The Norwegian Goat Farm

This is just a quick post to get me going and tell the story of a Norwegian goat farm, the one where my niece Sygni works in her spare time and has a real connection. Privileged to be asked to join her for the morning.

Sygni first feed in the morning

Feeding

Wanting more feed

Feeding

Ken

A family gathering

Just a quick post, we had a little bit of a family gathering this past summer.

Tea, coffee and cakes on the last day of Mum's visit this year in The Garden.

Ken

A sleep thing

Been on a bit of a sleep mode this past summer. With some help it's time to wake up from a good nights sleep.

Angie seems to be doing well with her new sleep apnea  gadget.

Ken

Stop

Indeed, I have stopped. It's hard but so far so good.
(It is very slightly composed, but really not very much)

Ken

The Garden shed

I guess it was about three or maybe four years ago the felt ripped off from the garden shed. I left it. There were many reasons why it wasn't high priority, so I left it.

This year things are becoming back to some sort of stability (thankfully). So in the hot weeks of July I spent days clearing the growth. Then a few more days replacing the rotten parts of the roof.

Come the day to felt. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year here in the UK. Not only that, the longest spell since 2006. So, a good time to spend on top of the garden shed I thought. Drank plenty of fluids (not beer). And the job was done.

Later on that evening I did have a few beers, quite a few in fact. I was proud of what I did. Felting a shed roof is not one of my skills. I learnt something that day.

Later on I had a little "meltdown" and you may have seen or witnessed it.

Shed roof, heat and Kronenberg is not a good mix. However, looking round these past few days I can see light again in The Garden. It's a good sign for me.

in the garden shed today

Ken

Bob the Cat & James

Bob the Cat is quite a celebrity and of course we had to check him out when he and James came to town to sign the latest book today.

Many people were shouting "why!"

We queued up for over 3 hours in the blistering Southend heat.

Angie, me and Wilko were very lucky!

Bob

"To Angela & Ken + Wilko"  - James Bowen

Thank you.

Ken

A link to "A meeting much anticipated......"

During the Norway holiday I had the great pleasure in finally meeting a long time PBase friend Roy Nilsen and his wife Eva.

Roy has summed up my feelings exactly on his blog post, with some very memorable photos.

Thank you!

Roy's Blog post

Ken

Moonlight and the Oslo Opera House

Just returned from a two week holiday in Norway (my Mother Country). Quite an epic holiday in many ways and I managed to take many, many pictures. I feel like my passion for taking pictures has at last returned after a very long break.

These two are from the first night at the magnificent Oslo Opera House, shot at about 1:30 am. The moonlit night was truly beautiful.

Edit: A couple of black and white shots from the night. I struggle very much what I feel with the choice. Deep down I've always been b&w when I take photos.

(and this was just the first night)

Edit:

A colour thing.

(Might be a long edit from me!)

Ken

Fathers Day

As it's Fathers Day today I thought I'd post some shots in memory of Dad.

These are a few from his time in The National Service in Kenya, he loved his time there.

 Dad on right

 Dad on right

Ken

Quote Of The Day

 "I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing."

Harry Callahan


That quote is to be found at the start of the new retrospective on Harry Callahan. A book I'm looking forward to getting and talking about here


Sean

Keeping the wheels turning

So myself & Diane have returned from a weeks camping. We were next to the beautiful, Robin Hoods Bay, which is about five miles from Whitby. We've recently got in to cycling, & we take them with us when camping, we're becoming big fans of it. The area we stayed in must be one of the best places to cycle
in the country, the landscape is at times, really breathtaking.

We camp a fair bit, and it's been a good while since I took my main camera with me, I tend to use use my iPhone for photo records/holiday snaps etc, but knowing where we were going, I felt I should.


I'm glad I did

Molly

Like most people, I'm a little adverse to seeing other peoples holiday pictures, and by and large that's what these are (I'm  under no illusion about that, though I do think the one of Diane by the fire is quite good). That last one, is of the Grandchild of a couple we got friendly with,. 

This is a Photography blog, born out of my friendship with Ken, who I wouldn't even know if it wasn't for

Photography. All good relationships, be they with a camera, or with another person, have to be maintained,  nurtured. It takes work, it takes commitment & of course, desire. I have returned from our trip happy that

I took my camera, and I'm happy to be showing them on this blog

Sean

On Going

On Going is for sure. I have been photographing and here is one from the other week.

A Pagan Fest.

Ken

He Shoots He Scores

Looking for sweet shop...Whitby

This blog is On Going

The Presence of Absence

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Sean

Kongen Av Bastøy

We watched a film last night called, Kongen Av Bastøy.

It is based on the true story of an infamous reform school on  Bastøy Island. Of course being based on a true story can and often does mean a lot of artistic licence, and it is used here to tell a beautifully made tale. Familiar themes may be, but not told in a tiered way. It's beautifully shot (not actually in Norway )  and acted.  We really invested a lot of care in the two young lead-characters, a real testament to there acting and how well the film was written and directed. Stellan Skarsgård never disappoints, he's made for a role like this, but he's equally matched by the two young leads, Benjamin Helstad & Trond Nilssen.


It left its mark on us




If you haven't seen it, don't watch the trailer, it shows much too much. Maybe the worse trailer for spoilers I have ever seen.


Cheers Sean

For England & Saint George

One Bedroom Council Flat

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

The Artful Photographic Dodgers

I got a great little book last week called The Art of Photographic Dodging by two Artful Photographic Dodgers published in 1900.

It has a great cover and is full of advice for printing glass plate negatives together with some wonderful quotes and illustrations.

A real gem.

Happy Easter from K&K.

Ken

And then there was one

This is a picture of Diane in the house where she was raised. She was raised in this house along with her three brothers by there mother and father, Vincent & Maureen. It's a council house on a quiet street, the kind of house that a lot of traditional working class families hoped to have back in the 50's 60's 70's, long before the stigma of living in a council house existed. Vincent, Diane's father, was a honorable man, hard working, kind, giving. He had a quiet dignity matched only by his wife, Maureen. They raised there children as best they could and did all they could for them with the little they had.


There is history in the house and like all homes, some of it is sad, involving the things we all face like loss and illness and the odd drama. But it was a good home for a child to be raised in by two good people, I spent two very happy years there, so it is no wonder that Steven, the last remaining person in this house is reluctant to leave it. He cared for both his Mother & Father as they grew older, it wasn't easy but it was rewarding. But it come at a cost, both financially and emotionally. It took him out of the job market, it took him out of the love market, he's still single today.

He saved the government a fortune in care bills. Vincent and Maureen are no longer with us, only one room is used now. Stevens room, which was shared by the three brothers, is now the only occupied room. The two other rooms are empty. One was Diane's, the other was Vincent and Maureen's.

These two rooms are subject to the new bedroom tax. I'll be talking more about that (a lot more) in due course

Spotlight on a bed

This is a follow up to Sean's post A bed in which all the world slept badly. It got me curious if I'd taken any photos of my bed when I was growing up, so I searched through my old negatives and found one . . . an unmade bed. In Geoff Dyer's book The Ongoing Moment (which I too am re visiting) he compares made and unmade beds. In the opening he says: "There are two kinds of bed: the made and the unmade. Made beds are nice and inviting but unmade ones are usually more interesting (even if they are not particularly inviting)." The spotlight is on my bed.

I was quite surprised in finding this negative as I don't remember taking it, never printed it, and this is the first time it exists as a positive.

My memories could not be more opposite to that of Sean's. I'd guess I was about 13 and this was my little den, or nest even. The bed is one half of a bunk bed (the top one) that in earlier years was connected to my sisters bed and I remember we'd argue who slept on the top. I was a big Genesis fan and painted the name on my bedside table, two stickers of Dark Side of the Moon and a Fonz Stay Cool. There's a Norwegian calendar on the wall and a tourist flag from Bergen where I was born. What's surprising is the picture of Jesus and I can't think why it's up there, I'm no way religious. I can only think it was from when my sister had the room before me (she'd left home by then). There's a radio cassette recorder, one of the first that could record straight from the radio, I used it a lot and it still exists in the guest room at my Mum's house. The chair to the right I have to this day in the living room. It's from when Mum and Dad had their first flat in Bergen in the 50's. When Mum was pregnant with me she suffered back pains and it was the only comfortable chair to sit in (it's a comfy chair). I can see my old Zenit E camera case and Leningrad light meter, long gone now. To the right, out of frame, I had an old black and white telly which I saved up and bought for £10. I'd stay up watching the late night films, Barney Miller and Rhoda. On Saturday mornings I'd make myself tea and marmalade on toast and watch Top Cat.

I liked my bed, I slept easy in it, it was a place I had my own little world . . .

Ken

Spring is in the air

 The suns out and the birds are singing. Ok, it's cold sun that's shining but I'll take it and use it to help flex some photographic muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it

Spring to to action

Sean

A bed in which all the world slept badly

The title of this post can be found in Geoff Dyers book, The On Going Moment. It's a great book, one I've started reading again. I've reached the part about beds and thought I'd use the quote of John Szarkowski
for this post and provide a picture (two) of a certain bed

Now this bed, well this bed I'm sure has gone and only exists in this picture and in memory. It's not a bed you could easily forget let alone sleep in. But somebody did and for quite a while. The picture was taken 2005 when I really had just started out in photography (I'm very new to it) and knew nothing of its history or practice. Yet I did feel the picture was important, the room was pretty much frozen in time before I shot it.


The first person to stay in that bed would leave that room for the last time via those stairs. The second by the window, some 35ft to the ground to their death. That happened fourteen years before these pictures was taken.

I stood there for a while before taking the picture, remembered putting those stickers and posters on the wall and the nights in that bed as a boy. I stuck it out for ten years until I left home at 17. I had done all I could to stay out of that bed and the house for years before then. Once I left home for good it became my mothers bed until she decided to take a different exit to me. I wont blame the bed for that but I'm sure she sleeps better now than she did in that bed.

No pictures were ever taken of boy in that bed or room, he was never photographed in it. But as Dyer said in the last passage of his essay on beds. "There was no need to Photograph him because - as this bed makes plain-he was, in a sense, already gone."


Sean

Picture making part two

I've been busy scanning dry plate glass negatives lately and came across this one. I think it goes well with Sean's Picture making post.

Circa 1920

Ken

Not quite a book review

In keeping with Sean's theme of portability I thought I'd mention the Phaidon 55 series of pocket books. As the blurb says "beautifully produced, pocket-sized books that acknowledge and celebrate all styles and all aspects of photography". Phaidon liken themselves to the Penguin series first brought out in the 1930s, which I agree.

They cover a very wide range of different photographers, from the likes of Julia Margaret Cameron to Nan Golding, Edweard Muybridge to Daido Moriyama for example.

The books start off with a brief biography, then chooses 55 major works from the photographer accompanied by interesting extended captions, finally ending with a timeline of the photographers key events throughout their lives.

They are a little expensive for their small size though, going from about £5 to £10 a time, but over the years I've paid no more than £10 to £15 for the box sets (5 books in each, covering a certain genre) on ebay. They do crop up now and again and well worth looking out for.

Ken

Book review

After watching this. Like me, you'll wonder why I've never been asked on to The Culture Show











Sean

What others can not bear to see

One of the documentaries that was up for a Bafta on Sunday was McCullin (it lost out to sugar man). Made by Jacqui & David Morris, I haven't seen it, in fact if I hadn't have been watching the Baftas, I might not have known about it. It's had great reviews and is top of my list of must sees






Sean

Cuckoo

I would put an album of my own up in reply to Kens fine post. But alas, I'm unable to.
It means a great deal  to have such a treasure, to be without one isn't easy to describe.
If you think of yourself as a boat and your memory as an ocean, then pictures are light houses. They help you find your way back

Never seen a light house with my own eyes.

I use pictures like the ones in Kens album as stand ins for my own. Like a cuckoo in the nest really,  I store my (imagined) pictures in albums like Kens


In honour of Kens album I''d like to post this beautiful piece of music featured in the beautiful film Moonrise Kingdom. (A film featuring camping and a lighthouse, and if that film doesn't get Angie camping, nothing will).

It's actually from Benjamin Brittens -Friday Afternoons, Children's songs for Children's Chrous and piano Op7.

It's track number 3

 

Just another photo album

My first Photo Album.

I've been doing a bit of moonlighting over on Latticed Window for the past month. I'm not afraid to admit I've become a little obsessed with collecting other peoples photo albums at the local auction houses. I asked a good friend recently for some advice, they said "Without obsession, no art. Go with the flow on this and you'll see! I shit you not!"

Anyway, it got me thinking about my own photo albums, so I dug out my very first album today.

When I was about 8 or 9 years old my Norwegian uncle Johan gave me my first camera. I instantly loved it. Money for film and processing was a problem, but I was lucky enough to have a paper round and a Saturday job fixing bicycles at a family friends shop, so most of that went towards the cost.

First camera

I've no idea where I got the Norfolk Photo Album, I can only guess I picked it up at one of the Scouts jumble sales. I was very pleased with it, that I can remember.The first photos are from a Scout Summer Camp round about 1973 or 1974.

I loved camping and at the moment Sean, Diane and I are trying to convince Angie to give it a go (not much luck so far!). I bought my first tent which I still have. I was very proud of it and later on that tent would be with me in my teens hitch hiking round the country.

I'd also take a lot of snaps of my family and pets.

Mum and my Finnish Aunt Katrina

Jenta the German Shepherd and my cat Trampas

Sometimes I'd be in the picture.

Me and my big sister Kina

I was very interested in ornithology at this time. We found an injured black headed gull on the seafront which I had great fun in nursing back to health.

In 1974 when I was 10, my Mum and I went on a trip to Norway. It was the first time I went there that I could remember. We started in Oslo visiting family and moved on to Stavanger then Bergen and then finally up North to where my Norwegian family originated from in Brattvåg. It was a fantastic trip.

Me (Norway in the background)

On the way to Bergen

It was not until arriving in Stavanger that my photography took a major turn. We stayed with Mum's friend Brita and her husband Tony. Tony was a keen photographer and saw that I'd got an interest so we went off to the lake to shoot a sunset, my first ever. I was surprised when he said just point it at the sun, it'll be ok. We stayed for a few days and he showed me how to process some film and print some black and white photos. From that day on I have Tony Ions to thank for sparking my life long interest in photography.

Stavanger 1974

To see the entire Norfolk Photo Album click on the slideshow.

Ken