I was having a beer with my friend last week. Someone who’s often mentioned within the pages of this blog, when suddenly he announced; “By the way. I’ve read your last blog, it was a bit too long for my liking”. Just imagine if Tolstoy was out enjoying a few vodkas and his friend said “That War and Peace is okay Leo, but don’t you think 1,400 pages is a bit long?”. I’m sure Tolstoy would have eyed his friend, risen from his chair and walked out of the bar without as much as a ‘dasvidaniya’. In all fairness Comrade Kev made a salient point. It was far too long and so in full agreement I simply ordered another couple of pints whilst resolving to keep this one shorter.
Clearly I’ll have to accommodate my readers attention span whilst simultaneously satisfying my own desire to write a personal blog. I resist as best as I can the temptation to overshare, though admittedly I’m guilty of that on occasion. I’ll probably overshare in this one at some point. Evident then that there’ll need to be some editing and not just the length. A little introspection is required, in other words some of the content needs a serious look at. That said I have no desire for this blog to become anodyne.
Hold on. I’m not entirely sure whether I’m talking about my blog or my mind here. They both need working on for sure. Maybe best to take a laissez-faire approach to the whole thing, which in all honesty I have since the beginning. It’s tricky to think what to write about. Politics and religion is more or less out for fear of being cancelled, so are a few other hot topics. I had a look at my body the other day and can confirm that I am a male. Okay, it was touch and go in a few places, as they say; “An inch shorter and I’d have been a woman”! That doesn’t hold up (so to speak) very well against the whole looking like Greek God that I mention in every blog post. Whatever, I’m going to continue identifying as a man. I’ll be ‘normal’, no matter how offensive to some that might be.
Writing about photography can be a little tiresome and at times so can reading about it. I don’t fully understand the obsession people have with cameras and lenses either. It’s seemingly meaningless, however I do realise that a lot of photographers are extremely interested in gear especially those who are new to photography. I couldn’t write a review on either a lens or camera because, and with full disclosure, I just don’t know enough about them. In my experience you either see a frame or you don’t, regardless of what camera you happen to be holding or for that matter wearing. I saw a pair of Ray-Bans in an opticians window the other day, they have an inbuilt HD camera. They might prove useful for Street Photography on those sunny days, but can’t help thinking that it’s a bit sneaky, worse than that it’s creepy. Pointless anyway, I can only recall a few days where it hasn’t been lashing down with rain during March. Increasingly apparent is that it depends on what kind of mood you’re in rather than any gear you may be using. Sometimes you connect with your surroundings, more importantly the people in those surroundings and other days you’re oblivious to it all, unable to see anything.
I was thinking of giving AI and that ChatGPT Bot another chance, but decided against it. I read an article in the paper this morning that Samsung has AI software that secretly enhances photos taken on a mobile phone. Users can’t believe the clarity and detail they’re getting when they click a shot of the moon on their phones. You know that if you’re going to take a photo of the moon you’re going have to get your settings bang on to stand a chance of any detail. A smartphone essentially takes a photo of a blurred bright ball in a dark sky. This particular AI recognises the main subject matter and decides to take multiple shots, then it fills in all that blur so the user ends up seeing high resolution craters on the moon. Something photographers have used for many years to obtain a high definition composite image. Obviously users are disappointed that they weren’t anywhere near as skilful as they imagined or as impressed as they initially were by the phones incredible lens capabilities. I don’t know why they’re surprised or in some cases annoyed, they are probably the exact same people who use filters on Instagram. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.
Samsung weren’t the first to mess around with photos. Joseph Stalin used to have people airbrushed out of photographs that appeared with him once they fell out of favour. They were also to be erased in other more nefarious ways too. This is what happens when you disagree with a dictator. I’m not planning on airbrushing Comrade Kev from any photos incidentally, I’m not a dictator. Besides I couldn’t afford to have Hugo Boss design uniforms for me and Louis to go strutting around in. Louis has been watching a lot of WWII documentaries lately, he likes the nazi uniforms. I have reiterated that yes they look smart, my dad who was on the receiving end of the nazi war machine, used to say the same, but in no way whatsoever do we agree with their ideology. Depravity is the word that comes to mind whenever I think of nazi’s. By the way he finally got to shoot an actual gun recently. Remember the name, you heard it here first. If he starts growing a small moustache I’ll be calling the authorities. Thinking about it I need to search his room again, I’ve become fearful that amongst all that junk and detritus he might have some depleted uranium hidden. When the first question someone asks Alexa is “Hey Alexa.What are the nuclear codes?” it’s worrying.
As you can see I took a trip into Bath from photos two and three, also to the beach at Weston Super Mare. I’ve got plenty I want to show you, but I’m restraining myself. I often look back at a previous blog posts and wonder why I bothered sharing some of the photos. Really we should only be showing our best work, however if that was the case I’d be writing a blog once every two or three years with just one photo. Maybe that’s the way forward. There’s going to be some introspection and perhaps this blog will take a different course. Anyway, in the spirit of oversharing…
Sam (my ex-wife) moved into an old chapel in the village of Lacock. So, her chapel has become of interest to me. That’s not a euphemism incidentally! Now look, she may have some resemblance to Morticia in that shot, ”Cara Mia”, but I’m really no Gomez…! It’s beautiful, the children and dogs are there every other week. I want to document their time in Lacock and also to some extent my own. I need to get the light situation sorted out, there’s seemingly a lot of light with all the windows as you can see in the photo above, but it’s also really dark. As already mentioned it’s been a grey month, some parts of England have only seen ten hours or so of sunshine. The only time I’ve seen it with any of that elusive light was the opening photo of this post. We’ll see how it turns out. It’s more experimental than anything else at the moment, but I think some good stuff will emerge eventually.
She has an Instagram page for the old chapel if you’re interested; The Old Chapel Lacock. I’d have called it “The Addams Family”, but there you are!
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are made using a Leica M with Summicron 28mm Lens fitted.
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