The ongoing characters (continued)

Going through my country show pictures can throw up surprises as the same faces turn up again and again in different guises...

2009:

2006:

Don't give up the day jobs: multi-tasking with Philip Glass

I came across this interview with composer Philip Glass in The Independent the other day.

Interesting to note that while Glass started composing in his teens, he relied on driving taxis, plumbing work, and removal jobs as sources of income until his 40s. Only after 20-odd years of composing did he start to make enough money not to feel the need to renew his taxi licence.

[quote]

"At 20, he went to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music (where Steve Reich was a fellow student) and then enrolled in a composer-in-residence scheme for two years in Pittsburgh schools. In 1964, he moved to Paris to study with the composer Nadia Boulanger and in 1967 moved back to New York where he founded the Philip Glass Ensemble. Looking at his CV from this time on, it would be tempting to say that the rest is history, but artistic output, as so often in life, did not automatically translate into money.


Glass didn't earn a living from his music, in fact, until he was 42. Until then, he drove cabs, shifted furniture and worked as a plumber. "I was careful," he explains, "to take a job that couldn't have any possible meaning for me." Stories of famous-composer-actually-working-man-shock from that period abound. The art critic Robert Hughes was astonished to find the avant garde composer mending his dishwasher. On another occasion, a woman tapped on the side of his cab and told him that he had the same name as a "very famous composer.

Gradually, the commissions trickled in and, by the time Glass was 44, he realised that the cab driver's licence that he'd renewed as a precaution might not be needed."

[unquote]

Continuity errors

Two photos taken at the Melplash Show in Dorset.

Can you spot the continuity error(s)?

Now you’re stalking – celebs in the wild

Today I came across my list of celebs I've spotted out and about. I must have been pretty bored when I compiled this. A couple of things struck me – firstly how many celebs I had bumped into on trains or train stations, and secondly how few sports people I had seen (they obviously don’t use trains much). The only footballer on my list is Ian Wright... I am currently pondering the sociological and psychogeographical significance of the data. Meanwhile, here’s the list:

• Andrew Marr – near Waterloo Station, 2006.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber - near Charing Cros Road, 2015-ish
  
• Annie out of Elastica – sat next to me on a train from London to Brighton.
• Adam Mars-Jones – London.
• Alan Bennett – cycling in London!
• Anne Nightingale – Brighton.
• A bloke who used to be in the Bill – big, black hair, looks like a friendly bear.
• Arthur Smith – in Bath, twice in 2004.
• Bob Geldof  – Waterloo Station. Smoking a pipe.
  
• Billy Bragg – shopping in Weymouth.
• Billy Connolly – at the Wimbledon tennis. Does that count?
  
• Bobby Gillespie – on a train from Brighton to London. Looking a bit wasted, surprisingly.
  
• Charles Kennedy (RIP) – emerging from a Brighton hotel smoking a fag.
• Cheryl Baker – ex Buck Fizz. On a train from Nottingham.
• Chris Ellison – out of the Bill. In Bournemouth.
• Chris Morris – in Borders in Oxford Street (RIP).
• Chris Moyles – in a pub, London. I missed my chance to kill him.
• Dennis Waterman – Littlehampton.
• ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton – twice. Once at Nottingham train station [duplicate].
• Edward Fox – talking to himself like a mad person in Oxford.
• Edwina Curry – at a London train station.
• Fenella Fielding (RIP) – star of Carry on Screaming and voice of The Blue Cat. Walking around Covent Garden. Have a rubbish photo somewhere.
  
• Gaz out of The Supergrass – loads of times in Brighton and Oxford. Plus Danny quite a few times over the years - Oxford, Bruton, Bath. Stop stalking me, Danny.
  
• George Cole – Littlehampton.
• Gok Wan – Covent Garden, London, ca 2017.
• Ian ‘Wrighty’ Wright – near the British War Museum. I did that thing where you instantly acknowledge them, then realise you don't actually know them, they're off the telly. He said "hello".
  
• Jacqueline Wilson – loads of scary rings, London 2005.
• Janet Street-Porter – Bournemouth, 2005.
• Jarvis Cocker – sat opposite him on a train to Sheffield, before the big hits. Struck me as a bit unpleasant to his travelling companions. Also, in Bath ca 2016 [duplicate].
• Jeremy Paxman – having, ahem, difficulty walking at Reading Station, 1990s.
  
• John Sessions (RIP) – in a hurry near Liverpool Street station.
• Keith Allen – Southampton train station – asked me where the “nearest boozer” was. Sneered at my factually correct answer for no apparent reason. Prick.
• Ken Loach - in the city of Bath. Took a rubbish photo.
  
• Ken Russell (RIP) – sat opposite me on a train to London.
• Kevin Rowland – twice in London – once during his “lost” decade when he was living in hostels, etc.
• Lesley Joseph – Brighton
• Lucy Ellmann – writer, London Zoo.
• Mark Kermode - film critic, presenter, Swanage 2010.
• Mark Lamarr – London, 2005. Looking like someone with no friends.
• Martin Rossiter – out of Gene, on a train.
• Marty Wilde – on Bournemouth Pier, 2005.
• Maryam D’Abo – Bond girl, sorry, famous actress. Victoria Station.
• Melvyn Bragg – South Bank, of course, 2005. Plus Covent Garden, ca 2016 [duplicate].
• Michael Foot (RIP) – quite a few times on trains. Often with little dog – a very polite man.
• Michelle Collins – in sunglasses for no apparent reason, Oxford.
• Micky Dolenz - In Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub, Nottingham, 2011
• Mike McShane – comedian.
• Neil Pearson – in Bath MVC (RIP).
• Nigel Planer – London, South Bank.
• Nick Cave – being very tall in Brighton, many years ago.
• Nick Hancock – London – we got in each other's way, and we did the awkward jiggle thing. He was apologetic.
• Paddy Ashdown – Brighton. (Also campaigning at Eastleigh by-election - not sure if that counts.)
• Paul (Gazza) Gascoigne – mucking around and playing mini-golf – Bournemouth, 2011. Also a few years later in Boscombe [duplicate]
• Paul Heaton – in a pub, twice. In fact, it looked like he hadn’t moved from the spot in the intervening period [duplicate].
• Paul McCartney with Heather Mills. No entourage – just the two of them strolling in Hove.
• Paula Yates (RIP). In Brighton – looking at rock and assorted seaside tat.
• Polly Jean Harvey – quite a few times around Bridport. At the Melplash Show a few times.
  
• Princess Di (RIP) – got out a car in front of me.
• Ray Alan (RIP) - ventriloquist – in an Isle of Wight café.
• Reginald D. Hunter – Bath, 2018.
• Robert Lindsay  – Charing Cross Rd, London, 2015-ish.
• Robin Day (RIP) – Oxford.
• Rod Hull (RIP) – on Nottingham Station, wearing a gold lame jacket, smoking a pipe. No Emu.
• Rory McGrath – London, waiting to do some filming. Also, a few years later in Bridport [duplicate].
• Ross Kemp – walking along Brighton prom.
• Sharon Duce – on a train.
• Sienna Miller – on Bournemouth Pier. Only 90% certain, big sunglasses - frustrating.
  
• Simon Callow – ACTOR, etc. – Victoria Station.
• Siobhan Redmond  – in the city of Bath.
• Steve Davies – on train station complete with cue holder thing.
• Stephen Fry – walking along a narrow passage in Soho.
  
• Stu and Michelle – or something, off of Big Brother on Brighton Pier.
• Thom York – Oxford – in sunglasses for no apparent reason.
• Una Stubbs (RIP) – near the Strand, London, 2015-ish.
• Van Morrison – numerous times in Bath. Always looking or sounding grumpy. What a surprise.
• Vic Reeves - dining outside a restaurant near the British Museum.
• Wendy Richard (RIP) – walking a little dog, London.
• Zoe Ball featuring Fatboy Slim – Brighton. He’s a lot bigger and taller than I expected.

Two tents print sale [sorry: sold out]

[The prints have been sold now]

I have three sets of the above two of my photographs available for £20 (that’s £10 each, maths fans) including postage. I think the two go together quite nicely, so am selling them as a pair. The prints are 15 by 10 inches (image sizes approximately 13.5 by 9 inches) and are printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. Pictures are despatched in a poster tube, and sent via first-class post (UK) or air mail (Europe and USA).

If you would like one of the three sets of prints, please email me on paul.russell99@btinternet.com, stating your country location. Payment is via PayPal – so you just need a credit or debit card. Please email me first, as this will be first come, first served!

Justin Sainsbury – On the Waterfront exhibition at Worthing Museum & Art Gallery

Sussex-based photographer Justin Sainsbury currently has an exhibition of 29 street-style seaside pictures on display at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, alongside Rob Silverstone’s black and white studies of the English and French coastline.

Using the seafront as a stage, Justin takes a look at how relationships develop throughout life and how these can be played out through gestures and action. The result is a contemporary account of life in the resorts along the south coast of England. Justin says, ‘The challenge – or problem – is to make an essentially ordinary situation stand out...’

See more of Justin's photos here.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Justin a couple of times and hope to take a look at the exhibition sometime soon...


When:
Saturday 4 July to Saturday 12 September 2009
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10 am to 5 pm

Where:
The Studio,
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery
Chapel Road, Worthing BN11 1HP
West Sussex, UK
(About half way between the train station and the beach)

A major retrospective of my Very Important Work in Arles, France

Well, almost.

I was amazed to see that a couple of my pictures have temporarily sneaked into Arles, courtesy of Joni Karanka's stravaganza, fds and mindfist, and other mysterious forces that I don't quite understand...

This punk-rock style, constantly evolving photographic exhibition was started by Joni in Cardiff – first in his house, and then at a Cardiff Liberal club where David Hurn made a guest appearance. Next it travelled to a bigger venue in Bologna where hundreds of pictures were on show, and now it’s fetched up at a pharmacists in Arles to coincide with one of the most prestigious photography festivals in the world.

The collection of photos is open to all photographers, and along the way prints have been added, lost, stolen, used as toilet paper and, even worse, curated.

If you're in Arles, the window you're looking for is the Pharmacie du Forum, 1 Rue Place, Arles, near Rue du Dr Fanton...

Kudos to all the people who have made this happen along the way. It's an inspiring thing...

Mobile phone photo by Cyril Costilhes

"No Such Thing as Society" exhibition: Cardiff

An exhibition of British documentary photography has just landed in Cardiff, UK.

Described as a document of photography from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, No Such Thing as Society is drawn from the collections of the Arts Council and the British Council, and claims to present "a radically new picture of these two turbulent decades".

The show, curated by David Alan Mellor, brings together 150 photographs by over 30 documentary photographers including

Keith Arnatt, John Benton Harris, Ian Berry, Derek Boshier, Victor Burgin, Vanley Burke, David Butterworth, David Chadwick, Tarik Chawdry, John Davies, Ian Dobbie, Peter Fraser, Gilbert & George, George & Zippy, Paul Graham, Brian Griffin, Christine Hobbeheydar, Alexis Hunter, Phillip Jones-Griffiths, Chris Killip, Bob Long, Markéta Luskacová, Ron McCormick, Peter Marlow, Daniel Meadows, Peter Mitchell, Raymond Moore, Tish Murtha, Martin Parr, Gilles Peress, Tony Ray-Jones, Jurgen Schadeberg, Graham Smith, Chris Steele-Perkins, Homer Sykes and Paul Trevor.

Phew.

When:
4 July to 4 October 2009
Open 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday

Where:
National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff
Cathays Park, Cardiff
CF10 3NP
20 minutes' walk from the train station

Event details


The exhibition has previously been shown at venues in Aberystwyth, Carlisle, Leeds, Penzance, Warsaw (Poland), and Norrkoping (Sweden), and will go on to the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle for 31 October 2009 to 24 January 2010. It is a Hayward Gallery touring exhibition.

Cardiff's National Museum also has a Diane Arbus exhibition, which runs until 31 August 2009.

A Long Exposure: 100 Years of Guardian Photography at Bridport Arts Centre

If you're in Dorset, there's an exhibition of photos from The Guardian's staff photographers upstairs at the Bridport Arts Centre.

The exhibition showcases work taken since the paper appointed its first photographer, Walter Doughty, in 1908 and features photos by Denis Thorpe, Don McPhee, Walter Doughty, Graham Finlayson, Tom Stuttard, Robert Smithies and Christopher Thomond. There's a reasonable number of largish prints, well printed and presented. Don McPhee's miners strike pictures will probably be familiar...

When:
Thursday 25 June to Saturday 18 July 2009
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm, free admission

Where:
Bridport Arts Centre
South Street, Bridport DT6 3NR, UK


Event details
(Exhibition toured by The Lowry, Manchester)

Guardian slideshow here

Bruce Springsteen, Robert Frank and the dark side of the American dream?

As Glastonbury prepares for a rare weekend of sunshine, all the British papers seem to be offering a Bruce Springsteen primer for the younger festival goers. Picking up The Independent today, I was surprised to read that Springsteen may have owed inspiration for some of the darker side of his work to Robert Frank!

"Springsteen's ex-rock critic manager Jon Landau is credited with educating him away from the escapist street-romance of his 1975 breakthrough Born to Run. It was Landau who handed him a Woody Guthrie biography, and guided him towards Robert Frank’s 1950s photos of lonely roadside Americans and John Ford's film The Grapes of Wrath.

The idea that Springsteen was manipulated into acting out his mentor's literary fantasies is tempting, but the initial results can't be faulted. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980) and Nebraska (1982) are his work's core. The previously apolitical singer wrote Nebraska under Guthrie's influence, as a stark tour of the small-town America he grew up in, laid waste by Reaganomics. The River's title song remains his best. Its young married couple in a closing factory town have no future in a way more crushingly solid than punk's teenage mantra. "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true/Or is it something worse..." the man wonders, of an American Dream he has been forced awake from. It was a heartbreaking political song because it barely looked up from personal concerns; as good as Guthrie, but Springsteen's own."

Nick Hasted, The Independent.

The Guthrie and Grapes of Wrath influences I'm aware of, but Frank is news to me. Well maybe the cover of Nebraska and the video to Atlantic City were clues.

Country Show update

I've recently updated and tidied up a short edit of my country show pictures.

The photos have been taken over the past few years at the Dorchester County Show (recently renamed the Dorset County Show), The New Forest Show and the Melplash Show. I hope to add to the collection this year...

Jump right in here

Jonas Bendiksen - Satellites Exhibition in London

Prints from Bendiksen's excellent Satellites book are being shown in London for the first time. Thanks to Chris Moxey for the photo of Jonas Bendiksen at the gallery.

When:
24 June to 9 August 2009
Tuesday-Friday 1-5pm
Saturday 11am-5pm
Sunday 1-5pm

Where:
PM Gallery
Walpole Park, Mattock Lane
London W5 5EQ
United Kingdom

Travel:
Tube: Ealing Broadway
Rail: Ealing Broadway
Buses: 207, 83, 607, E1, E2, 112, 297, PR1, E7, E8
Car park: Ealing Broadway Centre, access via the Grove from Ealing Green. Springbridge Road, access via the New Broadway.


Exhibition details

Travel details/opening times

Watch the Satellites slideshow on Magnum

The Olympus E-P1 – climbing Mount Improbable?

Olympus have generated a torrent of publicity and interest in this new digital camera, billed as a successor to the old film Olympus Pen.

On paper, the E-P1 looks to be just what a lot of serious photographers have been waiting for – a smallish, compact digital with a large sensor, and an array of small lenses in the pipeline. Not so small as to be fiddly, but not so large as to be conspicuous, and possessing decent manual controls and dials.

And as someone who has tried to use a digital with an LCD screen for composition but never really took to that way of working, the large external viewfinder designed to work with the small prime lens looks like a perfect combination.

The only dark clouds on the horizon seem to be mutterings about focusing speed. For example dpreview says, ‘the samples we’ve tried have very slow focus in anything but perfect light’. OK, these are samples and not the final cameras, but it doesn’t seem to tally with Olympus’s claim of 3 frames per second...

In theory, with the new pancake prime lens pictured above – which is about 35 mm in 35 mm terms – a manual focus to about 5 ft and f/8 would cover most bases, but according to www.dcresource.com, that doesn’t sound too promising either: ‘Manual focus allows you to set the focus distance yourself, though that can be difficult, since there are no distance markings on the lens, nor are any displayed on the LCD’. Hmm, curious...

****

Of course, we’ve been here before, with cameras that promised much but were let down by details such as the shaky build quality of the Ricoh GR digital cameras, and the general sluggishness of the Sigma offering. But Olympus have built this new camera up so much – and even reprised David Bailey as ambassador – that they must be confident in the E-P1, so here’s hoping its performance lives up to the publicity.

Meanwhile, Britain’s leading cartographer of the psychogeographic landscape is awaiting a review copy... Oh, and a black version would be nice.

**** Update, 23 June 2009 ****

More reviews coming in suggest that the focusing speed is similar to a fast compact, but not up to digital SLR standards. For example:

www.digitalcamerareview.com
"In outdoor light at the wide end of the kit zoom, the E-P1's focusing generally felt as fast as a decent point-and-shoot, and at times maybe faster. There was some definite lag and hunt when shooting indoors, though – more than you'd expect from a DSLR. If action shooting, especially indoor sports photography, is a primary interest, the E-P1 (or any other MFT camera, to be honest) probably isn't the best choice."

It also mentions a "a great quick-shift AF to MF transition".


Digitalarts online are more forgiving
"When you turn on the E-P1, it's ready to shoot in about a second. Focusing is fast using its 11 focusing points, and shutter lag is minimal. Burst mode is 3 fps. In other words, it feels like DSLR when you press the shutter button."

**** Update, 6 July 2009 ****
A few more reviews I bumped into both flag up the focus speed. Doesn't sound good:

cnet reviews
"Sluggish autofocus"

NYTimes.com Gadgetwise Blog
"I found the auto-focus a bit imprecise and slow. In particular, it was difficult to focus on anything that was moving (even when using Continuous AF)."

**** Update, 9 July 2009 ****

I had a quick try of the camera with the kit zoom today, courtesy of Jessops in Bournemouth. After all the talk of less than stellar autofocus performance, it didn't seem too bad to me in terms of speed.

All the fun of the fair

Photograph: Paul Russell

Several years ago I read an account of a trial in my local paper detailing the case of a young man who fed a large amount of money – at least £50 – into one of those grabbing crane amusement arcade machines. He was so incensed by his repeated failure to win the cuddly toy that he returned to the arcade with a sledgehammer and smashed the machine up.

He was found guilty and made to pay damages...

When sub-editors do "street" (Phil Selby)

Browsing the latest issue of Adbusters in my local library (Borders) I came across a cartoon by Phil Selby that had me laughing like a madman:



Phil's blog is here:
http://bigeyedeer.wordpress.com/

U-bend photographers

A while back I coined the phrase ‘U-bend photographers’ to describe the modern phenomenon of leaning backwards to take a shot, as illustrated in my shots above. I was slightly puzzled as to why some people do this...

Chuck Patch reckons “Nearly 100 years of eye-level viewfinders have trained people to hold the camera to their eyes. But wait! Modern digitals have an itty-bitty screen that can only be taken in from about 6 inches to a foot away, so one holds the camera where it SHOULD be (where your head normally is) and leans backward to get the view.”

That sounds reasonable, but then again, why not just move your hands containing the camera forward and keep your body still. That would be a simpler solution. Maybe it's a trait like right- and left-handedness and, say, 95% of the population move their hands and 5% move their bodies.

Keep a lookout and report back any interesting theories and findings. There is also a Flickr group.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/652107@N20/

Oxford Circus: goodbye to the crush, hello to the dance?

London’s Oxford Circus is shortly to get a major redesign to make it more pedestrian friendly. For those unfamiliar with Oxford Circus, it’s the intersection of Regent Street and Oxford Street – both extreme shopping zones – and the point where a crush of consumers vie for a piece of the pavement. It’s probably the busiest spot in London, and hence is a favourite hunting ground for street photographers.

All that could change shortly. The new design, based on crossings in Tokyo, will periodically stop all road traffic in all directions, and allow pedestrians to cross diagonally as well as straight ahead. Street furniture and barriers will be removed, and the area of pavement will double to reduce the pedestrian bottleneck.

When the lights give the go-ahead, the resulting pedestrian rush is known as a Barnes Dance or ‘exclusive pedestrian phase’. The Dance is named after Henry Barnes, an American traffic engineer. The scheme should be ready in time for the turning on of ye olde Christmas lights in November (yes, Christmas is in November this year).

History of Oxford Circus
The word ‘circus’, of course, derives from the Latin, meaning ‘ring’ or ‘circle’, and at Oxford Circus the term is used only in the sense that this is a roundish open space where streets meet. In short – to avoid disappointment – you will be unlikely to find any clown-based or high-wire entertainment activities at this location.

If its true cultural significance could be measured by its Wikipedia entry, the current entry stretches to just four complete sentences. I would guess (note the level of research here, Peter Ackroyd look out) that the widespread recognition of its name is only because it marks the point where streams of shoppers from the clone stores of famous Oxford Street meet the shoppers exiting famous Regent Street, and then bump into the people emerging from the functional Oxford Circus tube station. In other words, it’s famous solely for being a crowded pedestrian roundabout.

The new design certainly sounds like ‘a good thing’, although street photographers may have to adapt to the dance.

Re-photographing Portland

Photographer: Mark Power from "The Shipping Forecast" (copyright Mark Power/Magnum Photos)


Photographer: Paul Russell

Mark McGowan: Ballerina pig outside New Scotland Yard

Well, this is different:

From http://www.markmcgowan.org

"In an extraordinary art performance artist Mark McGowan is to dance dressed as a ballerina pig outside New Scotland Yard on Saturday 14th march 2009 at 1pm. It is a performance in response to new laws brought in to stop police being photographed.

McGowan says, "the law is outrageous and should be reversed immediately and I will be looking to have my photograph taken with as many police men and women that I can find"."

Pentax K10D camera plus kit lens for sale - Edit: SOLD

Edit: The camera has sold at last.






I have a Pentax K10D plus kit lens (18-55 mm) for sale. It was bought in March 2008 and has less than 7000 shots on the clock. It's in excellent condition, and includes two spare Pentax batteries.

Price: £250 including postage (Royal Mail Next Day Special Delivery). Payment via PayPal. The camera is for sale within the UK only.

Items included (see photo): hotshoe cover, eyecup, viewfinder cap, body mount cover, USB cable, video cable, software CD-ROM (S-SW55, Photo Browser 3, Photo Laboratory 3), strap, battery (plus two spare Pentax batteries), battery charger with lead, AC plug cord, operating manual in paper and on CD-ROM.

The only item on page 16 of the manual ("Contents of this package") that is not included is the operating manual for the software -- Photobrowser 3/Photo Laboratory 3 -- it was not in my original package. Possibly it is on one of the two CD-ROMs but I can't see it at first glance (I have never used any of the supplied Pentax software).

Also included is the kit 18-55 mm lens (green ring version) with lens hood and non-original lens cap.


I did stick this on eBay for a 7-day auction but the winner from "Leeds", UK, who registered on eBay just a few hours before, was promptly booted off eBay. They are still sending me emails trying to convince me to send the camera to their partner in, wait for it, Nigeria, despite no payment being received.