Sea Dog - Florida
It has been a while since I last posted.
Sometimes I like to take “literal” pictures. Sharing my treasure. Something I’ve found.
I can’t believe it now, but there was a time when I used to go on road trips driving around the US on my own. The whole point was that I wouldn’t plan: I would get in my car and drive. I would listen to the radio and watch the landscape change – and when I saw something interesting, I would stop and take a photograph. I’m wondering what film I was using.
Frozen in Ice
I bought my laptop with me to Singapore so that I could post the pictures I took. Typically I then managed to forget the cable. So this is an old picture from my archive (although that sounds rather pompous – like hobbyists who talk about their “body of work”).
I was in Atlanta at the time, alternately suffering and enjoying the coldest winter I had ever had. I remember when the wind blew it gave me jaw ache. My apartment had no heating as such and we froze.
Another detail was the film and camera : OM2n, 50mm f1.8 and Kodachrome 64. Sometimes I really miss that simplicity – when you only have one lens – that is what you use. The only thing I didn’t like was its tendency to flare. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Kodachrome would prove to be a pain to scan.
Old Gas Station
Another picture from my “old buildings and ruins” phase. I’m not sure of the town, but the water tower helpfully says “Calhoun” which makes me think Calhoun County, Alabama.
Broken Window
Once upon a time I spent quite a lot of time exploring the South Eastern corner of the United States. I would literally pick a direction and keep on going until I had a better idea. And it sort of worked for me!
Anyway, I’m pretty sure I took this picture in Fayetteville, Alabama. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the location for the film “Mississipi Burning”. I even have the feeling they used this building (the cinema) in the film.
Strange Oil Slick
Another old photo from the US of A.
I know this looks like a made photo, but infact it is as it looks – a series of oil slicks in a carpark.
This is from when I lived in Atlanta (well Decatur to be more specific). And I lived next door to Kroeger’s.
Frozen Leaves - Stone Mountain, GA
I think this must be from 2001. I spent literally half of January and December trailing around in the cold, taking morbid pictures of the snow and ice. At the time I was using a rather battered OM2n and 50mm lens (which to judge by this photo was inclined to flare).
Where Elvis Was Born...
A few years ago, I went through a phase driving trips around the US. A little while before I had lived there and in retrospect these visits were a way of saying “Goodbye”. The US is the only country I know where I would choose to travel by car, it seems well suited and scaled a view through a passenger window. When i think back on them, I can believe how lucky I was to be able to do this. I did lots of silly things with my money at the time, but I don’t think was one of them.
Initally, I would stay a night or so with my friend Sandra (I wonder how she is) in Atlanta, slowly building inertia, until I couldn’t sit still any longer and would fly off across the country in my hire car, driving late into the night – I was on my own and could stop and start where I wanted. I have mixed feeling about the American goverment, but the American people have never let me down, always ready with a word or suggestion or two. Just odd words here and there in diners and supermarkets. Shared laughter, hiding from a storm in a supermarket in Wilmington (the lights kept going out).
This is the house that Elvis was born in. There’s a museum in the background. Apparently they are called “shotgun shacks”. It looked immaculate. I’m not sure it was like that when Elvis was a resident.
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.
"Hey! Take my picture!"
Athens, Georgia 2001
I think this is the only time anyone has ever asked me to take their photo!
My flatmate Manuella had suggested we drive to Athens for a University of Georgia football game. So we drove up. And by a number of serendipidous turns, we ran into all sort of interesting people. And Athens, like many university towns turned out to be an interesting place, which I visited quite a few times afterwards.
I was using a Holga – hence the strange look.
New York Doorway
New York City, October 2006
When I first got into photography, I decided (as all the books advise you) that I should find a subject and shoot loads of that. It becoming a body of work on a theme.
The subject I chose was “doors”. And I photographed a lot of them….. and then I stopped.
And then, years later, when the disease had passed, I took this photo (using a similar camera to the one I had used all those years earlier). Have a good look at the graffiti cardboard guy – he really is quite amazing.
Depite all views and opinions to the contrary, this reminds me that talent is all around us – it is just that people forget about them or plain don’t appreciate them.
