Mouthpiece 4: Year of the Rabbit
Year of the Rabbit - as seen from the edges in Chinatown, London.
Chinese Lanterns, Trafalgar Square, London.
I have always steered clear of the very popular. I’ve always been disappointed when a band I like have drifted into the mainstream. Always preferred the intimacy of a few people in a small venue to the big arena. Always avoided the big hitters - be they bands, movies, shows - whatever seems to be massively on trend has always somehow driven me away. I’ve always preferred to remain on the edge.
Setting Up, Trafalgar Square, London.
Maybe it is this position as the outsider that has drawn me to street photography. The Bystander. Watching from the edges - not fully immersed yet somehow not wanting to miss it completely.
China Blue, Chinatown, London.
I’m just as interested in the people around the event as the stars of the show, if not more so. The build-up, the preparation, the anticipation, the reactions. What makes up the whole experience. Perhaps this is why certain images have really resonated with me. Capa’s take on the 1939 Tour de France as it passed through Pleyben in Brittany- the crowd looking up the road in anticipation and then the crowd looking down the road following the race until it is out of sight; not a rider or bike in shot; just a succession of turned heads. Tony Ray Jones image of people watching the Trooping of the Colour. Henri Cartier Breton’s sleeping man in Trafalgar Square at the coronation of King George VI. Somehow these say so much about the main events which these photographers left others to record for posterity.
Robert Capa, Magnum Photos. Robert Capa and the Tour de France | photography | Agenda | Phaidon
Henri Cartier Bresson, Magnum Photos. The big picture: a comic take on a coronation by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1937 | Henri Cartier-Bresson | The Guardian
Tony Ray Jones, Martin Parr Foundation. Tony Ray-Jones, Trooping the Colour, London, 1967 | Print Sales Gallery | The Photographers' Gallery
This year’s Chinese New Year celebrations in London’s Chinatown, like any year, were a fabulously colourful celebration, focusing around the carnival but with all kinds of preparations taking place. Decorations were hung and preened. Food prepared. Crabs weighed. Noodles crafted. Crowds slowly assembled. And, once the parade had passed through, dragons unmasked and demystified.
Noodles Prepped, Chinatown, London.
Crabs Weighed, Chinatown, London.
Anticipation, Chinatown, London.
By The Bystander, Chinatown, London.
Dragon Passing, Chinatown, London.
Proclamation, Chinatown, London.
Procession, Chinatown, London.
Dragon Watch, Chinatown, London.
Dragon Unmasked, Chinatown, London.
I was there. On the edges.
A Photographic Life :
This week I have found this conversation between Grant Scott and Bill Shapiro about photographers’ websites particularly interesting. Definitely a few things there that I will be adjusting about mine.
Til next time. Cheers,
Hugh
Post Lockdown London - The New Normal
As London began to reopen in early July, I photographed the deserted streets.
I always remember seeing photographs from the Second World War showing streets with people rushing to sand bagged air raid shelters, or newspaper boys with hoardings proclaiming the outbreak of war, or crowds dancing jubilant in Trafalgar Square on VE Day. There was something mesmeric, possibly haunting, abut the familiarity but strangeness of these images. Here were places I knew, and scenes that were familiar, but distorted by the events that had transformed them at that point in time.
History has always fascinated me and part of it has been a desire to be able to go back and witness momentous events but to be able to do it safely. I think that would be my superpower, if I could choose one. And of course, I’d have a camera in hand.
I have always counted myself lucky that I grew up in a generation that never experienced the world wide conflicts that took place in the first half of the last century. These were events which in many ways defined the age and the generations that lived through them. Now, this global Corona Virus pandemic has provided our defining worldwide event.
The invention of the camera, less than two hundred years ago, gave to history the means to record more objectively and instantly than ever before. As street photographers, I truly believe that it is our responsibility to record our current times for those still to come, just as Bert Hardy, Bill Brandt and Alfred Eisenstaedt did for World War Two with their images of GIs, tube sheltering Blitzed Londoners or sandbagged Whitehall. I have always felt that the ubiquitous appearance of mobile phones, ear pods and vapes would be the accoutrements that would characterise our times when people looked back.
Then along came Covid-19.
Who could have predicted that summer 2020 would be defined by empty streets, face masks and huge government publicity campaigns? In actual fact, very much like World War Two.
So, I was keen to capture these street scenes. But not keen, also.
I wouldn’t be walking the streets of London with one eye skyward for a doodle bug, Stuka or V2 rocket. I wouldn’t get a siren warning of impending danger. My enemy was the Covid-19 virus - invisible, undetectable and potentially anywhere. After months of taking great care and working from home whenever possible, as the government advised, travelling on public transport and being out and about in London felt like a risk I possibly shouldn’t be taking. After all, I was only going to take photos. Who did I think I was? David Bailey?
But there was also a longing to return to normality and a desire to experience the creative process of making a photograph: that moment when everything else ceases to exist or, at least, to matter. Let’s face it. I needed to get back to street photography to recapture a sense of self, of what makes me me; if nothing else.
Two good reasons then - a responsibility to posterity and my own mental well being!
And so it was I found myself exiting an almost deserted Sunday morning train at London Waterloo, glasses steamed up from the mask that I was not yet used to wearing, camera clutched in my sweating right hand, phone gripped with my online ticket ready to scan at the gates.
Waterloo itself was immediately different with just a small number of people on the concourse. I wanted to capture the gates with all of the 2m distancing signage and encouragement to wash hands but was immediately pounced upon by three transport officials who wanted to know what I was doing. I suppose it’s not technically a public space so they were presumably within their rights to challenge me. I explained that I was a street photographer and they looked at each other and shrugged - seemingly proof enough of my credentials. I wasn’t quite so lucky a few moments later when another officious, uniformed woman told me I would need a permit to take photographs at Waterloo. Having shot there unchallenged many times, it did feel like a wartime restriction.
Moved along, the streets were deserted. I know it was a Sunday but it was a shock to see the streets around the station with no one on them. I crossed over Hungerford Bridge to Charing Cross. There seemed to be the lowest tide I had ever witnessed on the Thames (Sunday 5th July) which only served to make what should have been a glorious summer Sunday seem even more surreal. It was as if the people and old Father Thames were deserting the city.
In Trafalgar Square, Nelson gazed down on acres of stone, concrete and pigeons. There were the classic London red buses, making their rounds almost empty, but not a soul in the square.
The same was true of Piccadilly Circus - just a solitary figure at a hand sanitising kiosk, offering a squirt to anyone who happened to walk by. Hardly anyone did.
Regent Street was pretty much the same. Oxford Street only slightly busier, a handful of curious wanderers, but nothing like the usual melee of tourists, office workers and rough sleepers.
This was the day after the Boris Johnson’s government had allowed the pubs, bars and restaurants to reopen after weeks of lockdown. Soho had apparently been heaving with little acknowledgement of social distancing, as revellers enjoyed the cork fizzing out of the bottle of pent up frustrations. The following morning was quiet. Perhaps a hangover. But there was almost no one in good old London town.
Masks, NHS rainbows and thank yous, hand sanitising stations, closed signs on restaurants, familiar buses but fewer and empty, tube exits closed, pedestrians redirected... the first signs of normality.
Arriving home, I shared my images with intrigued friends and families, eager to see what had become of the capital city, just not quite ready to visit it themselves. And the the doubts crept in. Should I have gone? Had I caught anything? Would I be infecting anyone?
And the wait to know I was fine began.
Last Time Out.
Waterloo, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 25mm f2.8 1/500 sec
Whilst it also removes many freedoms, life in lockdown gives us plenty of opportunities. When have we ever had the luxury of Time that Covid19 has afforded us? Time to consider things in a far less hurried way.
“...every image seems to have become tainted by the virus...”
Without new photos to edit, many street photographers have gone back through their older images to find that precious nugget that was possibly missed last time round. Or the B List photos that never quite saw the light of the Instagram day. I haven’t quite reached there yet – but it’s on the horizon.
I postponed looking at the images from my last street photography walk for longer than usual because I knew that once I did, then that was it. No new street photos to edit for the foreseeable future.
Ride Or Stride. City of London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 26mm f2.8 1/500 sec
Week 3 of lockdown saw me take the plunge. I usually wait a week or longer if I can before editing anyway. It’s good practise, enabling me to see the images as they really are. Not subjectively.
Images that I work hard to take become invested in so much unnecessary weight because of the time spent trying to make them work or just to catch them in the first place. A week or two usually alleviates this nagging tug and I can look at them with less emotional attachment. This was now six weeks later, nearly seven. I’d done well.
“Times have changed and photos taken less than fifty days ago have already become historic images.”
What has happened this time is that every image seems to have become tainted by the virus, or at least by the lockdown situation. It’s hard to view a crowded street in the same way as it was when it was shot; or a tube train, crammed like sardines, without an element of judgement; or even a lone figure, without assuming they’re part of the isolation scenario, when actually it was just a quiet underpass.
Of course we read too much into those images with the short sighted lens of history which we are already wearing. Times have changed and photos taken less than fifty days ago have already become historic images. They speak of the past. It’s not a distant past and hopefully we will return to many of those freedoms that we took for granted sooner rather then later. But what will have changed?
One Last Time. Paternoster Square, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 55mm f2.8 1/500 sec
For those of you who are interested in kit, gear and where and when, these images were all shot on the Fuji X-T3 with the red badged 16-55mm lens. This is not my usual lens choice. My “go to” lens is the 23mm f1.4 which I love for its clarity and the focal length (equivalent to 35mm full frame) seems to fit about the right amount of street into the image. It allows me to get close and it forces me to get close, if that’s not a contradiction. This time, however, I chose the 16-55mm zoom.
“It’s always good to mix things up.”
One reason for this choice was that I had wanted to try some images in the city where I could experiment with contracting the scene which I knew the longer focal length would allow. Secondly, I was not specifically on a photowalk. I wasn’t out for the whole day but was going to meet up with some other photographers and see the exhibition My London hosted by 3 Street Gallery featuring the work of Brandon Wong, Craig Whitehead, Joshua K Jackson, Josh Edgoose, Mavis CW, Mark Fearnley, Mo Barzegar, Sean Tucker and Shane Taylor. The longer lens, if it proved too heavy or somehow inappropriate, would be only for a relatively short time on my walk to and from the exhibition. It’s always good to mix things up.
The Last Coffee. City of London. Feb 2020
Fuji X-T3 55mm f7 1/500 sec
For those of you who know these streets, my route took me from Waterloo along the Southbank to the National Theatre and over Blackfriars Bridge, up to St Pauls and Paternoster Square, then up through the backsides of The City to Broadgate, and back to Waterloo via Bank.
Orange. The South Bank, London. Feb 2020.
Fuji X-T3 55mm f7 1/500 sec
Why do you take photographs?
I know what you’re up to…
In a recent post (What are you trying to achieve?), I wrote about some of the reasons I take photographs. In my Instagram (@hueyraw) stories I had also asked why you take photographs and this post captures your responses and builds on my thoughts.
As I expected, the therapeutic nature of taking photographs for pleasure registered highly. For most people, in this age of photographic democratisation, with almost everyone having a camera via their phone, photography is not a means of making money and is secondary to the day job. Many of you, like @sleepingastronaut, see it as away to relax; something that takes your mind off work (@mybeardandmypenguin, @chris_silk_street). It’s an escape – something which should not be underestimated in this busy world. As @zenostr33t, puts it “…ultimately it comes down to escaping work day pace.”
““It’s therapy for me; when I go out to take photos all of the other things in my life vanish for a short time.” ”
That therapeutic effect is reason enough to get out and make photos. For some of you, it is clearly more than that. Fabienne (@fabiennehanotaux) recognised “…a deep need to create, to express myself, to escape.”
I think this need to create is deeply human. Furthermore, the artistic element of creation which enables us to express ourselves, our emotions and our feelings in response to the world around us, is enjoyable, communicative and, therefore, sociable. This is underlined by the huge success of social media, such as Instagram, where photographers can now share their work, and enjoy the work of others instantly, and like never before.
This creative process changes us. I know that since I have been taking photos I have become far more alert to my surroundings, spotting things I would never have noticed previously. This is enriching. As @atelier_dope puts it, the “… process of creation is enjoyable and every now and then I’m rewarded with an image I enjoy.”
Many of you commented on how this enables you to see things in a new way and to seek to make the mundane beautiful (@sixframestreet; @piyush_mishtra_18; @theweijian). That is certainly at the heart of street photography and involves self-expression. No one photographer sees a photographic opportunity in exactly the same way as the photographer standing beside them. The slight difference in viewpoint is one thing, but the personal experiences that each of us as individuals bring to bear, our likes, dislikes and individual taste, all impact upon the final image created.
Perhaps the more scientific among us only seek to record daily life, something more like an objective view of a crime scene or scientific evidence. The camera has a unique ability to take a slice of life, a fraction of a second, and freeze it forever to be scrutinised and analysed for as long as the image exists. @frances_pegg wrote about catching a personal moment in order to “taste it when I get old.”
Recording daily life for oneself is the personal version of storytelling, which is usually more about the lives of others. For some of you, it was this that was your motivation. @mrtimothypeter put it simply when he explained “I love telling interesting stories.” As humans, most of us find other people fascinating to a greater or lesser extent. I have always enjoyed looking back at photographs of places I know and seeing how they have changed but this experience is far better when there are people in the shot. If we recognise them it is heightened because we can see how time has changed them. If we don’t, then we can also pick up on the visual clues in the changes of fashion, of the street furniture, shops, styles of cars (or lack of) and so on. @sixframestreet speaks of documenting the human experience and this is an important element of street photography which is not necessarily about aesthetics and creating something of beauty but is about building a record which will inform the future. Many pictures improve with age – an ordinary scene today will take on many other qualities in years to come. If you don’t believe me, think about a typical High Street today with a huge number of people lost in mobile phone land. Will those phones still exist in half a century? If they do, will they really look like they look today? What about the clothes? And for the acid test, find a photo of an everyday, ordinary street scene from 1969 and see how nostalgic it feels.
Some of you recognised something powerful about the actual process of making photographs. Specifically thinking about street photography, @ashsmithone cited “…the thrill of the chase.” And I totally get that. The adrenalin rush of going out to shoot and not knowing what you will get, what lies around the next corner and what may happen next is exhilarating – if not for everyone. It is a thrill and there is a fear to it; fear of being caught, fear of not getting the shot even. That brings adrenalin.
The thrill, the adrenalin and even the fear very quickly lead to what @gianpy_s described when he said “It’s a passion.” That is certainly something many of us would agree with. Why else would we spend hours walking our shoes down to nothing, only to come back with a small handful of decent shots - if we’re lucky?
A passion can become a necessity and for @mark_lev-photo it seems to be a compulsion: “I don’t know why! I just feel compelled to do it.” Whereas @ke_vin_joseph says “The voice in my head tells me to.” For @mandym.photos it is “Just something I can never switch off from – which is mostly a joyful thing.”
Whether it is something you have to do to balance up your life with the part of you that is work; whether it’s something you just need to feel complete creatively; whether it’s a voice in your head making you do it; photography clearly plays an important part in making each of you “you”. That has to be a good thing. I certainly feel that it completes me. And there are far worse things you could be doing in your spare time.
I leave the final comments to @oohbaaanana who says: “It’s the only thing I think about all day and it’s the only thing in life in which I’m really free.”
Amen.
A huge thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts with me but especially to these good people who you should check out on Instagram:
@zenostr33t
@sleepingastronaut
@mybeardandmypenguin
@chris_silk_street
@billtakesphotos
@fabiennehanotaux
@atelier_dope
@sixframestreet
@piyush_mishtra_18
@theweijian
@frances_pegg
@mrtimothypeter
@ashsmithone
@gianpy_s
@mark_lev_photo
@ke_vin_joseph
@mandym.photos
@oohbaaanana
Best of April 2019
Sixteen from the streets of London and Venice. Feel free to comment.
Click to go LARGE.
Best of March 2019
Sixteen from London’s streets from March. Let me know your thoughts below.
Click on the image to go LARGE.
Best of February 2019
Sixteen from February out and about on the streets of London and Cambridge.
I would love to hear your comments below.
Click on the image to go LARGE.
Imitate, Innovate, Invent
Who's the leader?
Hungerford Bridge, London. Sept 2018.
Sometimes it seems that there is an almost constant reassessment and reevaluation of social media. Often the most vocal critics are those who seem unable to walk away from it. Personally, I enjoy the opportunities to learn from others’ work, and to place my own in the public eye for a far wider audience than I could ever have dreamed of. The way I see it, we are all learners, learning all the time - to a greater or lesser extent. Even those with tens of thousands of followers post disappointing images sometimes. And do you know what? They probably never feel completely satisfied with their work either. I bet that occasionally they post photos that they expect to be met with great acclaim, only to find the silent curse of internet tumbleweed blowing through their feed. Just as I do. And at other, less-inspired times, they probably post something that’s been gathering virtual dust in the cellar of their hard drive, only to find it being greeted with wide acclaim and a posse of new followers. Just as I do.
We are all seeking the ultimate photograph. That one shot that says it all!
It’s human nature to want to get better at whatever we are doing. We are also our own harshest critics, pointing out why our latest great hope is actually fatally flawed. We failed to nail it. Name your top three all time greatest photographers and I guarantee that they would tell you that they never nailed it either. Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand, Leiter, that Instagram shooter with a squillion followers… If only we could ask them.
It’s natural to be striving for improvement; for innovation; for that new angle. There’s always something we could do better next time.
Throughout history people have been inspired by others. It’s natural to want to recreate something that has brought us pleasure. That does not mean a direct imitation - plagiarism - but a desire to create something which evokes the same feeling, creates the same atmosphere, has the same message; or any combination of these and more. We learn by imitating. It helps us to understand what the originator did - be it artistic, scientific, sporting - whatever...
Once we have understood how something was done, we can then assimilate that technique into our own skillset. We are in a new position - we are able to innovate. Taking our new skills, we bring our own background, experiences, tastes etc to the creative process and can now shoot a new image. This image is rooted in all we learned from the original artist but we have moved it beyond imitation to create something new. This innovation is all part of finding our “voice” or distinctive style.
We have all experienced knowing who took a particular image before being told, simply by recognising certain elements and features of their style. With perseverance, the best artists find their own distinctive, easily identifiable style. They have learned their craft and have moved beyond imitation and innovation, based upon their initial artist led inspiration, to a higher state where they are able to use their hard earned skills to create something totally new, in their own unique voice. This is invention. Invention needs both imitation and innovation. No one invents in a creative void, out of nowhere.
This is the learning process. It is something everyone goes through - from learning to speak to painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Pick up a photography magazine and you will read an interview in which professionals tip their hats to those who have gone before. They are happy to acknowledge the influence of a Robert Frank, a Cartier-Bresson, a Garry Winogrand. Or go to a big hitter on Instagram and you’ll find that very often their feed will happily direct you to others who they admire. Even the first photographers (without any photographers to emulate) were influenced by the fine artists of the past, learning composition from the painters and sculptors of the previous thousands of years.
It was partly as a result of a recent tense exchange on social media that I decided to put down these words. The debate centred around the use of public spaces and whether one photographer can claim to own a specific view because they believe they shot there first. The streets are busy places and London (perhaps more than other cities at the present time) is seemingly filled with street photographers. Beyond that, anyone with a smartphone has the capacity to shoot in these popular places. The great views are, after all, popular for the very reason that they are great views. Some places will be there for centuries to come - monuments, grand buildings, landmarks. Others are more transitory than others - advertising hoardings, building sites etc. Perhaps the work of another photographer encourages us to emulate their work in a certain place, or even to feel that we can build on what they achieved, having a go at creating something new for ourselves as we seek to present our own unique take on our surroundings. Once we can imitate what they have created, we can then innovate and finally invent our own unique image. Each of us is a singular and creative individual - each with our own unique outlook, background, likes, dislikes, tastes and way of seeing. We are all striving to develop our own voice or style that incorporates that uniqueness - but we need to learn from those around us and those who went before.
There is room for us all.
Carnival
Highlights from Notting Hill Carnival 2018.
And so to Notting Hill...
What an amazing event the carnival was. Nothing any camera can do will ever come close to capturing the noise and the atmosphere but the colours and sheer liveliness of carnival was amazing. A true melting pot of all the best that multi-cultural London can offer.
You can check out my images from carnival by clicking the image below:
London Light - Feb 2018
My blog thus far has tended to be philosophical ramblings about photography; musings on settings and gear; or the occasional “how to.” That probably begins to explain why blogging tends to happen fortnightly - fitting around the day job and collecting my thoughts gets in the way.
I have decided that perhaps the blog space is the place to try posting photos that I have been taking recently with a view to seeing how they look published, out there in the world, for all to see. Be prepared for more photos and and more posts - though just as many words.
Last Saturday I was in London with the camera, though not specially to take photos - this was a family outing. The trusty Fuji x100f is never far from my hands. The light was fantastic, even if the clear blue skies meant the air was shockingly cold, making holding a camera a challenge at times. I can’t do gloves. Gloves seem to introduce some kind of layer between camera and brain - as well as between hand and camera. I just can’t seem to function properly as a photographer in them.
Here is a mix of colour and black and white images from the day - all shot around South Kensington and Brompton Road.
Kissing for Posterity
A couple of years ago when I was really just starting out in street photography I took a late night picture of a couple kissing on Hungerford Bridge, London against the backdrop of the Royal Festival Hall. Possibly a good-night kiss. Maybe the promise of something more. We are left to make our own stories. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. They didn’t know I was there. I suspect they didn’t know anyone was there, though the bridge was bustling.
I still like the picture. I like the light. Of course, what is missing is any sense of historic occasion.
Night Then...
Last week we learned of the death of Greta Friedman. Despite her name being almost unknown, Greta's image has become one of the defining photographs of the Second World War for she was the woman in white being kissed by a sailor in Times Square as the end of the war in Japan was announced. Eisenstaedt's photo became one of the half dozen or so pictures that will always be associated with the conflict - Capa's Omaha Beach shots; Joe Rosenthal’s GI's hoisting the Stars and Stripes over Iwo Jima; St Paul's cathedral standing proud amidst the smoke and flame of the Blitz in December 1940...
I had always believed that the white uniform was that of a nurse who would soon be free to pursue her normal peacetime calling rather than tending the wounded of the war. However, it turns out Greta was a dental nurse on her break when she came across the sailor in Time Square. The sailor, called Mendoza, had apparently been kissing random women in Times Square as he celebrated the end of hostilities. Try doing that these days.
The presence of a great photographer to capture the moment the sailor met the woman in a white dress sealed both Mendosa and Friedman in time for posterity.
Fifteen years on from 9/11 many of the major photography players have been using their Instagram feeds to bring us images of the day. The images bring us the immediacy and horror in a way that only a photograph can - a moment captured and frozen, pored over and analysed at will by whoever wants to see it.
Part of the power in these images is the technical beauty of the photograph, shot by a master photographer; a beauty which is in sharp contrast to the horror of the unfolding disaster. It's that juxtaposition that creates such impact. Of course, the impact is heightened when it is somewhere that we associate with high tech, comfortable, first world living - like New York. Would the impact be the same with an image of smoke and debris in Aleppo, or anywhere else without a Starbucks, MacDonalds or Nike outlet, I wonder.
It strikes me that it is the very ordinariness of the people in the images that brings the whole story to life. Alex Webb's shot of the woman and her baby on their rooftop against the backdrop of the burning towers and Eisenstaedt's image of Friedman in Mendosa's embrace both bring the disaster down to a personal level involving people with whom we can readily empathise. It is this capacity to hint at our own individual narratives that makes street photography so compelling.
Great Friedman was 92 when she passed away. Beyond that moment, 71 years ago, the world knows little of her life.
Starting out - why now?
When I do things I do them with a passion. Pretty much an obsession. And this is where photography is with me right now. A camera has never been far from my hand over the past three years and it has taught me to see things very differently; definitely to appreciate things more. I even notice what's around me these days.
In April, I took a photograph of a man, wrapped warmly against the cold spring morning, standing on the south bank of the River Thames, looking across the water towards St Paul's Cathedral. I went on to take many other photos that morning, wandering the streets of the city as they began to fill, before heading home for lunch. A great way to spend a Sunday. I was already pleased with this one, along with half a dozen others that day.
In time, I posted a black and white version of the picture on a couple of social media sites and it seemed to get a good reaction, claiming photo of the day awards with a few Instagram sites. Then I submitted it to One Million Photographers - no real expectation of anything but hey... And it got Editor's Choice (thanks editor). That was a big boost. But nobody would know how to find more of my stuff - I needed a website. And if I needed a website, people told me, I needed a blog. So here it is.
I've always enjoyed words - heck, I almost had a children's book published once (almost) - but is anyone actually going to want to read the ramblings of an obsessive camera pointer who is sharpening his skills?
We shall see.