getting close(r)

At a recent photography exhibit, I read Robert Capa’s advice. ‘If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough’. This is as close as I’ve dared to get yet, but I think I understand a lot more about how to be invisible/unremarkable.

Street photography is my new obsession. I think this is marking a decisive shift in what I want to capture: people. There’s nothing so interesting to me than other people. It’s as if, when I’m looking though the viewfinder, that everyone is performing just for me (however egotisitical that may sound).

One technique that I’ve discovered is to wear headphones while shooting – it immediately keeps people from wanting to talk, and if it’s difficult to engage me, it becomes easier to ignore me. Then I can do whatever I want.

In a sense, street shooting is the visual equivalent of the clearly insane guy on the street who mutters and rants out loud to himself – he takes so many liberties that he becomes practically (and paradoxically) invisible. He’s too much trouble to deal with, and knowing that, he achieves a perfect freedom of expression (however imperfect his expressions might be).

Having a camera is just another form of self-expression, and when I get into the zone, I get this sense that I’m somehow plugging into the world around me. I know the pictures might be crap (my thumb has a habit of creeping into the shot, especially with this rather small camera), but I like to think that the lack of technical polish is just part of the art.

The only thing to do now is take many many more pictures.

(oh, and I learned to quit chimping)

it’s all about the kicks

The river Ouse flooded last week, and it’s still pretty high. The weather is moving in kicks and fits – a week of glorious sunshine, and two weeks of rain. I’m hoping for the best when I get on the plane on Thursday and land in Amsterdam.

I move like the weather – in kicks. My Kindle has got me plowing through all kinds of books that I wouldn’t normally have read - Anna Karenina, Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues, some old treatise on the practical science of drawing (he claims that all art is down to the rhythm of the thing).

Which might explain why I’ve been listening to The Vijay Iyer Trio like they have the cure for the common man. Accelerondo  is a phenomenal album (highlights include their Michael Jackson cover, and the final track, which swings between the blues and a passage of barely contained, transcendental joy), and after watching Vijay talk about the album Historicity, I had to get that album too. Again, I’m utterly blown away (though I am on my second listening now. I think it’s somewhere between the fifth and tenth time around that I really ‘get into’ an album).

I own new headphones…first time I’ve bought myself a new pair in years – and they’re making me obsess over jazz and hiphop again like it’s the first time I heard A Love Supreme, or Three Feet High and Rising. 

I also got my lovely little Olympus XA back from the repair shop, and fired off two rolls – but I haven’t got the shots (one is bulk film that I rolled myself, which I don’t want the shop to mess up, and the other is at the lab…but I won’t get that for a fortnight). I went out the other night and tried to capture the flood with my digital camera, but I was in a bad spot, and my battery died, and I was ankle deep in floodwater, and I just couldn’t compose anything worth looking at. I think I like street shooting better – less thought, and more aperture, I say!

I’m adding the 200 situp challenge to my workout routine…and the pushups are coming along again…so the gym isn’t quite a ‘kick’ so much as a regular thing.

I am, however, on an art kick. Kaley and I collaborated on three art pieces during a pretty cold and rainy afternoon in York. Trapped in the house, we just started playing with some scrap wool, and this idea formed in my mind. And if you know me, I usually just leave good ideas lying around, and never quite follow up on them. These were different – there was a clear idea in my head about the techniques, but there was no way to predict the outcome…so it’s a nice, ego-free way to work. I’m really quite happy with them…it’s nice to make things. They tell you when they’re done, unlike thinking about literature and trying to write about it. Literature is never ‘done’.

Okay – enough. Goodnight.

uneasel

crack'd

forty odd sweaters

blog unblocker

so, following on from a promise I made to myself a few weeks ago, I’m going to start writing into this space again. And from here on in, I’ll never have an excuse for not writing.

The recipe is simple – first, pick a photo out of the (frankly insane) number of pictures I have stored in my computer. Second, write about what’s in the frame.

I don’t think I’ll take much time choosing in the future…but tonight’s find came to me after trying to find a specific shot, and then I got lost trying to clean out all of the duplicates and empty files and dear god nas no one cares at all about this so please get to the point already…

This is a person I consider a friend. I took this picture of him after seeing randomly on the street after, I don’t know, years.

He and his sister worked in the same restaurant as I did when I was a postgrad student. He was one of a handful of people in that place that I knew I could count on when things were busy, and he was one of the sweetest and funniest people I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

And bloody heck, he was so young. I mean, I would catch myself saying things like ‘when I was your age’. And If I’m saying that to you, then you are a child (though that phrase is starting to suit me as I age…)

Anyway, this friend had all of the things an average undergrad did – a broadband connection, suspect housekeeping habits, and a healthy disrespect for his liver. But the thing that set him apart was his studies. One night he told us (as we staff swilled free beer after a long shift) that he was on the verge of making a breakthrough in his biochemistry class.

Someday soon, he hoped to make a worm glow in the dark. And make it glow a very bright, bioluminescent blue.

If he was successful, it would be something that he could patent, and even though he didn’t quite manage it (I seem to recall this being the case, anyway), he still managed to procure a spot as a postgraduate researcher in his chosen field.

It was about this time, he poised on the cusp of a future in cutting edge scientific research (and I just exiting academia, doctorate clutched in my sweaty little hand) that we lost track of one another. When we met on the street – I took his picture (obviously), and we took the chance to catch up a bit.

Incredibly (to me), he had given up his lab coat and traded it for a chef’s whites. At the time of this picture he was putting in sixty hours a week in two different establishments, and I can clearly remember him telling me that in spite of the grind, the heat, the sweat and the mad, piratical, booze and drug-infused free-wheeling chaos of it all, he couldn’t be happier.

He told me to go to the restaurant he was working at and have a meal sometime – but by the time we got around to going, he had already left. The waitress cooed a bit when I dropped his name, and told me (with more than a tint of regret in her voice) that our mutual friend was working in a much fancier place in a very small town, quite far away.

My guess is he’s going to make one hell of a chef. Certainly, when he opens his own place, I’ll make sure to drop in.

And I hope the blue plate special really is blue.

______________

EDIT: out of pure serendipity, or the power of Facebook, this video has come to my attention. I must note that I had NO IDEA that this was going on when I picked out this photo (of the thousands lying dormant in my hard drive). How cool is this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j12ZHNuHqmY

obsession is a young man’s game

went to the National Railway Museum on a whim yesterday, and it was fantastic.

think i’ll let the gallery do the talking.

the end of the lion

engine guts

i suppose this had some use…

one to five

whitelock

greylock

someone please explain the context for this sign

big mecha-steed

antigravity?

tales of the tracks.

I think the Mallard was my favourite.

i think the Duchess was my favourite.

a ‘muck car’ – used to clear the Chunnel.

red

feminism on the tracks – now interactive!

model train enthusiasts make sense – i feel HUGE

colonial rail

handles

if you can see the sign in the bottom right, it’s worth a look

Power is nothing without cardio

I just went for a run for the first time in ages. Actually, that’s not true – K and I have been quite good: usually two sessions on the spin bikes and a weekend run each week during January and February…but one thing or the other has interfered with the weekend runs, and it’s been about three weekends since I strapped on the old running shoes.

The difference this time? First, I went out alone, which isn’t a problem, but I think I underestimated how important running with a friend is. With only my earphones for company, I completely lost track of my pace, and I gassed in twenty minutes. 

Very depressing, to say the least. 

I thought I was getting pretty fit – especially considering my progress as I try to complete the one hundred pushup challenge. K is also doing this with me, and I gotta say, I’m enjoying watching my strength increase from one week to the next – and I think that’s what was fooling me into thinking i was anywhere near my previous running form. 

(very very depressing)

So, I suppose I just need to re-engage, Sisyphus-stylee. (though of course, this is not Hell. I do love dong this stuff. I just wish I didn’t have the tendency to slack off. One of these days, I’ll make that lesson stick.)

In other news – I bought a Kindle - but this one doesn’t have the 3G (Who really needs that function, anyway?), and I have to say, it’s fantastic. I’m a little wary of the increasing hegemony of all-things-amazon, but for reading around (especially when you factor in all the great stuff that is free and legally obtainable), having one of these gadgets is nothing short of incredible. I’m resisting the impulse to utterly cram it full of ‘kindle fodder’, just to make myself feel like a bigshot-oh-so-smarty-pants, but in my initial frenzy, I must admit to getting copies of Ulysses (I have two physical copies lying around, both unread), and a copy of Anna Karenina (which I am reading in short snorts before bed). 

But the twenty or so volumes of nineteenth-century American literature that I can carry around in my hand, in a totally searchable and annotated format? Pure bliss, and I’m only scratching the surface of what I can do with this thing. Once I figure out how to get my pdfs into it (and in a readable manner), you’ll have to pry it from my hands in order to get me to manage my bodily functions.

so, this is a blog, and blogs need pictures.

 (i think Lindsay took this one – and while looking around for a random shot to stick in here, I just relived Christmas 2011. Good times, Linds and Kip and K…and, I think I might have a cure for blog-block. Just insert a random photo and tell the story behind it. We’ll see if this works.)

Later, taters.

blatant effort to keep an interest in this blog

Actually, it should be easy – especially after disconnecting from Facebook. But, the only way anyone ever knew that I was posting on this blog came from the little ‘publicize’ option in wordpress. well, I guess that means that everyone is going to miss out on this cat photo – shot on film, live!

I just finished leafing through a book of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work – it was called ‘Scrapbooks’ (but I don’t know how literally I should take that title) – but for sure, it made me want to get my little rangefinder camera fixed up and start shooting people. I especially like the fact that the critic who wrote the essay at the beginning of the HCB Scrapbook mentioned how the ultra-small (for the time) Leica that HCB shot with was part of the reason for his success - it didn’t block out HIS face, so that his subjects could see him just as much as they were being scrutinized/gazed upon. The word the critic used was ‘complicit’ – HCB’s subjects colluded with him in the creation of the photo.

Let’s hope I can get to that point, someday. okay – one other shot….not sure if it succeeds, but oh well.

a Game of Shut-up-and-don’t-ask-too-many-questions.

Last night we went to out local picture house (where we finally fulfilled a long-deferred desire and bought memberships!), and on a lark made the decision to watch the new Robert Downey Jr vehicle – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

I won’t bore you with a review, and instead cut to the recommendations. If you think that movies with lots of gunfire and explosions just don’t have enough intellectual substance, dammit, then this is the movie for you. If you answer was ‘no’, avoid this film at all costs.

(EDIT: since beginning this draft, the season has come and gone in a flurry/haze of cocktails and overeating. I’m resuming this post having justified typing as one of those ‘workouts’ that I promised myself I was going to do more of this year…)

What was most insidious about this movie wasn’t the mockery of the bromance genre, or the casual racism and sexism (or is it okay to laugh at a man in drag when he’s not really trying to look like a woman?) – what was most insidous was the manner in which the movie cut short crticial thinking.

The way the film works is pretty simple: Sherlock is SO damn smart that once he thinks of something, it must be the correct conclusion. Since he has access to ALL the information at once, and can process it instantly (or as-near-as), we mere mortals can only trail alongside the great man, with only the hope of yelling ‘Look out!’ when it is clear that Sherlock just isn’t quite smart enough to figure out how to evolve eyeballs in the back of his head in one generation.  But in the movie, Sherllock gets it wrong (only once, of course) – but his mistake costs people their lives, and along the convoluted path that leads him to his error, no-one else in the film questions him. And they do it becuase he’s never wrong. But once he is proved fallible, the funny thing is that no one changes their tune – we are just expected to keep following this guy’s schemes, and continue being impressed with his feats of deduction and observation.

But what we don’t do is question him. And in this sesne, Downey’s Sherlock is like the American government - because they/he have all the information, as well as the ability to ‘see’ /access it in the first place (by abridging human rights, or by natural talent of observation), we are put in a passive role. We are, in the calculus of the film (and perhaps the right-wing generally) too slow, ignorant, untalented and uninformed to appreciate the reasons for the violence going on around us.

And that’s the really dangerous part. Of course, I’m not saying that being smart is inherently problematic – rather, it’s the representation of intelligence in the detective (and we could just as easily be talking about CSI, or just about any detective show) that is the problem. ‘Geniuses’ (a problematic term itself) ought to be smart enough to listen to a little constructive feedback. Truly intelligent people  encounter criticism and inquiry with more than a condescending ‘Excuse me?’ or some titanic display of wrath.

I worry when I see a message like ‘shut-up-and-don’t-ask-questions-you-silly-little-man’ in the mainstream media. It smells like a training film for a more docile republic.

what i saw/was shown today

where I’m at

So we’ve moved  to York.

After eight years in Leeds, it is a bit of an adjustment (though nothing like the one we made when we first landed on these shores). It’s a lot cleaner in this neighbourhood, though I’m still unsure if I live in South Bank or Clementhorpe. I’m still completely useless with the street names, and my mental map of the city is patchy – though if i’ve walked a street, I can usually find my way back again.

Also, there are the multiple and insidious things that need to change. York recycles in a much more comprehensive way than leeds, and where I am accustomed to chucking anything that looks like it’s made of paper in the green bin in Leeds, in York, it’s a bit more complex. (K. and I debated whether or not a juice carton is eligible – they’re not, and I can no longer buy my favorite orange juice as a result).

I also spent an hour changing my online purchasing information, seconds before realizing that I don’t actually live at my old address anymore.  (Luckily, a friend moved into our old flat, so they wouldn’t have been utterly lost, but I don’t think we have the same size or taste in boots).

It’s odd, how all the little things add up. The stove is electric, not gas; we don’t make popcorn much anymore. The shops in our area aren’t the Muslim-owned, hodge-podge grocery stores where you can find a kilogram of peppercorns, and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, anda mug with a picture of Mecca on it that reveals itself when you fill it with hot water along with a ten-kilo bag of basmati rice. And there’s only one pizza joint close by, and it’s Domino’s – not the glut of burger-chicken-kebab joints that saturate the landscape in Leeds.

But it’s really quiet, and we’ve had a chance to chat with our neighbours, and there’s a cute pub (the Slip Inn, no less) just around the corner, and there’s a river that runs just a block away, which is all very nice.

It’s also lovely to have this thing around. I’m no Christian, but the York Minster is an endlessly fascinating building to me, especially since the streets are so closely packed around it. It’s impossible to see it all in one glance, and as I walk around it, it consistentlyoffers up new angles and aspects. I never get tired of it.

It’s really easy to take pictures here – no one notices another photographer in a place where someone is always pausing in front of some ancient ruin and flashing a ‘peace’ sign to their friend’s phone…

I grew up in a tourist town in Canada. So much of this place feels like home, if a bit smaller.

Wednesday past, I was on strike from wrk, and I wandered into town. I found the rally (tho I declined to march).

There was a lot of inflamed rhetoric, which I suppose is necessary, but this occasion felt like they were preaching to the converted. I left after the representative from the teachers/lecturers union spoke, and as I made my way home through the crowds (and there are always crowds) of shoppers and tourists, I wondered if, why, and how anything ever really changes.

I’ve taken to using K. as a decoy, so I can get other people on film without them getting suspicious.

Going from the top-floor flat to a terraced house (townhouse, for you North Americans), meant getting a doormat. Yet another tiny adjustment!

I suppose I could go on and on about all the little things – which I suppose is natural (don’t get me started on the things I overhear during my commute to Leeds) – but I won’t just now.