in the city

A face resonate of a thousand hopeful aspirations, Ian Curtis, his own cruelly snuffed out prematurely, Cobain, Winehouse, et-al; right there emblazoned 40-feet high, building side, in the city of his frequent. Gone before their time; Monroe, Dean, Mercury, Lennon; their visages accompanying us everywhere we go, be it store window, magazine or city edifice.

Wandering across the city with these thoughts whirling my mind when came to another icon, the Midland Hotel; just as imposing as a 40-foot face, also somehow forever trapped in time.

Firing the shutter a second time, on the same frame… a double-exposure for a life led double-beat.

the tower... I remember seeing it appear over the surrounding landscape, resembling a possible Bond villain's headquarters, for the first time sometime in the late eighties, working for the family-firm, pulling into the Forton-service area where it resides and ascending the lift to the cafeteria; egg, chips and beans was the standard fare, observing a vista of West Lancashire and nearby Morecambe Bay, all the time expecting Ernst Blofeld to take a seat opposite me at any moment.

Unmissable, futuristic, looming above the adjacent motorway like a recently landed alien space-craft, or misplaced air-traffic-control tower; built at a time when designers had crazy ideas and just ran with them.

Closed to the public since 1989, the low-fi Holga seemed the apt camera to capture a previous ephemeral reality.

angel

Rain torrential, ceaseless, from every angle, seemingly pointless even bothering to stop and try; but when would I be passing this way again?

Hidden beneath umbrella, framing, a couple arrive… I wait. The woman ascends the hill and turns, I continue to wait, waiting for them to depart, her partner diligently standing by at the base; suddenly, she runs, arms outstretched like the very Antony Gormley Angel of the North before me, a hundred times I could return and not witness such a coincidence..

Seemingly a gift from the angel itself, on a rain sodden summer's day.

He didn’t speak my tongue, nor I his, cigarette break from kitchen duties; I happened by, enquired if I could perchance procure a portrait – much hand gesturing ensued in pursuit of my request, although subsequently he happily obliged.

A gent in kitchen-checks, a chance meeting, cigarette smoke and hand scars; two tongues, one photograph.

I sometimes wonder if I am really interested in photography at all, or is it that I am actually intrigued by things, things that I then photograph to remember?

Am I an observer, or am I a tourist? The line is narrow and easily crossed I feel.

I found myself asking: What makes a place?

mode 2

Winogrand

Saunterbird - this term, I reasoned, described a certain type of photographer, eclectic of nature (that’s eclectic not electric), someone who takes photos of different places, of lots of different things, random objects, landscapes, occasional portraits, observational stuff and much else; the kind of photography for which no satisfactory name exists.

Garry Winogrand said – ‘I think the term street-photography is stupid, it tells you nothing about the photographer… or the work.’

So I reasoned on, they who wanders (or saunters), free as a (bird) to shoot whatever intrigues them… a saunterbird.

the pass

On one side, glacial lake, hemmed by mountains, calm and silent, soothing of mind and soul; on the other a valley, long and verdant, two small villages within, itself hemmed-in by a lake, large and ageless…

Betwixt - a high pass lies.

Barren, treeless; feeling almost not of this earth, moon-like; technically England and yet somehow not, a place between places, known yet unknown.

A pause in journey, but also in thought… as yet to experience the differing winter, I envisage the emotion even more raw/visceral...

hotel

Beyond the curtains a cold morning awaits, not a single centigrade lingers in the still mountain air; no option to lounge inside, check-out time is fast approaching,.. better to brace body and mind, accept the day and venture forth.

To bolster our fortitude, gather our belongings and walk the frigid streets beyond...

supe

‘Sup’ – a word my son occasionally adopts when we meet – abbreviation of ‘what’s up’ apparently; sometimes he will pronounce it ‘Supe’ (soup) for amusement.

Train journey;  homeward bound from the SuperDry clothing store, bag sat incongruously on the table between us, the ‘R’ obscured by a fold in the brown paper exterior I notice; seemingly the stars have aligned, I frame and take a shot with the diminutive GR.

The photography Gods were smiling on me this day…


big in Japan

A 1980’s pop-song (also a group), but in this instance, a reference to blossom-season in the Land of the Rising Sun,

An audible footfall of devotees following the blossom – south to north with the encroaching spring, a unhurried migration of colour, an annual event.

Not so big here in GB, hardly noticed in fact; a different mindset resides on these shores it would seem… maybe explains the Japanese obsession with photography, an obsession with observation.

elastic

Daido Moriyama once remarked – ‘you cannot photograph the past, and you cannot photograph the future; you can only capture the present.’

In that sense photography is forever-now, for now is elastic, moving with us as we progress time it seems to me; it seems obvious to say so, and yet… easily overlooked, unthought-of, perhaps even thought nonsensical. Put simply, a photograph may be from the past or possible future (i.e. a photo we are thinking about taking), but the actual image itself always shows the given present; they all inhabit the now.

Photo taken 20/4/2025 - 13:20

Holga - A black plastic-box, rudimentary shutter; (maybe 1/60th of a second, but who knows. Plastic lens (heavy vignette), light-leaks, and lens-flair common… The equivalent of painting on cardboard with a toothbrush - and yet…

w-ebb and flow

fire

The world be changing… right before our eyes, sometimes subtly - summers seemingly elongated, humidity more prevalent, and intense as lethargic air from oven-ajar; occasionally the change be more stark – blackened-charred mountain gorse contrasting that of white-sheep, as obvious and jarring as full-moon on inky midnight sky. 

I watch empathically as singular ovine picks amongst sparse offerings, its future less secure on this new boiling planet.

pneumatic

Listening to (The Jam’s) song ‘That’s Entertainment’ I mused; a musical version of observational photography perhaps?

Paul Weller observing his environment, rationalising or comprehending what he experienced in his life in the media that fell natural to him; lyrics, riffs, chords… an image of sorts… a photograph?

‘A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drill and ripped-up concrete…’

Warhol on the mind

Village pub, quiet, post stroll
Cider drinking -
Klaus Honnef reading
Campbell soup, Brillo

Mao, Jagger, Marilyn

be

Maybe it is because I grew up analogue…

A time before digital
A time before Instagram

Therefore, to me a photograph does not in reality exist/live, unless it be a print; either a physical print bird-like in hand (a print in hand is worth two on the web), or say, within the flickable-tactile pages of a book; - ‘forever projecting a captured reality into the ether,’ as I recently mused.


One by one, image by image I convert my archive into books; 9-volumes (to date) of my memo-series, plus various other stand alone projects. Only memo-one is available to buy; this matters not, this be not a money making exercise, merely a peace of mind-exercise; hard-drives cannot be trusted; a tome be lifelong security… an off-line vault of one’s existence.

Will I publish more? Maybe, maybe not; the doing be the thing, the fire, the conclusion less so…

'71

Grainy, gritty, low-fi -
highlights blown -
non-fussed to my eye
A dog, ‘71 – Misawa

This image to me speaks –
care less of LR tweaks
Subject choice
Compose, be the voice

Moriyama, arigatō

a strange evening

I believe they call it performance-art or some other such similar notion; lie on a table in the middle of the room, playing dead, or possibly stoned/drunk, whilst people are free to walk around observing your prone body. Or as was mostly the case, stand in the corners drinking cheap house-plonk out of plastic cups and talking amongst themselves 

Occasionally he would awaken, get to his feet and strike various poses atop the table, before once more collapsing into a prone or foetal position. This went on for around three hours or so, waves of gawkers entering and leaving as they made their rounds of the various rooms.

In a way I felt sorry for my son; but nobody said art was easy or painless. (a protruding nail tearing a hole in his new suit trousers, to prove the point). I didn’t drink plonk, I took photos; some people probably believing I was part of the performance…

It was the least I could do, to share his pain.

brown (Morrissey)

Trudging slowly over wet sand
Back to the bench where our -
time was stolen
This is a coastal town
Edge of an endless brown
Carmageddon, dumb carmageddon
Dumb carmageddon, dumb

Three islands in the mouth of a river; by foot we must go, no bridge spans or car travels the brown expanse to a visible low-tide archipelago, a low rocky smear midway to foreign lands. We check the tides a few days before and arrived in good time, mid morning, to make our traverse of the sands to our lonely destination –

Resident population – a multitude of grey seals

Seals who retreat to a large sandbar long before our arrival, not to return until high-tide - We first make Little Eye (nothing to speak of, barely an isle at all, more an outcrop of red rocks clinging to a slim existence), then Middle Eye (much larger, but void of anything but grass and wind); then finally our goal, Hilbre (largest of the three, spotted with a scattering of houses, an old telegraph and life-boat station).

Surreal to be self-marooned on such a place, exploring but always keeping one eye on the surrounding water for signs of its return, and hence no escaping this realm.

In a place where time is stolen…

Soho Daido

Delayed train to London
Soho alley destination
A retrospective, four floors
Tinned giants and coke bottle
Sardine sunbathers, grainy Tokyo

Time too brief, city stroll
Piccadilly Circus, Carnaby
GR in hand, Daido on the mind

Sayōnara, blur on the Tube
Tales of Tono
Moriyama, arigatō

A occupied chair, I reason, is a piece of furniture; whereas an empty chair is a piece of art?

GR thinking

Shooting a Ricoh GR is kind of like taking photographs with your hand...

face

faceless

phot-Oasis

It’s a bit early in the midnight hour for me – to go through all the things I wish to see-k
I don’t believe in everything there be
Grasp my camera – pursuit of photography

Take me away –
Because I just would rather play
And the subjects I portray -
getting more like memory every day

These are crazy days
But the world’s all mine
Time keeps walking by...

phot-Oasis 2

We the photogs fight for our - existence
We don’t claim to be perfect -
just daily commentary
We portray our thoughts alone –
with no resistance
Vignette our frames and light-leaks –may they be

You know I didn’t mean -
what I just said
But a tog woke-up on the -
wrong side of his bed
Only the photo really matters now…

muse

Radio chatter tells me some people of fame are offended being referred to as a muse… an affront to their own qualities and skills, offended at being classed as a mere-muse.

Obversely, mere and muse, to my mind, have no right being adjacent; to be a muse, in contrary, is something to be proud – to affect someone to such a degree (just by being you) that you compel them to produce a body of creative-output, be it photography/music/art/literacy, is an ability supreme... a kind of super-power.

JPGR


Possible, could it be, that some may be recognised by limbs/metatarsal alone?

Even, if only mannequins; when, also not knowing which belong to John, Paul, George or Ringo.

Is a portrait even a portrait when no face is present?

Is a photograph even a photograph when the subject is but mere suggestion?

herd

A whistle, a sound of motor-combustion (maybe bike/quad), approaching flock; a herd, yet presently unheard.

Suddenly - a wall of white, hoofs clacking upon gravel and stone; a thundering commotion, hemmed by walls parallel.

Forced upon wall top, avoiding trampulation (if such a word exists); reach for Olympus... frame 16.

One ovine leaps, I click; flock, farmer and dog hurry past, then disappear to a bobbing white-dot.

All is calm once again.

contemplation

Youthful-you doesn’t tend to allocate time for inward contemplation,  thinking simply gets in the way; every day, every year an adventure, the candle not only burning at both ends but also in the middle and doused in petrol.

Later in life, though, contemplation of life itself be ever present; the why, how and what is it all about type of thinking – not in a depressive way, but just pondering on the random-oddity of it all, the candle flame swaying slowly, synchronised to your every toothpaste-flavoured breath.

Photographing my existence daily… perhaps I can grab the flame, somehow figure out time, place and reason and our place within… 

sort of - contemplation through composition.

Jarvis Cocker of Pulp once said that the lyrics to common-people were only loosely based on fact, and for the most part were made up fantasy; no doubt shattering the beliefs of thousands of vinyl-hugging, merch-hoarding devotees in the process.

Although, to me the admission seems reasonable enough; most lexical song-musings probably follow a similar vein, if only for the simple reason that – real life rarely rhymes.

   (Holga double-exposure)

Photography, in contrast, can only tell the truth, or maybe in some rare occurrences - an oddly manipulated reality.

ride

Photography be like a train journey; never ending images-compositions passing before us like views from said train window, our only decision being where do we get off, what choices do we make? Free then to step back onboard and ride further along the tube of considerations.

Lone-guy; alone in his world
Pencil hand, to hand
Borrowed legs, four of
Company not requisite – 
happy, in his realm

Lennon, observes from above –
he, a known doodler
No doubt an approving gaze...
 
from beyond

Mani

A poignant moment for myself
Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield’s passing
Our paths crossed very briefly – 
many years ago
Spotting me, a face in the crowd –
with camera
A jabbing finger and fixed stare
A second later, a big beaming smile

This was Mani, so people say
A joker, a friendly soul
Glad to have this photo
A one second memento
Roses seemingly now apt

rubber-man (Radiohead)

A red plastic pocket cam
For a rake rubber wander-ing man
in a fake pla-stic world.

That he bought from a retro-soul -
in a shop full of retro goals
So get ready… she said

And it brings me down
it brings me down
it brings me out
it bri-ngs me round

Eggleston

William Eggleston once said that – 

‘Photographs and words were like two different animals that didn’t particularly like each other' - so to pair words with images was to him a nonsense.

He went on to say -  ‘It wouldn’t help to talk about them, much less volunteer information in words.’

Well, I guess that rather undermines this here jots-page. But the thing is, I like words… so what to do about that?

If I were to say, for example – There stood before me a green tree in a brown field – then most likely an image of that will appear in your minds-eye; so, words can be images it seems to me, they are connected, the same in some obscure way; they and photographs seem more like cousins; cousins who live in different towns maybe, but whom occasionally visit and go for coffee.

cat-walk jetty


Water be what water be
Entice us near - vicinity
Mountain draped, island dotted
Misty ‘noon, cat-walk jetty

Figures two, brace the cold
Doubt in thought – be so bold
Mountain draped, island dotted
Misty ‘noon, cat-walk jetty

photo-ism

Sitting in a coffee-shop, thinking thoughts of photo-ism; 

if photoism is even a word? – 

Most of my jots were written this way… thinking, do photographs even exist before you take them, or are they ever present; willing stationary-minutiae just waiting for a  passing observer to happen by with camera and contemplation?

movie

We arrived at the lake a little after nine: the scene before us, an isolated linear body of water surrounded by brooding high mountains on three sides. We were surprised to hear an American accent off to our right, seated guy on the shoreline calling out instructions to a lone female swimmer, who was diligently doing widths across the silvery horse-shoe.

‘Long breaths.’
‘Turn in four.’

Kes stepped down to the shingle; the swimmer ceased in her aquatic endeavours, stood-up in the shallows, hands on hips, ripples slowly emanating;

I clicked the shutter and we moved on... the moment feeling somehow surreal, like a scene from a movie I couldn't place.

Daido Moriyama once said that when he was younger and in the darkroom with his photography buddies, he used to pick up the negatives off the floor that they had discarded, he used to say - 

'Why not use these, they are photographs too?' 

To his mind it didn't matter if they were blurry or deemed as poor quality, to him they were still moments in time, moments worth preserving.

lone traveller

Working away from home, many hours until the home-lights illuminate my eager-face, gazing out of the window at a blurred Welsh landscape whipping by like a trance..

One row in front a sombre face is reflected in the glass as a 90mph blur hurtles by; as I press the shutter I find myself wondering if this lone traveller is pondering the same thing as myself.

‘When will I be home again?’

Lone-tree, a series of sorts; whenever I see one I feel compelled to photograph its singular presence, a sole-sentinel guardian of all it presides over.

What must it have seen in its lifetime, how many lonely cold nights and blistering high-summers, passing observers and visiting avians… time ceasing to exist with any real meaning, beyond the passing of the seasons... 

In some ways perhaps being a photographer is akin to being a lone-tree; a lone mainly solo pursuit of images in the myriad-forest of life.

a thought...

Are all photographers simply frustrated painters, or are painters merely overworking the instantaneous moment?

Or maybe it is both…

Holga - akin to riding a unicycle in a world of two-wheeled bicycles...

no reason to shoot a Holga, but then again every reason; it doesn’t remember, normal cameras remember, its world is of its own making, one I recognise and yet somehow do not know at all.

87

Stephen Shore in his photo-book (Uncommon-Places) said - 'That to him photographing was akin to asking a series of questions, and when the questions about a certain type of image were resolved, he would move on.'

So, in one way, what he seems to be saying is that the camera can be seen as a query-device, a machine that asks questions and gives answers.

Daido Moriyama also pondered on this subject when he said many decades ago – 'That when there were no more questions to be asked, he may one day say farewell-photography.' However, having said that, he is now 87 (83 at time of writing) and still shooting as much as ever; so hopefully this means there is no end to our own photographic pondering, being as inexhaustible as grains in celluloid.

For me, it isn’t so much about asking questions of the world, but asking questions of myself; we tend to lose ourselves in our photography, shutting out the noise and rinsing our mind of accumulated detritus, and in that moment we find ourselves - it is a kind of circular-existence.

diptych

The world's smallest book?

Although, not so much a book of story it seems to me, as a book of alternative realities; a million different combinations therein.

a thought...

Silence… occurred to me, is maybe a photograph’s best quality; in this modern world of noise, maybe that is no bad-thing?

toast

Recently off the meta-bus
Breathing unsullied air
Free at last from hash-tags
And algorithmic despair

Photographers of memory
Had no need of such
Going about their work
Validation… not much

Grams I have jettisoned
Insta, now post…
Breathing unsullied air
Future, like warm toast

ether

It occurred - a photograph always is…

Opposed to, say – music/dance/act


mediums that only seem to exist in the moment of performance, or post via download/stream/album/film etc. 

Whereas a photograph, in contrast, exists during the viewing – say, a gallery wall/within the pages of a book; and yet still exists once the viewer has left the room or put down the book.

Forever projecting a captured reality into the ether…

Sound and Vision

David Bowie song this is not, but rather the concept that photography comes from both audio as much as visual stimuli. It seems an odd construct; sound drawing you to a location that reveals itself as a photographic image, that somehow it is plausible to possibly photograph sound…

Liverpool Museum, top of the central spiral staircase, the sound of drums and music ascending-asudden the void; peering over said void I see another spiral, white on black mayonnaise swirl far below, a line of dancers entering the makeshift stage far right.

The scene - abstract, surreal, musical and photographic all at the same time it occurred to me… I fired two shots and considered the implications,

'blue, blue, electric blue...'

3

There is a well known theory that every person is in fact -  three people.

There is the public face… the person you are when meeting strangers; say, people on the street, shop-keepers, also occasional acquaintances etc.

There is the private you… who you are at home, ensconced with your family, or maybe relaxing with close-friends.

And finally, the inner-self… the version of you inside your head, when alone with your percolating-thoughts.

Maybe, photography is the third type, the third-self...  


nor

If someone were to ask me what is it that I look for when out with my camera, I could only answer that I do not know – 

Nor do I wish to know, the day that I do is probably the day that I hang up said camera… anticipation of the new is all I require, the fascination of the unknown.

mundane

Everybody’s life be a story, regardless of status, fame, achievement, mundane is just as much an intrigue as any sensational realm; for one thing, the life of the ordinary is always more attainable.

How to document the mundane: song, word, art, photography - obsessions of choice to give them a name, for they are obsessions, compulsions to document our environs and the humanity within, our continuation… time.

real

No need of Ai in my life, no chat with - bot - nor Ai overview in my Google
Filling my day with annoyance and strife

Just need my camera -
and shoes, pair of
Capturing the real
Only requisite, a little stamina

muse-ongoing

colour-chrome

Thinking about Colour v BW; there are proponents of both…

Meyerowitz extols colour

'black and white doesn’t describe everything that is there, the world is in colour; we carry memories of colour within us, just as we carry memories of scent.'

Moriyama champions BW 

‘Monochrome is somehow erotic, it speaks of abstraction and symbolism, it takes you to another-place; BW can give me a rush, a shiver, colour never does.’

My own thinking: for me the world is viewed as an orb of eclecticism; just as there are colourful days, there are also dark. hueless days, colour or mono-objects, scenes, moments, feelings, thoughts…

why should photography be any different?

breathe

Why analogue…?

A quiet rebellion against speed - 
The instantaneous gratification 
of modern life - of screen-time
Of being on-line, plugged in

To un-plug
Detach and be present
To breathe…

nine

If as I previously pondered…

that if a occupied chair is a piece of furniture, then an empty chair is a piece of art?

What maketh nine-chairs… 
an exhibition?

Heading out of London via the night-train on a hot muggy summer’s eve, faces beside me buried in phones, myself the only observer surveying the enveloping night outside the window.

A brief flash of light and colour as a tube of faces passes in the opposite direction - the yin to my yang, looking like a negative-strip paused in time; a green jacket, two lone figures, and then gone..

I return my gaze to my fellow passengers, faces still buried in phones, oblivious to what has just happened; it occurred to me in that moment that in this modern world of tech a lot of life is lost to the many...

Orange curtains and chocolate-brown sofas, (sometimes even vice-versa); aunties' pastel-blue and green trouser suits, the pale shades of purple ties, shirts and drink tumblers, and various odd colour clashes that should never have worked, but somehow did, all revolving in front of my eyes like a pair of mechanical retro-goggles.

The colours of my youth, the palette of the 70’s/80’s; or maybe it was the palette of the 60’s and people tended not to redecorate or change fashions quite so often? Either way these colours and hues follow me even today.

I see them in my photographs and in the way I edit them; they stop me in my tracks in the most obscure of places, as inescapable as fog and as irresistible as the smell of ground coffee.

Phones in a row, on a table-top or maybe a store-front window; stood in the street contemplating this oddity before me, an edifice built in the early 70’s, long before mobile/cell phones became a thing.

What was the architect’s inspiration; do they feel it at all prophetic?

wildebeest

Humans are a restless species, forever on the move, endlessly moving from one place to another;  watching cars on a motorway overpass it brought to mind a herd of migrating mechanical wildebeest, individual of purpose but as one, sheep like in actuality.

A ribbon of single consciousness extending the nation in my viewfinder…

conceptual

Visiting the Tom Wood 50-year retrospective recently, one quote caught my attention; referring to his project of photographing scenes from the top of his regular bus rides around Merseyside he said –

‘What’s more conceptual than spending twenty years photographing a bus journey that should take twenty minutes?’

Food for thought…

mode

A state of mind; 'when your consciousness has nowhere to go and nothing to do.' only being aware of the here and now...

During such moments I feel compelled, obliged even, to study minutiae, the small details of life.

Daguerreo-duo

Only 16 of 36 made the light of day
Most an early Daguerreotype - semblance, cause unknown

Although, not a cause for complaint
Or chagrin necessarily
Rather an acceptance of celluloid
In all its none-digital certainty
And potential of a absurd reality

belief

Diane Arbus once said - ‘For me, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture itself; I mean it has to be of something, but what it is of is always more remarkable than what it is.'

I concur, I would also add as photographers, we are I feel, but mere documenters… maybe, even to some degree, who the photographer is remains a mute consideration; the subject is the draw.

I wish to remain in wonderment of the thing… not to approach a subject and be thinking hey, that will make a great image or I can make a photo from this; but to remain in simple wonderment of the thing itself; to absorb all the facets that make it so and to photograph it purely for future recall.

To photograph is to copy...

ponder-man

Sometimes he ponders colours, hues, tones... other times
Well, anything really, it matters not

A shadow tree, a snow-clad field -
solitary paint-tin
He sees, pauses, ponders

token

Kurt Cobain died a lonely end… poignant, sad and lonely.

Decades later his face found its way to an empty bed in a random hotel room in distant Cumbria… next to an improbable banana. The banana, on the face of it, seems irrelevant, but in one oddly connected way, maybe not.

For the banana, is, often seen as synonymous with one Andy Warhol; himself a virtuoso artist coming to an unfortunate sudden end, as suddenly as Cobain’s in some respect.

When placing the banana next to the magazine (as an afterthought) I wasn’t entirely sure why, but in the moment it seemed apt, in some unknown way. Now, looking back, it seems clear why. 

Postscript Lennon, Curtis, Winehouse et-al; upon seeing their visage, feeling often a need to offer a small epitaph of my own, in the form of a token photograph.


frontal-cortex

Not a single eatery could be found, traipsing the town on a warm Sunday afternoon; preluding long hike over hill and shoreline, thoughts of fish-salad and cake-afters loitering in the frontal -cortex.

‘Sorry, we are just closing up’
‘But, it’s lunchtime’
‘Yes… but it is also Sunday’

‘Do people not eat on Sunday
around here?’

Chip-cone and stroll to the beach is the option of last-resort (pun-intended); to mingle the multitudes splattered upon the silica and mollusc-shell grains, dotting the landscape like so many petrified tree-figures.

We avail of a elevated rock perch, vantage point to observe - myself, chips in one hand, Olympus in the other; timing is everything we are led to assume, although also somewhat irrelevant amongst so many, and with so much evident deed in motion.

The word microcosm comes swimming into mind…

wallpaper

I proffer that there comes a point when a photograph stops being a photograph and simply becomes wallpaper…

Verdant vegetation, repeating patterns of any kind, any image completely filling the field-of-view without any discernable depth-of-field; It could quite easily be wallpaper, no way for the viewer to ascertain the truth; only the photographer really knows… a subtle game of reality play. 

phot-Oasis 3

Born on a different cloud
From the ones that I pass 
around town
It’s no surprise it seem
When you walk a world few do glean

Loaded with film I go
Zero to 36 expo’
Living in elastic time
Don’t care if it cloud or shine

Photo-thinking by myself again
Time, it keeps on moving through
Barely time to blink
Some how, photographic-neo  
days, ensue... 


photo-Pulp

It’s a guess, an idea -
a photo feeling
When I wake from my bed -
the cogs are wheeling.

And by the way –
these dreams they come alive
And by the way...  

transient

Transient is the coast, two worlds – one wet, one dry, the strip between ebbing and flowing with the tide; two realms, one continuance.

Those born-raised on the coast, do they feel transient themselves?

pheasant

The problem with photography -
in this modern tech-led sphere,
is - any image deemed improbable -
most probably an Ai-generated fake,
we fear…

Reality, as such, much simpler to - contain - 
simply an enormous wood-carved pheasant - in a field

Reason? Rather difficult to explain. 

piscine-duo

hominidae-duo

flow

Do you ever think about time?

Do you believe it to be a constant, or maybe that it is somehow elastic?

People, when bored, feeling time slipping by like a slowly dripping tap, seconds and minutes elongated to an excruciating, unbearable ordeal.

People, engaged in something exhilarating, finding the complete opposite; whole hours whizz-by like a Catherine-wheel (firework), time accelerates into oblivion.

But there is a third-time; there is that theory known as flow; not boredom, nor exhilaration, more just being in the moment, engaged in something that brings zen-pleasure, neutral, less stimulating – say, taking a walk, listening to music, reading a book, (writing this post now I think about it), sitting by a lake absorbing the sound of lapping waves whilst contemplating timeless mountains… moments such as these, time nether slow nor fast, instead becoming a kind of expanded-present. 

Of course, atomic-time continues, seconds and minutes continue-on, but that is somehow different to the time in our being.

Photography is flow

On-Photography

If someone asked myself to describe an egg, I would probably say that it is a small brown-oval, shaped not unlike an egg… Sontag on the other hand would take about fourteen paragraphs to say the same thing; not saying that is a bad thing necessarily, but just so you know what’s coming.

On-Photography, by Susan Sontag; a right of passage, or so it seems on reading completion… a book every photographer should read (probably), if even just to say that you have read it, even if (despite) according to one review I read recently that ‘it is the most boring book they had read that year’ (2023).

Boring, an interesting word choice, as Sontag herself remarked – ‘boredom is the very opposite of fascination’, the flip-side of the same coin so to speak.

A complex read for sure, full of lexical tongue-twisters such as – 

‘For photographers, the most heterogeneous subjects are then brought together in the fictive unity offered by the ideology of humanism.’

On-Photography, probably the most theoretical book on the subject ever written, akin to reading a book on bio-mechanics or quantum-physics; so theoretical in fact that baring the front-cover the book contains not a single photograph…

Sontag had  perseverance; of the teeth-gritted kind, and dedication to the musings of photography, I will say that much; maybe something we can all benefit from in our own photographic endeavours/writings?