I haven’t written much here lately. Not for bad reasons, just been busy making the most of summer and that is in some respects why I am updating my blog on Saturday afternoon – I have been out and about so much that my flat has turned into a dump! So I’m having a day of cleaning up, mopping, hoovering – everything. Later on today I’ll be off out to take a photo of a subject I need for my entry to Black and White Photography Magazine’s B&W Photographer Of The Year competition (something I don’t anticipate getting anywhere with but I’m giving it a go, and the end result is 4 prints I will like and hang on the wall even if the critics think they suck!

This time last year

Today a year ago I started walking the South Downs Way, and since then in June I walked the North Downs Way. A combined distance with all the to-ing and fro-ing of probably 380 miles. I’m quite a nostalgic person and I own a pair of rose tinted specs for every day of the year but it did get me thinking a little, of how awesome it is to be able to just get out there and walk, enjoy the countryside and take photos. I’m actually going to do a print tonight of Gander Down which is where I walked through a year ago today, pure coincidence but a happy one all the same. (My subject is the South Downs.)

About three-four years ago I had got myself into a rut, one that I progressively made deeper and deeper, it taught me a lot in hindsight but I got in with the wrong people (again) and it almost destroyed me. It’s only now I’m looking back thinking, “What the… why!” I got myself into something I didn’t need to, probably only because I felt lonely and was having a hard time adjusting to the difference of being in University and then going into work, hardly trauma central but enough to unseat you, especially when you get made redundant  and then progressively all your friends move away back to their parents and you’re holding the fort out of stubbornness, blind stupidity and mostly a love of where you now live. This was in 2005/6 (before this recession) so I do feel for people out of work who have strong work ethic, signing on at the DSS is the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done.

And then there’s the stupid things I did in that time too, at the time I felt I should be doing them, and I learnt a lot, saw a lot (and I already had beforehand, life really ain’t all roses and sweet-peas I’m afraid, not for everybody anyway, but you can make your own life pretty OK if you try hard) but even though at the time I felt I should be doing these things, I look back and think what I damn idiot I was. But c’est la vie; it got me to a good situation now of where I know exactly what I’m doing and most of all, I don’t really have much but I’m now happy and even feel that I’ve got to really cram as much in as possible because life is so short!

Next year I have plans to probably do some more chalk-hill walking, Cotswolds Way is likely. I did think of Offa’s Dyke but I also want to go to France for a week and 2 weeks of holiday one for walking, one for France eats half of my annual leave, let alone taking 2 weeks for Offa’s Dyke and 1 week for France, I’ll be left with nothing for the rest of the year virtually.

Nostalgia

Last night I sat down and went through 4 boxes of Kodachrome slides I got back from walking on the North Downs Way. (It equates to the first 4 1/2 days of walking) I swear that looking at projected slides is one of the biggest things people miss out on with digital photography. I don’t like engaging in any trivial spats like digital or film, Mac or PC etc. but the cost of a 1080p projector (which doesn’t have the resolution of projected slides) vs. a half decent slide projector and some well exposed chromes is an experience so many are now not enjoying. The richness of the colour, the detail almost dripping off the slides. Gorgeous stuff.

Anyway, it was lovely just to sit there and “re-walk” that part of the North Downs, really casts the mind back and it was most enjoyable. It’s much more enjoyable to look at a print or a slide projected than looking at something on a computer screen I think, much more detail and saturation (whatever you use, including digital) and this year alone I have had 4 or 5 people loose their PCs due to hard disk failure and you guessed it either no backups or very little, losing all of their photos!

They’re now backing them up thank goodness but it worries me people aren’t looking after their slides, negatives, JPEGs or RAW files as well as they should. Get prints, get photo books done (one of the amazing things we can now do easily due to digital), store those slides properly, just get hard copies and back up any scan files or pictures from your camera. It’s so so important, otherwise we all risk losing a great deal of photographic history of our time on this planet.

I haven’t written anything since I got back about my sojourn across the North Downs, a 132 mile hike from Farnham in Surrey to Dover in Kent via Rochester and Canterbury. The biggest reason as it stands has been my:

• Very busy couple of weeks since I got back
• The depressing fact that a year on I have still to pull my finger out and finish writing about the South Downs Way which I did almost a year ago now.

But there have been other reasons. When I started the South Downs Way I knew and still will produce a photo book on the South Downs Way but the flaw was trying to shoot it all in ‘one-sitting’ and whilst this is true to the journey, it has produced some of my favourite photos but also some that I am less than enamoured with. The upshot is that I’m going to need to re-visit the trail and photograph it again. Not exactly a bad thing in my book! So this project whilst very much swept aside for me to get on with impression:mk is alive and I am sticking with it. I just have to get these things right and there is no need to rush (unless of course I die tomorrow in which case i need to get a shift on!)

The other reason is a biggie, but that hasn’t stopped me getting on with it in the same way that say my birthday, barbeques, the pub (a few times admittedly!) and doing some extra work outside of the day job has done. But it has made me stop writing about it in yet another diary like fashion. Why?

I have long shrugged off or indeed acknowledged/struggled to find that any work of mine (photographically or written) has a philosophy, there is one but it’s not exactly obvious and probably still isn’t to me. But I do know what I am interested in and I’m now old enough to not give a damn about whether people think it’s odd, weird, deranged or obsessive. Which is a good start because there is nothing wrong than wanting to say photograph in black and white maybe the underside and underbelly of industrial Birmingham with its urban motorways and canals and decayed industry and social housing but not being able to do so because you’re worried a friend or all your friends are going to look dimly on it. Now, the latter is also something I will do (when I get time) but I’ve completely got over the whole keeping up appearances for friends, I am what I am and if you don’t like it do yourself and me a favour and kindly show yourself the door darling.

But behind this in the things I have attempted to write, and the things I do photograph of my own volition have been informed by something, or a series of somethings that are never entirely in isolation but do quite often float in the ether encapsulated all by themselves. Quite often these things are entirely subjective, subvocal, hidden and emotional and its hard to explain them except through a photo, or a sentence/paragraph that forms part of that overall patchwork of experience which describes where I am at this time, and what has gone before to bring me here in this frame of mind.

Without drifting needlessly into the obtuse, walking has always given me the freedom to think clearly. Whether that’s drifting around London or Brighton, or out in the wilds of the Downs or indeed the North Downs it hasn’t really mattered. The car, and to a lesser extent the train give you a sense of movement and an interesting perspective on how the landscape and your viewpoint shifts with that movement, but it’s nothing like the view you get when walking, which awakens and feeds that curious appetite. The bus for me does none of these, there’s no romance or emotion in that transport. It’s as utilitarian as a girdle (unless you have a girdle fetish, not that I am suggesting bus buffs are… Someone help me out of this hole!)

Walking this time seemed to sew up some kind of philosophy, it’s very quirky but it makes some sense. And so rather than write just a series of daily diaries of each day on the North Downs Way I’ve decided to work it into a wider remit on photography, subjectivity and philosophy of an art form and indeed maybe even a little of life. It’s hard to explain succinctly otherwise there would be no point in writing a book but it’s non-fiction and most definitely not a Kerouac-inspired journey dialogue. It is really a photography book, it might not be “Mastering Photoshop CS4’ or ‘The Dummies guide to Digital SLRs’ (I have no idea if those books exist but I bet they do, and I bet they are really really boring, bit like what I write then *chuckles*) but it’ll be interesting none the less.

The photo that summed this up for me is one I am still waiting back for, but maybe that’s it, a photo can make sense even with it not present if the thought behind it is sound. I was sat at Gatwick Airport station, on the final leg back home to Worthing, Day 14 of walking and I had done it, I had walked every inch from Farnham to Dover. And I was sat on the floor of the platform in the sun, it was nice to stretch out the legs but you get interesting perspectives on different levels. Ahead a lady, perhaps a flight attendant still dressed up glamorous strolled down the platform towards the incoming train and ahead a train was moving north to the far-side platform, the sun was bright. And it was hot (never start a sentence with a conjunction – except when it works for effect.) Long shadows carrying the cerebral and emotional baggage we all hide following in tow and the sky was pitch perfect blue. The departure board scrolling across for the Brighton 1842 or something like that fringed by its bright yellow metal armature which burst out uncontrollably against the navy skirt-suit of the what I have now decided is most certain an air-hostess. And in that pitch perfect blue sky a plane is coming into land taking people back from their escape, and the train is here to carry some away too on a hot Sunday noon. Why and what is all this for, each little step and snatched glance, with every uttered word what are we doing it for. Are we always In Search of Sunrise?

And photo sums it up for me what this book is about and that’s the book concept/title too, In Search of Sunrise. It’s a quirky idea but it makes sense. It’ll be a good antidote to ‘1001 Digital Photography and Adobe Lightroom Skills: The Ultimate Guide to everything.’

First things first: My Canon EOS 5 and then 3 never fell apart on any hike. But then I hadn’t walked 160 miles with either in one go, but they proved to be tough cameras. So the Leica’s first outing on a hike through Surrey and Kent in South East England for 2 weeks around my neck covering at least 130 miles up and down on the trail and 30 miles to and from pubs, accommodation and around towns would give it a gruelling challenge.

The result was the M2 holding up perfectly apart from one screw going walkabout somewhere in Rochester probably.

It had always been loose, the one on the right on the top plate, it was loose probably due to the camera shop not tightening it properly – I should get it sorted, and will, but not having my M2 for even so much as an hour is a daunting thought! Otherwise the camera kept soldiering on, come wind, rain and an awful lot of shine. The beauty of a manual camera is there is no electronics for water to foul although you wouldn’t necessarily want to drench the M2 in a downpour as I’m sure it wouldn’t do much good in the long run.

The lenses were a slightly different ball game. First the Voigtlander Ultron, held up magnificently until day 11 of 14 when I noticed the back screw thread plate was working itself free. I can forgive it as it had a lot of stress and that would work screws free to an extent, this had the effect of getting the focussing helical (?) off kilter so that at infinity it was focussing beyond infinity if that makes sense. Also the focussing was slipping with the rangefinder coupling becoming uncoupled as the lens shifted a few tenths of an inch from its usual position. I assumed this meant adjustment under warranty but was advised by Robert White it would be a 4 week turnaround time, so I have tried adjusting it myself and will run a test roll and see whether it is indeed now OK.

My ‘new’ 50mm Canon Serenar (a gem of 1950s optical design, 50mm f/1.8 and pretty flare resistant and excellent colour rendition) managed to end up in two bits The front part which contains all the optics unscrewed from the rear part which is the barrel and rear screw mount. Screwing it back together tightly solved the problem. (It hadn’t been done when I received it and I had no idea how to adjust it as it has no externally visible screws, so it took it to fall apart for me to realise how its held together!)

Overall, I shot 13 rolls of Kodachrome, 1 roll of EBX and the camera did a grand job. Leica sent a replacement screw to me for free (which was unexpected!) so the M2 is visually all 100% again. That said, I found the elastoplast I had taped over the hole made a comfortable thumb rest, might keep it on!

That said, the Leica just kept on going. Just what I expect from a camera. They have tough lives with me, but they’re like working dogs – they appreciate it that way.

Today is a sad day in the world of British literature, one of its giants passed away in the morning of April 19th 2009. JG Ballard was one of Britain’s most influential writers of the twentieth, indeed the twenty-first century. Many an author owes a debt of gratitude to a man who plumbed into topics that no one had dared write before.

My first encounter with JG Ballard’s work was not through his books, indeed some of his most seminal work had been written at least a decade before I was born. Instead it was through the film, Empire of the Sun – directed by Steven Spielberg. I don’t remember the year I first saw it but it was in the early ‘90s on one of those rare occasions where I was allowed to stay up. That film stuck with me for years to come, its haunting narrative of a time and experience I could not possibly understand.

In 1999 I found out the film had been based on a book, Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard. From that point onwards there was no going back on this discovery as I moved on to The Kindness of Women and then discovered his dystopian or more accurately Ballardian novels turned a locked door in me.

My intrigue with the built environment and society within that was something I felt was best kept private, as it was quite a weird thing to be interested in – or so I thought. As it turns out, much of the fiction that JG Ballard penned struck at the very core of what I sometimes caught only a glimpse of in my travels, but in which he burrowed out a mine full of veritable detail and semblance of vision and structure.

For me, Ballard was not a science fiction writer, but rather an observer, an astutely aware person of the interaction between humankind, technology and our environment. Prophetic he may not be in the strictest sense, but he always struck at the core of something somewhat uneasy and unspoken in society.

I know I will greatly miss his work, and I for one am indebted for his contribution he has made on my literary journey, and those others who cite him as influential that too have gone on to be great writers themselves.

My only wish is that he was well enough in February last year to see him at the Southbank Centre, alas his illness prevented him from being able to host the evening. But he did write, and in those words we found inspiration so deeply inseparable from a man with such vision and understanding.

Thank you.

JG Ballard – 1930-2009

A piece of prose…

In Suburbia

In suburbia the mind restlessly wrestles with paved inertia and the beat of life passes by on a horizon distant and forgotten, nothing left in the heart to feel and nothing left to jump at with zeal; so passion and a little life has flown away across the roof tops and gone away into the miasma of haste and mortar. In suburbia she raises her head a little from the passenger seat and peers through the triplex, eyes as glazed as the pane she looks through, distant and longing for something that fell from her grasp so long ago. And he walks with solemn purpose but with no purpose all at the same time in a semi-detached nation of indifference, indecision and inaction. There is a job and a duty but no longer love nor zest to spring forth the dreams that a long forgotten youth once hinted at with an eye’s caressing glint of eagerness. And the drum goes on, the tarmac marches on, the streetlights turn from blank to sodium orange and the sky turns turtle on the mark with racing headlights searching out a lifetime’s journey of déjà vu. In suburbia he longs for the day to break free and make good on the grand promise of travel and writing the book; but turns to the Valium provided for the masses to sedate any hope of breaking from that nine to five he once swore never to be part of. In suburbia she peers into the mirror hanging jewellery from her neck and bunching her hair back waiting for a day to parade in grandeur and pride; But nothing, but nothing. Not even the clarion call to action or the faint sound of a song seeping through that was once felt so deeply inside. And so it goes in suburbia: the pavement cracks and the creeping cats, the windswept parades and vaunted charade of breaking loose. But in suburbia the ring road has you encircled, with your hard-shouldered love waning and verge-side passion wilting before an ever darkening horizon over suburbia.

I have been watching Sugar Rush again the past few days. Whilst the second series got a little bit sillier in parts (it was still good) – some of the dialogue in the first series was spot on; not just from the perspective of it being a coming out story for a young lesbian, but for life and dare I say love (though infatuation is probably closer.)

One of the aspects that always hooks me by the lip is the words in in episode 7 (if I can count) is the sentiment that once a special moment has gone, it was as good as things would ever get; and you want it to on forever, and moreover you want everyone to know – but that sometimes isn’t possible. Whilst that might sound like a disturbing sorrowful thought, it’s actually quite positive in a way that isn’t it just a wonderful feeling when you have something so wonderful happen to you that you just feel this bursting brimful urge to tell everybody about it there and then.

I was just thinking, that probably never goes away – somewhat like your first crush, the world becomes this vibrant, over saturated universe from what was a slightly quirky, grey, indeterminate place. At least I hope it never goes away. I can see why perhaps those who are older seem so much more frustrated by life and at least in the UK.

The past couple of years have been interesting (in fact the past decade has been somewhat interesting really) – I’m finding that hard to express right now; but I’ll find the words soon I’m sure.

I guess I just had a little Zen moment (as clichéd and trite as that now sounds) on the beach earlier on today. It was just peaceful listening to the tide in the distance and the seagulls cawwing in the distance, watching the sun set after I had watched it rise and set on Saturday too, and the world felt a good place. A vibrant universe, over saturated and endowed in silly bright poster paint.

And whilst Robert Peston and the media will have us all believe we’re all going to the dogs, there is some good things still around. And I’m not being harsh or unsympathetic to those being directly affected by the loss of their jobs – I have seen what that does first hand with my own family (in the late 80s and early 90s) – I just feel that you have to at least avert your attention from all this gory badness once in a while, release the pressure almost. Take a walk, take a drive in the car at an ungodly hour, it’s soothing.

It was utterly beautiful to drive down Grand Avenue on Saturday morning at half 5, no cars but mine, window wound right down, a gentle hum of the engine and birds twittering in the Scots Pines, and that wonderful icy fresh air whistling by… I just had to tell you about that, of course…

After all, the last time I was made redundant (in 2005) I decided one day I had enough of endless forms and the depressing state of affairs of having to sign on; so I went for a drive to Bodiam Castle. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Rye. And when I got there I didn’t want to go back so I went to Ashford. And then up the M20 to the M25. And even when on the M23 I decided to dive off into Crawley and out the other side before getting back… It’s just good to get away from it all and then tell someone about it. The world can be an enriching place, even with its ever incessant march of retail parks, motorways and suburbia enveloping you all around…