Time Gone By

Bobby Wellins | Saxophonist | 1936 - 2016

Photography & Text By Derek Clark

The jazz world lost another great musician last week. Tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins passed away at the age of 80. I had the chance to photograph Bobby on the 23rd of May 2013 during the recording of the Culloden Moor Suite CD with The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. These are the pictures I shot that day for the inside of the gatefold CD. We talked saxophones while he waited for the next take. Bobby found it interesting that I play sax and photograph musicians. It was a privilege to speak to him and an honour to stand a few feat away while he recorded the sax parts.

There's been a couple of times during the three years of shooting this jazz project (I don't even think I can call it a project anymore. It's just what I do) that I have questioned my motivation. Am I done? Have I got to the point where I'm shooting pictures I've already shot? Is this important in Scotland? After all this isn't New York or Paris during the jazz heyday. But I stick with it because I always come back with at least a few pictures that I'm proud of and that I would happily hang on a wall. I get to meet and photograph jazz legends from the UK and abroad, people that have been part of my Record/CD collection for years. But above all else, I get to shoot pictures for a few hours while listening to some of the most beautiful music I've had the pleasure of hearing. There hasn't been a gig went past that I haven't just stopped taking pictures and closed my eyes to hear the music. I mean REALLY hear the music.

It's so easy to get lost in the technical side of things while we're photographing whatever is in front of our lens, the aperture, the shutter speed...etc. But we need to set it and let it be sometimes. We need to take in the moment and witness it not just as photographers, but as human beings. Time is linear. It's here, it's gone and it will never be repeated. This could be the last day for any one of us, young or old. Live it like it was!

Tommy (Smith) put together a montage of my pictures from that day and set it to one of Bobby's tunes (below). I watched it in my car and realised, beyond all doubt, that the pictures I capture of this great music we call Jazz, are important!

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Meetings & Collisions

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Meetings & Collisions

At the most basic, fundamental level, photography is about collision.

Light hitting an object, bouncing, and being gathered.

I like the intersection of planes, the crossing of lines, the meeting places between people, between objects, or just between constantly shifting, fading shadows.

Surfaces. Textures. Light, shade.

That's all we have.

What Lies Beneath

Below The Surface Of Glasgow Central Station

By Derek Clark

An estimated 28 million passengers pass through Glasgow Central Station every year. From locals to tourists, business professionals to immigrants, old married couples to brand new couples meeting for the first time. I met my wife on the concourse (above) of this amazing station. Although we were born 7200 miles apart, fate (for want of a better word) brought us together 12 years ago in this station. In a sea of travellers on an extremely busy afternoon, I saw a rucksack move through the crowd as though it was floating on air. Then I saw her black hair swaying from side to side under the weight of her heavy rucksack and the rest, as they say, is history.

Central Station was opened on the 31st of July 1879 and is the largest building in the city. The glass roof is the largest in Europe and consists of 48,000 panes of glass. During the first world war the dead would be brought down below the platforms for relatives to identify and collect. It was then up to the deceased’s love ones to carry the body up the stairs and to get their husband, son …etc home.

The gate (above) and railings nearby are painted red because this area was dedicated to the Royal Mail. In August 1963 the regular mail train left from Central Station to deliver mail and a vast sum of money to London. A gang of 15 robbers tampered with signals on the track, attacked the train and got away with 2.6 million pounds (equivalent to 50 million today). In the course of the robbery, train driver Jack Mills was beaten with an iron bar and was unable to work again. He died 7 years later. This is known as The Great Train Robbery, one of the most infamous crimes in British history.

A tour beneath Central Station is now available HERE which I highly recommend taking if you visit Scotland or even if you live here. A huge thanks to Paul Lyons for his vision, wit and enthusiasm. Paul is one of the best story tellers I have had the pleasure of listening to and delivers his fantastic knowledge of history with tremendous passion. 

Modern Silence

Rumble In La Rambla

Photography & Text by Derek Clark

They arrived on the Barcelona metro with bedsheets tied in massive bundles, crowding platforms and filling trains. At La Rambla they struggled to pull the bundles through the turnstiles and drag them up stairs to street level. Some had already spread out their goods inside the Metro, a prime spot possibly.

I took the escalator to the street and stepped out into the evening heat. The sun was low in the sky and Saturday night and all that it brings, had already begun. I had never seen so many counterfeit items in one place. The bedsheets now laid flat on the ground and the goods for sale placed neatly on display. The usual (fake) Rolex watches, Beats Pill speakers and Ray-Ban sunglasses were all available, but the obvious favourites were Michael Kors handbags and Nike shoes. 

I made my way down La Rambla, watching the bartering and both sides were giving as good as they got. Money was exchanging hands in every direction, but the sellers were all looking nervously in one direction. 

Further down I could see the bright yellow of police shirts, then bedsheets being hurriedly stuffed full of goods and moved rapidly in my direction. As I got closer, the crowd became denser and the noise levels were rising rapidly. One voice stood out more than most and very quickly became the dominant one. A group of police officers on scooters were trying to make their way up La Rambla, but the protesters had blocked the way and refused to move. It was an awkward scene and no doubt embarrassing for the police involved.

A middle aged woman was shouting in Spanish, screaming at the police above the roar of the crowd. The police looked at each other, they seamed unsure how to handle the situation, After a while someone made the decision to move the police scooters off the pedestrian area and onto the road next to it, pulling back to avoid escalating the situation, at least until backup arrived. The protesters cheered as the police rode their scooters out onto the street, no doubt seeing it as a victory.

It looked as though the protest had developed in the heat of the moment, but more people started to arrive with handmade banners. For them at least, this was not about selling counterfeit goods, but about race and the persecution of migrants. There were banners saying 'Stop the war against migrants' and 'No more refugee's in prison' . While others claimed that violence was a legitimate defence.  Further up La Rambla the sellers were cautiously setting out their goods for sale again. 

Meanwhile, two Catalunya police vans had arrived full of cops armed with handguns and riffles at Plaça De Catalunya. They reversed both vans behind a large fountain and awaited instructions. But the standoff had been diffused to an extent and the sellers had decided to call it a day and pack up their counterfeit goods and gather near the entrance to the Catalunya Metro.

One eager entrepreneur opened his bundle for a couple of tourists that showed an interest, but the sale didn't develop and he was reprimanded by another seller, who looked as though he may have had some authority among the group. 

In the end the situation was diffused and what could have developed into something more serious turned out to be an embarrassment for the police and lost revenue for the sellers. The protesters may have scored a victory, but I'm sure faces were noted and even photographed for later collection.  

The Crib

The Crib

In my family, we play cards.

Not full time, obviously. But, when we get together at my parents' place on Georgian Bay - a glorified shack, really, with limited solar power & no TV or internet connection to speak of - that's when the games begin.

My parents have had an ongoing cribbage rivalry for as long as I can remember; they stay at the cottage for up to four months a year, and spend many of those evenings locked in crib battles.

Proof Of Life

Proof Of Life

Like a lot of cities, the real estate market in Sydney's inner suburbs seems to live by its own rules.

The character of Surry Hills is changing rapidly. While a lot of the buildings are of a similar style, 100-year-old worker's cottages, their condition veers wildly, from run-down student share houses with tattered flags in the window, to million dollar renovations with sports cars and SUVs parked out front.

This was never more apparent than recently, when the home of Natalie Jean Wood was put up for sale, after she was found to have died in her bed - eight years previously - and never been reported missing, or checked on by family or friends, in that time.

Space Time

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

What happened to Time? There used to be so much, and most of it was free. There was always another day. No need to rush! Don't do today what you can put off till tomorrow! Long summers and a lifetime between each Christmas. Mum and dad  stopping at another cafe and they always take too long! We still have hours in the back of the car and the 8-track cassette of Dean Martin goes round and round endlessly, click after click.

"Are we nearly there yet?"

Fast forward in more ways than one. Let's go, we don't have all day. Time is money and they run out as fast as each other. Shoot, edit. Shoot, edit edit. Shoot, edit edit edit. Multiple mouse clicks to every tick of the clock.
Time for dancing, time for swimming. Time for dad's taxi.
The end of yet another year hurtles towards us, like space debris heading to Explorer.

"We have to go, we have to go go go!".

The past is a blur!

The present can't be opened!

The future isn't what it used to be!

The Way We Look, Tonight

The Way We Look, Tonight

There are always two sides to every event, a wise photographer once told me; there's what's happening, and then there's the audience's reaction to what's happening.

I often say to my friends, you can tell when I've had a really good time at something, because there aren't any photos of it. By which I mean, I've been so caught up in whatever it was - a concert, a party, a dinner with friends - that I never once thought about documenting it for others, or for myself in the future...