I'm lucky to have my best friend living pretty close by and once a week we go out for breakfast or lunch together. There are lots of different places to try and the better ones we go back to. So what makes a good cafe to me? Enough people to give company and life though not so many we have trouble getting a table. Plus an ordinary working person's cafe which isn't too swanky or pretentious. The service needs to be polite and friendly but it always is. Here are some of those we've been to lately.
As more and more bits of me start to fall off or just go wrong. so I need more and more visits to rooms full of experts. Actually I have been exercising my eyes using a black eye patch. My left eye was not so good at distance (across to room to watch the telly) so I put the patch on my right eye. This forced my brain to use my left eye for that distance. To begin with it took ages to focus but with effort and practise got faster and faster and now I only have to close my right eye for a few seconds for my left to come into focus and stay focused - the exercise did it good and uses glasses only made my eye weaker at focusing as my brain ignored the ever more blurred information. I will never get rid of the astigmatism but it's not getting worse (even one optician said "that strange, your eyes have improved").
I have now used the same technique for my right eye which has problems with book reading distance. But after about a year, I can now read without glasses at all.
So why go to the optician? Looking at the screen of my camera to check focus, I don't want to wait for my eyes to come into focus as they do take a few seconds. They can do it, but I need the information straight away and without any lag.
It was October 17th, 2017. The American alternative rock band from Chicago 'Shellac' played a gig at the Fleece in Bristol. The band's members were Steve Albini on guitar and singing (RIP), Todd Trainer on drums and Bob Weston on bass. I went with my wife, her brother and friends and took my camera along to document the event. The show was stunning; the music was great and the sound engineer had done a fabulous job with the levels. I snapped away like Henri Cartier-Bresson on coke.
Steve Albini died on May 7th, 2024 at the age of 61. It was far too early for such a giving person. If you get the chance to read about him, including his own writings about the music industry, I'm sure you will agree - his loss is a loss to the world of music. Rest in peace Steve Albini.
The 'Short version' slideshow is 9 1/2 minutes long and displays my favourites only.
The 'Full Monty' slideshow is about 3 times longer and contains every photo I took starting with a drink in a pub before the gig, the gig itself, the pub drink after the gig, some of our hotel room and a couple the next day as we were walking to our car. It includes me warming up (photographically), mistakes, rubbish shots, duplicates . . . everything.
I do have a confession to make or more accurately an apology to the band. At ome point Bob Weston asked for photographers to turn off their red lights as it was distracting and I thought "what idiot has left their focusing light on". During the slideshow you will see shots of me looking down at my camera to check mine was off (I was convinced it would be). The shots continue as I came to terms with the news that I was indeed that idiot. Bob, Todd, if you are reading this, my apologies.
A couple of those shots show Steve Albini in the background behind me, doing his thing; with every cloud, there's a silver lining. Or as my sister used to say "every silver lining has a cloud".
Turn your lights down, put your favourite Shellac album on and enjoy the gig.
These are scans of negatives taken during a trip to Thailand in 1986, three of my friends and myself travelled there for about a month.
I'd taken enough film to give me one roll a day but I had made a mistake in film choice. The only previous time I had been abroad at all was to Spain the previous year and I had never seen that amount of heat or sun. I made the assumption that Thailand would be even hotter and sunnier but Thailand is a wetter country generally and a lot of the time it was overcast in the September we were there. So my Ilford FP4 wasn't really fast enough and I can now see that I struggled with underexposure, motion blur and camera shake.
But I'm very pleased with many photos I took and I dearly hope some of the subjects will get to see themselves from all those years ago, and forgive me for the intrusion into their lives.
As there are a lot of photographs of Thailand, I have created a dedicated page with 21 slideshows in total.
We all have to spend time in waiting rooms - mental liminal spaces. If I have my camera, I am very happy. There are angles, dark and light, glass and metal. Always very Bauhaus. And people coming and going, some working there and some visiting.
The following slideshow is from a few different waiting rooms; the dentist, a prison on Dartmoor, Exeter Airport.
Car boot sales have become a way of life for lots of people in Britain (I don't know about abroad). Rich, poor, old, young - all walks of life can be seen at a car boot. They fascinate me as a cultural hot spot.
I do not believe they will go on forever, the tax man isn't getting any share and money rules. At least it seems to rule the British upper classes and they rule us.
Since I often go to them to document this scene this slideshow contains many images, not all taken at the same time. The show lasts 42 mintues so you have been warned.
I stopped taking my camera to them after a security guard on the gate of one told me I could not take photographs. I immediately said "no problem" but he then followed that up with "you could be taking photographs of children". I was shocked and had nothing to say in return so simply walked in. But I am dismayed that someone would lay that on me - I believe a regular seller has seen me using the camera and wanted to stick a spanner in my works by telling the people who run the show. Everyone wants to look at photographs of other people, we all like to people-watch. Few people want others to look at them.
This slideshow starts with a visit to a pub to meet up with an old friend that I went to university with to study photography. It had been years since we'd met and it was great to see him again. I need to admit that these photos have been boosted in brightness; my lens was slow and the pub was dark.
The following black and white photos are from a trip to the supermarket (Lidl I think) to buy supplies with photos of the inside of the market book-ended by the road trip - my wife was driving.
Next comes some images I am very happy with from a trip to a local lido (outdoor swimming pool) with some friends. It was a cloudless sunny day.
The next set starts with a photo of the local coast. We went with a friend to the local beach for a beach cooked meal, a beer and a chat.
Family were visiting so we went to pick up Fiona from the train station at Newton Abbot. My bother-in-law was driving, I was sat in the rear of the car.
Fiona is a lovely person. And as a bonus, she gets my sense-of-humour.
There was a steam train coming through, that is not normal but great to see.
There were some ordinary trains (I'm no buff, I can't tell you what kind) and I dediced to go for camera movement and blur to try and create the atmosphere of being at a train station. Only you can judge if it works for you - it does for me and I'm happy with the results.
Fifteen minutes from us is a lovely little town full of character and life.
The beach is nice too, not very pebbly and full of old bits of broken glass all smooth and asking to be collected.
The Red Arrows were performing a display a little way up the coast. My images of them are not very good, they were a long way off and it's not really the sort of photography I do but I did it anyway and I don't totally dislike the results.
The shot of the boy throwing (or catching - I cannot remember) has lots of camera shake but I love the life in it. I say him about to move and had a fraction of a second to respond so I feel lucky to have made the photo at all. The was no second chance.
My wife's passion is gardening so she is keen to visit our local garden centres. I'm just happy to be able to sit and relax in our wonderful little garden and going with her to look at plants gives me the opportunity to photograph the interesting objects and scenes there.
I rarely take colour photographs, there are a few in this batch. The colours of the wild daisies growing in the top of the stone wall caught my attention.
Black and white photos of the people and their goods for sale from all nationalities looking for a bargain at a car boot sale held every Sunday at 1.00pm.
The car boot a vital part of many working class people's economy (in the UK), without them life would be a lot harder financially. They also stop a lot of waste as they are the last ditch effort to use something again and stop if from entering the waste system.
Car boots are also a lot of fun. It feel it is a bit like gambling or charity shop (thrift store) hunting - you never know what you may find. It could be sonething you exactly need and maybe at a rock bottom price. Or it could be something that is worth a lot of money and can be sold at a nice profit.
My wife is particularly good at finding just the right thing we need, maybe a particular piece of clothing our daughter wants to go with the rest of her outfit or just something useful for the house. You can literally find anything at a car boot
I was looking for a replacement for my Nikon F3 for many years; the last camera I have owned that totally felt right for me.
Having moved away from film (I couldn't afford it) I was waiting for a digital that suited my wants and needs and felt the Fujifilm X-E1 could be that camera. It certainly was a good camera but our relationship did not work out in the end.
After leaving film behind, digital photography was and in many ways still is, in its early days. For many years high resolution from digital was beyond my financial means. Those years and decades were the dark days for me with no means to photograph as I wanted to.
I bought the X-E1 second hand and loved it straight away - but:
i. the sensor was still not up to my minimum 35mm film benchmark, I used to own a Pentax 6x7 (in my late twenties and thirties, so decades ago) and loved the smooth, creamy tonal changes it gave through its excellent resolution and dynamic range. So for me, 35mm was my rock bottom level.
ii. I realised that I no longer wanted to carry round or use such a large camera. I prefer to be unnoticed as I take photos and this camera shouted "I'm a serious photographer". Not right for me to melt into the background.
iii. the camera felt a little plasticky, not everything on it felt solid. I felt that Fuji had cut corners in manufacture and that's not something that helps me feel good about photography.
My quest for my perfect camera and Nikon F3 replacement has now been fulfilled but that story will come later.
My wife cleans for an elderly lady in our town and she has become a friend.
Her attic has been storing old musical and HiFi equipment from over the years and knowing I am a keen HiFi fan she asked me for help in assessing if any of it was worth anything, in mind of selling it. She also had a small vinyl record collection she wanted to sell, including albums by Elvis and The Beatles.
I took photos to remind me of what to search for and having looked on eBay I was able to give her some idea of their value.
I did not buy any of the equipment myself and I didn't want to sell it for her as I have my time full already. I believe the equipment and albums are still there, waiting to be moved on to a new owner.
The coast is not that far away so a walk along the front is common for us.
We had only just arrived and I could see a couple walking towards us so got myself ready. Only to find the camera was set to movie, not still image. It got me a little flustered as I knew I had little time - they were closer than they look as the camera was on wide-angle.
I just managed to capture the woman seen in the photo above.
