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.’

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.

Part One – To Medium Format and Beyond… for sixty quid…

To most people, film is 35mm. In fact for most people, it never enters their mind that there is anything beyond their digital compact, their 35mm camera or indeed something beyond, “one of those fancy SLR things.” Mention medium or large format to most people and they will go, huh?

In case you are one of those, think of a piece of film like a piece of paper. With 35mm, imagine sketching a landscape on that size of paper? It’d lack a lot of detail and the only way to pack more into that sketch would be to make the pencil ever sharper (my analogy to ISO/ASA speed.) If you enlarge that piece of paper from 1 by 1½-inch to say 2 ½ by 2 ½-inches you can make a more detailed sketch of the landscape because you have more room, even without using the sharpest of pencils. And the same happens again when you move from medium format to large formats like 5×7, 8×10 and so on.

Medium format is a loose definition but in basic modern terms it’s generally always 120 film which allows for exposures in the following sizes (camera dependent.) All sizes are quoted in metric centimetres:

• 6×4.5
• 6×6
• 6×7
• 6×8
• 6×9
• up to 6×17

That is quite a lot larger than a 35mm ‘full frame’ exposure so it stands to reason why medium format is a good proposition. It means greater picture fidelity, finer grain due to not needing to enlarge as much for standard print sizes and in that, the ability to enlarge at a better quality than 35mm. 20×20-inch prints are possible in 35mm but it is likely the equivalent exposure on 120 film will look much better at that size with less grain and greater detail.

So medium format is in this case a larger piece of film than 35mm whereas large format tends to be sheet film for sizes beyond 5×4 inches. Medium format also exists in digital form but is hideously expensive and unlike top notch 35mm digital, medium format film still holds a clear edge over digital medium format although the forthcoming Leica S series and Hasselblad 50 and 60 megapixel sensors (a selling price of £19200 according to Robert White) should be interesting to look at. However, for those you are look at tens of thousands of pounds, certainly from £8000 in the UK for a 16 megapixel Hasselblad system.

But you can get the equivalent quality camera for £60 including a lens. You’d have to shoot a lot of 120 before you get close even to the cost of a 16 megapixel digital medium format camera, let alone the 31 and 39 megapixel models that are out there right now. And as for 50 and 60… The quality of that can’t be in doubt but for the average amateur it’s out of the price range and in my case a 60mp H3DII would be 85% of my entire gross annual income!

If you want to make large enlargements, or have the finest picture quality for your serious, more considered work, 35mm has its limits and medium format can remove those limits. It does not have to be expensive either, the Mamiya TLR (twin lens reflex) camera range is a case in point and can prove to be a stellar bargain.

Unlike every other TLR with one fixed lens (usually a standard 80mm field of view) the Mamiya TLR series features interchangeable lenses from a mild wild angle of 55mm (about 31mm in 35mm focal length) to a positive tele-photo at 250mm.

The second consideration for the Mamiya TLR and TLRs in general is that they take square pictures. Virtually every photo today is in 3:2 format, though some cameras now shoot 16:9/16:10 and Olympus has its Four Thirds system – essentially most photos are now rectangles. But the square format can have a lot going for it and as I have found out and will show you here, some landscapes just cry out to be square.

How cheap can the Mamiyas be? Well I bought a very well used example, it was sctuffy but OK. The paint had worn on corners and it definitely showed signs of heavy use but it was 100% functional and had twelve months of warranty. It also came with an 80mm standard lens, which was a bonus. In total I paid £59 which is nothing for a decent camera. Agreeably I also purchased a 55mm wide angle for £69 and a fantastic Cokin A filter holder for it for £25 (I will go into this special gizmo in the review) but even with all of that I have only just spent over £150 on a camera system that can chuck out fantastic photos in the right hands. It’s a shame it’s lumbered with mine then!

To be continued…

This is a ‘little’ something that I have been working on for a little while now. It’s not finished but I decided to post it here hopefully to spur me on to finish it…

Purpose by Victoria JK Lamburn

Your glistening eyes are the very eyes that my mother would have said, “Step away!” are drawing me in, luring me deep into your uncharted territory that swims beneath the piercing blue. And what lurks beyond the iris’ ocean? Do you even know yourself in your quieter pensive moments reserved for only you within the four walls of ticking clocks? Seldom does a thought fuse and the moment then snaps and clicks and suddenly it becomes sense itself…

Only for brevity to snatch it away, and then your ocean of thought and emotion is occluded by mist at the shores; riddled as the tide, ceaselessly, rhyming an eternal paean for time and confusion. What is the purpose of you and those devious eyes, the purpose of you and your thoughts? The purpose of me drawn to those eyes and your soft delicate face around, what purpose does it serve us to be locked with our shy little stares and quiet little lost moments at sea?

Then there is your hands drumming towards my beating heart, a delicate flick of the small hand to sweep that lone lost lock of long blonde hair from the left, dazzling me with a sapphire’s glare full beam ahead of me. Your nails, though not manicured look nervously bitten but neat and clipped. Here I am on your deserted shores that, beckoning me towards the rocky isle that screams with echoing fate of others who’ve struggled towards pleasure.

And your eyes haunt me when I close my own to chase away the fear of a heart’s aching love. I’m trying to hide behind my veil, rummaging through my soul to find the deep and burning fear that reminds me of the last call from a fanciful voice and alluring eyes that whipped me with sharp black lashes. Maybe there is nothing more than to submit myself to your enticing shores and in wild abandon plunge uncertainly into the ether of fate.

Copyright ©2009 Victoria JK Lamburn