Without the state

Hurling thunderbolts from the floor

Image by ibanda via Flickr

A beautifully lyrical article on the Tango from the NY Times.

The fundamental step is simply a walk, but a walk that links two people, apparently by destiny. The body’s weight is forward, over the front of the foot, and the dancers lean into each other.

...

Sometimes their bodies seem to touch all the way from brow to knee even as they march or glide along; sometimes there’s just enough space in their embrace for each to turn rapidly to either side,...

The embrace almost never breaks, and within it the gentle planting of a foot on the floor, toe first, can be like a caress. Or either dancer can simply, slowly sweep a pointed foot around on the floor to trace a semicircle.

via Fishnets and Fedoras

##NaNoWriMo##

 

What's new...

I've finally got myself organised enough to queue up posts with Typepad's scheduling feature, although for the moment I'm simply picking up pictures from my Flickr account. That at least will avoid the long gaps that have been appearing too often of late. I'm also using these flickr pictures to make yet another shift in the blog focus, to more explicitly include my own prints and other art work. I expect the more overtly political pieces will still appear, but with less pressure on me to 'perform'.

 

Image via Wikipedia

Probably foolishly, I'm also taking part in National Novel Writing Month again (NaNoWriMo to the cognoscenti!). That starts on November 1st, so anything I write will probably show up here, although I will probably put them on Pages, rather than as blog posts. I'm cheating slightly as I will be starting with edited versions of my alternate history 'A Frozen Spring' which is based around the idea of a German occupied Tyneside during the severe winter of 1947. This isn't based on the Nazis winning WW2 - in this universe Britain and Germany are nominally allies. You can read the background here. The chapters written so far are linked under More Information on the side bar. 

 

Changes afoot...

I'm currently trying to make this blog do two things. I want to carry on writing about the things that interest/annoy me and I also want to share/promote my prints and photography. At the moment I'm not convinced it works, although from my perspective my art is part and parcel of being me, just as much as the politics and polemic.

I would be interested in getting feedback from my reader on this. Do the politics put you off the art or vice versa?

[Temporarily, this post will be held at the top of the blog, so new items will appear below it]

Guest blogging at Time Goes By

Don't forget to call in at Time Goes By and read my guest post there.

Guest blogging at Time Goes By

I have a guest post coming up at Ronni Bennett's blog on aging, 'Time Goes By'. Its well worth a read at any time. but I hope you'll drop by and read my own post on Preparing for Death (it isn't as gloomy as it sounds!)

It is scheduled to come up on June 11th.

Doctor Who - again

The latest episode of Doctor Who (Saturday 21st June) demonstrated both the strengths and weaknesses of Russell T Davies as a writer of SF. I seem to recall reading an interview somewhere in which he acknowledged that original ideas were not his forte and it is true that he seem to cheerfully pillage ideas from everywhere. The range of references and plot ideas he drops into an average episode is huge. This works well with his great strength I think - he is simply brilliant at world building. The last episode - and the two part season finale to come - seem as if they will depend on a series of small visual and narrative clues built in to previous episodes going back in some cases over previous series and even to the old Who from years back. At the time some of this at the time seemed merely to be 'fleshing out' the story line, but in many cases they turn out to have a significance out of all proportion to their impact on the story line at the time. His juggling of these ideas as both writer and executive producer is a world apart (sorry!) from the dross of Heroes or Buffy. I suspect if Firefly had been able to keep going it might have achieved something similar. Other than that only Babylon 5 seems to have taken the world in which it was set seriously enough to make it coherent, and within the story line, believable. Let's hope Stephen Moffat proves as good.

The first rule of blogging

...is of course to keep posting, which is something I have singularly failed to do. It isn't just here. My Flickr and Ipernity accounts are also languishing from lack of attention.  I haven't been idle though. I have  been working on a much longer piece than I normally post here, and also working at getting out and about selling my pictures. I have something like 30 art or craft fairs booked between now and the end of the year and I am also promoting my work much more actively.

The fairs are useful on two counts - they give me a place to sell, but they also lead to increased exposure. Even so it is hard work. Most people going to craft fairs expect to find jewellery perhaps, textiles and knitted products, perhaps wood. They don't I think expect to find art or photography. Consequently you need a high footfall to stand a chance of making significant sales.

I really would like to see more such fairs with the primary focus on art. The downside is that you don't get the people who would never go to a gallery and are just looking for a pretty picture to hang on their wall. I'm not proud - if that is what you want I will sell it!

Anyway - here are the next few fairs I will be attending. If you are in the area, please pop in and say hello - discount for anyone producing a print out of this article.

Monday May 26^th - Cleeve House, Seend near Devizes (also Jewellery) - 10.00 am to 4.00 pm

Saturday Jun 7^th - Southampton Bargate Art Market - 9.00 am to 4.00 pm

Sunday Jun 15^th - Lacock - Village Hall - 11.00 am onwards

Sunday Jun 22^nd - Alton, Hampshire - Art Market – High Street - 9.00 am to 2.00 pm

Saturday Jun 28^th - Tetbury Market Hall - 10.00 am to 4.00 pm

Saturday Jul 5^th - Bath - Craft in the Crypt - St Michael’s Church, Broad Street, Bath BA1 5LJ - 9.00 am to  4.00 pm

Sunday Jul 20^th - Lacock - Village Hall - 11.00 am onwards

Sunday Jul 27^th- Alton, Hampshire -  Art Market – High Street - 9.00 am to 2.00 pm

Words and pictures

I have linked already to 'No Caption Needed'. Here are two more in the same vein - both well worth adding to your feeds.

(Notes on) Politics Theory and Photography

See this essay for example looking at the escapades of the infamous Blackwater in Iraq.

I am not partial to mercenaries like Prince and have made that plain here before (see this post and the links it contains). Today Prince complained that just because his employees are trigger happy yahoos we should not "rush to judgement" because they are working in a dangerous, stressful environment. A couple of things spring to mind. First, no one is making any of these guys take jobs in Baghdad. Second, they are a lot less stressed with no accountability for their actions than they will be if the Congress gets some backbone and starts to inquire into their activities. And third, they are making a ton of money shooting up the town.

Errol Morris at the NY Times

A blog by the maker of the movie The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara that won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2004.

See this post about two photographs by Roger Fenton taken during the Crimean War and the baggage that goes with judgements about which came first.

I spent a considerable amount of time looking at the two photographs and thinking about the two sentences. [Susan] Sontag, of course, does not claim that Fenton altered either photograph after taking them – only that he altered or “staged” the second photograph by altering the landscape that was photographed. This much seems clear. But how did Sontag know that Fenton altered the landscape or, for that matter, “oversaw the scattering of the cannonballs on the road itself?”

Surely, any evidence of this would be independent of the photographs. We don’t see Fenton (or anyone else for that matter) in either of the photographs bending down as if to pick up or put down a cannonball. How does Sontag know what Fenton was doing or why he was doing it? (To up the ante, Sontag’s sentence also suggests a certain laziness on Fenton’s part, as if he himself couldn’t be bothered with picking up or putting down a cannonball himself, but instead supervised or oversaw their placement. The imperious Fenton: Hey, you, over there. Pick up that cannonball and move it on to the road. No not there. A little more to the left. Or maybe it wasn’t laziness. Maybe he had a bad back. The incapacitated Fenton: Boy, my back is killing me. Would you mind picking up a few cannonballs and carrying them on to the road?)

While I was wrestling with these questions, it occurred to me that there was an even deeper question. How did Sontag know the sequence of the photographs? How did she know which photograph came first, OFF or ON? Presumably, there had to be some additional information that allowed the photographs to be ordered: before and after. If this is the basis for her claim that the second photograph was staged – that the landscape was posed for the second photograph – shouldn’t she offer some evidence? Fenton takes one photograph (OFF), oversees the scattering of the cannonballs and then takes another photograph (ON).

New blogging

While I intend to continue blogging here on all the usual topics, I have also started blogging at a new group blog, "Man in the White Suit", about photography the old fashioned way with film. You can see my first post here.  I haven't lost my interest in digital manipulations, far from it, and if your only interest in photography is family and holiday snaps, then digital cameras are ideal. However digital media cannot, so far, capture the subtle tones possible from medium and large format film.

I've invested therefore in a new 120 film camera - like most modern technology these days, made in China - and I'm looking forward to trying it out. For the non-photographers out there, 120 film produces negatives 6cm square, although with some cameras you can get other formats. The normal 6x6 format is about four times the size of a 35mm negative.

Actually 'invested' is probably too strong a word for spending  twenty quid on an overpriced toy, but the images I've seen from  Holga cameras have been captivating. There is perhaps something liberating about not having a few hundred pounds worth of high tech goods round your neck. Even taking processing costs in to account, you would have to take an awful lot of pictures on a Holga to spend the equivalent of a top of the range digital.

Holga#15, originally uploaded by thorburn.

Given that the Holga is indeed a toy, I've also bought a S/H Lubitel 166. This also uses 120 film, but is an altogether more serious - if still cheap - camera. It is an obsolete type really, known as a Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) using one lens to focus and a second to take the picture. The two lenses are linked, so that as you focus the one, the other adjusts too.

Using cameras like this means a change of pace. Winding on the film is a process of slowly winding the knob until the number of the next frame appears in a small red window on the camera back. This takes at least 30 secs. In the same period, my digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) can rip through 50 or 60 pictures. You can't capture rapid movement with these cameras so there is no point in trying and you begin to concentrate on the details of what is in front of you - perhaps seeing it for the first time.

I'm looking forward to the experience.

Ipernity, the new photosharing site I am moving to, also includes provision for a blog (alongside video and audio files). So far it shows no sign of turning into a Myspace or YouTube clone. My blog space ay ipernity will I think also be devoted primarily to photography. This post, about my personal involvement in photography over the years, recycles various bits and pieces already blogged or published in some way.