There’s none so blind.
It was bought home to me by a very good friend who shall be nameless, but she lives in Spain with her husband and a dog called Patch that from time to time we all get caught out by forgetfulness.
Now this is not the sort of forgetfulness that heralds a thump round the ear, or a shunning in silence for about a week for forgetting an important Birthday. But the type that makes you go “Sugar! expletive deletive, when you pass a beautiful scene that nature has concocted just for the time that you travel through! And you know that you have left your camera back at base! Definitely, time for a large and vociferous “Sugar!”
I know, I know, you’re going to say “So what”. Well the “so what” is a very important “what” if you take camera work seriously. Last Friday was a special Birthday and I’d booked a pub meal for us down at a little place called The Port William at Trebarwith Strand. Now for those of you that know the Strand you will know that it is a place of Cornish magic and a beautifully shaped tide swept beach. It’s a dreamers beach. Full of craggy rocky coves, caves, shells and sand bars. Not to forget the water course that cascades down the runnels in the rocks to challenge and lose its battle with the tide on a twice daily basis. As I said, a dreamers, or poets beach, full of enchantment.
No I did not forget my camera. I managed and got a few cerebral shots of the blue slate rocks near the cove entrance and of the pub. But the sea, the sea. The wind was doing magic things with the waves. Hurling them into the air with a whirling spinning drift, willowing them up the wind to land on the beach like fisherman’s beards after a Neptune ’s shave. (I did say it was a poets beach!)
So what was the problem. The problem was, even with the camera on the highest setting I could only achieve grainy pictures of the surf. The salt spray and the low light really defeated my ability to capture a good image. Other than those of the rocks which you should be able to view on line soon.
So………. back to the opening of this blog. Because, I carry a camera nearly (99%) of the time when I am out. I do not lose the opportunity to recover those lost pictures when nature favors us with an image in passing. Some of the best pictures I have taken have been on the hoof so to speak. I know it sounds like I am blowing my own trumpet here. (It’s my blog, so there!) but I have settled over the centuries to keeping two cameras. One full SLR and the other a Multi function camera, commonly called a bridge camera: ‘cept it isn’t! Or nearly isn’t. A bridge camera is a Multi purpose camera that is not an SLR (Single lens reflex) This one is. But then it isn’t. Confused? Yup I can understand that. What it is, is a camera that uses the principle of shooting through the lens (Avoids Parallax on close ups) but without the mirror. It uses electronics to imitate the mirror. But it does have a non removable zoom/close up lens. So it’s a bridge! Still confused?
Anyway cutting to the gravy and moving on. These two beasts serve me well for all sorts of situations. But the bridge camera, with its fixed lens travels with me 99% of the time. And I use it for those shots that nature throws at us when it feels we are really not paying attention. It’s the smaller of the two and can zoom to 300mm. It’s proposed as a true 35mm which is fairly unique among digital. And it is flexible for most things. Apart from those B***** waves. But there will be a next time!
People often say to me. Have you always taken photographs? I suppose in a way I have. But badly. I joke. I don’t think that I took bad photographs really. I think that sending then off to “Photoosit Prints Guaranteed” or whatever, was the mistake. In photography I use light, colour, and shape, shutter and aperture. And none of these “flash my photograph” company’s really cared about my creativity. It was in the bath, out the bath, in the bath, out the bath, fix, print, and bugger! My film came back with one of those red stickers that said..”We regret to advise you that next doors cat must have peed on your film. Or you used it to take photographs not in keeping with the camera being fully on automatic. It failed.
Being disappointed at the outcome didn’t help and not having a dark room of my own was a drawback. I knew nothing of the skills and culture of developing that could have turned at least one percent of my pictures into something viewable!!
So picture taking from my first Box Brownie up to the horizon of digital was a series of snap it and scrap it processes. In the passing I owned some good cameras. But today, it’s a living and a hobby.
The stupid thing is about the history of photographs; my photographs, is that I have recently recovered some of these failures from the mouldering suitcase in the loft and being of a mean mind that hates waste scanned them digitally. The results show that I was, plausibly, always a photographer. I just did not have the dedication or skills that some of the members of our Phoenix Camera Club, Holsworthy, show when it comes to developing film.
Now digital? Perhaps, what may have something to do with that is I grew up, in my formative years, within the computer industry. And if I may be so bold from my experience let me advise you. Computers are almost human. If you upset them they sulk!! No question about it. If you really upset your computer, you may as well have stuck you neck to the chopping block and told your wife that the dress she is wearing makes her look frumpy. You can hear the bell toll!!
And of course cameras, bless, are small computers. Even those with film in them. That is unless you are really older that me. and are still using the Kodak Box Browney.
More soon.
Mike Tyrrell for Rainbow Journey’s www.rjsw.co.uk
