Diversionary Tactics: Offsetting the Lockdown Blues (and Reds and Yellows)

At the moment it is complicated. For some months prior to the lockdown I have been pursuing some art therapy. Painting. To try and address an issue that arose from a life-changing episode that occurred last summer and which is irrelevant here. It has been a great success, my mental health is slowly improving and it has breached a gap in my photography; I am currently in the planning stages for two big projects and am working on the material from a current project and which is scheduled to be exhibited in the UK in 2021. On top of this I am in the process of relocating back to my home town of Cleethorpes and have already shipped a lot of my resources back there.

The Covid-19 pandemic had another impact. I had booked flights in order to begin one of my projects, which was to compare a port in the UK with one in Europe that shares many similarities. I won’t divulge any more, suffice to say the flights were cancelled. Not only would it have been a start to some work, but also a chance to take a break. Never mind. So I find myself at home. Unable to go out and make photographs as I would like to, I decided to make some pictures with my not-so-great phone. As a further challenge I decided to make them in colour – a real diversion for me.

I started off by noticing little things I had previously not paid a lot of attention to: after all, my office wall is just a wall, the dining table and chairs are just that and anyway, who cares about the relationship between my feet and the front door? Yet in a – for want of a better word – meditative state, I gradually discovered another facet to the familiar world I lived in. And light was the catalyst.

The small garden, in which I sit to smoke, is full of potential too. Not that I have particularly done it justice, but that’s not the point (if, indeed, there is a point). It is high-walled, small. Claustrophobic, sometimes. Depending on the weather.

Since I first began making photographs back in the 1970s, family photographs have always been important to me and, interestingly, I haven’t done much of that recently. My daughter often comes with me on an exercise walk around the block. And she enjoys having her photograph taken.

The streets around me, usually insanely busy with traffic, are oddly quiet at the moment. As I have said elsewhere in this blog, my favourite time of the day is first light. When the streets are empty. But this is different. Just very strange.

And then there is the ‘selfie’ a modern art form in which you can realise yourself the way you want. I haven’t resorted to an app that puts cat’s whiskers on my face…

Ok, the confinement is slowly sapping away my motivation. I admit it. Soon it will be over and I will be hard-pressed to find some peace and quiet. And I will want some. Anyway, I’m going to the garden to smoke a cigarette and check out the shadows…..

Thanks for reading. The phone used is a lower range Vivo model. The selfie was made with my Olympus mirrorless camera….

Catering for cat lovers: should we have reservations?

As far as I know there are around a dozen ‘cat cafes’ in Bangkok. My teenage daughter had been wanting me to take her to one for some time. She likes cats a lot. An opportunity arose during a school holiday and well, I like cats too…

I chose ‘Caturday’ as it was the most accessible, barely a hundred metres from the Ratchathewi ‘skytrain’ station. An unremarkable building – a modern shop unit – houses the cafe; it has a small porch with a rack on which you have to leave your footwear. There is a small hand basin; the list of rules advises that customers must wash their hands before entering. Once inside you are faced with a decision as visitors can either sit at tables or opt to sit on the floor. I chose a table. A fairly cramped experience as the owners certainly make the most of the available space. My daughter and I ordered a token drink – there is a basic menu of Thai food and the special Caturday cake was enthusiastically promoted – because we were there for one thing only: cats. And there are some…

The place was pretty much full and negotiation in order to make photographs required a bit of skill and agility. But I enjoyed the experience (of making photographs) and my daughter did too (being able to pet a variety of cats).

‘There must be some kind of way outta here…’

I recalled the ‘rules’ as I watched a customer share her food with a cat. This is prohibited but appears to be allowed. The cafe does sell bags of cat ‘treats’ and some of the cats did look a little on the weighty side…

The trip was worth it just to see the enjoyment my daughter was experiencing. I enjoyed it for the rather bizarre diversion. Before we left, I remembered to retrieve the bag I had left under our table and which a ginger tom was investigating. As I reached for it I caught the acrid smell of cat’s urine. I left with reservations…

Thanks for visiting my blog. Camera used was an Olympus OMD EM5 Mark II.

Will that be all, sir? Why I didn’t mind the 90 minute wait for a haircut…

The local barbers: great place for a ‘selfie’…

I visit my local barber roughly every two months. I have had my camera with me on every occasion, just in case, and once took some photographs of the staff (posed). On a subsequent visit I ensured I had some prints to give away and this stood me in good stead. The owner of the establishment, an endearing, bubbly woman who nominates herself ‘number one barber’, was happy for me to make some photographs a couple of weeks ago: I was third in a queue but it would be a long wait – the guys in front of me were having ‘the works’ – but a fascinating one.

The ‘works’, it transpired, offered photographic opportunities with results more akin to an ENT clinic than a barbershop. As a kind of drama unfolded I was totally absorbed with what was going on. The guy in the queue behind me had his own way of dealing with the long wait: he took a nap.

As did one of the guys being dealt with in front of me!

The lighting in the place was enough of a challenge to be interesting. The day was a very bright one and the only place I could easily take photographs from – without being in the way – meant I had to make my photographs contre-jour. This is a favourite of mine, however, so no real problems vis a vis exposure. The ear cleaning operation that unfolded involved the use of a small, very bright lamp. This did present a challenge, but I liked the dramatic effect it gave to the scene.

Photographers are always looking for a potential for narrative in their work, and I am no exception. The following pair of photographs – according to me – go some way to achieving this aim. They also demonstrate the importance of scrutiny in post production: the presence of elements within the frame seen and appreciated by the subconscious rather than the eye. These are usually beneficial: in the first photograph I was unaware of the Buddha statue overlooking the scene and in the second my attention was so fixed on the razor that I missed the dog statues on the opposite side of the frame.

And there you have it. The work of a barber can involve some painstaking and delicate work. My ‘number one’ barber pays incredible attention to detail – my straightforward dry cut takes around 40 minutes on average – and this made for a more productive and enjoyable day than I had imagined I was going to have.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I used my trusty Olympus OMD with a Zuiko short zoom lens for the photographs.

Noted in Passing: Thailand, Part 1

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My hotel room did not have a balcony.

The shot above was made by hanging out of a hotel window in Bang Saen, a small community that meanders alongside the eastern seaboard of Thailand, somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya. I have a real fear of heights and felt really uncomfortable at the time, four floors up; it was early morning and I’d opened the window for a breath of fresh air when I noticed, below me, a guest taking advantage of an empty pool. His progress was leisurely and he seemed to form a harmonious relationship with the environment. I leaned out as far as I dared and made some photographs; in this one I believe I managed to show that relationship.

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I love travelling by train and I love railway stations. The photograph above, from one of many visits to Bangkok railway station (Hualamphong is the local name), was a long time coming. I had spotted an arrangement of three monks sat in the large waiting hall. As I considered the scene, I noticed another monk making his way towards the group. The hall was very busy and I felt a little exposed as I waited, camera to my eye, for a picture to take shape – it seemed like an eternity although it was probably less than half a minute – and I was lucky when the arriving monk sat down in a position I couldn’t have got better if I had been orchestrating the shot. By this time the monks were very aware of my presence – I think that enhanced the photograph – and, after a smile and a polite nod, I went on my way.

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Above are a couple of photographs from a project that I am resting for a while. After more than 40 years of monochrome photography I felt I’d like to do a series in colour. This turned out to be a mistake; I hadn’t considered how different the approach would be and felt that what I was producing were mono photographs in colour rather than colour photographs. The two examples are the best of a poor bunch. However, the experience of my many visits to Talat Noi – a very old community on the fringe of Bangkok’s Chinatown – was enjoyable and thoroughly interesting. Another area I considered for colour work is Kudi Jeen, – situated on the Chao Praya river – once the Portuguese quarter of Bangkok and now home to a small Chinese community. The photograph below shows the catholic church from the labyrinth of narrow alleyways that make up the area.

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Chatuchak Weekend Market, Bangkok is one of the largest outdoor markets in the world and attracts visitors in their thousands. I like to go there very early, before the crowds arrive, for the photographic opportunities the place offers me. Below are a couple of pictures from what is proving to be an extended ‘project in progress’.

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I’m currently thinking I may have to brave the crowds and revisit the market during peak hours in order that I may provide a contrast to the shots I already have.

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The photograph above was made during a short break in Bang Saray, a busy fishing harbour on the eastern seaboard between Pattaya and Sattahip. This shot was taken on the arrival of the ice truck; great blocks of ice were put through a crushing machine before being loaded onto the fishing boats in a process fascinating for the speed at which it was completed. I like this photograph for the graphic starkness and I felt there was a narrative potential that went beyond the real scenario. I called it ‘the iceman cometh’: though O’Neill’s play of the same title has nothing to do with trawling, it does address the need for self deceptions in order to carry on with life (thanks, Wikipedia).

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In 2016, I was fortunate to spend an hour or so in a makeshift school at the Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Myanmar border. This is one of my favourite images from that visit and shows Burmese students learning English in an open classroom. I liked the light, the air of study and the contrasting relationship with the camera of the girl on the left. Most of all, I really enjoyed being there for that brief moment.

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Dogs are everywhere in Thailand but they rarely trouble you if you act normal and pay them no attention. This is my favourite photograph of a soi (street) dog, not so much for him but for the way the frame has split – almost like two halves put together – in a way that I didn’t notice at the time of exposure. I like to think that it confirms the important role that the subconscious plays in determining the actual moment of exposure.

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When I’m walking around I sometimes feel an impulse to stop in my tracks. Usually there is a photograph, though sometimes it is not immediately apparent and takes some looking for. Of the many photographs I have made of Buddhist statues, this one – from a car park where I was having a crafty cigarette – remains a favourite. The cultural delights of Thailand offer a wealth of possibilities for any photographer and I’m ending this blog with a photograph I took in a cave and which shows another visitor who I had seen going to great lengths for an interesting record of the moment.

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For the tech-minded, all shots were made using an Olympus OMD EM5 and a Zuiko short zoom lens.