Bills Posts

138/366 Street Photography Now

I took this picture in 2010 in London. It was a from-the-hip grab shot as I was walking along Oxford Street. I just pressed the button as I walked past her. Undoubtedly an attractive girl, looking worried on phone against a poster of attractive people. I do hope she was OK. It is, in my opinion the best street photograph I’ve ever taken. I stress, my opinion, of course I’d hope you agree with me, but I have no expectation that you will.

I offer the picture as part of my review on progress so far the book I’m reading as per the title. I’m on page 120, and getting through the book fairly quickly. That shouldn’t be a surprise, there are a lot of pictures.

I can understand two reasons why people do street photography, it’s interesting and fun. But, as the book says, people do it for a host of other reasons. Frederic Lezmi, for example does it to make sense of his own identity. I’m not sure I understand that motivation, it seems a little bit too philosophical for me (and that is a who different subject).

The scope of Street Photography appears to be widening, but where people are involved I think the key is that they doing something, possibly purposeful. Which now means I can discuss my current frustration briefly – Covid-19 is the cause. This new more contagious strain. We aren’t sure yet how easy it is to catch which means that I am avoiding places where there are people unless it is absolutely necessary. Making the high street out of bounds, where a lot of the interesting activity is happening. My walks at the moment are boring!

137/366 Out for a walk

Yesterday, I wrote about being out of my comfort zone. I want to continue that for a bit (no more video at the moment, that was a practice).

The forecasters were pretty much right, it had been raining all morning and was due to stop between 11-12, which it did. I wanted a change to my normal route down to the waterfront. Today’s walk still took me past a couple of pieces of water – difficult to avoid in Gosport. Near Alverstoke is the end of Stoke Lake, This is a managed piece of water which is popular for boating and swimming. It’s quite tidal and sometimes water can cover the road that runs along side it.

This is the point where my issue with my comfort zone kicks in. I saw this shoe at the waters edge, left by a receding tide. I wanted to take a picture of it, but given that it is in a highly public place and there were people about. I felt stupid taking a picture. That though, is the thing. It’s only me that feels that way. And indeed, other people may think I’m weird. Do I really care?

It’s supposed to be an arty-farty picture. I might try it in B&W.

Not too bad in B&W, plenty of texture there.

136/366 The Comfort Zone

Isn’t it strange how things change? In the early 1990’s when I was living in Berlin, I spent a fair bit of money (DM300 comes to mind, probably about £100 as was then) purchasing a small micro-tape recorder. The idea was to record my thoughts and impressions of my time in the city. I still have it, but I haven’t used it for years. No need to, the ubiquitous mobile phone has entirely supplanted the need for such devices.

Sadly, I never took full advantage of it. I wanted to do things like walking down the Kurfürstendamm with my East German Practica camera, taking pictures, and describing what I was seeing and feeling. But the idea of walking down a busy street (it doesn’t really matter where the street was, it’s the principle that’s important) holding my hand up to my mouth and be talking to myself was an image that my far too conservative (small “c”) brain could tolerate, and so I just could not bring myself to do it. That expensive device went mostly unused.

But how conspicuous would you feel today, walking down any street, holding a small device to you mouth and talking about anything, even “being on a train”? It’s a bit different isn’t it? My conservative brain had gone in to hibernation. Note, I stay had!

It’s back again. not with a vengeance because circumstances are different thank you to the mobile phone. Today, a new gadget arrived, it’s a little unit that can sit on top of a tripod and holding a mobile phone. With a microphone, I can stand 6 – 8 feet away from the camera and talk to it about a topic that I want to cover, and as I move, it follows me. But the whole set up reminds me of that time in Berlin. It’s not “normal” activity in any street, even a side street off the high street of Gosport! So that self consciousness returned.

This time though I was mostly prepared. So I forced myself to do a session of talking to the camera; outside the council offices, just off the Gosport Promenade, at the Falklands Gardens (although I just walked around a bit without talking), to the entrance to the tunnel through the ramparts that took Queen Victoria to quay for her trips to the Isle of Wight. This last one was easy – no one about.

A success for the most part, an increase in confidence, I just need to work on my delivery. Here’s a sample – let’s see if this works. What do you think?

135/366 Is it Monday?

I went to put some rubbish in the bin, and then put the bin out ready for the bin men, except it’s Saturday, and the bins aren’t emptied until Monday. I’ve had that “Is it Monday today” feeling all day, which in a way is a good thing, because when I accept that it isn’t Monday that means I have two more days of Christmas leave than I thought.

Yesterday and today have been two days of over indulgence I’m sure I’ve added inches to my belly. And seriously, and I mean seriously rubbish TV (the analogue channels, BBC & ITV). Yesterday I was on the verge of posting a rant about how bad the TV was. I desisted, given that it was Christmas Day. With covid, the year must have been dreadful for all productions and producers, so it’s understandable that there would be a lot of repeats, but game shows at peak time on Christmas Day? not only that, the repeats they chose were rubbish (I want to use a stronger word, but don’t feel it is right on this medium). I am seriously thinking that the Beeb should move to a subscription model even if it means, god forbid – adverts (and to show how bad it is, I do try to avoid invoking the deity), At the moment, I don’t think I would be using the service at all, except for Sky at Night.

I went out for a walk just before midday, with Storm Bella bearing down on us, I needed to get out for a bit. The new more contagious version of Covid is making us nervous. I made even more strenuous efforts than usual to make sure I stayed away from people. I wanted to see the high street, but I didn’t want to walk its length, so I engineered crossing it twice, and actually it wasn’t very busy at all and I could have walked it quite safely – but I didn’t. I did though go on to the Promenade.

There were on only three people along the entire length of the waterfront from the ferry to the pier wall, so I felt quite safe. I could see a boat, which from face on I thought was a tug coming toward the harbour entrance, on checking Marine Traffic, it was the Bunkering (refuelling) vessel the Janet W. I was able to get to the end of the Pier wall for its entrance in to the harbour to take the header picture.

At the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall there was a solitary angler. Staying about 10-15 feet away from him, I asked how he was getting on. He’d only just got set up, so hadn’t caught anything. But, he was very keen to tell me about his new rod & reel, all £300 of it. He described it as very smooth. We talked about the Local Marks Fishing you tube channel, which even though I have absolutely no interest in fishing does make quite entertaining viewing. Last week involved feeding a fox, The channel is owned by John, not mark – the marks are locations. The lad (mid 20’s?) said he had his fishing channel, Solo Solent Fishing (or a variation of that), but I haven’t been able to find it. I shall keep looking.

134/366 Christmas Day

I find myself a little bit stumped about what to write. We had a wonderful Christmas meal, the turkey was cooked perfectly, and we did the Christmas pudding thing with Brandy, which went very well.

I feel I should say something about the purpose of the day, the spiritual aspect of it, but I feel nothing I can say would be appropriate. Perhaps therefore, best to leave it at this.

Even less steps than usual today. Whilst this is not good, today is perhaps the one day I can get away with it.

I do hope that you have had a good day. I don’t think it inappropriate to wish all my readers the merriest Christmas they can have, and all the best for a good New Year. I don’t think its wrong to wish for that given the circumstances.

133/366 The iPhone12

I’m not sure, but I think this house is the vicarage for the Trinity Church. It backs on to the part of the Gosport Ramparts.

OK, so, I confess. I have upgraded. My provider offered to pay off the remainder of my contract if I upgraded. I was keen to, I must admit. My main concern was ironically, not the lack of 5G in the area. It was the quality of the camera.

This is just one picture, but I took quite a few on my walk out this afternoon. I have yet to test the night mode, but going on today’s results, it’s giving the the P20 Pro a run for its money. There’s something about the colour rendering which is distinctly different to the XR. Richer colours, just seem brighter. I did a bit of videoing, and bearing in mind what my attempts of hand held videoing are normally like I thought it would be a good test. The stabilisation was excellent.

Overall, I am pretty impressed so far.

132/366 The Gosport Society & Books

The Normandie & the Gosport Ferries caught with a long exposure.

The Gosport Society have released a commemorating booklet, celebrating its first fifty years. It has been very active in preserving the heritage of Gosport. The value of the society was proven necessary in respect of the tower blocks that were built in Gosport (here’s a reminder picture for you);

These “system built” flats were modelled on those seen by a visit of town councillors to Moscow (The Gosport Society – The First Fifty Years, P15). I don’t know what the presentation schedule will be for next year, but if they do things correctly, at least the first half will be over Zoom so I intend to stay a member – it;’s only £12, and think the society is worth supporting.

The booklet only had seventy pages, and of course I have finished it. I am back in to my usual dilemma of what to read. Once again, I have three books lined up; The British Pilgrim Pathways, the Hubble Telescope (a more up to date book than the previous attempt) and Street Photography Now – this last one is kind of a partner book to the The Photographer’s Eye (I think the only link is the same publisher). I admit, I’ve been wanting to read this book properly (rather than just picking it up and leafing through it) for several years now. It’s been sat in our bookcase, just waiting for me to commit to it. Given that, I think it has primacy so I am formally announcing this as my next book.

That’ll give me the opportunity to do a few posts about Street Photography – of which I am very interested. So, here we go then; Street Photography Now by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, here we come!

131/366 Tuesday Morning & Rain

The Methodist Church on Stokes Road. I took a slightly different route to normal. It was quite pleasant to do that. The red streak bottom left is a car going past, left to right so I caught the tail lights.

I wanted to talk about the rain. I took some rubbish out to the bin, just before starting work. It struck me, the rain did, and the thought about the rain, big round, solid drops, they hit me hard and splashed. There was something refreshing about the quality of the rain. I thought I need to comment on the quality of this rain in my blog.

I didn’t walk in the rain, luckily it held off for my walk. Sometimes though, I quite enjoy being out in the rain. Normally, especially here, it’s accompanied by a fairly stiff wind, which breaks the drops up in to little needles being driven into your face, and then there is the really penetrating rain, which it doesn’t matter how well you are wrapped up, it seems to get everywhere.

There was just something about the quality of the rain this morning that just triggered a train of thought in me.

130/366 The Story of Art

The earth mound between me and Trinity Church are part of the Gosport ramparts built in the 1800’s. Taken on Saturday out on a walk.

So, I finished the Story of Art last night. I started reading it in October, so it’s taken me a fair bit of time to get through it. I have to say that it has been a thoroughly interesting book and I recommend anyone in the least bit in the story of art to read it. Before starting, I did check to see if I had the latest edition. I did – published in 1995. Of course as far as the book is concerned the story had to end somewhere, therefore I found it extremely ironic that one of the last art stories it talked about was the discovery of the Terracotta Army. Which, if Covid had not happened, we would happily be recounting memories after having seen it for real.

The book warned at the very beginning that having read it, don’t assume that you are able to talk on art as though you were an expert. I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert, but the book has definitely increased my appreciation of art. I’m quite keen now to visit an art gallery. Don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. I’m taking a brief break from big books, I have the history of the first 50 years of the Gosport society (1970 – ), of which I am a member. I joined the society last year because I found out that it gives some rather interesting lectures about the local area. One of the last ones I went to was about preparing for the D-Day embarkation, in which parts of Gosport played an incredibly important role.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. I didn’t wake up until 0700. That’s because I woke up at around 0300, and it took me a best part of an hour to get back to sleep. My wife has expressly forbidden me from even mentioning cats vomiting, so I shan’t – but it was from her (the cat’s) point of view a good one. It was everywhere!

129/366 Sunday & Vlogging

I haven’t been out at all today, except for one trip to the supermarket, to get some bits and pieces. I spent a bit of time tidying the office. There’s still much to do. I need to get better at compartmentalising things. I have a fairly big radio project that I am working on. There are various bits and pieces that are cluttering up the desk space, for which I not unreasonably get some stick.

I apologise for Friday nights post. It was a brief, feeble attempt. I’m not at all satisfied with it, but it stands there a matter of record of my feebleness.

Included in tonight’s title is the word Vlogging – yes, I am interested in the idea. I am slowly getting set up for it, I have an idea for a theme, and I want to do a good production. That’s as much as I am going to say for the time being. Today, I have mostly been playing with iMovie.