so.

I know that I only scratched the surface of the city but my first impression was one of downright seediness, a combination of litter, grafitti that would put London to shame, and a thick veneer of sleaze - the Yellow Pages guide book issued at the railway station listed twenty pages of adverts for call-girls and escort agencies compared to two inches for photographers and about an inch and a half for bookshops. Maybe I'm not the target audience, reactionary old grump that I am or perhaps I've got my priorities wrong.

On the plus side, there were a lot of bicycles of a very strange, sit-up-and-beg design. Every available niche was occupied by a parked bike, great swathes of them marching away from the railway station and along the banks of the canals. Not being mown down by these beasts was a feat in itself but they were fun to watch.

I'll not say any more as I'll be back over there in September to light the show and I don't want to be refused entry at the border. Maybe it'll look better in the autumn

Rebirth

2007-08-01T18:32:00.001Z

A few miles from where I live lies the village of Rous Lench. It's a good run on a bike on a warm summer's evening although the first stretch is a long slog up a steep hill, the sort of climb that makes me want a paramedic cruising along behind, just in case.

The churchyard at Rous Lench has featured several times on these pages; it's one of those places that has a magical quality, particularly in the late evening sun. There is a strong sense of serenity and agelessness. It's a feeling I pick up from time to time, often in religious environments but not exclusively so. It doesn't conflict with my deity-free belief system; it's just something in the air, in the ground, in the light, in the shadow, wherever. In all probability it's the reason the church was built there in the first place.

Part of the attraction of this particular church is the carving around the south doorway. There are two Green Men, ancient symbols of rebirth and fertility. The one I've shown has what's known as a 'disgorging head' - other versions include 'bloodsucker' and 'foliate'. It's a lovely, crisp piece of carving, the more so after I'd cleaned up the spiders' webs; cleaning stonework seems to be my thing this week although you'll be pleased to hear that no spit was involved this time.

A Myriad Diagonals

2007-07-31T20:57:00.000Z

Shafts of sunlight through windows, dust motes dancing, sharp, pure shadows across warm, ochre limestone.

Nope.

Not seen much of that this summer.

And then, by magic (and a shift in the jet stream plus a ridge of high pressure moving up from the Azores), the sun comes out.

The quest for the perfect diagonal resumes.

Dirty Angel

2007-07-30T22:54:00.000Z

I spent a pleasant hour or so this morning photographing an angel. I'm afraid it's not been having a good time of it lately. Not exactly fallen, more grubby. The finely carved head had hair extentions courtesy of an industrious spider or two and, although it's in a tightly enclosed space, a bird had seen fit to christen its forehead.

Please note that I have carefully avoided assigning a gender to this figure. Although angels are not within my life's remit, I must assume that they are neuter - anything else would be grossly one-sided. Whatever it is, I couldn't leave it in this state. With the help of a convenient brush, a lens tissue and some spit, I restored to it some semblance of its simple beauty.

Puff, Puff

2007-07-29T19:03:00.000Z

When I was a kid, and before every child carried enough technology to power a Mars landing project, we thought we could tell the time by blowing upon a dandelion seed head. Obviously it was a tough plant that could withstand midday and midnight but early afternoon was fairly safe.

What I can’t remember is if they were accepted as timepieces by our parents. When I got home at 8 o’clock instead of the three hours earlier I’d agreed, was it a viable defence to say that I’d blown the seeds away in five puffs and so was on time?

Fossil for the Future

2007-07-29T15:51:00.000Z

I have UK size 12 feet. That to me is one of the wonders of nature; my feet seem to be entirely commensurate with my generous stature. I suppose that if they were size 6, I’d be constantly falling over. But I don’t or, at least, infrequently. The last time I can remember doing so was when I tripped over an deceptive curb stone on a pavement in New England – American pavements, or sidewalks as they so prosaically call them, are if anything worse than ours. Perhaps that’s because, as we’re always being told, nobody walks anywhere.

Anyway my feet, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, lead a fairly autonomous existence down there at the bottom of my legs. And it must be a merry life judging by the evidence I see whenever I manage to bend down that far. There they are, large, off-white limb ends, covered in bumps and bruises. I know for a start that the little toes are forever out-and-about, wrapping themselves around bedposts or the corners of wardrobes and rubbing themselves up against tight fitting shoes until the skin hardens. Masochistic little beggars, they are! How the other toes must laugh!

Well that’s all bye-the-bye and only tangentially connected to today’s image. Last weekend Pixie and I were out walking the waterlogged fields around our village. Why, heaven only knows. Perhaps we’d got a bit stir-crazy, unable to travel but feeling the need for fresh air (we could have just sat in the conservatory with the doors open but where’s the fun in that). Suddenly I felt the urge to photograph a footprint. And lo! There was one.

Now I don’t know what sort of boot made this print; that’s the stuff of Sherlock Holmes and forensic science. In all probability it was a Wellington. (Incidentally my Wellingtons are a size too small; when I wear them all my toes indulge in self-harm). As I knocked off a couple of shots of the muddy prints I fell to thinking about fossils (and about whether we had any crumpets for tea or perhaps a muffin but that’s another story).

I could imagine palaeontologists in the distant future (assuming the human race or a derivative of it lasts that long) poring over a cast of the footprint. Was it from an intelligent life form? (Doubtful). Why was it there? How did it become a fossil? Did it have sausage, bacon, beans, mushrooms and crusty granary toast for breakfast? What other evidence had come from the excavation of the site? Were the fossilised televisions, petrified sofas, rust marks of a disintegrated freezer of any significance? All these things and more were in the hedges around me, evidence of a great deluge, ready to be immortalised in the geological series. Potent signs for the years to come.

Water, Water, Everywhere

2007-07-23T20:58:00.000Z

The area where I live is inundated by the worst flooding in this part of the UK in living memory. It doesn't matter where in the world you are, as New Orleans, Bangladesh or the tsunami in the Indian Ocean bear witness, the destructive power of water on the rampage is impossible to resist.

To watch a river in full spate, as I have recently where the River Avon flows through my village, is to be awed, frightened and compulsively drawn all at the same time. There is something mesmeric about fierce water.

Back in 1968, when I was on a course at the BBC's training centre, a severe thunderstorm got trapped in the Vale of Evesham, bouncing back and forth off the Cotswolds and the Malvern Hills. The next day, Evesham was awash and the Avon had burst its banks. Down on the sports field, I found a boat. Dressed to kill, I was off across the open water. I couldn't swim but who cared?

Floods are a novelty for some, a chance for adventure, as this one was for me. Earlier today a police helicopter was hovering over the village apparently searching for two youngsters missing from a dinghy. I thought the flood was fun back when I was nineteen. I was stupid.

Pixie finds this photo very amusing. Already I was training my jackets for a life with miss-shapen, bulging pockets and the comb-over hairstyle goes a long way to explain my lack of success on the dance floor although doubtless there were other factors.

Unstained Glass

2007-07-22T22:03:00.000Z

It is an act of sheer perversity on my part, to take an image as colourful as a stained glass window and remove that which makes it remarkable.

Years ago, before colour printing became the norm, art books were printed in monochrome. Works such as those by Turner, Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, in fact almost any painter for whom colour was everything (I'm discounting Whistler) had their rich canvases reduced, and that is the right word, to banal variations on grey. It did not work. These artists did not paint thinking how nice this would look if it was in black & white or a tasteful shade of beige. They did not think of trying a slightly lighter shade of burnt umber in order to satisfy the printer of 'The Master Painters of Britain', published in 1898. This book is typical of its era; the cover is pure Art Nouveau, the reproduction, Art Reductio.

A grey scale image is obviously unnatural and yet we invest in it such a perverse pride. If the first photographic system had been full colour, would we have monochrome, sepia, duotone, all those variations? I don't know. Doubtless someone would have experimented with it, it would have been in vogue for a while, like punk music or the maxi skirt, and then it would have passed on.

Yet we keep plugging at it, searching for scenes with just the right contrast range, fiddling about in processing with shading and gamma correction. I'm as guilty as the rest of them. Why? What's driving this quest for a pale imitation of reality?

Well I think it's because the end result is so satisfying, that's why. And that's just plain weird.

Deckchairs

2007-07-19T22:09:00.000Z

These are the stuff of British comedy films, endlessly involved in third-rate comic sequences. Inept, weedy men in string vests try desperately to erect one without crushing any of the slightly more useful parts of the human anatomy. Looking on will be a deeply unimpressed, buxom woman in a grey plastic mac.

Now do I want to spend any time waffling on about these stripy digital entrapments? Not really but I can't think of anything else to do. They photograph well and usually come in interesting if basic colours; these were red and blue but I've wilfully removed that exciting visual stimulus. Please use your imagination.

They also blow about in an interesting fashion in much over a light breeze. They're made of good, honest basic materials - wood and canvas. As corporal support systems, they have stood the test of time. Any seafront worthy of the name in Britain will have them.

And that surprises me. Given the relentless onward march of the Health & Safety Executive, the standard bearers of the cotton wool society, how come we are still allowed to use them? When they fight back, they hurt. It can only be a matter of time before they are replaced with something rigid, bolted down, in white plastic and with really smooth edges. And I mean really smooth; something with the texture of crème fraiche or a really ripe cow pat.

Such will be progress.

More Mono

2007-07-17T20:00:00.000Z

An urge has come, galloping over the horizon, stones flying, a bowl of dust swirling in its wake. Its name is Monochrome.

My interest was sparked while I was helping a friend choose her new camera. Shooting black & white was one of her requirements and it made me think about my own experience in the medium. In short, hardly any. Unlike Peter, I have no traditional background in photography although I did play about in the darkroom with a fair bit of monochrome in the early seventies. However that was through necessity rather than choice and because, as a film processor, I could lay my hands on free film, mostly unused tail-ends of 35mm natural history film shoots. I have also lit drama productions in a monochrome film noire style but never in pure chroma-free gloriousness.

So I've started to trawl through the thousands of images that infest my hard drive to see which have the potential to make it into the pantheon of black & white. What I'm looking for is simplicity, structure and gradation. The staircase yesterday probably fulfilled two of those and today's hopefully all three.

Mildly Obsessive

2007-07-16T14:36:00.001Z

My writing is going through a bit of a trough at the moment, picking its way amongst the detritus at the bottom of the pond and occasionally splashing its imagined wellies through a murky puddle. Not sure why this should be but it happens from time to time - I haven't the discipline to write to order nor the motivation.

It's not as if my every wakening hour is filled to the brim with substance. I potter about. In fact I'm almost an obsessive potterer. Perhaps I have compulsive pottering disorder. It's also not as if I'm without input. I've spent plenty of time over the past few weeks with those who provide me with inspiration. I'm sure it's just a switch somewhere that I accidentally flip off and, being the age I am, cannot always find again in order to remake the contact and re-energise my literary trickle.

So I'll skip to an image which neatly encapsulates a couple of visual obsessions - staircases and diagonals. The building is a former school in Barnstable, Massachusetts and, while Pixie was searching the store for bargains, I was snapping the stairs. The original image is almost monochrome so I've taken it a step closer.

Globular Reflections

2007-07-10T14:20:00.000Z

I've noticed a streak of narcissism creeping in lately and just to compound it, here's an image with thirteen of me, albeit small and insignificant and another with me larger but still a mere speck. They were taken using one of the many sculptural embellishments that are scattered around the small town of Stockbridge in Massachusetts.

My friend, Peter, freshly reinvented on the blog scene, is not above such devices; in fact he's often in a reflective frame. Last Saturday was his birthday and we celebrated by embarking on a gastronomic journey around the eateries of Worcestershire. This epic outing featured breakfast in Pershore, coffee at Bransford, a beer at Lulsey, a little snack at Alfrick, tea in Great Malvern, cake at Birlingham and dinner at Baughton. Some days you just can't avoid eating, fortunately. Unconventionally, in the UK at least, the morning started with cake after I tipped off the eponymous owner of Nicole's in Pershore that it was a significant day for my young friend. Obviously the single candle was a diplomatic gesture on her part.

Blind & A Yellow Spade

2007-07-01T23:12:00.000Z

One of the many things that I've learnt from my friend Peter is that you should never leave home without a camera; I know other, saner people might suggest that having your pants on the right way round or carrying the front door key and perhaps some money would be better maxims. But for us, it's cameras.

On this particular day, deep in the forbidding, oppressive and terribly repetitive woods of New Hampshire, I came across this pool of water filled with what might appear, at first glance, to be old coins (just suspend your disbelief for a mo, please). I thought to myself - what a great setting for the yellow plastic spade that I just happened to be carrying.

And, without a camera, that would have been that. A tiny, illogical and immaterial art installation would have been lost. But it wasn't; the digits bear witness.

Later (nearly said 'back at the ranch' then - lucky escape) in the bathroom of my hotel I was taken with this projection of the sun's rays through a venetian blind (awful joke avoided there). I've spent a lifetime sticking beams of light though windows in the hope of emulating the sun but only nature can get those cool crisp parallels. Aren't they magic? If only we could get the damn thing to stay in the same place for the retakes.

Bike Shop Developments

2007-06-29T20:36:00.000Z

When I last visited Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, I found a bike shop that served coffee and cake. It was an excellent idea, a marvellous opportunity to acquire a new cotter pin or an inner tube for a 27" wheel and combine it with a piping hot expresso and a slice of Bakewell tart (or whatever the Australian equivalent is).

A few years later in New England, in the pleasant (but emphatically shut) town of York, Maine, I came across this development in the wondrous world of cycling emporia. Although neither coffee nor cake was obviously on offer, I could, if I was overwhelmed by heat and the desire for something supposedly healthy, augment my purchase of a chain link remover with frozen yoghurt.

What a interesting idea but not one, I imagine, without its difficulties. I have tried eating a conventional ice cream cone in a high wind and the spattering effect across all parts of the body is most unwelcome. I should think frozen yoghurt has the same sort of consistency and would perform in a similar manner when cycling along. Also, unless some sort of cone holding device is available, the need to pedal along with only one hand on the handlebars for more than a few seconds is to be deplored, what with the amount of traffic on the roads today and the standards of driving. I'm sorry but I can't see the bike and yoghurt combination as a world beater.

Perhaps a substitution with fruitcake would be in order - it had the solidity to be slipped into a pocket between bites and suggests no more danger than maybe a poke in the eye by a dislodged currant.

Parker

2007-06-27T20:17:00.000Z

Pixie and I returned from a stunning holiday in New England this morning, jammed unpleasantly into a packed British Airways Jumbo and suffering the transition from one time zone to another and one weather system to another - apparently it's done nothing but rain in the UK since we've been away and show no signs of stopping. Lovely.

Right, that's the whinge out the way.

Now I'm sure there is is plenty of mileage to be had over the next few weeks poking fun at the habits of our cousins across the pond as observed over the last fortnight and I'm not one to resist the temptation. However I'm starting with an enormous thank you to Pauline who took us in hand when we visited the Berkshires (pronounced in a way that no-one from Reading would understand but who cares?). She introduced us to Norman Rockwell, an American icon whose work is not so well known over here and who was a revelation. She also showed us some real New England hospitality and saved us from yet another diner and a surfeit of burgers. The Lonely Planet Guide has nothing on Pauline when it comes to local colour and I'm still carrying the image of a young girl and her friend riding the boxcars to the next town - I wish I could have done that.

We also met a Maine Coon. Not something I'd ever expected to do but life's full of surprises. His name is Parker and he likes hiding under bushes and is just the excuse I need to post yet another animal picture.

So here he is.