It’s a closed shop. Well, almost…

My early morning walks in Lincolnshire often take me through high streets and I confess to being a keen window-shopper. Sometimes I find a window display interesting enough to want to record the moment; sometimes an empty shop, sadly closed down or simply closed for renovation offers up something equally appealing.

As a student, the work of Eugene Atget (1857-1927) made a great impression on me. The Frenchman was out and about the streets of Paris early and he photographed many shop fronts. Fête du Trône is my favourite and is worth seeking out should you be interested. The photograph above is a kind of homage to the great man; you will notice that I have mirrored the image so that the reflected word ‘hope’ is better read. Across the road was an employment agency (it is worth bearing in mind that Grimsby, once the greatest fishing port in the world, has seen better times) which bore the legend: (no) hope…

I find this sort of thing rather attractive, though I have heard it described as ‘an eyesore’. Each to his own. West of Grimsby, a little way along the Humber estuary there is another port, busier than Grimsby and an important oil terminal. Immingham is a small town and, like Grimsby, its connection with far-off places is reflected by a diverse population. Should you need something exotic to be cooked up for you or if you want to browse shelves for unfamiliar ingredients, you are catered for:

Head downstream from Grimsby and you will encounter neighbouring Cleethorpes; a seaside resort and the place of my birth, many moons ago. I found a pet supplies shop as I made my way down to the beach one day:

And on another occasion I reached the seafront, was suckered in by a faux ice cream cornet and, despite the fact it was a cold, miserable day, entered this excellent establishment only to find out that they didn’t have my favourite flavour (pistachio, if you’re interested).

Heading inland, Gainsborough – as far as you can go before entering Nottinghamshire – is a very interesting place with a fair history; famous for the Tudor Hall that once hosted the likes of Henry VIII, the town also attracts me for the wealth of shop front potential. The shops in the two photographs below sat side by side; I was sat on the wall of a splendid churchyard having a smoke when they occurred to me:

Boston, the third port in Lincolnshire, is a fascinating place to visit and was my home during the 1970s. Over the past three years I have spent a few days of my annual holiday in the town. It has seen changes and I’m hoping that it will be a subject for a future blog post. For the time being, here is an empty shop window shortly after sunrise:

Many thanks for taking the time to look at my blog. For the enthusiast, I used an Olympus OMD with a Zuiko short zoom for all the photographs.

Buy a Postcard! Lincoln Cathedral and me…

Approaching the county town of Lincolnshire by road or rail one will spot the cathedral miles before arrival . To say it dominates the skyline is probably an understatement. On a fine day – there are some – the magnificent building simply demands attention.

Lincoln’s Newest Building (when I took the shot): 2016

I have lived in Lincoln, I have holidayed in Lincoln, I have made many hundreds of photographs in Lincoln. However, when I came to look for images to support this blog, I discovered I had very few that featured the cathedral. There are several reasons for this – including poor weather, sun in the wrong place, scaffolding – but the main one is my belief that, if you need a good image of a famous attraction, you should buy a postcard. Photographers dedicated to the task, like John Hindes (1916-1997), have done all the hard work. So why bother knocking yourself out or settling for second best?

Children and the Art of the Stonemason, Lincoln Cathedral: 2016

That said, I enjoy being around the cathedral: the shot above was taken close to the little cafe there and is one of the few interiors you can experience without paying a considerable fee. Aside from other visitors to this area, I found the relatively new addition of memorial paving stones quite interesting.

Lincoln Cathedral was once the tallest building in the world, a title it held for more than two centuries. It was home to one of four surviving copies of the Magna Carta until that historic document was moved to neighbouring Lincoln Castle. It attracts visitors from all over the world and is a popular venue for special occasions. Once, I happened to be passing just as university students came tumbling out from their graduation ceremony:

It must be said that I happened across the celebration by accident; I was making my way back to my digs after browsing second-hand books. I much prefer the place during the early morning when there is nobody about, my snooping witnessed by the inanimate:

It was during a very early morning walk that I made my favourite photograph of the cathedral. A huge billboard had been erected, advertising a display over the city by the RAF display team, the Red Arrows (currently based in Lincolnshire). I made a connection with the shapes of the aircraft and the cathedral spires. The rising sun was in the wrong place but then, I wasn’t after a postcard.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Camera used was my Olympus OMD.

Not as bracing as you might think: a day out in Skegness

The resort town of Skegness, on the coast of Lincolnshire, is famous for the slogan: ‘It’s so bracing!’. Not so the day I visited the place. In the middle of that long, hot summer of 2018. The view from the shore is dominated by a vast wind farm; on this day of heat and little breeze it was as if cooling fans had been laid on for the benefit of visitors.

It would be fair to say that us Brits enjoy our Costa del Sol temperatures in small, package-deal doses; not a couple of months of them. I base this observation on a switch – from, ‘it’s too wet’ or, ‘it’s too cold’ to, ‘it’s too hot’ – in conversations about the weather. I sympathised with the parents of the youngster above as they tried to work up some enthusiasm appropriate to the moment. I had chosen the first day of the holiday season – the day after the schools closed for the summer – but there were surprisingly few souls walking about.

Donkey Delivery Vehicle, Main Beach: July 2018

I walked north along the promenade. Once I had left the main beach I had the route to myself and, as the sun beat down, the phrase ‘mad dogs and Englishmen (go out in the midday sun)’ came to mind. The closest thing to alternative activity was encountered as I passed some bowling greens:

There was even less evidence of man a little further on as I arrived at the North Shore Golf Club, though the fairways were crying out for some rain:

The chap above was probably looking for the ‘nineteenth hole’ I imagine, lol. I’d have joined him, but I needed to press on. I managed another couple of kilometres before I decided to return to the main road. My water bottle was empty, I was quite some distance from the town by now and I felt uncomfortable.

The road to who knows where?… I never found out: July 2018

In my explorations of my home county, Lincolnshire I always use public transport. If that’s not available, I walk. I was overjoyed to find, at the end of an overgrown pathway from the shore, the main road into town and, importantly, a bus stop. The couple in the shelter were not only preoccupied with themselves, they were in full sunshine. I lurked in the shade behind. By the time I boarded a bus I felt like someone with a bizarre fetish:

And that was that. Alighted the bus at the railway station and made my escape after a lengthy wait in a long queue of hot and irritable fellow travelers. ‘It’s far too hot’ – If they weren’t saying it, they were thinking it.

Thanks for visiting this, my 30th blog. The camera I used for the pictures was my trusty Olympus OMD.

My most familiar 400 metres: A personal street challenge

It has been just too hot to be out and about lately. And there is only so much scanning of old negatives I can take before the novelty wears off. I needed to be out but I also needed a retreat to the comfort of fans and air-conditioning. I decided to spend some time on my street. Three days, in fact.

Day Three: New build, unoccupied and new build, occupied

My street is quiet. I walk it many times: 300 metres from my house takes me to the point I turn off when taking my daughter to school, 100 metres in the opposite direction takes me to the other end of the street where it joins a busy road. I have walked the street many times as part of my daily routine over the past ten years. I know that there is a solitary pineapple plant on a spot of wasteland and some gorgeously colourful cockerels that peck along the roadside.

I have also noticed recently three new builds. Above are photographs of two of them, the third:

Day One: All will be revealed, but not yet

There is also a house I had never previously taken much notice of that has just undergone a facelift; the choice of colour makes it a stand out attraction now…

Despite the lack of the presence of human activity in the street, there is plenty of evidence of it. I never actually saw painters in action at the house pictured above, but their pots, brushes, rollers and ladders bore testament to their handiwork. I never saw builders as I was taking photographs, but the building progresses daily. It’s almost as if there is a secret world, conspiring to starve me of its portrayal.

The cultural evidence in the street is abundant. This hadn’t really occurred to me until I began to look closely, without the need to get to school on time or buy a bottle of milk before the kettle boils. I find the Buddhist ‘Spirit Houses’ fascinating:

In desperation, and needing to find some action, I loitered on my street corner. I was having a cigarette – a favourite (but not recommended) ploy when my intent is a candid photograph – and made this shot between drags:

So there you have it. I enjoyed the exercise and was never far away from my front door, water, coffee and fan. I made a photograph of the pineapple plant but didn’t like it. The cockerels ran away at my approach. There was an old car, though:

Thanks for visiting my blog. All photographs made with an Olympus OMD and a Zuiko short zoom lens.

Shooting dogs for dog’s sake? Merely incidental!

It is difficult to avoid the occasional dog when you spend your time out and about. Here in Thailand dogs are everywhere; in my other stamping ground, Lincolnshire our canine friends are less frequently encountered. When the noted photographer, Elliott Erwitt went through his huge collection of snaps (his term) he noticed this too, eventually working the theme in one of the most marvelous books of photographs. Unlike him, my photographs are pictures of dogs rather than pictures with dogs in them. For dogs’ sake if you like…

I have to admit that I am a ‘cat person’. I can tolerate dogs and have grown to not be intimidated by them during a face to face street encounter. Despite the barking, snarling and threatening behaviour of some dogs – particularly the strays – they will generally allow you to carry on with what you are doing if you ignore them.

I have, oddly, formed a brief but rewarding relationship with a dog on occasion. I have talked to them even. In the following photograph I put this down to self-preservation; ‘if I’m friendly with you, you be friendly with me…yes?’

There are cute dogs:

…and there are not so cute dogs (my opinion only, lol):

Of course the fact of the matter is that life, for all living things, is finite. I felt a moment of sadness for this late dog, thrown up by the waves. The rockabilly classic, ‘Endless Sleep’ by Jody Reynolds occurred to me….

My final offering is my favourite and is another dog I talked to. I felt he needed a friendly word and I believe he enjoyed the company, if only for the briefest time:

Thanks for visiting my blog. The camera I used for these photographs is the usual Olympus with a Zuiko lens.

Old School: Contact sheets and a lesson learned too late…

Contact sheet: Badminton Horse Trials, 1980

As a photography student in the seventies I learned to make contact sheets; negatives sandwiched between glass and photographic paper in a frame purpose-built for the job. In the years following I continued the habit, though I used a heavy piece of glass instead of a frame. The above is an example. Scrutinizing these ‘proofs’ with a magnifying glass in one hand and a china-graph pencil in the other was a satisfying occupation, even better if you discovered you had a half decent photograph to work on. In the case of the above it appears that I found one – outlined in red – and which portrayed Princess Anne with her then husband, Captain Mark Phillips. I happened to pass them whilst strolling through the park.

In my defence, I never made contact sheets of the many rolls of film I used for a portrait project I undertook late 1984, early 1985 because I couldn’t afford to. The project, which was intended to reflect youth culture in Scunthorpe – an industrial town in the north of England – was done using a borrowed camera. Any money I had went on buying film and ensuring that final prints were made on paper with a heavy silver content, Ilford Galleria. These final selections were made by reading the negatives as best I could; the 6cm x 6cm format I opted for made this relatively easy. But then…

Kay, 1984: ‘Contact’ sheet, produced 2017 using a light tablet

I thought I’d lost the negatives for this project. Many moves to distant places meant that a lot of my stuff had been consigned to various lofts and garages. When they turned up in 2016 – my brother was renovating his garage – I was really pleased; that they were all in perfect condition was a lucky break (mice had once nested in the box and had damaged some of the other negatives stored in there).

Three years ago I set about making proofs of all the negatives using a light tablet; I laid them over the flicker-free surface and photographed them from above with my digital camera. On seeing the results I discovered that I may well have made alternative choices for my prints (I had a modest exhibition in the local art gallery in 1985); I also discovered that subjects I left out of the final selection may have made it after all. Above is an alternative shot of Kay which I prefer to the one I chose. The same goes for Paul, below: (original choice, contact sheets and revised selection)

On a few occasions I found that my original choice was, for me, the correct one. This is Lisa:

All in all, I made around 80 portraits. Thanks for visiting this blog. The camera I borrowed for the project was a Mamiya C330.

O, Porto: a turn of the century memoir. Part two…

As well as walking around Porto, I’d occasionally venture further afield. You don’t have to travel far to reach the countryside: wooded slopes heavy with the scent of eucalyptus, vast beaches baking in the sun, the small coastal villages with houses of weathered stone, the marvelous churches and quintas – all within easy reach by bus or train.

Ovar, around 45 kilometres south of Porto, was a favourite place for a day trip. It struck me as a ‘sleepy’ town (although classed as a city) and I rarely bumped into the locals on my midday strolls (mad dogs and Englishmen). I remember that in the cafes wine was served in earthenware jugs…

On the coastal railway line, between Porto and Ovar, was the lovely town of Espinho – another regular haunt. A seemingly endless beach were you could watch sardines being caught using tractor-hauled nets. I once tried fishing for bass on a rocky outcrop here; I caught nothing…

Going north from Porto, along the coast, brings you eventually to the Minho. Walking in the fabulously diverse countryside here was something I didn’t do often enough. I remember one occasion, on January 1st 2000, when I had to hang onto my camera whilst slipping over icy rocks to get this photograph:

You cannot walk far in any Portuguese street before you stumble across some beautiful tilework; in particular the hand painted blue and white azulejos:

Tiles depicting symbolic icons, scenes from legend and historical story telling are found everywhere, alongside those that are merely decorative. Here are some that caught my attention while exploring the Porto suburbs:

I hope you have enjoyed my Porto blogs. Thanks for visiting. The photographs, scanned from my original Kodachrome slides, were made using an Olympus OM1 with Zuiko lenses.

‘Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside’: part one….

Cleethorpes is a seaside resort in Lincolnshire, UK. It sits on the mouth of the Humber estuary, not far from where river meets sea, and it is the place of my birth. I visit the place every summer for a month or so, my family and I plan to resettle there next year.

Generally, as with anywhere I find myself, I like to be up and about before the sun. Watching the scene unfold, empty yet populated with the evidence of activity. Such was the shot above as I looked over from an empty pier I noted how a sluggish tide had so neatly smoothed away the marks of an earlier activity and how it had jettisoned a single piece of driftwood.

‘The Front’: Cleethorpes early morning, 2018

During the summer days, people come to the seaside for much the same reasons as they have done historically; to take the sea air, to have fun, eat candy floss and whipped ices or to simply relax….

It is fair to say I never tire of the place. I’ve watched it change over the 60-odd years and it has seen me grow up too.

Despite the emergence of fast food outlets (dim view taken by me, for sure), you can still feast on the most excellent fish and chips – best in the country – and, as the son of an ex-trawlerman, I know it.

At the end of the day – literally – there is nothing better than leaning over the promenade railings and feeling the sting of that fresh breeze on your face!

Thanks for visiting, as usual an Olympus OMD was used with Zuiko short zoom.

Talat Noi: the project that was, then wasn’t, then was…

Talat Noi is a riverside neighbourhood that sits on the fringes of Bangkok’s Chinatown. I was instantly attracted to it when I made a brief visit in 2017; looking for a project that would be my first in colour – after 40-odd years of monochrome photography – I vowed to return and get cracking. That decision was to cause me a few headaches along the way.

Talat Noi is a collection of streets with one thing in common: salvaged engine parts, millions of them. Great piles of cogs, cylinder heads, axle boxes – all manner of parts. Dirty, oily streets where each workshop is a hive of activity and, I presume, business is done. I wanted my colour photographs to reflect the grime, the ‘unprettiness’ of it all.

I devised a technique using layers in Photoshop; a base layer of a very contrasty monochrome version of the photograph over which I placed the original colour photograph which I then reduced in transparency until the effect of the base layer played apart. I liked the desaturating effect of this on the colour.

Then I realised that I was just trying to get back to my mono comfort zone; my choice of subject was made, not for the colour, but with monochrome in mind. I had long hard look at this; then went back and shot monochrome.

On the whole, it was an unproductive day and very hot. Some of the photographs showed context while some, like the above, did not. But I was getting some interesting (for me) stuff.

Plenty of food vendors about in the community. I had a go at shooting colour and not messing about with it:

I’ve visited Talat Noi half a dozen times and, after trying various techniques, have decided to give it a rest. I’ve really enjoyed my strolls around this fascinating area and am convinced there is the photograph. Just got to find it. As for the car, on my last trip a month or so ago it was still there and still attracting attention:

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. All photographs were taken on my OMD EM5 coupled with a Zuiko Digital short zoom lens.

Photography Essentials: Decent Shoes…

By the time I reached my lodgings – a ten minute walk from the bus station – my left foot was very sore. I was in Boston, Lincolnshire and my intention was to make a series of long walks around the surrounding country side, to see what I could see (the photograph above was made during a 13 mile hike the following day). I’d hit a problem before I had even started. I stepped out into the market place and found some excellent and comfortable walking footwear in a sale. Consigning my old shoes to a skip I returned to my room and unpacked my OS maps….

Evacuation Point or ‘This Must be my Portaloo’: Fishtoft, Lincolnshire 2016

The shoes were a success, comfortable as slippers, durable enough for the variety of terrain encountered by the keen walker. Although most of my photography takes place in urban areas, I really enjoy strolling along the byways and footpaths of the UK, particularly those of my home county, Lincolnshire. Photographs may not come often – the two above are all I have to show after a six hour expedition – but how exhilarating to reach the Wash, with a big sky above, and look out over the marsh to the water, recalling my days on the cockle and mussel boats in the late 1970s.

Never did find the roadworks: between Fulstow and Tetney, Lincolnshire 2017

Seats are always a welcome find, particularly those provided as a rest stop….

Sometimes unwanted and discarded, as in the next photograph, in the seeming ‘middle of nowhere’….

Between Ludborough and Fulstow, Lincolnshire: 2017

Pubs can be a welcome sight, particularly during opening hours (this one was closed for renovation)….

Another novelty was the discovery of a fish and chip shop set back from a very quiet little country road out in the sticks….it was closed. I later learned that it had an excellent reputation and that people would travel from miles around for the food…

Top Nosh, near Yarburgh, Lincolnshire: 2017

I love the sense of stillness that you get when you stop somewhere along some remote footpath, away from the hustle and bustle of towns and cities, and just for a minute soak in the view…

And if anyone needs a couple of car seats, I know where you might find some, lol:

Somewhere between Burringham and East Butterwick, Lincolnshire: 2018

Thanks for taking a look at my blog. Now, where did I leave those shoes?