"One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time". Annie Leibovitz
Generally I prefer to work to a theme such as Blackpool memories, Bullrings or the Venetian images, but often an individual image will appeal to me, and it may even be a starting point that I would follow up on at a later date. With that in mind I have created this section which I called Odds and Ends. I may develop some of the ideas further, but at the moment they just live in this section. Some were taken on the earlier camera designs so formats may be slightly different.
Little Red Riding Hood One of the earliest colour images I took was this one on my old 5”x4” MPP view camera at my house. I liked to work on 5”x4” because it was so flexible and allowed precise composition, but meant I had to carry around a lot more equipment, and film and processing were more expensive. I was looking for a suitably colourful subject and my twins who were very small at the time had done a chalk drawing of Little Red Riding Hood on their little blackboard. I added a fish balloon and a teddy, so the final image ended up being a lovely memory of my twins when they were very young.
Travelling Fair, Chester This image is the one I decided to use on the home page of the site, and also was once printed in the Pinhole Journal that was produced by Eric Renner and Nancy Spencer in the Pinhole Resource Centre in San Lorenzo, New Mexico. At that time I was shooting using a Mamiya Press body which worked really quite well and gave me a pleasing 6 x 9 format. Shooting during what we call the magic hour while there is still some light in the sky before darkness which gives you ‘something’ in the sky not just blackness.
Shot in Dallas Like many people of my age, the shooting of President Kennedy was a vivid memory for me from my childhood. This moment in history was the first time people said that they remembered where they were when they heard about the shooting. I always wanted to visit the scene and when I did I took my pinhole camera with me. Although this is a photographic site not a conspiracy site, I have to say after being there and walking around the whole of Dealy Plaza, I am more convinced than ever that there certainly was a shooter behind the picket fence on the famous Grassy Knoll. The reasons are threefold, the President’s car was always getting closer, it offered the best possible vantage point for the fatal shot and the whole railway junction just yards behind it offered the only escape route from the area. For that reason the picture I took was of that picket fence, which remains unchanged all these years later. In the sunshine, it is such a peaceful shady corner of the busy intersection near to the underpass, yet it could have been the precise location of a shooter who took part in one of the most famous murders ever, which lasted just seven and a half seconds and changed American history. We will never know for sure.
Whitby I was a big fan of Bram Stoker’s Dracula book, and when we had the chance to visit Whitby during a Goth festival in April, we actually stayed the house which many years ago was Mrs. Veazey’s guesthouse at 6 Royal Crescent. The famous actor Henry Irving suggested he go there to rest while he was working on a new book, and he stayed there in July 1890. It was during a visit to the public library that he found a book published in 1820, which mentioned a 15th-century prince called Vlad Tepes, who was said to have impaled his enemies on wooden stakes. He was known as Dracula – the ‘son of the dragon’. Stoker made a note of this name, along with the date. While in Whitby, he would probably have heard of the shipwreck five years earlier of a Russian vessel called the Dmitry which ran aground on Tate Hill Sands below East Cliff, carrying a cargo of silver sand. This became the Demeter that carries Dracula to Whitby with a cargo of silver sand and boxes of earth. The ancient parish church of St. Mary’s, which is perched on East Cliff, is reached by a climb of 199 steps. Stoker would have seen how time and the weather had gnawed at the graves, some of them teetering precariously on the cliff edge. Some headstones stood over empty graves, marking seafaring occupants whose bodies had been lost on distant voyages. He also noted down inscriptions and names for later use, including ‘Swales’, the name he used for Dracula’s first victim in Whitby. So, the name of his villain and some of the novel’s most dramatic scenes were inspired by his time in Whitby. It is a wonderful place to visit at any time but particularly during the Goth festivals, which are held twice a year. It is impossible not to be inspired, like Bram Stoker, by the atmosphere and landscape of this magical location.
Rome Trevi Fountain On a trip many years ago to Rome, my wife and I stayed in a small hotel in the centre of the city just around the corner from the world famous Trevi Fountain, which appeared in the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain, and we used to walk past the stunning fountain every day. It was difficult to make a picture of the fountain which pleased me. I eventually tried to focus on the water and the movement of the waters. I also wanted to capture the initials scratched into the marble by visitors and it is possible to see the shapes of coins which were thrown into the waters.
Acton Park Landscape photography is a very fast moving branch of photography despite what most people think. The light is constantly moving and changing, and often by the time you have set up the shot the light has changed, and so has the picture! Depending on the weather and scene, you may have to wait several years to get the conditions you wanted. It can be a matter of detailed planning but occasionally just good luck. This particular shot was a bit of both. In the local park I saw we had a wonderful display of dandelions at the seed head stage. I have not seen it before or since, but that week they were in their prime and I knew they would look great if they were back lit, or ‘Contre-Jour’ as it is often referred to in photography. In French it means ‘against the day’ or against the light. It is a very effective technique as long as we make sure the light doesn’t flare in the lens or pinhole. It can add drama to most shots. The small loop on the left side of the image is actually an insect which was also back lit in flight during the exposure. The weather battered the scene the next day, all the seeds were dispersed and I never saw that shot ever again.
