While doing our guided rock pool forage, the guy mentioned that with the warming sea, the seaweed season was getting shorter and there was less of it about. We all nodded sagely and acknowledged our complicity in the death of the oceans. Then he threw in: “and the farmers have discovered it makes a kick-ass fertiliser and come down and harvest it”. Oh, right.
I’m a fairly renowned pedant and things like 10 Words you need to stop misspelling warm my cockles. Something to do with having a decent education and a love for this wonderful, malleable, subtle thing we call English.
But.
I wonder if it’s time to call time on such pedantry.
Provided the meaning is clear, which is should be if the words are read, and who doesn’t read aloud inside their heads, isn’t their a case for loosing such rules? As long as the overall meaning is clear, is it to much to expect, in this Twitter age, that we respect these archaic strictures?
Against all expectations, the agents turned up my suit which is now retrieved and hanging in the wardrobe. Result!
Louise also retrieved her sketching board from the bar we left it in last night.
We’ve now played ping pong on the shiny new and barely used tables in the basement and worked up a sweat. I won. Hah! I’m a bad winner. Can you tell?
Mixed results on the food front: very ordinary and overpriced dim sum for lunch today but a rather excellent kiwi burger for dins tonight, followed by a yummy ice cream from the mango ice place. The place that doesn’t currently have mango as they’re out of season. Ho hum.
Only the washing machine to be fixed now.
And it stopped raining today.
After a burst of enthusiasm when I got back to Camden from Amsterdam, I’d been finding recently my enthusiam for the glamour of music photography was on the wane. I’m afraid the champagne lifestyle and the groupies just wasn’t doing it for my any more and if I saw the inside of one more plush, red-velvet VIP area ever again, I’d scream. Also, the brilliantly lit stages were like an LSD trip in their creativity.
Sadly, all of the above is a lie.
Despite my rule of only shooting musicians I like, and assembling a wonderful collective of like-minded snappers I realised recently that I really couldn’t care any more. Watching Simon work far harder than I have and still not get anywhere and especially his lament about not getting paid just added to the ennui.
So, I’ll shoot a few more gigs in October, tour manage the Chthonic UK tour in the first week of November then focus on my fine art work.
So with that in mind, I’ve put up ALL the 1* or better photos from this year in high-resolution (good enough for a 6×4 at least). The following sets out the terms:
The following sets are all high-resolution 1600-1200 images free for personal use. Bands are free to use them on the web with credit. Commercial use is subject to negotiation, but really, I don’t bite. I retain copyright on all images so don’t be naughty.
So there you go. Round about 750 images from 40-mumble performances for your viewing pleasure. There are some good ones in there too. 2008 to follow.
I’m shifting my photographic focus somewhat, starting back at Central St. Martins, working on refining my style, hell, working out what my style is, and building a portfolio. Trouble is, I like taking photos of lots of things: people, travel stuff, musicians, london by day and night, sunsets and so on. Jean-Loup Sieff is my hero, along with early Liebowitz, Newton, Tillmans and the lovely Cecil Beaton so people are definitely a focus. But! That’s me setting the scene. I’m wondering what gaps I have in my lens armoury. Oh, I’m seriously considering acquiring a film SLR too, probably a Nikon F4 or similar, which I’d like to also use my lenses on. So, here are the lenses I have:
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 – slightly crocked in the auto-focus department but still a great lens
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 – a great, cheap lens
Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 – brilliant fast zoom and portrait lens
Tokina 17-50 f/2.8 – my walkabout lens, cheap, plastic, but has survived the pit well
Tamron 55-200 f/4-5.6 – walkabout zoom lens, cheap but good for the price
So in that lot, am I missing anything? There’s a couple of 35mm and 85mm primes that look interesting.
I don’t mind “legacy” lenses as long as they’re either auto-focus or the focus detection works.
Anyone?
Hm, this was supposed to be daily, but what with one thing and another, updating been a little less frequent. Still, we’ve been knocking things off the list pretty well, so all is not lost.
It was almost a rest day, but we took a small perambulation in the evening through the delightful Primrose Hill[18] village, bought some cheap rosé in Nicolas and some chocolate in the poshest little mini-market in the world. We then strolled up to the top of the hill to take in the twighlit view of London with the key lights of the City shining out: tower 42, check, London Eye, check, crappy tower blocks in Mornington Crescent, check.
Definitely a quiet day. We wandered down to my doctor, then to the Wellcome[19] Collection (open late on Thursdays!) to see the medical waxworks exhibition on display which certainly gave context to the history of medicine and grossed Louise out nicely. We then got rained in at the Founder’s Arms on the South Bank at the London Perlmongers meet.
We got to Paddington a little early, so we took the opportunity to knock another one off the list: we nipped out the back to see Little Venice[20]. Cute. Will definitely take a boat from Camden to Paddington at some point.
First order of business on arrival in Bath was FOOD. This used to be my home town so I know which tourist holes to avoid. We went to the wonderfully gnarly and twee Old Green Tree for the quintessential English dish, co-opted by the pub trade, the Ploughman’s lunch[21]. It was pretty good overall with huge chunks of bread, plenty of salad and of course nice mature Cheddar and Stilton cheeses. Oh, and nice foamy ale of course. The house ale was light and hoppy, perfect for a summer’s day.
That left tackling two of Bath’s many tourist attractions: the Roman Baths[22] and the Royal Crescent. The Baths are great to visit and give a sense how how far we’ve come in a couple of thousand years and yet in many ways we’re the same people. The Royal Crescent just is. Oh, and on the way back in to town we popped in to the Georgian Garden. Pretty.
I had some business to do today while she checked out Muji[23] and Uni Qlo. Then we went to the Photographer’s Gallery[24] which today mostly had exhibitions which didn’t piss me off for once. Result. Nice bookshop too.
Day 4 was a Sunday, so we headed East. First up with the kitschness that is Spitalfields market[15]. I’ll claim two connections to this: first, when it was a fruit and veg market, my dad used to use it sometimes when he didn’t use Covent Garden. Second, I used to work in Spital square back when this area was “the badlands”. A few food wagons used to ply their tasty goodness at lunchtime, and of course the legendary Bubba charred up some meaty comestibles. These days, it’s all been done up and is as safe and sterile as any other market like the previously visited Borough. We had a quick beer in the legendary Meson de los Barriles and sauntered over to grab one of the super tasty rotis. Oh yes, lovely fresh veggies and the occasional fruit and a lovely warm roti. Awesomeness.
We then moved on the the slightly edgier top end of Brick Lane[16], through the yard past yet more food stalls and ducked in to Rough Trade to see what’s happening in the world of music. A quick peruse round the Upmarket to see if the great Taiwanese illustrator tpcat was on her stall. Sadly, she was at a book fair in Euston. Still her friends had some of her stuff for sale. After that, we cut back through onto Commercial Street and ducked into the amazingly camp Commercial Tavern to rest our legs and sup a lovely hoppy blonde summer ale.
Day 5, we did Camden Market[17]. For me, it’s all a bit local and “meh”, but Louise enjoyed it. We had dim sum at Teachi first, which has always been excellent and good value. Then a wander up the back streets avoiding the plague of the first stretch of Camden High Street, we entered the lock and immediately hit up Yumchaa on the balcony for some lovely tasty tea, coffee and chocolate brownie. Refreshed, we hit the market stalls, working our way up to the Proud Gallery to look at the nice pretty music pictures. Many are not as good as mine, but I’m just waiting for one of my bands to make it big! Still, nice to see some of our gnarly old stars in their younger days.
Day 6 is a rest day. We’ll probably venture out to get some new strings for my guitar.
Day 7 is booked to Bath. Expect tourist pics.
This is an updated version of this list. Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions! I also remembered a few more things. In two days we’ve knocked quite a few things off the list. Taking day 3 off to rest though!
This will be the last post I make here. In honour of my impending trip to Taiwan and a travel-filled year so far, I’m moving my blog to my main web site. Please update your RSS readers!
This picture is not tweaked at all, it’s exactly how it came out of the camera.
Cacilhas is on the opposite side of the Tagus to Lisbon and has its own decrepit charm. There’s a long stretch of derelict warehouses between the ferry terminal and the old town which are just gagging to be redeveloped into restaurants and bars.
Oh, it’s lovely.
