Going abroad is all very well, but I'm not too keen on the democratised version, called tourism, which, for reasons of poverty, is the only form available to me. I don't mean by this that the good plain folk of the world shouldn't be allowed to travel if they want to, but if I'm honest I'd rather they kept the numbers down a bit. But do they enjoy it anyway? With maturity comes self-knowledge, and you learn to distinguish between what you enjoy and what you've been told you ought to enjoy, often by people who can charge for providing it. After the first few hours in some commercialised dump, I find myself wondering what I'm going to do for the yawning fortnight that lies ahead. Is the experience really worth the sleepless night and 4am start from the bed-and-breakfast in Horley for a flight that doesn't take off until nine, the humiliations of "security", the poor sleep in unfamiliar surroundings, the constipation, the crowds, the heat, the tired feet, and the return to work the morning after you get back, probably suffering from some palsy you picked up in the alien bacteriological environment? No xenophobe, I don't imply any criticism of "abroad" or foreigners. This was taken in Corfu in September 2016. Lovely place for a few days. I was ill, on and off, for about three weeks afterwards.
Tags: Corfu Greece alley Fujifilm GW690 II Kodak TMax 400 Promicrol 1+9, 12 mins tourism foreign travel
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You probably think this a dull photograph, but think how much duller it would be without the figure. A figure provides focus and gives scale ...and, of course, people are the world's most interesting subject. I take many a failed photo that might have been improved by the inclusion of a figure. The truth is that either I haven't got the patience to wait for a figure to appear, or I feel uneasy about aiming a camera at a complete stranger. For reasons such as this I can never be much of a photographer. I haven't got the dedication or the brass neck. I chanced it here, as the figure seemed too absorbed in her phone conversation to notice me. The photo was taken on one of my autumnal inspections of the locality for toadstools. After a notably good season in 2022, this year has been disappointing. I was descending to the road from the small wood where, last year, the ground was smothered in toadstools. This year, not a sausage. What a show we had of Fly Agarics last year: this time around there were only two small clumps, of inferior quality. Still, the variation from one year to the next is itself interesting. I wonder what accounts for it. One looks for an explanation to the weather during the preceding summer: this year we endured a notably poor summer with a late fine spell; last year was generally unremarkable, but with two short spells of great heat. Search me.
Tags: path dog dog-walker Abercwmboi South Wales country walk Yashica 635 Rodinal (Bellini RDL) 1+25, 13 mins Ilford FP4+ at 200ASA
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It's a funny old world. It's only a little over twenty years since digital cameras "came in". Early on they were the fabulous new "must have" gadget. We are often told that "the technology moves so fast nowadays". I suspect this is partly a myth. Advancements become available, but the manufacturers are careful to drip-feed them onto the market in stages, so that everyone has to upgrade. This creates the illusion of great technological strides taking place every few years. Once the world had been flooded with the early point-and-shoot digital cameras, the manufacturers released DSLRs and everyone had to buy a new camera or suffer a loss of status. Subsequent developments have passed me by, but I hear of larger sensors, more capacious memory sticks, and see references to "mirrorless" and "digital medium format", whatever they are. So how does the trend-conscious young photographer keep one step ahead of the pack? Why, obviously he goes retro and turns to "analogue" photography. I was watching a chap on You Tube the other day who said that as soon as someone gets hold of a film camera these days, he is gripped by a passion to photograph what is seedy and derelict. Yes, I think he's hit on something there. You see these young fellows on You Tube who, as soon as they've mastered the intricacies of loading a cassette of Portra 400 into their newly-acquired Olympus OM10, are hot-foot out of the door in search of the nearest abandoned factory or burnt-out car. I can only say for myself that I've always been drawn to such subject-matter. The sixties and seventies were its heyday and it was more picturesque and less sleazy then, but my pulse still quickens a little at the sight of fly-blown dustbins, malodorous alleys and patches of wasteground thinly overgrown with Buddleia and ragwort. I like the countryside as much as the next chap, but I see the purpose of vegetation as mainly to grow from shattered brickwork or in the cracks between paving stones. This seems to be a minority taste, and if to be among the smaller number is to be wrong, then I suppose there must be some defect in my character.
Tags: drainpipe pavement Merthyr Tydfil weeds Yashica 635 Bellini Eco (XTOL) Ilford FP4+ 1+3, 14 mins, 45 secs
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For thirty years I had a two-a-day cigar habit. It used to break my heart to have to discard the stubs, sometimes representing a couple of quids' worth of unsmoked tobacco. "Why not", I thought to myself, "buy an inexpensive pipe in which to smoke off the stubs?" This brilliant credo came to me at about the time I retired and what happened, of course, is that I eventually ditched the cigars and went over to a pipe exclusively. A bowl of a decent baccy, packed and tamped to a nicety, will last just as long as a cigar at considerably less cost. Furthermore, pipe-smoking consorts nicely with my old codger skinflint curmudgeon character. The early stub-smoking pipe was an inexpensive corn cob. These can be had for £6 or £7, but I would not recommend them as the bottoms of the bowls eventually burn through. I've known them last as long as ten months or as little as six days. Better to pay a bit more ...but still less than twenty nicker... for better quality: this, the Missouri Meerschaum "Country Gentleman", is supplied with a hardwood plug in the bottom of the bowl. I've had it for three years. The most famous users of corn cobs were General Douglas MacArthur and Popeye, so I feel I'm in good company. When well smoked, the bowls become fissured and develop a pleasing charred patina. I think I have eleven pipes now, but the humble corn cob, sometimes regarded as an inferior disposable item, smokes as well as any.
Tags: pipe corn cob pipe Missouri Meerschaum smoking Mamiya M645 Kodak E100 extension tube tobacco
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Driving south from Ebbw Vale, past its Festival Park, the Aneurin Bevan Hospital and Ebbw Vale Parkway, the next place you come to is Cwm. Skirted by a partially elevated by-pass it is strangely deserted. One would much prefer that Marine Colliery was still going strong and the shops a-bustling, but there is a sad poetry here that I enjoy in a different way. I would like to think that these railings, rooted in unmown turf, once enclosed a miner's proudly tended garden. Yes, I see it now. Onion beds, cucumber frames and bean poles, a greenhouse for the tomatoes and, in the flagged yard, hanging on a wall next to the pigeon loft, a galvanised bathtub, brought indoors at end of shift, where a good wife waits to lave the pit grime from her husband's weary shoulders as a nourishing supper simmers on the blackleaded range. Yes, yes, I know all about roof falls, explosions, pneumoconiosis and no lavatories underground, but just for a moment forget your dreary social conscience and allow an old man his ideal, his beautiful dream. Today, stray sheep wander in the traffic-calmed principle street of the little town, the playground is silent, dandelions flourish on vacant plots and toms slink between wheelie-bins in malodorous alleys or curl up to sleep on the coping stones of breeze-block walls. The Premier eight-'til-late convenience store... Well, you can make up the rest for yourself.
Tags: Ebbw Vale Cwm South Wales The Valleys pit village Ilford FP4+ Mamiya M645 Bellini Eco (XTOL) 1+3, 14mins 45secs
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