Bills Posts

The picture has nothing to do with today’s post. I thought I had better clear up any chance of confusion. I just thought it looked an interesting manhole cover, taken from a low angle.

Last night I attended the first meeting of my radio club. I was sat next to John, one of the members. He had to leave early, so he asked if I would hold his raffle tickets. I had no problems with that he lives in Gosport, so if he won I could easily drop his prize off. Of course, at the time of the draw his was the first ticket out of the tin. Luckily, I didn’t choose the note book, which it turns out he had donated to the raffle.

Anyhow, as promised I dropped the prize off to him today. Today, I included his address in my route. Part of that included a road called Jellicoe Avenue. Something had always confused me about the street. For a street of houses it is very wide. Actually, I think it looks like a very nice street to live, wide, light and airy. Why is it like that?

There are quite a few streets in Gosport that are wider than you might expect. It appears that for many of them the reason for this is D-Day. I don’t know if properties were destroyed to widen the roads of if roads where extensive damage due to bombing, or just green field sites were chosen for these wide streets, clearly some more research is needed here. In the build up to D-Day, the activity in Gosport was frantic, not chaotic (for the most part), perhaps organised chaos, but the preparations were huge – much more than I am prepared to go into here.

A legacy of D-Day for Gosport are these wonderful, wide, calm streets. Enjoy.

I started the week looking at rough sleepers in the area. I had been a bit distressed to see one of the people I speak to occasionally picking up used cigarette butts to make up a smoke, I haven’t seen hims since. I’d have been a bit concerned over the last couple of days, as the wind has been freezing. I think they at least have a sheltered place to go to.

I’ve been quite adventurous (in my eyes, not really) with my photography, getting out and actually filming in a public place, and then I walked down the high street with my phone on the Osmo stabiliser, I might have been filming, or I might not. Either way, apart from a few curious looks, I was completely ignored.

I have spent quite a bit of time on the high street. I’ve been good though, I’ve avoided the bakery and their rather delicious pasties and bacon pastries this week – I’m quite pleased with myself for doing that. Apart from the bakery though, there are parts of the high street that are in a very sad state at the count, there were thirteen closed shops units. What could we do with them?

For me, yet another project idea – would I ever get a project of the ground? Well, in a way I have done. I’ve included pictures of people at work. I have a couple of books and I want to do a bit of research before I start out.

In 2017, I took pictures of all the Shop fronts on Stokes Road, then I became interested in the buildings and re-took pictures, to include the buildings. Only problem is; you can see the building, but not the shop – if that makes sense.

The header picture? I took a panorama of the high street. It came out slightly different to what I expected I must admit,

I changed the route of my morning walk today. I normally join the high street at a point about halfway down, usually just after 6AM. As you can imagine, it’s pretty quiet at that time, usually the only people I see actually working are the staff in Greggs, the taxi drivers and the ferry staff of course.

The change involved me following my normal route until after I had been around the cockle ponds and then I went back to the high street and walked it’s entire length. Then, at the eastern end near the ferry port, I turned round and came back up for a third pass.

It was on the second pass that I saw the window cleaner. Now, I have seen him numerous times before, but have never spoken to him. This morning I asked if he would mind if I took his picture. I explained that I wanted to do a photography project featuring working people, he was more than happy. When I see this the next time, hopefully in the morning, I really must ask him his name and give him a card. He wasn’t there on my first pass down the High Street.

I was very annoyed with myself on Wednesday. It was when I was walking down the high street at lunchtime, with my phone on the stabiliser. The lady who runs the mobility shop was stood in the doorway, in the absolutely classic pose. I walked straight past. I should have stopped and asked.

I’m going through the Book of Gosport, identifying specific shops or buildings mentioned in the book, I think the easiest thing to do would be to take the book with me, show them that their shop featured and ask if I can take a picture. What I would then really like to do is a to get access to the old picture and put them side to side here.

There’s a bit of research to be done. How do I get access to the old pictures?

For my lunchtime walk I needed to do two things. The first was to prove that I was capable of walking through the town centre without stopping at the bakery to buy a Cornish pasty (they are rather nice). I’m pleased to say that I passed that test.

I walked down through the town centre to the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. I turned round and started walking back. This was when the second test came in to play. I set the phone up on the osmo 5, and I walked back I through town with it. Now the thing was, I didn’t film the whole walk. I was partly learning how to use the device (it’s really easy to switch between video and photo) but the main purposes was to gauge how people react to me walking through the town centre with a phone being held in a position where it was clear that I could have been filming.

I was watching people. By far the bulk off them just completely ignored me, anybody else just gave me a slightly curious look, but nobody challenged me. I was though prepared for that, and hoped that I wouldn’t have been recording at the time. Even if I had, I would have responded to the challenge by explaining what I was doing and why, and of course offer to delete the video.

To me this was a crucial “fear conquering” step that I really needed to do. It was also a very useful exercise in doing street photography. Can’t really get much more obvious than what I was doing.

I’ll comment briefly on the busker in the video clip. He’s really quite good. He can sing and play the guitar. My regret is that I had nothing in my pocket in to his tin. I’ll try to correct that.

I have a choice. I have written about this before. In 2017 I went along Stokes road taking pictures of the shop frontages, then I read something and I realise that I should have thought a bit more about my 2017 project.

This is because I am now slightly conflicted. The 2017 pictures were just of the shop frontages, I didn’t include any of the building. I have to be honest and say perhaps in retrospect I should have perhaps included the building.

Then what I found out is that buy far the bulk of the interesting buildings on Stokes are included in the Stoke Road Conservation area, have a look at;

https://www.gosport.gov.uk/media/2360/Stoke-Road-Conservation-Area-Map-1992/pdf/Stoke_Road_Conservation_Area_Map_1992.pdf?m=637267918694400000

So really, the buildings won’t change, but the shop frontages do change, and reasonably frequently. Do I make the assumption that my focus should be on the shop frontages as the buildings will look after themselves?

The problem really came to light this evening, when I wanted to compare a change in a shops front. The shop that was Solent Cleaners in 2017 is today the Yellow Edge Art Gallery. That’s quite a significant change. But with the pictures I have today, I can’t give that direct comparison. That’s because the second picture taken just a couple of weeks ago included the building, and it is therefore more difficult to focus on the specific shop.

To be honest, if the building isn’t likely to change, then I’m less inclined to include them. I think that I have just talked myself in to focussing on the shop fronts only. Given that the last set was taken in 2017, and with daylight now in my favour in the mornings I am set to take a few pictures every day that I go out.

Now, I do have another problem. Where to put those pictures to make them accessible to the public in a logical way. I’m still thinking about that.

Out on my lunchtime walk, on Mumby Road I saw this lorry negotiating its way out of an incredibly tight turn at really awkward place.

What is difficult to see toward the front offside of the lorry is a large mobile bin in front of a telecoms box which the lorry has to negotiate past.

Consider the fact that the lorry got in to the awkward place, it must be possible to get out. I’m taken back to my first full time job, I recall watching lorries hauling 40 foot containers. They would pull up at our gates, look at them and then position them selves, they would then reverse in, with I think less than 6 inches on either side of the lorry. It was just the utter skill in the action that seriously impressed me.

I recently finished reading a book; The Book of Gosport. There were a lot of pictures from 1850ish onwards at the height of the Victorian era. The way people posed was partly due to the time it took to take a photo, which sometimes could be on the order of minutes if not seconds.

I don’t think I’ve caught the “celebration of skill” of the driver or the nervousness of the chap guiding the lorry – it was a busy road, but it is my first picture in the project. Let’s see how I can improve things.

I’ve often spoken here about my interest in Street photography, and I think I have even spoken about my desire to recreate the Victorian pictures. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to have a project of “People at work” in black and white of course. It won’t be Victorian pictures, but I am ok with that.

The Gosport branch of Burtons closed several months ago. It was a difficult choice to choose what was the saddest image of the thirteen shops I pictured this afternoon as I walked along the High Street, I’m not sure that this is the one that has been closed longest, it’s probably not, but it serves to illustrate one of the problems with what should be the towns premier shopping area.

At the very least, if the empty shops were turned into residential units it would be serving a useful purpose. I don’t know what the position is regarding rates, which I presume sends income to the local authority (I must admit, I don’t really know how business rates works). To have these unit closed must represent a significant loss of income. Or, perhaps, even though the units are closed, perhaps the owners continue to pay some level of rates? That must really hurt.

I don’t think I’m getting political here. I hope not. I’m sure a solution will appear somewhere along the line.

This is the Brittany Ferry Salamanca. Coming into the harbour at probably around 1630 today. I wouldn’t have seen her if I hadn’t made the decision that I was going to go to the Haslar Marina Pier Wall (HMPW) with a set sequence of shots in my head. I wasn’t even worried about being out and filming in public.

I set from from home, about 4PM, with my tripod and the DJI OSMO 5 in my man bag. I got to the bottom of the HMPW and set the phone up open the tripod. I was only going to use the three lenses in the iPhone 12, the 0.5 wide angle, standard (1x) or the 2.5x lenses, not touching the digital zooms at all, and ensuring best quality.

Town was still quite busy, but was tailing off in the aftermath of the Saturday Market, although not unexpectedly the bars and cafes were busy. I arrived at the HMPW to see that there were quite a few people on the pier, walkers and people fishing. I was determined that nothing was going to deter me. I set the phone up on the tripod, and took an establishing shot of the HMPW. I then moved the phone onto the OMSO5, did a minute or so walking along the boardwalk. Not far in to that I saw the ferry coming in. Now, I did go in to a bit of a panic, because when I realised I hadn’t seen this particular boat at all, I was determined to get a picture, but I had to turn the O5 off because I couldn’t get it to line up. Nothing wrong with it, just me not knowing how to use it. Mind you, this is exactly what these sessions are for; familiarisation with the kit. Anyhow, at least one picture of the Salamanca taken, I resumed videoing my walk up the HMPW.

At the far end there were some teenagers fishing, and a couple of people in mobility scooters. It didn’t stop me from moving the phone back on to the tripod. This time, I was after one of those Jack Hargreaves picture of him wandering around and looking at things. So I took pictures of the Mary Mouse 2;

The Medusa;

This new facility, which has only recently been put up. I have been speculating about its purpose which could be anything from being a supplies storehouse, through to a wedding venue;

There was one other thing that I wanted to photograph but there were a couple of you fishermen lolling about at the base of the pillar. I asked them if they minded me filming and including them – they kind of mumbled their consent. I fear I may have put them off YouTube for life – the oldies have moved in!

Anyhow, I have the pictures and videos I wanted, and because I wasn’t bothered about audio, I can get the movie together and then record my commentary, which is one of the main activities I want to do, to develop my video voice. If you watch any of my GB3IW videos, the minute before the net starts are almost there, my voice to me sounds reasonably realistic with no stress or false tones. And the great thing is I can record multiple versions of the commentary, which I want to be a combination of fact and interpretation, which I want to get it sounding just right. When ready, I will release it on YouTube, and let you know.

It was a really good exercise today, getting out and filming in public. I even enjoyed doing it. A new concern though – my posture is dreadful, and I really do need to lose weight – again.

Rough sleepers disturb me. Not the person, but the fact that they are sleeping on the week. I’m not going to go in to the reasons as to why it happens because each story is different.

There is a group of people who look as though they sleep rough regularly. One in particular who sleeps on the promenade. The other morning I saw him walking around the high street picking things up. I stopped and spoke to him, he told me that he was picking up cigarette butts to put together a smoke. When I went for my lunchtime walk I bought a packet of tobacco (it included papers) and a lighter and gave it to him when I saw him next. There’s another chap, who usually takes up residence near the ferry ticket office. I’ve bought him food on occasion. Am I doing the right thing?

I think if I had the time, I would volunteer to work with a charity, there are several in Gosport. Is my saying “if I had the time” an excuse for not getting involved? It is partly, I relish my time off, and resent things eating into it. Sadly that is increasingly applying to RAYNET, and even HDARC. It’s me being a a bit selfish I’m afraid.

Is it a case me doing a little thing that appeases the guilt in my mind that I should be doing more. Perhaps I will do so – one day.

These particular empty chairs and tables do not reflect the state of Gosport’s High Street, especially as the picture wa taken at about ten past six in the morning.

But as an illustration it serves a purpose of depicting a high street that is not in the best of health. I don’t think it unreasonable to say that most people would probably blame the Internet. Is that an accurate position though. Perhaps the High Streets equivalent to Amazon would be something like Argos, coupled with all the other shops on the high street being able to meet all of our normal needs? It’s a matter of scale, and availability. We now want things that we never knew we needed.

We can’t deny though that things are unlikely to change in a backward direction, and that online shopping will continue and grow.

What then, happens to the High Street? I think it has to change it’s role in some respects. On Tuesday I had to go in to town during lunchtime, I had forgotten the market was on, It was heaving. There were lots of tables & chairs out, the bars were busy and there were lots of people wandering around.

I think on tomorrows high street what are now shops will probably be living units, coffee shops, restaurants galleries, street entertainers and perhaps the occasional specialist shop.

What do you think?