It’s fair to say that in the summer months every space is filled, every arcade becomes a cacophony of jangling coins clattering through the penny slots and the sands and promenade are brimming with visitors munching on ice cream and fish & chips as they walk with opportunistic seagulls circling overhead well into the evening.
But it’s no longer summer in Scarborough.
Last week was ‘Kina 2018 week. As I’m sure you probably know by now I was there giving 3 talks. So was Bert, Patrick and Kevin along with many others from the Fujifilm “family”. Yes I call them family, cause that is actually what it feels like to be around this particular group of people. It feels safe. I feel that I can be myself. I have strong feelings towards many of them. So yes, this is just like a family relationship.
I’m humbled beyond words to be able to have this in my life. I’m grateful for everything that it brings me. This is so far from what I expected when I took up photography those almost 10 years ago.
As with any great thing in life that must come to an end, the withdrawal effect can be overwhelming. And thats what I’m going through this week. Withdrawal.
I force myself to pick up my camera, but the mood of it all is rather dark. So I go with the flow, and do what my slumbering overloaded creative brain wants me to do. I embrace it.
So today is dark. Today is abstinence. Today is longing.
A few days have passed already. I’m sitting at the computer after a morning of catching up and preparing for a teaching project. October is shaping up to be busy—more travels, workshops, sessions. And all these images and memories to revisit and make sense of.
I was on a train a few days ago—speeding through this blurry world. At one point, just three kilometres shy of 300 km/h.
I was on a train that now seems a hundred years away.
This week has been a struggle due to my ongoing back pain, which just seems to be getting worse. I had a shoot a few days ago for another CD cover, although I can’t share any pictures of that at this point. But the X-T3 performed flawlessly, never missing focus once, even though the room was pretty dark towards the end of the seven-hour shoot.
Yesterday we took the kids for a bit of indoor climbing and then an obstacle course fifty feet in the air. It gets them away from screens for a while and lets them blow of some steam too.
It’s October 1st and I can feel the cold setting in. Puffer jackets are back on the streets and leaves are everywhere. Winter is well on the way, and after the snow last year, I promised myself the Audi will be gone and another Land Rover will take its place. I’ll make a start on it this week.
Happy Monday everyone.
This is very much a lame post today I’m afraid.
As you know, Chronicle is supposed to be about our “now” - not cherry picked images from our archive to rose tint the glasses.
And so, my friends, this is my now.
Exhausted.
As many of you know, Bert, Pat, Jonas and I have been at Photokina this last week.
Pat, Bert and Jonas were there for the whole time, while I had to leave on Friday to head to the South of France to shoot a wedding yesterday.
I won’t go into the long details, but my 48 hours since leaving Cologne have included;
A delayed trains
A delayed plane
A 14 Hour wedding shoot (lovely, by the way)
Another delayed plane.
An assault on a plane (I wasn’t involved, but we all got held up)
A delayed bus
A long traffic jam.
I’ve just waled in through the door and realised that Sunday is my day in terms of Chronicle.
I’ve done no more than download a few snaps from my X70 I’m afraid ….. hopefully normal service will resume next week …… though I have a double header wedding next week so I’ll have to think it through.
Have a great week everybody.
I’m so proud and grateful that I was asked to speak for Fujifilm at Photokina again. They have let me play with the GFX50R, I get copious quantities of food and beer. On top of that, they even pay me for taking some pictures on a stage for 40 minutes each day, using cheap IKEA stuff as modifiers. I’m in a nice hotel and I get to hang out with friends and heroes. And yet it’s hard, exhausting and relentless. The stress to be on stage, the intensity of the conversations, the e-mails that have to be answered, the late nights and the ever present noise are getting to me. Yesterday Pat and I took it easy, went for dinner in the hotel restaurant and added some extra hours of rest to our schedule. Today is the last day, one more presentation and I intend to squeeze the last drop out of the friendships that will become virtual again from tomorrow on.
We’re here. Last night I crashed around 5:45 PM—I looked like a wreck and felt 85 years-old. I’d been existing in a half-reality for most of the day, everything around me becoming increasingly fluid.
These are from Bert’s place, a few hours after landing. Quick shots with the new GFX 50R, quickly edited on my iPad with Snapseed. Indoors stuff...because it’s all still a “secret” as I write these words. Not for long though.
Next up: the press conference, a rehearsal and an evening out.
Photokina it is.
Seeing old friends, making new ones.
This is the part I like.
This is what brings a smile to my face.
The rest resembles a charade
