James Shackleton's Blog

Unloading Ice from a Truck

Here are a couple of pictures of a man unloading ice from a truck at one of the markets in Bangkok.

I was really struck by how generous people were in terms of allowing me to take photographs. I’ve never been anywhere like it.

Unloading Ice

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.

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).

Frost on a Windscreen

Do ever feel envious of the person you used to be?

Perhaps it is just a case of “rose tinted” spectacles, but I do recall, that when I first moved to London, my weekends were truely packed with being out in the city and taking photos. I found it all really exciting.

This is an early morning photo taken in Chiswick.

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.

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.

Frost on Grass - Tammisaari

Tammisaari, 2003

Once upon a time, I had a good friend in Finland – and was able to see her quite a few times.  She lived in a summer resort town called Tammisaari, which is on the Baltic. When she was a way at work, I would wander around taking pictures. Sometimes the weather cleared and for a few hours there was golden sunshine and it was almost warm – if you stayed out of the shadows.

At the time, I was using my second digital camera, a Canon G2 which was one of the best cameras I’ve ever owned. Incidentally, it managed the cold quite well (if you kept a spare battery in a warm pocket).