A big surprise

Yesterday afternoon a single Christmas card dropped through our door. The best card ever. Thank you Sean and Diane! I really thought you two had gone for good and I’m so happy to hear otherwise.

Wishing you both a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ken

Keane

You allright old friend?

Ken

Good luck - 16th November 1914

It's another box of family stuff and found this in a scrap book of memories.

I'm on my way to being self employed, a big step for me.

Good luck all.

Ken

At The Beecroft

Yesterday I went to the opening day of the excellent Thames Delta at The Beecroft to wander round a history of local bands since the fifties. Was a good collection of the band's ephemera. I never really got into the local band scene when I was younger. I left Southend when I was 18 and came back when I was 25 and there was nothing I could really connect with even though I grew up in the place.

Hobbling round I met Les and his friend Brian. We chatted for a long time and it turns out he knew some of my Dad's old art mates in the early days, maybe they even knew eachother. Les is an artist and art teacher from Southend and it was a real pleasure meeting him. Les is 84 plus some more, his friend Brian was great too.

Les Shaw

Les Shaw & Brian Parker

Ken

Sisters & Lily

I'm just about sorted Lily's family pictures. Which one is Lily? One of three sisters. She was either one of the twins or the eldest and the one I think has written on most of the backs. My bet is the eldest.

The mother was called Lily too. And the three sisters . . . Lily, Violet and Ivy.

The Twins - No names on the back

Is this Lily I wonder? There is a faint dimple and she does have that enchanting gaze, also a distinct way of standing.

Ken

Some pictures of Lily

Last week I got another box of family pictures from the local auction. Seemed like they were trashed, all jumbled up in a "festive favourites gift box"

Lily crops up in quite a few pictures.

It's very sad for a family to let this happen and it constantly baffles me. I'm very taken with Lily, to me she somehow shines through these old pictures. Anyway, here are some pictures of Lily.

Mum & Lily

Ivydene, Woodgrange Drive, Southend-on-Sea

I'm not 100% sure about the last one. No name on the back.

Ken

Street Life in London

My last post got me thinking about a picture on page 36 of John Szarkowski's
Looking at Photographs... 100 Pictures From The Collection of The Museum of Modern Art


It's another favorite of mine, it depicts second hand furniture sellers. A world I know a little bit about
as I have been one myself. It's a very very interesting world, I really should try documenting it.

Old Furniture
From Street Life In London 1877-1878
John Thomson

Man, that's beautiful, it really is. I wanted to see more and I'm sure you do to

Though you can see the individual images on the LSE's site. You really should read the essays that acompany each picture

It's a beauiful piece of work

Shot of the week

I  had a second hand shop for a short while, I used to sell second hand goods on markets during the same time. It's an interesting world with a lot of characters in it.  So I was very pleased to come across this shot of 18th century life in Newcastle, while using The Guardian Eyewitness app on my ipad (a picture a day basically)


It's fitting that Aaron Guy*, the man that found the glass negatives works at Newcastle's Mining Institute. He's not struck coal, he's struck gold

Shooting the street never gets old

You can see more here
.


That photograph is just beautiful to me. It has everything I look for in a photograph. It has a certain distance to it, but it's social comment. I'm guessing or at least like to think that the photographer was not from the same world as the people in the photograph but wanted to show a part of English life worth documenting, which is one of the very best reason to take a photograph.  It's beautifully balanced, nothing in the frame is out of place, it looks so easily made, but that's just not the case at all, it's a complex image that rivals an Evans (Evans didn't really do social comment though).

To quote Robert Adams...

"Only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is common place"



*A kindred spirit for Smithy

Polyfoto 2012

As the clock ticked over and it is now officially my Birthday I thought I'd do my own Polyfoto in some sort of memory of Jean Gordon. Lots of people did back then, it looked like Jean treasured that memory.

I am 48 years old now, it scares me. I showed a photograph of my Dad to my Dad once and he said "who's that?". Think I know what he meant now.

48 pictures . . .

and a fave vid!

Ken

Who, What, Why...

One thing I have always loved about street photography is that you can put Who, What Why to the back of your mind and just open yourself up to what's in front of you. Naturally you have to be on alert but it's much more instinctive, akin to hunting. There's going to be a lot of misses, you can forgive yourself for that, good photography of any kind is not easy and good street photography is harder still.

I can't really call myself a street photographer any more, but I guess I'm in the humanist mode when I do manage to shoot the street.



Ahhh... but then you start to think you've seen it all before, you begin wonder what the point of it all is and you stop looking.

The Cook at Camden 2011

Anybody that's tired of street photography, is in my view tired of life;
The life you capture on the street is a record of the times you've lived in, and though there's plenty to ignore, there's much to celebrate.

It's a weary eye that stops looking for the sheer beauty & Joy that can be found out there in the world

On the street, you wanna be the guy on the right

Explain

It's Spring . . . my birthday soon. I'm a spring sort of thing.

"28th March 2012 was my Chardonnay Night. The earliest yet to sit out in the garden with a glass of something cold (beer this time).

The red streak in the background is where my wife smeared the Hawthorn tree with some Mistletoe berries from Christmas gone.

Here's hoping for some growth."

Ken

It's oh so quiet...

I've been thinking lately that I seldom marry commercial looking photography with photography in  documentary mode, well. I either think a shot's got a lot of substance but I
Could have done the subject more justice, or I get a pretty stylized shot and think it's just too shallow.

Diane zapps me with Pentax Spot Meter V April 2011

Having a beer in the garden, practicing with my new lights. Got a bit of "hey! look at me" about it.
That's how most commercial type photography is, it's a bit shouty. Mind you to sell something I guess
you have to get noticed. Don't know what I'm selling here... Stella? Ipod touch? Pentax spot meter?
Logitech docking station?  Needs rediting to

Diane. York 2008

This shot was taken two months after we were married. We'd just found out that Diane had a tumor on her
liver and retreated to York to wait for the results. Given what we were told at the time, we were sure that
the news would be bad. The survival rate for liver cancer is very low. It's normally found by accident as was the case with Diane's  tumor.

No lights, just window light here. Nothing on my mind at the time other than the feeling that I had to take the picture. It was important to me, to us, that I did. Not even sure why now as nothing would have mattered had the news been bad. Turns out the news was good and the picture remains important to me, I return to
it when I need a reminder of how much I have. Funny, I swore I'd never need reminding when I was
preying to myself she's be spared.

Is it really fair to compare the two? They were both taken for very different reasons.
Ones shouty, one has a quiet voice. They're both auto biographical

Diane chilling in the Garden may 2010

Here she is laid back again. What the shots do have in common is of course there all pictures of Diane.
She's laid back in all of them, she was where I found her at the time (even with the lights) and they do
describe some aspect of our life. Aesthetically maybe picture 1+2=3 


Alls I know is I'll keep trying. As much as the second picture is important to me, I'm glad that it isn't the lasting
picture I have of her.

New Old Camera

I haven't owned a point and shoot for six or seven years. I've thought about getting one the odd time but I always ended up thinking that if you're going invest grands in to a camera system, you shouldn't be lazy, you should carry it with you. Problem is I have all but stopped shooting the kind of things you shoot with point and shoots, the photo record stuff. Maybe that just means my eyes weary and the worlds just a less interesting place to me photographically these days?

Hope not, it would be a shame if that were true.


My new camera isn't a great one. It's not much use in tough light, it's noisy, it has less manual control than point and shoots I had seven years ago but it cost £500...


It's an iphone 4s

On way back to camp Site (Longnore in the peaks)*

*Managed to go camping Sunday until Monday thanks to the crazy weather

You'd want a drink if you married me

Dynamic range is bobbins

I doubt that my 1Ds mk lll would have been allowed in court

Ghost of Elsie Tanner

I've seen some big name photographers proclaim that "Hey I took these with an iphone!" As if using
something so limited (often with a fake polariod app) is some kind of  artistic statement.

The mediums not the message, man. Who cares?


The iPhone's not going to inspire me to create new work. It'll just let me take the kind of pictures
I've stopped taking, old work if you like.

Three trips around the Sun

I took this picture of my niece,Natalie, three years ago today. She was pregnant with her daughter, Nevaeh at the time. News of a visit from the stork is usually greeted with great joy. But it's naturally a worry when the mother to be is so young. That Joy was also tempered with added concern because Natalie suffers with Schizophrenia.

Three years to the day later and Nevaeh is one of the most beautiful children I have
ever known. She is bright, caring, affectionate & resilient. Much like her mother was
at that age.

Beautiful Sunny day today. Natalie remains sectioned, progress is slow
if not ground to a halt, possibly in reverse. I don't know what her future is
but I know her past and her present.


"Many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Thomas Grey.*

*I first read that quote when Robert Adams used it in Beauty In Photography.
It has always reminded me of Natalie


Sean

Peter Pan

Yesterday was an annual meet at "Adventure Island" in sunny Southend - Peter Pans as it was known. A lot of memories for everyone.

It was just hours before Summertime officialy began for 2012.

Louisa & Ant at Peter Pans

Me & cousin Jan Rune at Peter Pans

Ken

And the winner is

I don't cast my eye much on the world of commercial photography.

Just have a read of that

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17472993

Then take a stroll over to the winners site and see why that is

The verdict

So I sat in court today with my two brothers, brother in law, my sister and her friend, waiting to see what the verdict would be. My few days in youth court have brought back a lot of old memories. It reminded me just how little I realized the impact those years would have on my future life, truth is I just didn't think about the future.  I doubt  many of the young girls and boys that I've seen these past few days, look past next week.


Levi's co accused, cried. He must have been scared, Levi was to, but I told him not cry. No matter what happens, you do not cry, I told him. I had to tell him that because if he was going to get through a year in a young offenders prison,  he would have to be tougher than he really was.


Both boys were spared jail. They were given supervision orders. Levi's is 18 months, the other boy 36 months. It's last chance saloon,
they're both on curfew to.


I'm sure there victims are very unhappy that the boys weren't given custodial sentences, it's totally understandable. I was mugged when I was 17, the guy must have been 30 years old. He put a blade to me and took £30 and my leather coat. I was on my way to see Levi's mother at the time


I told Levi that his future depends on the decisions he makes over the next few years...
I didn't tell him how hard it would be

Levi waiting to be sentenced 

Higher powers

I spent the day with one of my oldest friends, yesterday. Anthony is a pretty strong character. He's a recovering addict and has been clean for ten years, ten long life changing years that at times I didn't think he'd see. But here he is fighting the good fight

He had the day off yesterday. He works in a rehab center in town, a responsible Job and one he takes very  seriously. He has dedicated a lot of the last ten years to helping people get through there addiction, a long old road and a tough old journey, as Anthony can attest to.  I tried in my own way, to help Anthony get clean, but it was to no avail. He wasn't ready, you're never going to get clean if you're not ready.


The kids got faith, I don't question the details of that faith. But it's helped him on the road to becoming a better person and the person he deserves to be. I was glad to see him yesterday, it actually reminded me to take pictures of the things I care about and to have faith in what I'm doing.

Peace

Reasons to pick up a camera

Blogging is hard, man. It's especially hard when you're a semi literate kid (Mancs call 8 & 80 year olds, kid)
like yours truly. Helps if you've got things that you're passionate about, gets me through the mental gymnastics I've got to go through to even make a post of this length.

That passion has been  missing of late, hard to pinpoint why, I say missing, I really mean neglected. Reasons to pic up a camera are all around me, I've got more access to good subjects than most. Tue I'll be sat in court waiting to see what sentence my nephew will receive. He was been found guilty of two street robberies
and the odds are he's going down but you can never be sure.

I know for certain that he's innocent on at least one count but I know he has been robbing people on the street. He's been on curfew for months with a tag on his leg and he's stayed out of trouble and been going to college which of course will please the court. But you can never tell what the outcome will be, I've been through and seen enough people go through enough court doors to know that.

Not one picture have I took of him showing the tag on his leg. Not a single picture relating to his curfew or his efforts to stay out of trouble. He takes shelter from the chaos of his mothers house for my younger sisters most days,he leaves himself just enough time to jog home before his curfew kicks in.

I've one picture of him, just one, one that's on this blog.  I see things on a daily basis and fail
 to record them, for reasons I don't fully understand, maybe it's loyalty, maybe I'm too close, maybe I know it doesn't change lives. Whatever the reason, it has zapped me of my energy for commercial photography. I'm meant to be making a living from commercial photography, I packed my job in to do that. I'm not broke but if I carry on like this I very soon will be. Time will tell if I will make even a half decent commercial photographer. I want to make a living, I have to make a living. Somehow I've got to balance my need to eat with my need to make sense of what I see. Either way, that's going to mean picking up a camera. Which is what I did today




More on that, over the weekend



Cheers

A wondering

I've been neglecting my blogging duties, I've been a busy boy. I'd like to be able to tell you that that's me in the camper van, but it aint.

I'll be back to full blogging strength on Friday

Sean

Cherry Scott

I heard this tonight and think it's well worth sharing. From Cherry Scott. It hit a spot with me.

Sociology

Ken

Kras as Keane

Couldn't resist this one when I saw the book in the local charity shop.

Photo by Angela Smith

Ken

There's only room for one footballer in the family

Dee with her iphone

Somewhere to seek

Following on from the hideaway, shed, den, darkroom, cave, well, alley, woods, fishing lake, and so on. Here he is out and about, for a picnic.

and then the before

I love picnics. The company, then the location, then the preparations. And when Angie and I were first going out we had our first one on the beach at Dunwich in Suffolk.

"It's always six o'clock"

Ken

Tropical

Greetings from sunny Manchester. We're having a bit of a heatwave round these here parts.

Last Saturday...



Smithy, get a hiking stick (Spring loaded)

Somewhere to hide

I love collecting ephemera and when it's a whole collection of stereo slides from the same photographer dating from round about 1920 to 1986 I'm really excited. It's things I've never seen before (photographically). This chap had a 3D world way back.

And . . . Somewhere to Disappear
 
The Darkroom - Wellington Lantern - 1930

Ken

The walking stick

It's been good to get out for the first time in what seems like an age. Dosed up to the max with pain killers I thought I'd take a trip to the local shops in the glorious afternoon light, walking stick in hand. What is the correct way to walk with a stick and a bad leg? No one seems to know.

Anyway, I need more practice with the stick.

Ken

I'm done with this back pain stuff

Too much on the bed
Need some fresh air
And a good book

Now.

South Fambridge, Essex

Edit: Came off the pain killers last night. Woke up in agony this morning. Think this recovery will take some time. Ho hum.

Ken

Edit

Keep taking the tablets, Smithy.


My eye's got a bit flabby, trying to get it fit. Even took a shot on Sunday
that didn't have a person in it! Trying anything to recover

Get well soon, mate


Sean



Edit: 29th January

My temporay work place until whenever.

Ken