Ice Delivery
At the moment I’m experimenting with using my camera phone to take pictures. The technical quality isn’t too bad, but it’s quite slow to focus.
In Ho Chi Minh City, lots of businesses buy ice rather than use a freezer to keep things cool. Ice trucks are an every day sight, leaving a trail of water and ice chips behind them.
Harbour - Tammisaari
Snow is on my mind at the moment. I’ve just been speaking to my father and he says that there has been more at home. When I flew back to Vietnam I expected that I would take all the horrid weather with me – apparently my grandfather hasn’t been out of his since Boxing Day (I don’t believe that last piece of news incidentally).
The picture above was taken with an old Rolleiflex dating from 1952 (an MX – for the sad fellow trainspotter type who knows what means). It has a Tessar lens which I think looks rather different to those from a later Planar lens (note I wrote “different” not better or worse). It always worries me the amount of time people can spend arguing about fairly subtle features of a camera. And everyone is so absolute and certain, that they would rather question others judgement than their own experience. I think I’ve only once contributed to a forum once and that was to confirm a particular feature on a Nikkormat (my bread and butter camera at the time).
My current excitement at the moment is with a new bicycle I collected this morning. It would be best described as an entry-level roadbike. When it got a little cooler this evening, I took at for a spin and it was just great. My little computer says that I managed 16miles. My average speed was 14mph and my highest speed was 24.8mph. Not amazing – lots of drifting as you can see, but it was marvelous just wafting along after the constant grind of my mountain bike.
Me - Notting Hill Gate 2005
I’ve decided that I should do a few more self-portraits from time to time. I was looking through all my pictures from the last 10 or 20 years and there really are a handful of me. If someone had to make a missing person poster for me, it would be at least 5 years out of date! There is also just the matter of being seen to exist – proof of my passing.
It isn’t much of a photo, but I quite enjoy the mix of reflections. Again, it is from my “London” time, where I was constantly exploring and looking for new places and things.
The Magic Carpet Motel
Another Oldie.
One Christmas, on the spur of the moment, I drove down in Florida (in Georgia it was snowing and freezing cold). On Christmas Eve, I arrived at Daytona – and it was grey and miserable – not really what you want in the holidays, so I bought in a few beers and went to bed early. And when I woke up Christmas morning, there was brilliant sunshine and a vivid blue sky (I think Simon and Garfunkel sang about Kodachrome blue skies). And then I got in my car and got into all kinds of trouble… but that’s another story.
On the Riverbed
The River Thames
Tutor of mine at University used to specialise in interpreting people’s sketchbooks and photographs, which was often quite revealing. I’ve forgotten who it was, who said that all writing was autobiographical, but I can see there is a grain of truth in there, dancing in the light.
This picture is from a time when I was constantly drawn to a stretch of the River Thames between Chiswick and Hammersmith, along which I would often strole (the spelling there doesn’t feel quite right). At certain times of day, the tide would be out and I would wander out on the not very sandy sandbanks and photograph what I found. Occasionally, the tide would turn without my noticing and I would find myself marooned in the middle, standing on a rapidlty submerging rock, which usually meant a deep wade back to the side (and a squelchy walk home).
Drop of Water on Petal
This one doesn’t quite work – but I still quite like it.
Over Christmas, I was staying with my parents. They live at the top of a hill, which while it isn’t very tall, is REALLY steep. With all the ice and snow at the moment, it has been pretty dicey (see me for difficult spellings) climbing up and down the hill. Half way up, I saw this flower with some melting ice on it - and since I wasn’t skidding around at that moment, I rejoiced and took a photo.
Frozen Canal
I went back to the UK for Christmas – and it was cold! Almost every day, I walked a long the towpath (it is the footpath along the side of a canal) into Bath and back. I don’t think I took a single picture of Bath, but I took quite a few – on the way there and back. I used to live near Bath years ago, so it is pretty old news to me photographically. I wish I was better at seeing new things in familar places – I could probably find the quote about seeing the “old anew”, but I’d feel like a pseud.
The ice was a real pain (yes, a pun). My parents live at the top of a steep hill and it took me ages to walk down every day, edging step at time, at any moment threatening to turn into a human bobsleigh. On a technical note the 50D held up quite well on a couple of occasions in really weather, it started throwing up a few “lens mount errors”, but I quickly re-set the lens and we were back in business.
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