These themes loosely compile related images either by subject or place. Just click on the appropriate heading on the list below. They’re not always too relevant in some cases as it’s nearly always the same underlying themes anyway but it makes others happier.
A forewarning though – some collections can take a little while to load first time depending on the number of images they contain. Unfortunately that is the price of retaining image-quality and quantity. Best viewed either on computer screens or tablets in ‘landscape/horizontal’ orientation, by the way. The flow is automatic but you can use a mouse / keyboard-arrows / swipe for speed and direction control.
Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent
Apologies to Bill Shakespeare for ‘sampling’ his words but somewhere in the middle of a simultaneous deathly pandemic, lockdown and, in my case a heavy bout of arctic weather too, it sometimes feels like a reboot of the mind is needed; like an old and tired computer. These images are just a glance at nature’s microcosm performing mysteries and magic for a fleeting while to keep us on track until things look brighter again.
Dark Times
These images were created during the early days of the pandemic outbreak. I don’t know if they were inspired by the situation or they were always there somehow.
Sky Ice
Just water and sky in combination for a spectacle only we can see and appreciate. I’d like to think that wild creatures as well could just stop and admire it all but they are too busy just trying to stay alive I suppose. Something to learn there.
Valencia
Valencia Street was a shabby-chic area of San Francisco. Clumsy, kitschy colours and combinations spilled out over the sidewalk experience liked a kicked bucket, soothed by archetypal shadows. Crazy as a box of frogs and symbolic as a dot-com logo. But now increasing gentrification has made the inevitable noticeable inroads. Nothing lasts for long.
Leaving Leaves
The title is just a play on words really. But if you do leave leaves, what you see here is what can happen. There is a sad beauty in age, sometimes.
Surf’s Down
The title has nothing to do with any problems with your wi-fi connection but a fading reference to a legendary Beach Boys’ number – Surf’s Up. Sometimes, however, sea surf is down along with a lot of other things; that’s life. Nevertheless, there are still visual wonders to be enjoyed if you can stop for a few seconds just to see.
Alcatraz
This place is now one of the major tourist attractions in the USA. Strange when you think about it but fascinating it is anyway. Maybe it’s as close as it gets for most of us in providing an insight into what can happen. There was an old folk song that had a line: “there but for fortune, may go you or I”.
SW of EDEN
The cryptic title is open for interpretation. Can’t say if I’ve made any decisions myself. It’s a changing world, right?
USA Colour These two selections are just a few crumbs from the vast American table. They are from the USA not of, there is a difference. The USA is of course a fantastic, stunning, exciting, fascinating and beautiful country. It can be crazy, ugly, dangerous and frightening too sometimes but nevertheless still amazing in many ways. USA Black & White
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands must have been just a sun-drenched dream, once. But now the crushing weight of cash and concrete has alienated the innocence. Tourists descend by the tens of thousands looking for a reprieve from their daily grey grind. The Bacchanalian dream of all-inclusive deals bloats their midriffs while torrents of alcohol blur reality for a few days. But honestly, with the state of the world as it is now, can you really blame them.
Dollar Grin
A ‘dollar grin’ was slang for certain American car models from around the 40s/50s.The over-dimensioned opulent designs, brashy, flashy and outrageous, almost became a symbol for everything that was bold, vulgar and over-the-top in that period. In some ways they were crazily wonderful. Hopelessly politically incorrect nowadays, they remain historically fascinating in our new grey and dour world.
UK
Some things are too complex to describe. The United Kingdom, or the ‘not very United’ Kingdom, is one of them. I’ve almost loved it and almost hated it for a list of different reasons too long to relate. The hotch-potch history, the hotch-potch people, the eccentricity, the dullness, the genius, the idiocy, the pride, the shame, the glorious beauty, the sad ugliness, the simple charm, the gruelling arrogance – and then there’s the weather! It just goes on and on. Images don’t get even close to reflecting a fraction of it all of course but here’s a handful anyway from a favourite English pastime – a trip to the coast.
Winter Waterfront
In winter when twilight moves into night, it becomes a darker and colder world. Activity slows to an eerie ambiguity.
Heading North
Inland from the west coast of Sweden and heading northwards is country that is only partly tamed. Modern man is there of course making his ubiquitous scars but they are almost overwhelmed by unabashed nature. Slow mile after slow mile, the glittering lakes and blanketing forests seem to remain as the only trustworthy guardians of the mysterious essence of our old ‘analogue’ world.
France
Just a French version of anywhere else. And that’s the point. There are small wonders wherever you are, waiting to be acknowledged, react with and be assimilated into your picture of your world.
Rocks
All things must come and go, even rocks, but at least they go at an enviable pace.
Deeper in the Forest
What do you see when you walk in the forest? Perhaps things aren’t as straightforward as they might first seem. Try walking ‘deeper’ in the forest next time. You never know what you might find.
A bit of this and a bit of that
Some old and some new. No obvious theme. No obvious connections. No obvious rhyme or reason either – they just are.
‘Alternative Prints’
A selection of prints made mainly using the photopolymer and cyanotype processes plus a few manual additions to produce ‘hybrids’. These techniques borrow a lot from the so-called ‘printmaking’ world where special papers, metal plates, inks, chemicals as well as manual intervention can be involved in the practice of producing several prints of the same image with the same characteristics. Drawing and painting, for example, involve only one original and additional copies must be made using other, more clinical, techniques. It’s a fun and messy world fraught with disappointment, accidents and failures as well as occasional triumphal successes. The very nature of these processes invites the intervention of alternative imagery from various sources to add spice to the whole affair. Digital photography can feel a little sterile compared to these odd and awkward practices so the liberation of just ‘getting your hands dirty’ really is a welcome change now and again.