Back

But I'm just dipping my toe in the water... I'm fooked

Daniel & Devil's Bridge

Off camping

Back wed...

Dee says check her blog out when we get back


Or else

 

Edit Kras

Enjoy!

Link to Dee's world

Bergen

Bergen, my place of birth.

I just got a mail from my good friend Roy tonight sending a link to his slideshow of his old and new street shots from Bergen. Simply stunning! Thank you Roy.

Enjoy!!

Mercy Street from Roy Birger Nilsen on Vimeo.

Kras

Speaking of things disappearing

Where'd your posts keep disappearing to lol


They're...

Some more on disappearing

Still waiting for this to show here in England. Sometime soon . . . maybe.

Broken manual

Somewhere to Disappear  . . . the latest news.

 

Alec Soth

To edit to

Quality

Under Gods

I guess when you're faithless like me, you really need something tangible to believe in.

Love... friendship... [...]

I'd put photography up there. Particularity when it's close to home


Mr T says...


"I pity the fool that gets on a plane and forgets their own back yard"

Said that to me in Yates last night over a glass of milk

The street I grew up in

Following on from Sean's post about growing up and belonging I had to post this. It's me about 12 or 13 in our street in Westcliff. Things were so much different then than today. No where near what I think my mate Sean went through growing up though.

I drove up my old street today, and the funny thing was, it's not changed much, if at all. The old flats in the background have changed. I should recreate the snap sometime.

Dee mentioned invisible maps in our minds one time. We all have our different routes to going back home. Thanks Dee . . . been thinking a lot about that and it has huge potential I think. I love that idea.

Anyway, Ailsa Road, my road . . . . and thanks to Dave Cheskin for shooting this.

 

Me - Circa 1976

Kras

Quote of the day

"The crowd is his domain, just as the air is the bird’s, and water that of the fish. His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd.” “To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very centre of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world.”


Charles Baudelaire

Everyman

It didn't happen for Vivian Maier during her life time.

It did for Gary Stochl

Incredible work great story


Edit

oh the shame of forgetting Robert Bergman

A130 to Yorkshire

Back in the day hitch hiking was good, not much fear, if any. Yep, we got some strange ones on the way, not many. I look at this after all these years and my old self says be free.

I have a shot of me in Manchester which I am still trying to find for the Keanes, my only time I've been there.

You don't see many hitch hikers these days.

Roger     A130 / A127 junction - Essex 1981

Kras

Edit: Keane

Street view

This is a screen print from google street view that was captured just a few yards from here


I might start shooting flowers

Or...

There's no time like the present

"Your photography is a record of your living"

Paul Strand

Ben & Tee Tee. Dwellings and Our Street In background


Take a stroll

Edit

I was reading an old post by Mike Johnston about colour. He was saying that if you shoot for colour, meanings arbitrary and if you shoot for meaning colour is arbitrary. I recon he's right... content tops everything else. It's not a b&w v colour issue, it's a reason for shooting issue.

If you're going to use colour use it well. It's not easy, on its own its never enough to keep my interest. Same for B&W, a bad shot taken in black and white cannot be saved by it having great tone.

Great colour... poor portrait

There's no extra meaning added by having the shot in black and white. It just strips away something I had no interest in, the colour. It still works in colour but it has nothing to do with colour. What's of no interest to me shouldn't be in the photograph, it's as simple as that at  (at least for me)

The passage of time

The second you've took a picture it becomes history. The question is... Who is that history important to? The maker? The people captured? The viewer? More often than not it's going to be the first two, but when the first two no longer exist we're left with the viewer.

The street I grew up on 1900
The street I grew up on 2006

The next street where my sister lives 1898
The same street today

(They changed the name of my sisters street from Sanitary Street to Anita Street in the 60's due to residence complaining about the name. It got that name because it had sanitation! the poor had never know the like. The block in the background is Victoria Square "The Dwellings" The first council block in the whole of Manchester)


The street I grew up on being built in 1898
(We'll have to wait a hundred years to get a shot of them being knocked down)

The recent shots have yet to attain any historical value. That'll take a while unless they meet with disaster (anybody that has a shot of the twin towers would testify to that). The older pictures are actually better pictures but not by a long way, it's really the history that trumps the modern shots. I was only on those streets last night, I might hang those old shots on the wall, for me they have historical value. In me they have the right viewer, a sympathetic audience. As pictures in there own right they'd hold little interest to your average viewer, the modern versions have none at all, even to me.

That's going to take time... more than I have.

The joy of procrastination

I love procrastination. It's me all over.

Another lot from the local auction and another story. Boxes and boxes of camera gear and sifting through I came across this:

Two eyes and a sad face.

There is exposed film here, latent for decades and decades. I know because this camera is old, and a bit of a classic.

Carrying on through the boxes I came across another three cameras with exposed film. I'm always careful checking old cameras for film, never too eager to open up. Turns out four cameras have exposed films inside. I'll process them sometime soon, maybe.

At least with this story I have some hard facts to use, unlike the box of glass plates . . . . procrastinate again!

Maybe I'm longing for nostalgia? . . . . nope . . . . I love the history. There is a good blog post from Joerg Colberg on the subject of nostalgia  here

Kras

Jolly japes

I'm glad this photographer from I guess the early 1900s had a good sense to shoot some personal snap shot stuff. It is what makes his box of 50 glass plates a whole.

I'm still trying to work out the story with the box.

Makes me wonder who will have my archive. We have no kids. Will all my stuff turn up in some old hall and be snapped up and scanned. I doubt it. Anyway, here is to this anonymous photographer who had a good time in Eastbourne. Bless ya!!

(cropped by me)

I love these scenes.

Kras


Edit Sean


I just can't see memory cards or CD's of pictures turning up in auction rooms in the future. Anybody that's at all interested in leaving a photographic legacy seriously needs to consider how they intend to archive it.

You buy a glass neg you know what it is. What's on a CD? Film, music, program? Porn? Who's going sift through some old dear CD collection?

Those glass negs are to digital pictures files what vinyl is to Mp3s

Richard Renaldi's Bus Travelers

I've been on many a bus...

It's the mode of transport for the masses. Rubbing shoulders with the great unwashed is only really enjoyable for bus spotters and maybe street photographers. For most, it's a necessary evil, the old British stiff upper lip gets you through it. In America, real or imagined, riding the bus is a signifier of social status.

Richard Renaldi is one of my favourite Photographers.

Enjoy

What? No Kras & Keane!?

Can't believe it

Back (almost)

Had a bit of a mad week which ended with our first ever camping trip. Still got some things to sort out so it might be Kras and Kras for a couple of more days


I shall return...

                     

More snaps

I'm getting totally absorbed by these some 50 odd  glass plate negs.

The gaze, the posture, is a whole different story from the rest of the negs. It's like peeking in to someone's hidden dream..

See how she looks . . .

Kras

Everyone's a critic

Bit harsh on old Brownie.





Old Noel's copped for it an all




Morrissey would have just whacked em with his flowers, he's twice the size of the other two. Raised in a tough old area Steve was. Mind you, Burnage isn't an Oasis. Poor Brownies tiny, give him a blade and he'll chop a dolly trollies hands off but he's clearly unarmed there.


Anway...

I'm going off stage for a couple of days, things to do.

This guy will be getting knocked of a stage near you soon

Dominique Beyens

I was in Dublin A few years ago when I came across this guy selling photographs on one of the main shopping streets . He had all his shots stuck on the wall and on the floor, he wasn't asking much for them, I think he was taking the pile em high route. Not sure he was meant to be there either but it was one of the highlights of a rainy weekend as it was good to see him out there trying to get by on his own terms. You can't argue with that can you?


The man himself pointing out his favourite photograph


He made contact with me last week (out of the blue) so I thought I'd give a link to his site

http://www.eclecticlens.com/