Deep In Scottish History

It seems a real shame to be having to put off moving the last image off the top spot. I really like that image. I have replaced it with a picture I took while in Edinburgh about a year ago now. The picture shows Joe. We were in a pub in Edinburgh after a hard day's castle and street viewing. Joe had picked up a kids book on the history of Scotland. Sorry no funny story or anything like that. Just a sad thought that the last image had to be deposed.

Don't Look Blurred

Wow, I think the first person to acheive the status of being the pinup 2 posts in a row since the famous Hammond incident. Yes, Ben Haggar is again gracing this here page with his presence. The story goes that he invited me to Leicester to see Laura Cantrell live. She's a sort of country/bluegrass singer songwriter type and she was great. The band consisted of guitar x 2, an upright bass and mandolin. Some serious licks and twiddles were heard for the entire night. Superb songs about freight trains and subway trains, lots of songs about trains and of course some other cool stuff. The big bear of a man on lead guitar would spar with the mandolin player inbetween topics such as Lee Harvey Oswald and whiskey drinking lovers. A good time was had by all.
So after our night of hillbilly debauchery the sun rose over the scaffolded steeple of Leicester cathedral. We woke and drifted from coffee shop to coffee shop taking in the sights of student accomodation as far as the eye could see and the canal/river. Having spotted a nifty looking music shop on the way to the gig the night before, we decided to retrace our steps. I introduced Ben to the jingle-jangle sound that is the 12 string guitar while some local tracksuited troubadour improvised some crappy lyrics about listening to me play. Sounds cool but he was probably more scarey than cool. Later we decided to test out something a lttle more powerful and hobbled of to the booths with various equipment in tow. As I am sure you can make out from the picture Ben is sporting a beautiful cherry red semi acoustic Gretsch. A fine guitar if ever I saw one. Unfortunately it didn't really cut the mustard sound wise. Maybe this was simply my lack of nuiance on the instrument. Anyway the image harks back to a period of my work which as I am sure those who saw it could only label as the 'shakey' period. The complete inability to tak a photo where anything was in focus. The regression was probably more due to the failing batteries in my camera disabling the flash function. However this photo has a certain charm I think. You know the wild man of rock .....err.........well rocks. You could imagine some beatnik freight train inspired noise eminating from both mouth and amp. A modern day Woody Guthrie do I hear? Hark the herald angels sing praise to god a new genre is born. More info to come on how you yourself can help in the creation of this new phenomenon.
After spending about what was probably an hour in the booth taking advantage of the lovely lyres we departed.....to another coffee shop.
And It's a hard life for a man with no wife, lord, its a hard life God makes you live.
Fin

Desperately Dundee

Hey folks here's a new post for you. Pictured we have the page's probably most featured artist, that of Ben Haggar. Pictured in matching clothes with one of the Dundee's greatest exports. Desperate Dan himself, cow-pie not present. I always think this picture looks a little odd due to the fact that Ben has been caught in focus but due to the light failing a statuesque statue has been caught blurred. What gives? Could Ben really out-statue a statue?
I realise that most of you, my loyal readers, read the page to hear my fine anecdotes or something like that so I will leave this subject.
I shall return with more thoughts.
....and so it goes......

Mexican Troubadour

Didn't like the thought of such an image lingering around on the frontpage for too long. It might start giving people the wrong ideas. So instead here's something else to feast your eyes on.
I took this picture during my time in Mexico while staying in the extremely hospitable environment of Karla's mother's house in Coyoacan, Mexcio City. As is my want, on finding the house owned a guitar I had to get it out and have a strum normally to the general boredom of others as I musically twaddle. However Karla had a great little collection of Beatles songs in a songbook. On an aside, did you know that in Mexico and in indeed (I think I recall correctly) the whole of Central and South America, instead of using the system we are used to for musical notation, which denotes notes as A, B, C, D, E, F and G they use Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La and Ti? Very odd indeed. Insert general comment on the sound of music.
Anyway this caused no problems as I could make out the chords from the shapes shown. So this songbook was pretty good, containing lots of great songs in a simple style and which sounded generally correct. There are some real bad transcriptions out there sullying the good names of many an artist. So over the weeks I tooted out many of these songs. Now Karla had not as far as I could remember told me of any ability on the guitar apart from teaching as I now recall 'Hasta Siempre' by Carlos Puebla on the guitar to Alex Illiakis. Anyway the point is that it came as a suprise to me that she could play a little. She told me the story of how she had had lessons as a youngster and was quite good. However she didn't like, in fact hated even the idea of performing for people, refusing to do so at least to proper audiences. Her teacher continued to coherce her to do so without sucess. Until one day she asked Karla to just try and play for an audience and see how it went. Despite her apprehension she agreed. However unlike the Hollywood style story of talent conquering nerves she really couldn't play and the experience was obviously so great that she gave up playing. What a shame. As I twanged a few more notes I could see that when she played she obviously had some apptitude for the instrument. Her fingers had certainly not forgotten everything and at times seemed to be slap bang in the past. She continued to play while I was there and has hopefully continued to do so. It seemed like she had actually learned to play the instrument unlike us chord-whackers.
The photo captures that moment of rediscovery....hopefully!

The Light

Thought I'd show you that light as well

Everyday's Image

I'm tempted to write "this one's of a chimney" but here goes......

This one is for all you people who haven't been to my current dwellings. I figure I would plant the idea that I live in an area with stunning sights out of the window every morning in your minds. Well I suppose this fantasy was true at least this morning. With no clouds in the sky I sat eating breakfast with the usual view of road, depot, chimney and was blinded by the light and colour. Nice hey? No colour enhancement needed here.
A way to improve this page no end would be to post a song that would play automatically with each new post. Some spiel, a photo and a piece of music. Maybe in the future I will suggest a piece of music to listen to while reading as well. Brian Eno's "By This River" fits the mood for this one.
(I am dissapointed to find out the difference between viewing this page on an apple or pc is very different i.e. that the apple screens are much brighter so the last image looks a little pale on apples, this one may look a little dark on pcs. Sorry about that, can't cater for everyone, just remember that I like them dark)

Brothers & Sisters

I bet some of you were wondering when I would get round to this one. This image has to be one of my clearest favourites of all the shots I have taken. Once again it was taken at the University of Essex. If I remember correctly I had been taking shots of the university's architecture for Joe's disertation about, funnily enough, the architecture of the university. I think it was the second time we had done this and some additional shots were needed. So anyway we finished quite late, or at least late enough for the sun to start to go down. Using a slow speed of film for these shots I had brought along my tripod. We then met up with Karla in one of the squares of the university for a drink. She was with some friends who we had not met before. Having my camera and tripod with me Karla and I explained that I took photos. I had with me some prints I had been enlarging, which I had put into portfolio style books so I showed them to some of the people there. Two Spanish girls were among the crowd. I had set up my camera on the tripod and was really using up film, thinking I might get some cool photos in the deteriorating light. And how right I was. So, the shot actually depicts the two girls looking at my photos. As soon as this photo came out I liked it, straight from the off. It all just seems so alive. The girl at the front's jumper in particular just looks fantastic, extremely palpable. The sheer closeness to the camera and the way they occupy the space makes them burst out of the picture. The background however really makes the shot. It just seems so odd. It's an odd photo. Something mysterious made out of the mundane. Well I think it's great and I hope you do too. If you don't well then you're a schmuck!

Mariachi Mayhem

Today's post isn't going to be as long as recently, they are really starting to drift on. I therefore qualify this post with the news that a good (Mexican) friend of mine is getting married very soon before departing to Singapore. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it across there to Mexico for the ceremony(Que lastima!).
This image was originally taken with my video camera during my time in Mexcio, the city itself. The flag in question has to be the biggest flag in the world. It sounds like some really bad tourist attraction but I assure you it's not. It is located in the Zocalo (the main square) in the centre of the city. The flag is easily equal to the sails that you get on tall ships like Shackelton's 'Discovery' and stands as a fine symbol of the government located across the square.
This talk of Mexico also reminds me of another story. On my first trip to Mexico City my friend Jorge, he who is to be married, was taking me for a tour around the sites of the city by car, at night. Much better when not completely packed out. After visiting the Zocalo and the Angel of Independance and such, I could see a plaza in the distance noteworthy only for the fact that it was absolutely crawling with Mariachis. Now Mariachis to many foreigners are thought of as guys dressed in extravagant suits and the classic Mexican sombreros who occasionally pluck up a tune. In reality these guys do wear the flashy suits and hats (of many different extrazagant colours) but are basically jobbing musicians. The idea being that if you wish to throw a party or impress a love interest you hire a mariachi band to play and they show up with their similarly dressed buddies. What we where at this time approaching was the mother load of all mariachi gatherings like the equivalent of Sunset strip for hookers. As we drew ever closer Mariachis of all colours of the rainbow were there for all to see. Instead of driving past, my friend began to slow down, and then it happened. Obviously their livelihood is not a funny business for these guys so competition it seems is high. Hence the now myriad of mariachis running toward the car. Like a Benny Hill sketch of some sort. Obviously seeing a white face only seemed to add to the chase. It seems funny that I only remember one of each colour approaching the car, like each group had its own runner, probably the youngest one or perhaps they took it in turns. Just as this muddle of mixed mariachis was nearing our position my friend pulled away. And stopped. Again they charged, egged on by our renewed encouragement and the thoughts of their prize, pushing and levering to get there first. Again we left. And again we stopped. I think you can get the picture now of this scene. A stream of maraichis now appeared strewn out along the street dislocated from the massed throng like a sea urchin's tentacle grasping and failing at food. I am sure that the sport of Mariachi baiting will soon be outlawed in Mexico and for one I can see why.
I suppose I should stop wasting time by saying "this will be a shorter post today", tomorrow really. Long may meandering tales of memories fill this page. Oh and some good images too.

The Demon Strikes

They say the Devil has all the best tunes but in this case it was the Demon. This Mexican troubadour was introduced to me through Karla and Demon was his name-o (pronouced Damon). Why do so many of these posts seem to start with I was at the University of Essex strumming a guitar next to the lake? Well here goes again...

This time it was a bunch of mostly Spanish speaking folks i.e. Mexicans, Peruvians etc hammering out some of the classics of their world. 'El Rey' springs to mind, a truely great, completely macho song with a kick-ass sing along chorus. Anyway some English speakers were there too so I attempted to bash out something, I've always been rubbish at remembering songs by heart. So lots of fun indeed. Demon turned up later with his guitar and a shed load of songs printed off the internet. After awhile, as often tends to happen, most people stopped paying attention and went back to their conversations. Joining in on the odd chorus if they recognised/liked the song being attempted. The most memorable of these, for me at least, was banging out a version of 'Sympathy For The Devil'. Assaulting the ears of all around, with our free style adherence to rhythm and gentle muttering lyrical lines of lingo, we managed to lose the audience completely. The only other memorable moment being the mention of Demon's band back in Mexico and more specifically their name. At this point you must remeber that this fellow was studying for his PhD in some form of Biology. The name of the band was, if memory serves truely, "Entropic Curves" (for all those needing a lesson see entropy). Another such awe inspiring name I think there has never been. It smacks of gigantic universe rock, exploding stars and unravelling the space time continuum with a single augmented chord, great celestial collisons acting as mere handclaps in a style of Rock vast enough to make even gods puke! And on the other hand have a really sleazey element also bringing to mind Pirelli calendars and crass-rock such as ZZ Top and Bon Jovi. If you could get away with it therefore the name's great but you never could. It's so pretntious it brings about thoughts of all forms of bad Prog-Rock. Said the guy with the website on which he talks about his own photos. Well I suppose we're all part of the bell shaped entropic curve after all.

And finally to the photo. I once showed this shot to a guy who was a real photographer and taught classes and stuff like that and he said I should crop out the guy in the white t-shirt. Get lost! That's one of the best things about the photo. The diminshing line of sight leading the eye from first the guitar player (Demon) down the neck of the guitar to the lady with her back to us and finally on to the guy in white who stares back at us. If anything it could do with cropping on the left hand side to reduce Demon's presence (did that seem like an odd sentance to anybody else?). I really like the way that the Albert Sloman library has also managed to sneak into the background,again drawing the eye back to the centre figure's face. The guitar also looks really fantastic. Right now this is definitely going to sound like I'm in a band called Entropic Curves but this photo has always reminded me of such intriguing paintings as Velaquez's Las Meninas and Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait in that he has this odd element to it that something is happening that you can't quite make out. Obviously the photo pales in comparison but maybe you get the idea? Just a hint at some other complex relationship going on here.
Ok that's enough.

Cover History

For all of you that were lucky enough to receive my album 'Ockham's Razor' here is a bit of an insight into the cover development. The album was created under the working title of 'Myopic Bookshop'. A title which I grew bored of when the time came to print the album. I plumped for Ockham's Razor instead but don't really like this title now either although I think I made the right decision on the finished cover. Anyway, in the beginning I asked Joe to create something for me as I had liked the stuff he was coming out with for his University and was patently failing in my own attempts. Among others the pictured image was Joe's first attempt. I was really impressed by this attempt from the outset. It looks really professional (in a non-derogatory sense) and was far better than I was expecting. In the end this was what also hindered it. It would have created the wrong impression about the album. That the music inside was full of well produced, well crafted songs and well...... it's not. The album cover was meant to show that this was a bunch of obviously slap-dash experimental songs to be taken seriously, but not too seriously. As Joe said, "I knew what I wanted". Unfotunately I didn't know what I wanted well enough to create it, only what I knew I didn't want. Until the final cover of course. I particularly liked the book/symbols that Joe created it wasn't an obvious mixture with the mountains but it worked.
My sister has just taken receipt of her own 12" iBook so maybe we will see some design efforts forth coming from her soon. Who knows? My next plan is to enter the WiFi community as access is free here at the university. No file sharing though!

Dial M For Murder

Here's today's image. It's a returning star of this page. Mr Alexandros Illiakis. Last seen in his Hawaiian shirted shadow in the Guitar Hero post. This was during a shoot that I did where, for the first and so far last time, I used lights and thought about shots a bit more than usual. I bought some garden centre style outdoor lighting and hey presto with the help of a very dark room lots of really deep shadows were created. This is one of my favourites from that shoot. Most of the time when I take a roll of film and the photos are processed I can remember taking each shot and normally why. In this case however I have absolutely no recollection of taking it. Maybe Joe (who was also present) took it? Not actually remembering taking the shot I had to work it out. Is that a telephone I thought. We had some props but I don't remember a telephone. I have resigned myself that the sort of earpiece looking thing is a reflection or an out of focus piece of furniture that has caught a little light. The picture looks rather film-noirish and brings to mind a horror version of the Third Man. Alex has to be the most pervasive presence in all of my photos. He has this strange ability to completely change features between consequtive shots and become unrecognisebale as himself. Easy to photograph, he knows how to have fun in front of the camera. Obviously the greatest part of this shot is the eye. What an actor. Maybe he knows what he was holding? Thinking? Up to? I will let you know if he knows.

La Señora Del Lago

Making her first and I'm sure not last entry is Karla.
This image was taken by the lakes at the University of Essex in my third year of study. We went to the Law Society barbeque and had a whole lot of fun. Karla was chatting away to another Mexican girl, Angelica. I took a few photos of them which mostly came out pretty staid and uninteresting. This one however just catches a great moment. I don't particularly remember Karla pulling faces such as these but I am sure that, just like the rest of us, when you look at the faces people do make during conversation it can be quite odd.
The hand is particularly good here and could probably tell you the look on the face without even seeing it.
I suppose in general this photo looks good not just because it is well composed but also due to the tonality. The blacks are nice and deep without being overpowering and the highlights maintain enough power to cut through the darkness.
I really like dark photos. When in the darkroom I always obsess about getting the image as dark as possible hopefully without spoiling the highlights. It's a real shame that film photgraphy is so expensive. It's great fun fiddling round with all those chemicals and lamps while nodding along to Sonic Youth or The Rolling Stones. The darkroom that I used to produce this print was rather lacking in mod cons. I had never done any processing before. I found out that the university had a darkroom and a photgraphic society. I contacted the society about use of the facilities. The society seemed to be rather non-existent or at least just a chairman. He told me that the darkroom was available anytime, to collect the key from the security desk. I did this and received instructions from the securtiy guard as to it's location. The university of Essex's corridors are at the best of times a series of warren like pathways. But in the end I found it. I turned the key in the lock expecting to enter into a small room with suitably drab walls and sinks and loads of photographic looking equipment. The reality was about the size of a broom cupboard, photographic stuff fortunately present but mostly strewn across the floor and walls. Here insert that scene from 'Snow White' where everything gets tidied away by small furry creatures. Annoyingly there were no instructions. Funny that. So I enlisted the help of Karla (see above left) to help me out. She had used many'a darkroom but some time ago. We managed to cobble together and dilute all the necessary chemicals and enlarger lamps and paper and such. Just one ingredient was missing. So when we turn out the lights, how do we see? "The red light" "oh you mean that light that doesn't work". So we must have spent 2 hours in this darkroom experimenting with trying to get the light sensitive paper in the right place to be shone on by the lamp producing the image on the paper. The paper would then be fumbled into the tray and, as there was no way of seeing clocks, time counted outloud for the amount of time in each chemical. The whole farce was like having to discover the whole process without a hundred years of expertise to back us up. Just the vague rememberances of a Mexican girl sitting in the dark. We got there in the end of course and that's the story of how my revision for third year exams went to pot. Not the best time to discover a secret room with artistic capabilities.
These posts are getting far too long. Just expect "this was of a tree" tomorrow. Where's that tree photo gone?

Un Canadien Errant

After the last time I went to the cinema my latest visit also included another first. The cinema was completely full. I had some time to kill this weekend before heading back to Wolv'. So I walked into the National FilmTheatre expecting to find what has always happened in the past. Either nothing of real interest or timings incongrous to my plans. But not this time! In fact I was so delighted by what I saw I ended up missing the train home. First up was 'Tristana' of Luis Bunuel fame which was pretty damn fine! There was a sharp intake of breath when the first French words were uttered. O no! No subtitles! But duly enough they arrived and a sigh of relief was taken by all of us that had studied German instead. Was ist los? It's always odd when the subtitler perceives the actual meaning to be meaningless enough to not subtitle them or obviously clear enough from the facial expression or some other give away like the use of a commonly understood word in that language such as 'Oui'. You're so used to being spoonfed the information. Sometimes it acts as a good kick to pay attention to what the actors are saying as well. Many'a physical joke or inflection has been missed, I feel, by the flashing text.

Anyway on to the real reason I missed my train. The music documentary to begin them, to bring them all together and in a panic set fire to them or however that bloody film went. Yes, I am of course talking about the brilliant 'Dont Look Back' (spelt without the apostrophe). Pennebaker's documentary about Dylan's first English tour (no Scottish or Welsh tour, those were the days) since becoming famous. Selling out venues like the Royal Albert Hall and generally meeting the great and good of the English rock scene of the mid 60's notable exceptions missing from the credits including Marriannne Faithful and John Mayall. Anyway, the first thing that strikes you is how weird it is to see Dylan in England, the film just seems so British, full of the nasty upperclass papermen and promoters in it for the money. At times he is like a shinning light through the crassness which is the English pomposity present in such unbound amounts. At other points he seems like the classic arrogant American abroad. Great moments include seeing Dylan eyeing up a fine selection of electric guitars through a shop window. The guitars featured are great indeed, all seemingly priced at £25. Wonder how much that is in today's terms. The tour was wholely acoustic. Dylan had apparently already recorded 'Bringing It All Back Home' so this takes some of the impact out of this event. In all a great film.

The image is of a guy named Masato. Japanese. Taken at the same party as the image shown as part of the Character 1 post. I like this image as it is blatantly not the guy that I knew. In flesh he was very quiet and unassuming. He was playing the guitar for us. Some Japanese pop songs as far as I could make out from the feel of them. Here he is converted to some shadey nightclub owner or general tough guy in the shadows. Again the eyes have it. The colours all work really well together and could be part of a comic very easily.

In the meantime

Haven't actually managed to write today's entry in time before being kicked out of the library so I will have to post the huge post tomorrow. See you there!

The Hand That Won't Rock The Cradle

As I'm off to London for the weekend and have an exam in an hour I thought I would post this partly to let up the boredom of revision. That is not to detratct from this image though.
It looks like such an old image, like it could be a farm daughter's hand going to pick up a jug of milk. All those dark shadows remind me of all those sort of Dorothy Lange and earlier photos. But of course there's also the feature of the computer as well. Such a mundane activity as pushing round the small plastic mouse, as you may be doing now, made to look so beautiful. I suppose it's also in the hand protrayed. Wouldn't have worked quite so well with my hand I don't think. The picture was taken in my bedroom in front of the only window which on frequent occasions gets some really odd light coming through. Almost cinematic at times.

Where'd You Get Those Eyes?

Told you! After going out and getting a USB stick normal service is resumed. Today's image/s is of a friend of mine from Uni who I haven't heard from in a while, unfortunately. The shot was taken in one of the squares which make up the centre of the University of Essex campus. Clare was sitting on one of the benches as should be and I was sitting on what should be the back rest. I think Clare knows exactly what what she is doing at the time. Normally I'm used to photographing the usual reluctant riff-raff who attempt to maintain a look of nonchalance because they know its good for them! However with this shot as soon as I whipped out the camera there wasn't the usual subconscious groan but Clare starring right at me, ready and waiting, and it shows. She's obviously not scared of the camera. Good on her! Scares me to death!

The second of the images is equally cool in my opinion. Shame you can't get them side by side on these pages with this size. I like the way the eyes are still evident enough to recognise that same look as in the original. I always want to use this in some poster campaign or such. Strikes me it would look good with some text along the left hand side promoting a club night with some local up and coming bands (Le Sperm? The Cardiac Kid? Bolek & Lolek?). Maybe its not really striking enough for that though. I guess you're all getting to realise that I kind of like this type of photoshop jiggery-pockery, maybe you could even call it a style?

Hello to Clare if she's watching!

Lack of internet

I will try and get back as quickly as possible, but for those few who read this page on a regular basis, I will be without internet connection for the forseeable future so posts will be suitably irregular. I will try and use the university connection so don't lose hope. Will definitely post something by tomorrow.