Day 5 : just a tiny bit gothic!

I can't recall when I first decided that my lounge needed a bit of bling in the form of a Swarovski crystal encrusted skull. I remember reading a couple of articles about Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God art piece worth a mere £50 million or so, possibly it was around that tine U opted to furnish myself with this head. Damien’s skull was real, or at least the teeth were, and then he’d smothered his in the finest diamonds including a fair monster in the middle of his skull’s forehead. Despite Damien’s being considerably more authentic, I preferred the teeth on mine looking more like comedy dentures than his too real, less than perfect gnashers.

As it sits next to my television it is frequently in my eye line and I enjoy the effect the various lights have on all the little facets dotted across those enviable cheekbones. I know if I admit that a skull is perched on a black hatbox between my television and my fireplace people have sudden images of an austere gothic tableau but really, this one is way too kitsch to be seen as thus (Damien’s might be however!). And who wouldn’t just love this curiously Cheshire Cat grin sparkling incongruously just randomly there.

When I'd decided I wanted a close up for my daily picture I could finally christen my little vintage Leica table-top tripod. I have my trusty gorilla pod as my ’baby’ tripod but I sometimes find than even my svelte camera can put a little too much pressure on the three legs if not wrapping them around something.

 

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Day 4: former leaves

The leaf shadows I'd been admiring again yesterday seem worthy of revisiting en route to the bus stop. I've spotted quite a few patches of this “phenomenon” the last month or so, possibly because we’ve experienced such a soggy Autumn. I'm assuming that the falling, possibly already damp leaves then got rained on further whilst on the ground so as they decomposed or finally got swept away they left these “shadows” behind. The two awful spindly trees that generated all this foliage have not only been extremely prolific for their diminutive stature but are still clinging defiantly to their last leaves amongst their more substantial and entirely denuded neighbours.

Luckily one of these remaining leaves posed obligingly for me as a counterpoint to its dearly departed friends.

 

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Day 3 : really looking!

So this 365 project lark has got me thinking, yes I know “already?”, and I'm thinking “what’s the point?” Whilst stood at the bus stop, this morning staring very fixedly at a tree it occurred to me, I was taking time to look. I could be scanning through the emails I received overnight, down at my shoes or my eyes could be closed silently willing a bus to arrive. But I was looking, really looking. I spotted the sad Christmas tree, neglected and propped up against a post box, the patterns the decomposing leaves had left on the pavement, the last few resilient leaves on the nakedly winter branches. On the bus I was rather taken by the busy pattern on the newly upholstered seats, the incongruous gold ballet pumps topping off a formal suit and after disembarking, the studs in the pavement marking the crossings and the utility covers in a myriad of designs - I always did love a texture.

I wasn't really looking up; the sky was doing that utterly bland thing where dawn breaking has just meant switching from inky blackness to a dim wattage light bulb, just white, white, and a bit more white. Not that a sky has to be blue but it should have some interest to it. A dark brooding sky can have much more vitality with golden whispers of the sun trying to break out giving a halo effect to the clouds. Or some movement and structure of a costal sky that would come to life under the steady gaze of a ten stop ND filter. Today, however, the sky was not up to any scrutiny. We are encouraged to “stop and smell the roses (or flowers, depending on the version you know)” and there must be succour to gain in just stopping and really looking sometimes.

I hadn't found inspiration yet, though the “leaf shadows” may be worth revisiting. But then that begs the question “Why would a photograph be taken at a particular time?” Would it be to capture a moment, a memory and essence? A scene of beauty to enable a revisit albeit virtually or an aide memoir? Or perhaps an incongruous or funny event that might be shared on Facebook later? Documenting an auspicious moment, perhaps for the family album or to share with the world your on-the-spot reportage of the momentous, the challenging, the downright depressing? I know I take pictures of people very rarely. This is me thinking I'm not very comfortable in front of the lens myself and almost surprised when others don't mind so much. Many of my friends take beautiful environmental portraits or capture poignant moments of street photography; I need more encouragement to undertake that form of photography and seem happier taking depth of field shots of artfully displayed food.

In the end for my daily photo, I resorted to rather bedraggled token nod to festivity that sits on my desk and gets wheeled out annually. I had been rather transfixed how the facets in the diminutive mirror balls were radiating the colour from the environs of my desk so after much pondering; today’s tree theme is a faux tree!

I am rather looking forward to some more “looking” tomorrow.

 

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Day 2 : red sky in the morning

So day 2 arrives and a peach of a sunrise to show for it. Okay a little samey after yesterday but you have to go with the flow. I couldn’t locate any nearby shepherds to warn but I suspect these days they rely on a weather app to alert them to inclement weather rather than cows sitting down or a fiery sky at sunrise.

This was taken from a speeding bus hurtling across Richmond Bridge propelling me towards the first commute of the year. If I could have got off the bus and composed better I would have loved the opportunity but time and buses wait for no-one and my real job has to take precedence, sadly! Assuming I wasn’t a slave to a rapidly ticking clock and I had disembarked and walked back to the bridge, I suspect the sunrise would have sneakily petered away to nothing and an early morning sun-kissed River Thames might have been possible but you can never predict whatmise-en-scène would have been awaiting me.

I was discussing the brave decision to try some sort of 365 day project– “some sort” will probably be very appropriate term here! They asked if I had a theme and it got me thinking – is it better to just shoot what takes my fancy on a particular day or does a defined goal help focus the photographer’s mind? I am not sure what the answer is but as I have accidentally fallen in to a theme within two days of the mammoth undertaking I figured I may opt for a series of little theme-lets and see if that leads to cohesion or chaos. So I guess I will be peering skywards tomorrow orscrutinising trees and their foliage.

 

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Day 1 of 365 - starting optimistically!

Whenever I hear of other 365 projects I'm in awe of the requisite commitment. When I followed the way of the Photo Mojo Motivator last year, I can say 'last year' now, I struggled with a fortnight of expressing myself photographically every day. And anyone who actually follows either of my blogs is well aware of my inertia with regards to blogging for so many, many months. I'm still eating and my camera is always close by so the only excuse I can proffer for my continued delinquency is lack of creative wherewithal due to the distraction of “other stuff” getting in the way to write some bon mots to accompany the day’s visual offering.

Well it's only day 1 so I really should be able to conjure up something. It seemed appropriate for the first day of 2013 to capture the tangle of the winter trees just outside my front door against an optimistic blue sky, a sign of good things ahead I hope.

 

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I like-a like-a like-a my new Leica!

The an-tic-i-pat-ion is over! My new Leica is finally here in my hot hand! I eagerly pre-ordered the D-Lux 6 on arriving back from Photokina in September. When Leica Mayfair called me on Thursday to say it had arrived, after whooping quietly I discovered the new EVF 3, which is the only electronic viewfinder that works with the latest model, had somehow not made it into the shipment and they didn't know when it would be available. So good news followed immediately by bad news. I’m not easily thwarted, don't want to go back to live view only and am determined to have my new camera complete with the EVF for shooting fireworks on Saturday. I called Leica Mayfair again on the Friday and as they were still bereft, cancelled my order and was determined to hit the Internet to see if anyone else was luckier with their first shipment. And Robert White could deliver and, to my delight, they did exactly that the very next day, today.

Since discovering at Photokina that I'd need a different arrangement to attach filters to my new camera I'd been busy doing reconnaissance as to which adapters I'd need. Luckily the wait from the announcement of the D-Lux 6 and its docking on our shores gave me time to get the crucial tiny Panasonic screw fitting ring from Japan and when I realised the filters that I wanted don't come in 37mm I'd have to also track down the appropriate step-up ring(s). My current filters are 55mm and with the rather excessive step up ring, I can repurpose those (see picture below) but I've also been checking out 39mm filters, much neater.

B+W have a tasty line in German-made Schott glass filters and the UV/IR filters currently protecting my new baby is one of theirs (image at the top). That's what give it the eerie red glow which isn't viewing the world through rose coloured glasses but just protects the fabulous Leica lens from all those nasty infra-red rays and an extra barrier from everything else.

So lovely new Leica, check, super-sharp EVF, check, requisite filter adapters, check. Let the photographing commence.

 

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Finally...Photokina!

Two years ago when I was rushing between New York, Hawaii, London, Paris and then the Loire Valley I was disappointed that I couldn’t also swing by Cologne, Germany to hang out at Photokina for a day or maybe two. Every two long years the great and the good of the photographic world gather together for a huge photography fest with pixel-heads drooling over the latest models and eager to be one of the first to play with the plethora of new toys. I swore back in 2010 that the very next time I’d be there, not just reading the reams of reports, reviews and gushing prose about what was happening next but there, seeing it for myself and most likely writing my own gushing prose.

But when finally September came round it looked like I wouldn’t be able to take a few days off and hang out there drinking it all in as I’d hoped but instead have to cram it all in one intense day. And today was the day!

To make my cunning plan work I wanted to be there at the show for the maximum hours possible which entailed a stupid o’clock pre-trains running taxi ride to Gatwick to reluctantly throw myself on the mercy of EasyJet. But I made it and the ticket I had pre-ordered included the train from the airport to the exhibition centre so it was easier than I thought to get straight to the show. I could see tantalising glimpses of Cologne on the horizon from the train, perhaps I could pop by later after the show and before I head back to the airport. Yes that could be a plan!

On entering I made a bee-line for the Leica wing. I had to schlep through the Nikon, the HP and pass the corner of all the Canon stuff. Their stands were bright, a little brash with an excited hum of buzzing photographers checking out their wares. But the Leica Hall, however, was subtly lit with pools of light illuminating each new exciting offering flanked by a giant white X, C, S or M. The Paul Smith X2, all orange and green in a little cabinet, as maybe you’d expect any self-respecting designer outfit to be. The M-E had plenty of takers, all clutching the subtle grey body and the hallowed lenses. I had a go, the M-E is a serious consideration for me but despite about a dozen attempts over two visits I was not able to take a picture in focus. The range-finder focusing is so much trickier than good old auto-focus. Definitely very much food for thought, but undeniably I am taking on a major challenge if I go down that route. Maybe if I have the optical viewfinder adjusted for my long-sightedness or possibly get used to focusing wearing my reading glasses, I would fare better. But the first attempt was far from impressive.

The D-Lux 6 however, the upgrade to my current little Leica is fabulous! The 1.4 lens, the aperture ring, the astonishing new viewfinder, the clever restyling on the EVF focusing, the built in ND filters – I want, I want, I want! Before I get the overcoming urge to surreptitiously slip one in my camera bag I visited the Leica Galerie. The curators have done a fantastic job gathering some of the most favourite/well known photographs. The Magnum greats, Nick Ut’s show-stopping/Vietnam War-stopping of Kim Phuc, his fellow Pulitzer prize winners, Rankin and a fabulous collection chosen by my hero Elliott Erwitt. I missed the Erwitt exhibition when I was at the ICP nearly a year ago. They had replaced his work with a retrospective on the decade post 9/11. To rest my weary feet and to fill my head with more inspirational photographers’ musings I sit and listen to talks from Nick Rains, Peter Turnley and Tom Stoddart. Tom’s work captures those injustices in glorious starkness that shouldn’t ever happen and as Tom says “don’t be sad at my pictures, be angry. Not with the photographer but the politicians”.

I probably should explore more of what Photokina has to offer me. There’s over 1,200 exhibitors and I’ve seen one of them. It’s what I came to see however but I also fancy a little explore and to purposely go and check out Lee filters.

Lee has brought out another version of my RF-75 system but mine looks sleeker and appears more robust. Though there are rumours that they'll be a Big Stopper for their more diminutive filter format and that is interesting. Hmmm I wonder how my filters are going to attach to my new camera, must check that when I return to “Leica World”.

 

I check out Hasselblad, their stand is teeming, a crowd gaping at the Lunar and agog as to how it can justify its gravity-defying price point (and that's coming from a Leica owner!) They're also offering very popular smart black show bags so that will create a gathering for sure. I've seen a few people sporting a Leica show bag but the staff vehemently deny its existence. Well that surely is going to make me more determined to lay my hands on one before I leave!

It’s not too long before I return to the calming influence of the land of Leica. Principally I wish to explore more of the Galerie and there's always the mission to check out the arrangement for pimping up the D-Lux 6 that examining the Lee filters made me think of. I sit through a couple more presentations and satisfy my curiosity about the way to attach filters to the new D-Lux, entirely differently than ever before is the answer. As usual Leica have no intention to assist their D-Lux owners add filters etcetera so I will have to research the requisite LX-7 accessories.

When the show is drawing to an end I treat myself to the Ninety Nine Years Leica book and gently manage persuade them to part with one of those Leica Photokina bags.

My plan to explore Cologne further is scuppered by being extraordinary weary, especially of seemingly seeing rest of the show I hadn't seen as I tried to locate the appropriate exit. Next time I need two days!

Cologne will have to wait for 2014 for a further examination and I head for the airport (considerably more challenging than journey to the show). It transpires that EasyJet have laid on a treat for the return journey, a fours and a half hour delay in an empty airport with Muzak played continuously on an endless loop. EasyJet-lag for sure!

A very long day, arrived home over 24 after I left, so in summary:

• Photokina was as fabulous as I believed it would be
• Journey there and back not so
• Will definitely plan to return 2014, and spend longer exploring all of it
• Lots of lovely new Leicas to dream about
• Have to wait a little longer than I hoped for my new delivery
• t-45 (ish) and counting!

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