It is a wet, cold November Sunday here in the UK. The type of day where one needs lots of motivation to venture out: low light levels, stiff breeze, cold, cold air and so damp! Recently I have been labouring under the oppression of a turbulent year in many aspects of life and photography has frequently seemed pointless and unfulfilling. (Does the world really need more monochrome squiggles and shades on its computer screens and walls?)

So it was today that leaving the front door held little attraction, especially when carrying a cold, heavy tripod and made worse by the prospect of fiddling with film holders and a light meter. Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" captures that dull, resistant mood so well:

"The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I."

And so it happened that my own darkling thrush...

"At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;"

... proved to be the very equipment I nearly left behind. Force of habit forced me to pause near a stand of silver birch trees whose light bark and wiry twigs always look so gorgeously delicate and distinguished no matter what the season nor how deep the gloom. The pause itself revealed nothing to me. Just trees and grass so wiry it looked like scribbles of an artistic child against the dark of the leaf-mould below. A spark of curiosity arose in me; a small heart-leap at the sight of contrasting textures and lines but one so insignificant as to be easily ignored. It had enough charge, however, to make me place the tripod, open the bag and set up the new (and beautiful) pinhole camera made from spalted hawthorn which I recently received from a friend in exchange for some prints.

This unremarkable action, lasting perhaps two minutes, caused me to look slightly differently to the way I would have viewed the scene without a camera. Gradually, but with increasing speed, the wonder of what was before me came back into life. Now, rather than standing somewhat disconsolately in a cold winter woodland, I felt like a participant in an unfolding drama involving trees, grass, wind and humankind. I loved the bite of the cold and the rustle of the few remaining leaves against the twigs holding them fast. Standing next to the pinhole camera in 38 seconds of enforced meditation and looking, I was the camera; the timeline of the vision it was capturing in my presence was my own timeline, a transformation from bleak uncertainty to glorious appreciation of the matter-of-factness of life. One which would remain, if only on a sheet of film and in the cinema of my own mind. And curiously, I sometimes think that the presence of film might not actually matter to me, the photographer, it simply makes possible the expression of the moment to my audience.

I often entertain myself by drawing parallels between the sensuousness of monochrome prints and the tonality of music, high-key print values equating to treble notes and low-key to the bass, with much of the texture of the piece communicated by the middle values. It struck me forcefully today that the comparison of the two media can be taken several stages further and especially with regard to pinhole photography. Notably that the length of the exposures required in much pinhole work makes the very act of exposure similar to that of the performance of music. The involvement of the photographer in the actual process of light's altering of the silver crystals seems to endow him or her with the transcendental mindset of the performer. The moment of creation occurs during the live act and the recording becomes available later. And, undeniably, the performance - albeit to an audience of one - is a communication (or even a communion) which takes place entirely outside the intellect, allowing the fusion of opposites, the thrill of discovery, the embracing of the immediate without regard to the past or future.

Hardy's thrush is a musician in just this way, one who takes his audience on a journey of the spirit:

"That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware."

So, photography, a pointless and unfulfilling pursuit? No more and no less than music I have to say now. The poetry of photography and the inspiration of music run parallel for me and I could no more give up the making of photographs than I could prevent myself thrilling to the notes of Elgar, Metheny or Springsteen. Nor, indeed, those of a thrush.

Winter sunset from the top of Ladle Hill on the ridge of the North Wessex Downs, a line of chalk hills in the south of England. This is a spot which I used to frequent as a child and which has lost none of its magic, engendered in part by its location inside an unfinished Iron Age earthwork and in part by its relative isolation. Thomas Hardy says in his poem Wessex Heights:

"There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand
For thinking, dreaming, dying on, and at crises when I stand,
Say, on Ingpen Beacon eastward, or on Wylls-Neck westwardly,
I seem where I was before my birth, and after death may be.

In the lowlands I have no comrade, not even the lone man's friend --
Her who suffereth long and is kind; accepts what he is too weak to mend:
Down there they are dubious and askance; there nobody thinks as I,
But mind-chains do not clank where one's next neighbour is the sky."

I hope some of this is captured in this pinhole photo.

Henry Blake played a fantastic set last night at the Blag Club in Ladbroke Grove. His thoughtful lyrics and melodic guitar playing made a beautiful complement to the pinhole photos projected behind the stage. I also got to meet some his fabulous, warm, creative friends. Now I'm looking forward to many more collaborations like this. Check out Henry at http://myspace.com/henryblaketunes

This is my personal favourite of the three good pinhole photos made on my recent visit to this astonishing place.

Taken from the Heel Stone with the Slaughter Stone just visible before the main circle.

London singer/songwriter Henry Blake is using my Dream of Flight series as artwork for his new CD "Songs for the Unknown" (due out imminently). He will be performing with eleven images (the complete series so far) back projected on the stage at the Blag Club, Ladbroke Grove, London, UK on Friday 14th November 2008. I am hoping to be there too so let me know if you can make it and I will look you up. Samples of his music can be heard on Henry's MySpace page

Gig details below:

HENRY BLAKE performing at:
BLAGCLUB, CANALOT STUDIOS
222 Kensal Road, London W10 5BN
8.30pm Friday 14th November 2008
Cost: £5.00

I have just returned from a trip to the Salisbury where I took the opportunity to visit Stonehenge again after an absence of many years. The place was just as magical as ever. I felt that pinhole would be the ideal medium to make an image as a long paper negative exposure would allow the other people (hundreds) to gently vanish into a ghostly disappearance. Curiously, the crowds did not diminish the wonderful reverence of the site. Here is a first draft of a photo I think captures something of Stonehenge with its timeless slowness and calm.

I attended the Blurb symposium last Friday and I have to admit it was not quite what I was expecting. Advertised with the words "You'll hear working photographers talk about their books, hear industry practitioners discuss how to curate and design books, and learn how to market a successful book." I did expect something with a slightly more practical, craft-focused angle. Instead we were privileged to hear some very eminent publishers (notably Dewi Lewis and Chris Boot) talk about the state of the photo book world and gain some insights into how they approach the market and manage their own activities. Curiously, none of the speakers was a Blurb user and all of them spoke from the perspective of a "traditional" publisher. It was fascinating to discover that many books run to only 1500 copies and that one which sells 3000 is more or less a bestseller! It is also expected that in pursuing this route, a publisher is likely to require the unknown photographer to inject substantial amounts of their own cash into the £10,000 - £15,000 average cost of publication.

In comparison, the £25- £50 (or thereabout) per copy for creating and publishing one's own Blurb edition seems positively risk-free. The advantage of the standard publishing method is, of course, that the publisher has a head start in marketing and already has routes into the distribution network of the book trade. Nevertheless, given the stunning quality of the Blurb editions on display last Friday, the self-publishing option is very, very attractive, especially as the print quality problems which have marred its potential until now appear to have been largely dealt with. My first book is shaping up now and I am now getting quite excited about the possibilities that these new technologies present.

The latest in my series "Dream of flight".

Innocence at the edge of the deep.

A few months ago I met David Noble of Noble Fine Art at Focus on Imaging. Impressed by the beauty of the work he produces - which stood out among the often nonsensical gadgetry on offer around - and by his obvious enthusiasm for his craft I opted to commission him to produce a photogravure of one of my photos. After much internal debate, I chose the selected image, mailed it over to him and sat back with bated breath. I decided to leave as much of the creative decision making to him as possible from this point on to see what the potential of the medium might be in the hands of a master.

Several weeks later when I carefully opened the large flat package which had arrived I was greeted by the sight of two enormous pieces of gorgeous mould-made paper, each bearing a copy of the image in a different hue of ink. My initial reaction was to feel that the photogravures were slightly heavy, over-printed even. However, as I tend to do with my own prints, I put them away and have revisited them periodically over the last few weeks. My decision to let David print without interference from me was a good one! I thrill to see both of these prints now. They have a tonality and presence beyond anything I have seen photographically apart from platinum-palladium prints. There is also an evocative, gorgeous smell of ink and holding one in the hand is a true sensory experience! I have posted below the rather poor copies of the two prints along with the digital original for comparison. It is just possible to see the impression made by the plate in the paper of the two etched versions.

My experiment in all this was to discover if it was feasible to make a good, enlarged intaglio print from a pinhole photograph. The original photo was made on 4x5 HP5+ printed to 8x10 and then scanned as a tif to the final size for the making of the plate. The final photogravure measures 11"x14". The whole enterprise has been eye-opening and extremely encouraging and is definitely an avenue I intend to pursue.


Red ink on warm-tone paper


Brown ink on neutral paper


Original

I have booked my (free) ticket for the PhotographyBookNow symposium in London on Friday 10th October 2008. I'm not sure it is really aimed at hand binding of photo books but it looks fascinating. In any case, as I have had the intention of making of a book using blurb.com for some time now I'm hoping to get some ideas and motivation. If anyone reading this (does anyone read this?) is going too, please drop me a line. It would be great to meet up.

Even as the September sun is shining, the morning chill today has my thoughts leading from autumn to winter. The wonderful sky is created by the vagaries of the pinhole process - though I'm still not sure how.

As autumn advances, I find my mood to be one of reflection and although I have a darkroom full of unworked negatives I have been reviewing some of my photos from the last year. I'm always amazed at what I ignore from a roll. I normally think that one good image from 120 and maybe two from 35mm is a success and sometimes, when I find the one which makes my heart leap in recognition, I have a tendency to skim over the rest of the roll. This often means that some of the subtler, or at least the less obvious, photos get passed by. Here is one such, made with a Populist cardboard camera handheld for about one second some time last winter at dusk.