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When I became a parent I noticed a few things that were different from when I was a little boy. One of those things was the attitude to toy guns of the other new parents that I had the opportunity to socialise with. They were a big no-no and most, if not all, were surprised that we were simply not interested in preaching the mantra to our boy that playing with toy guns was a bad thing.
I grew up with them, just like every other little boy of my day, and spent many a happy summer holiday afternoon with my friends playing cowboys and Indians, goodies and baddies and probably every other game of the day that involved the use of these toys.
I don’t really understand the problem that many of these parents had. I do know that it had something to do with turning good children into bad children and it seemed to have spread like an unstoppable meme through the ranks of the modern parent, probably started by various do-gooder organisations of one sort or another or, perhaps, our politicians. The same people that have completely failed to get a grip on gun crime in Britain because of their fixation with objects rather than the real reasons for crime and gun violence.
I would have none of it and, I’m glad to say, neither would my wife. My boy was going to have as good and as fun a childhood as we could give him and we were not going to let the ineffective and wrong headed preaching of our peers, with their fake shock and ludicrous disapproval, from changing that.
You may not agree with this so let me leave you with the following observations. Firstly, my boy is no longer the only one from the original group to have been given these toys by his parents. Every one of these parents has finally accepted that their little boys want to be little boys. Secondly, my eight year old is the only child from the group not to have been shown the matrix film by his parents.
Paul Butzi on confusing ability with accomplishment:
It reminds me of the person at a recent show of work I’d done on the WA and OR coast. I overheard him saying “This is nothing special – I could make these if I just made a lot of trips to the coast, too.” Now, maybe he could, and maybe he couldn’t. The problem I see is that he’s confused ability with accomplishment.
The difference is that he hasn’t made those trips to the coast, hasn’t made boatloads of boring photographs to learn how to make the exciting ones, hasn’t spent the time standing in the cold and wet, hasn’t gone back again and again to understand how the light changes, how the weather changes, looked at the same rocks so many times he’s given them names.
And I have. And so the net result is that I’ve made those photographs, and he hasn’t. It’s not a question of whether he can, it’s a matter of whether he has (or, if you insist, ever will).
Paul is right, even more so if you include the actual effort and skill involved in producing the final print; that particular stage has lead many onto a lifelong struggle to becoming a master printer. Then there’s the actual show itself, the editing, the choice of presentation, everything leading up to giving the patron the opportunity to deride the artist’s work. All those stages are part of the work and, for a gallery show, all are critical to the success of the work.
When a photographer commits to a show he or she commits to a continuation of the art work. It’s not finished until it’s up on display and once that display is over, that new work no longer exists. It’s similar to the process of getting that image from the negative to a print. It’s all part of the performance, it’s just that in the case of a gallery show the performance ends in the presentation of all the prints rather than the conversion of the negative (or digital capture) into the print (or onto the screen).
Interestingly, by their very nature, gallery shows are ultimately destructive in the sense that the final work is very transient indeed. This clearly is not unique to photography.
Sometimes taking photographs has to come second to the desires of the family. That, primarily, is why I have no idea what the subject of the following photograph is:
I took it under duress and in a mad rush during a recent trip to London with the family who were intent on keeping up the pace to our next destination so I didn’t have the opportunity to search for the usual explanatory note which often accompanies such subjects.
If anyone knows any details about the statue that they would like to share I would be grateful.
It was taken outside of Southwark Cathedral situated on the South Bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge.
Bryony Gordon, writing in The Telegraph, bemoans the loss of the analogue camera:
On holiday, though, there was only one shoot mode: take picture, squeal in horror at LCD display, delete, take it again, squeal in horror at the LCD display, delete… you get the – er – picture.
All that looking at the LCD display has a name in some photography circles. It’s called chimping, a term which I think comes from the noise that the photographer is supposed to make when reviewing the shot – oooh, oooh, ahhh or some such.
Photographer Joe Tree has announced a public beta of his new photoblogging site bliphoto.com:
We’re trying to do something quite different from anything else out there at the moment. There’s a very strong emphasis on clean, simple, uncluttered design and simple navigation. It’s not going to be a Flickr style free for all – we’re only really interested in people with great images or an interesting story to tell.
If you fit the bill and you’re interested in starting your own journal, please sign up!
An example of the individual photographer areas under blipphoto.com can be seen here.
The short photographer introductions on the Chapter Thirteen photography site are a refreshing giggle. Take David Toyne for instance:
David Toyne – Is terrible at photography and wants to share his frustrating experiences with you. This is in the vain hope that you can save time, money and tears by learning from his crass errors. His ambition is to exhibit pictures without being punched in the face by the paying punters (not like last time). His photographic eye is so cross-eyed his horizons have been known to be vertical. Rumour has it he’s only on the allowed to feature on the site because he hosts it.
It’s good to see a little humour in a field that’s generally swamped by sublime artist statements.
From an interesting article in the times:
Has art simple become a consumer durable? Maybe there’s a bit of that, but in that case we’d all be making paintings and photographs, because that’s all most collectors are interested in at degree shows — pictures to decorate homes and corporate offices.
This weekend I visited the Flying Legends air show at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridgeshire, England and what an event it turned out to be. The organisation was excellent and the sound system was the best outdoor PA setup that I have heard outside of a proper open air concert. I only mention that because so many events I have been to have been spoilt by loud, low quality buzzing systems that ended up making me wish I hadn’t bothered turning up in the first place.
The sky was full of non-stop historical eye-candy, and the roaring! Every schoolboy’s daydream.
As for the photography I’m afraid I was very much outclassed in the specialist equipment stakes by the professional air shooters. I don’t think I have ever seen so many monster lenses in the same place at the same time. When a display flew past parts of the crowd looked like a porcupine, what with all the skyward pointed lenses.
I eventually had my fill of shooting the machines so I fitted my new 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 EX DC HSM SIGMA lens and went in search of some crowd shots.
All in all it was a great day out.
You see, this is why you should always get a model release.
My latest Stills project photograph is up. John Ellis is right I think; Anonymity is a much better title.