Stay Glued To Your TV Set

Morning maties. Well today Mr.Sheephouse has depressed the hell out of me.

It's been a long time since we been there, but he says there's trouble afoot in the Doldrums and not even anything can be done about it. This makes me sad, because many's the time we scooted the Goode Shippe FB up into the becalmed waters to lay out a sea anchor and drift with the currents.
But no more.
Some stupid bastarding Cap'n has been emptying his bilge there and the water's gone bad.
Not only gone bad, but gone unusable. At least you can boil bad water. But this new stuff isn't just water - it's mixed with a new sort of bilge and there's no escaping it.

Why? Where's the sense in it?
Me old shipmate Berty McGurty had an adage that I still carries with me:
"Don't shit where you eat."
Common sense really, but there's precious little of it when it comes to the world.
It makes me powerful angry.
There's no thought from some folk.

Neptune rot 'em.

***

Sorry folks but this week's FB is not at all photographic again. Normal service will be resumed soon, but to be honest I just haven't felt like writing about photography, hence this weeks little diatribe. I suppose that is the nature of blogging really. You can write whatever you like and there is no set agenda, but please be aware that unless you are of sound heart and mind, this FB is going to fill you with despair.

Why?

Because what has been actioned can never now be returned to it's original state.

It is a problem so vast that everyone (and by everyone I mean the Governments of the World) tries to ignore it.
There are a lot of concerned individuals out there, but like a lone voice calling for calm at a Nazi rally, there is no one listening. (Even the WWF are simply not addressing it in the way they could - honest, as a supporter I have written to them about it but never received replies.)
But what I am going to tell you about (though surely you must have heard of it) is like a hungry bear outside a Honey Factory. It isn't going to go away. It isn't even going to bother hiding around the corner. Sooner or later when it gets hungry enough it is going to beat down the factory gates and enter and there will be nowhere to hide.

The story starts simply:

Once upon a time someone on a ship carelessly chucked a piece of rubbish overboard.
It can also start with:
Once upon a time someone, somewhere, on a lost highway, threw a piece of packaging out of a window, and the wind and a river took it on a great journey to the sea.
Nothing new in that, the ocean has been the depository for mankind's detritus for centuries, but this wasn't rope or wood or glass, this was plastic.
This little piece of plastic was joined by other debris from everywhere, carried by wind and water and keel and foot: bottles and tyres, floats and fishing nylon, cellophane and wrapping, carrier bags, more bottles, syringes, grommets, washers, bottle caps, bags, beads, toothbrushes, fishing nets, lighters, bags, junk food cartons, more bottles, gloves, toys, shoes, bracelets, razors, condoms, wrappers, bags, polystyrene food cartons, plastic nurdles *, more bottles and larger items too: synthetic rope and plastic barrels, panelling and lost life preservers. Lists of items so vast that even the namer of names in Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books (Kurremkarmerruk, in case you were wondering) would be hard pressed to keep a count of a tenth of them.
And the sea gathered this mass and moved it and circuited it and worked its magic the way it has always done and the way it will always do: softening them with wave action. And the plastic, responding to this coarse and gentle wooing, did as anything will do; it started to break down, slowly and with time.
Strong UV enbrittled it, so it became less pliable and resilient.
Storms crashed through and with it.
Surges smashed and crushed and weathered and continued the breaking process.
The larger chunks becoming smaller and smaller and smaller still.
The smallest pieces were scooped up by hungry birds, by hungry fish; by whales and turtles and all creatures of the waves.
The pieces that escaped this hungry attack became smaller still so that now they were tiny, and then, through time, tinier still, eventually becoming like plankton.
The source of all life.
Except plankton is a biodegradable organic material.
It is food and fertilizer.
It gives life.
But this was plastic plankton. Man made. Nature-formed.
Plastic plankton that is even now, at this tiny size, becoming ground and pummelled and stressed.
Like stars.
Like sand.
Like atoms.
Until it can become no more.

The obvious face of sea-borne pollution.
Sadly it is mostly nothing like this

And when it can become no more, it settles in vast clouds, like a never-ending drift of silt.
But not real silt, the stuff of stone and sand and mud. This silt has the names of the great plastics manufacturers of the world embedded in its DNA. It is the stuff of bottles and garbage and packaging gathering in the great currents of the world, generated in such mass that you could fill an ocean with it.

And we will continue to make this wunderkind material until the last drop of oil is gone. But then what?
What happens to this layer of plastic silt?
Does it affect all life?
Is there, as I believe will happen, a great big plastic full stop placed on marine life because they cannot separate miniscule plastic from real food, and stomachs and beaks, gills and maws become blocked and unable to function, and the creatures die? And die not just in ones and twos, but in vast uncountable numbers.

And when life in the oceans dies what happens to those oceans?
They die too, because oceans and their creatures are symbiotic relationships.
A dead ocean is a terrible concept.
Everyone knows what stagnant water is like - water that has gone bad because it has lost the ability to be oxygenated.

Can you imagine the Pacific devoid of even the most basic non-bacterial life form?
Dead water. Ocean sized. Vast and stinking with the carcasses of ruin.

How will mankind eat?

What will happen to planetary weather when the driving force of the oceans (the creatures it gave life too) are gone and the ocean can no longer function as a living entity and dies too?
A dead ocean?
Non-regulating, wild and appalling?
Can you imagine?

And thinking further, does the plastic silt become sedimentary? Does mankind (if it somehow survies) in umpteen million years time find thick layers of plastic sediment become stilled and solid and become stone, or oil re-born?
Can you see what I am saying?
When you really start to think about it, this is an environmental disaster of such magnitude that it moves beyond the bounds of the mind, it moves beyond fiction - it is now stomping around the globe in the land of the inconceivable.

And what would happen if the plastic became so small that it was capable of bonding to water molecules and being evaporated from the sea inside them?

Can you imagine that?

Plastic rain on dwindling crops?

Or is it a thought too far?

***

When I was quite young I loved to pore through my Uncle's National Geographics.
They were a rich snapshot of the world and a fascinating insight into the wonders of life.
But one day I found something that concerned me.
At the time, I loved fish, and I also loved fishing, but what I saw I think put down roots in my mind that have never left me - they changed how I felt about my beloved hobby.
They caused me concern.
The issue I was reading was an old one, from about 1965, and one of the articles was about one of the great American rivers and concerns at the time about environmental pollution.
Anyway there were lots of pictures to accompany the article, but the one that hit home was of a pair of legs, two arms and the most massive ball of fishing line.
The line contained lures and hooks and so on and had been recovered from a pool downstream from a popular fishing beat.
Initially I thought - Gosh, imagine, all that free fishing tackle, but then I realised that the man holding it could barely carry it.
You couldn't see his torso, and you couldn't see his head.
His arms were spread wide to contain this mass.
It was huge.
This is a bad thing, I thought.
It was one of those moments.
And that was then. Early 1970's, and an old article, from when plastics were just coming into their own.
Can you imagine it now?
Nearly 50 years of popular fishing.
All the lead and shot, all the hooks and lures.
And I love, well loved, fishing, so I am not knocking it in the slightest (indeed most fishermen I have met are mostly highly concerned environmentalists) but if that is one small concern (albeit one of the world's most popular hobbies) and doesn't take into account the mass littering of this beautiful planet then what can it be like now?
The rape of the sea is another thing altogether.
Every second of every day, waste is ejected into it, like it was the flushing of a toilet. Chemicals and debris, waste and garbage. Is it any wonder we have one angry planet on our hands?
One broken and lost fishing net at sea is a matter for concern. it is firstly a huge financial loss, but worse still, it is it's own environmental disaster.
Some purse nets are larger than Westminster Cathedral.
Can you imagine one of those loose and lost, with everything that will get stuck in it, as it drifts slowly on a current like an enemy you cannot avoid.

Actually, hold it a second - forget about the animals - what do they matter.
They're a minor concern compared with what is building.
And anyway, they're all going to die.
Nope what is growing and growing has the power to change things forever. And it isn't going away.
Massive quantities of waste plastic are dumped overboard by the worlds navies and commercial shippers every day of the week and no one cares.
Littering goes on in unimaginable quantities and no one thinks.

My friend, Canadian Bob, loves Hawaii, for its whale watching and clear waters and being a good stop-off point for migratory birds, but I don't think he knows that on Kamilo Beach on the South East corner, where few tourists tread there is a layer of plastic (more plastic than sand) over a foot deep.
Gyred and washed up, conveniently, in an out of the way place.
Here's a picture of it:

On Pagan Island (between Hawaii and the Philippines) they have a beach called the shopping beach.

It's a great place. You can pick up pretty much anything you like, very reasonably. Well, free actually.

All detritus.

All dumped with no thought.

And that is just the Pacific.

Plastic debris has been carried and moved everywhere. It is an increasing and insurmountable problem in all the world's oceans.

A man on Radio 4 a couple of years back had written a book about trying to find wilderness in Britain. He said he had walked a large portion of the West Coast of Scotland and there on nearly the Northern-most tip, he found a beach, calf-deep in plastic, carried on the Gulf Stream. And that is Britain. That is one of the wild and unpopulated parts of old Alba

Look to all the nodal points of the world's great currents and you'll find mass.

Surfers and concerned marine types talk about it. But no one listens, simply from the fact that nothing can be done. It is quite simply, the biggest environmental problem the world faces, bigger by far than climate change, because this is not transitory.
I'll liken it to a Big Plastic Tattoo on the world that will never be erased.

But because you cannot see the mass of it, no one seems to  care. Out of sight out of mind.
Concern will only start to occur when it hurts mankind most.
Right in the Fish Supper **.
When the EU bans you from eating Haddock and Cod and Mackerel. When Shrimp and Langoustine are out of bounds. Anchovies on your pizza sir? Sorry. They're banned because they've been found to contain trace micro-plastic.
When seals are washed up with micro-plastic particles suffusing their guts.
When fishing fleets are locked up for good, because the catches are polluted.
Certainly fish stocks might increase, but what good is that when they are inedible.
Can you see how fcecked everything is?
And yet no one listens. And maybe that is because there is nothing that can be done.
Like that fast-approaching train, nothing can stop it and anyway you're bound too tightly to the tracks.
As Jim Morrison said 'my friend, this is the end'.
It might not be the end right now, but it will be.
We are born of the oceans, they drive the world, but hey-ho, they're dying; no blue flag award for a clean beach can do anything about this.

At the end of the day, there is only one thing that rules this world and that is money. The plastics manufacturers are fully geared up to continue manufacturing. It is  BIG business. But it isn't really their fault.
We want our food perfect and in pristine condition.
We want our bottles of pristine water. The manufacturers are just responding to demand.
I don't know about you, but I struggle with my plastics recycling. The City I live in has a great record as being one of the early adopters of pretty much full recycling, and yet plastic . . . it seems to accumulate in massive quantities.
I tried not to buy so much of it, but to be honest it became actually so impossible that I have given up.
It is endemic.
It is epidemic.
Everything has to be protected.
Not prepared to get your cakes in a little cardboard carton?
NO! I want my cakes to be perfect.
Any sliding about within the box is not allowed.
Give me my cakes in individually isolated plastic.

And so on they go.  Demand and supply.

More plastic nurdles shipped and spilled and used.

Day and night.

More packaging and stuff and more and more, until the last drop of oil (remember a finite resource) is gone.
Until the last sea bird dies.
Until the last turtle drowns.
The last fish rises to the surface.
The last whale sinks.
Until the vast expanse of the world's greatest rubbish tip is filled.
Then and only then will the unconcerned consumer and litterer stagger forth from their home or wherever with their starving, dying children in their arms and look around at the plastic world they made.
And it really will be the end.

I used to think that maybe the problem was surmountable. I used to believe that someone somewhere would come up with a solution, but you know what,  I now realise, some 8 or 9 years after reading about it, that it isn't going to go anywhere and thinking logically, there is simply nothing that can be done.
How could we be so stupid.
I know some of the concepts in this piece can seem a bit far-fetched and SF-like, but just because they're not visible and a long way away doesn't mean to say they're not happening.
You just have to apply some lateral thought.

God bless and thanks for reading.
I hope I haven't depressed anyone, but you really do need to know about stuff like this.
The carpet simply isn't big enough to sweep all of this plastic under.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/5208645/Drowning-in-plastic-The-Great-Pacific-Garbage-Patch-is-twice-the-size-of-France.html

* Nurdles. Basically these are pre-production plastic pellets. They're moved around the world in vast quantities and are to be found in all oceans.

** In Scotland we call Fish and Chips a Fish Supper, just in case you wondered.

Faux Cliché

Morning!

Today we've a Q & A session going on . . so if you could just wait til Ms. DeMick arrives . . 

Ah, she's here now!

What's that Pam? You're feeling a bit dicky?

Well, maybe you should go home then.

OK (cough) so that's her gone (cough, cough, cough).

Well, like I said a Q & A session, but actually it's only one question; it sounds more impressive if we call it A Session though eh?

And the question is:

What do you do, when you have a roll of Infrared film (or even a faux infrared like Ilford's SFX) a nice new filter and some time on your hands?

And the answer is:

You go to a graveyard!

Oh yus, it has been the photographer's lot since time immemorial to proudly fit said new filter, load IR film in near darkness, and wander off to their local Necropolis! 

And why not?

All them luverly monuments and stones and angels and crosses and stuff - oh yes. 

There's nothing quite like a roll of IR film to make one start thinking about the afterlife.

I would have started this thread earlier on in the year when I purchased 20 rolls (!!!) of expired SFX for approximately 3 squid a roll. And indeed I did, detailing it here, however some ill-informed purchases down the line . . .

Lee Infrared filters will only work with true IR film - check your Nms

and

Hasselblad Proshades are brilliant, but the slot will only take 75mm sq. filters

 . . led me to a sorry state of affairs where I was desperate to use the SW with SFX, but couldn't unless I entirely invested in the Lee system (or indeed Cokin P), which I kind of didn't want to, for the following reasons:

I like the simplicity of Hasselblad solid plastic shades.

And

When I am out in the wilds I want things to be simple and as un-faffy as possible. Less to remember, to me, means better concentration on image making. 

Can you imagine being in an ancient Pine wood in Winter, with snow falling and freezing hands and your breath crusting on your beard and thinking:

Ooooo! 

Do I extend that shade a bit more? 

Oh blimey, the snow is landing on the filter now . . where's my microfibre cloth? 

Oh shite it's smeared it. 

OK, breath on it and wipe again. 

Oh shite it's not clearing!

Coooo, it ain't half cold!

That's the beauty of a bayonet (or indeed screw) mount filter. 

Fix it. 

Lens hood over the top and Fuggedabout it . . right! 

If you use hyperfocal focusing you can even get away without having to look through the camera.

The Hasselblad hoods are super tough ABS-type plastic - if you feel inspired to buy one, please get a real one and not one of these 'For Hasselblad' types you see on Ebay etc - they're poorly constructed and the plastic is third grade - how would I know? Cough cough, erm, cough . . .

Anyway, enough of that, though curiously for this session I did use the Proshade - hah!

Oh and the filter - well again,  not a cheap business. 

Have a look at Bayonet 60 filters, if you can find them, and see if you can find a red one. 

They are often priced at more than £100, which is ridiculous really for a bit of metal and glass. However I spotted one, which was a B&W but had a slight imperfection on the front surface - it almost looked like part of it had been missed in the coating process - more of a matte section to one side. 

I contacted the vendor and took a punt. 

The colour of the filter is perfect from edge to edge, and I can say that the missed coating hasn't so-far made any difference and given I'll probably be using it with a lens hood. Well, £40 well spent!

It's the Wratten equivalent 29, or Deep Red. I love the Wratten system!

So, onwards!

I don't know what it has been like where you live, but up here in t'North, the weather has been pretty awful. October was almost a month of inexorable grey, with little sunshine to chirp things up.

Consequently, the following photos were taken in the dullest imaginable light - it really was dreich, but I was so desperate to get out and do something, that needs must. What is remarkable, given the gloom, is that a mild IR effect has emerged - just goes to show, you can't predict anything.

I used a speed of EI 12 as opposed to the box speed of EI 200. 

If I had been a bit cannier, I'd have maybe tried EI 6 and thus given the highlights a right-good smashing. 

Maybe if the dreichness continues it might be the way to go.

I used a tripod for all shots - you're approaching quite long exposure times at EI 12 and when you factor in reciprocity, well, uncork your flask and have a cup of tea. 

Maybe a shooting stick would be a good idea!

Monkey River

Given that it is the most un-IR shot on the whole roll, the above is my favourite and I think that is for the lovely way the wind has caused a current of movement from right to left.

Anyway, as has been par-for-the-course recently, I'll wash my, er, washing in public, so here's the contact print from the film.

Film # 66/79

ILFORD SFX - EI 12

1. 4 to 7 seconds f22 Z III - Mills Obs.

2. 8 to 19 seconds f16 ZIII - Bridge

3. 1 second f11 ZIII - Wm. Cleghorn

4. 8 to 19 seconds f16 ZIII - Grove

5. 4 to 7 seconds f16 ZIII - Puddle

6. 1/8th second f8 ZIII - Broken - Measured 5.5 Metres

7. 1 second f5.6 ZIII - Stone - Measured 2 Metres - Out of focus

8. 4 to 10 seconds f11 ZIII - Kane, Love

9. 9 to accidental 22 seconds f16 ZIII - Heart

10. 10 seconds - f11 Z??? - Monkey Puzzle

11. 2 to 5 seconds f16 ZIII - Thy Will . . Forgot About Parallax

12. 15 to 1 Minute f8 ZIII - Bridge

Used new B&W filter - works fine.

VERY overcast conditions indeed - came out OK - imagine in sunlight. Filter fine.

PHD 5+5+500 22℃.

14 to 18 mins - usual agitation - nice results.

SWC/M + Tripod + Proshade which worked like a charm.

Yes, I know they're as dull as ditchwater - sort of sorry about that, and if you give up now I don't really mind.

OK?

Good. 

Some of them look quite underexposed, but it's hard to balance a contact sheet, and anyway, I only usually use them as a visual reference really. 

The contact is Grade 2, but inevitably I'll use Grade 3 for printing - just gives a wee sparkle to things.

Anyhow, here go the prints - these were all made on the semi-long-defunct Tetenal VCRC - a nice paper, very fast, quite contrasty (even on Grade 2). 

Print size was 5x7"

Why so small?

Well, it has sort of become my new default work print size.

For a start it is vastly cheaper than burning through 10x8". It is also easier and quicker to handle. Exposure times are pretty minimal (especially with a really fast paper like Tetenal or Kentmere) and in RC, you can bang out a bunch of prints that will give you a tonal idea of a bigger project in a very short space of time indeed. 

It is win, win as far as I am concerned.

Probably explains why I have printed all this lot - sorry about that!

Balgay Bridge

Dull? Oh yeah, and also weirdly, even though the camera was completely levelled, the bridge looks squint. 

Never mind - there's a full explanation of the bridge's construction on Canmore here.

The bridge is apparently haunted by the way.

Autumnal Graves

Well, this is nearly full IR in effect. Nothing special, just testing it out. What surprised me (given the pea-souper of cloud cover) is how well the infrared radiation has picked up the leaves.

Wm.Cleghorn Esq.

This is the grave maker of a Mr.William Cleghorn. 

It is an isolated grave with its own (now mostly kicked in - thanks YLF) fence surrounding it. It is large as in about 14 feet high.  I was very close to the grave and backed up into a rhododendron.

Given its prominence, I am assuming it could well be this chap

He was a well-known manufacturer and has a street named after him.

The light was incredibly awful at this point.

Monkey River

My missus loves Monkey Puzzle trees, so this is for her. 

I could hardly see what I was doing at this point because of the PVD and the light, so I tilted, adjusted and hung around for 10 seconds.

Ah, A Puddle!

You'll always get something from a puddle. 

What didn't strike me at the time was how heart-shaped this one was

Modern Respect For The Dead

This is one of the numerous war graves that litter Dundee's graveyards.

Someone has left an inflatable heart out of respect. 

Interestingly, modern ephemera is quite a feature of Balgay. I don't mind it at all. At least people are thinking about ancestors and their own ends.

Messages Of Love

I have photographed the Kane family grave before, simply because it is beautifully carved in marble and must have cost an absolute fortune when it was made. The carving is superb too.

I was taken by the juxtaposition of the grave and the hearts and love messages carved into the tree.

That's a lovely reflection on the left side of Jesus don't you think?

Gosh!

 

What do you do when you have a spare minute? That's right, go and lurk like a troll under a bridge.

I'm a Troll, fol-de-rol.

I was waiting for Billy Goat Gruff, but he was too busy on his X-Box.

Back in the 80's this place would have been crammed full of brick-wielding skinheads.

There's a hazy, rosey glow about Dundee's gang culture from the 60's, 70's and 80's, but it was nothing to be proud of. They were a viscious bunch who ruled the roost in their various territories.

Interesting book (though out of print) here and some snazzy gear (and the best way to learn about this City) here

Gosh! is very recent graffitti.

Nice IR effect on this though.

And that folks is it - not too great, but them's the breaks and if I didn't write this shite this month, you'd all think I was dead or something.

Well, not yet.

Till the next time - Whip It! Whip It Good!

Density Junkie (Part One)

Morning Playmates from a terminally cooled down Summer's-gone-and-Autumn-is-coming Scotland.
Ah yes I can smell the chill on the air and the clenching poverty now . . oh yes folks - this will be a hard one. Personally I reckon Putin is so peeved at Merkels financial outing of the Russian ex-pats in Cyprus, that they are just going to say . . Who's got the Pipelines? Who? Was that a Pretty Please? Pretty Please With Bells On? Hmmm? Hmmmm?
(Кто имеет Трубопроводы? Кто? Это было Симпатичным Пожалуйста? Довольно Пожалуйста Со Звонками На? Hmmm? Hmmmm?) Apparently.
All I can say folks is if you are European . . . invest in some good quality woollen underwear. There, that's a tip for you. Woollen, because it is the best - synthetic can't hold a candle to it. And if you are really feeling flush, Ulfrott, or Woolpower as it is known . . their socks are incredible.


Right.
Perceived/Received Wisdom!
There is a general belief that one should always trust one's elders and betters . .
Am I right?
You trust me don't you?
Har har - just joking.
Question everything.
Learn for yourself.
Trust Little.


To give you a point from my own life - aeons ago, late 1960's
The sage lesson I am going to recall this week concerns my brother. BC - Big Chris. He's 6'4" tall and in the late 1960's was one of the tallest men in London.
It's true.
People were shorter then - a lot shorter. I remember him telling me that there were a bare handful of people in London and its vicinity that were over the 'magical' 6'. Seems strange these days doesn't it, but you just have to look at his generation - Wartime babies, rationing. I've no idea where he got his size from, but it didn't apply to me (well it did in girth of stomach . . but that's another story).
BC was going on 17 stone at the time - pure muscle.
He played a lot of Rugby and on a holiday job worked had worked as a lugger on the building site of the old (now demolished) Northolt Swimming Baths - one bag of cement under each arm and running. Double hods . . that sort of thing.
For fun, he would borrow my Mum's solid canvas/leather/plastic/tartan shopping bags, load them up with tins and then go for 10 mile runs.
He got fast, really fast, and like a train bearing down on you was a formidable presence.
I trusted him.
'Stand there Phil - look it's unbreakable.'
That was the command.
The unbreakable item?
A late 1960's Bottle of Orange Squash in a newly-on-the-market 'Unbreakable' Plastic Bottle.
It was so Space Age you could almost taste the vacuum.

So handy; so convenient. So much lighter than glass. 
This is one thing you won't need the hubby to help you with on the weekly shop. 
And Mums it is Unbreakable too, so no more worrying whether little Sharon will drop that old fashioned glass bottle and hurt herself, no! 
This is the FUTURE.

So I stood as commanded whilst he proceeded to chuck the bottle at the kitchen lino from what must have been around 5-odd feet up.
The resulting drench of concentrated orange liquid was remarkable. As was the plastic shrapnel. Not least for the fact that a chunk of it nearly removed my left eye., fortunately glancing off my Orbit (the bony area surrounding the eye socket).
The shouts from my Mum were also remarkable - though strangely I don't remember her swearing  . . . that would come later and it took me to break her!
I trusted Chris though. He'd given me lifts home from Barantyne School on the crossbar of his bike . . .
And Chris, I still have the scar.


So, trust your elders and betters? Or learn, as I have had to do, to harbour a tad of reticence . . .
Photographically it is a lesson I have learned in a hard way.
I have had a problem/still do have a problem. I have a large amount of sheets of 5x4 film. I had a splurge at the start of the year, and in doing so, had little thought for the fact that I already had some. The latest expiry on it is 2014. But I have recently found a number of sheets of stuff that has expired by about a year. It wasn't refrigerated ('tis now).
Anyway, last weekend I thought it was high time I started using it up.
I have tried LF photography in a City at times when there are people about . . and you know what . . . it very nearly sucks.
For a start you look like a total idiot.
People keep wide berths.
Maybe I should mutter to myself and develop a twitchy-shake to my head - it might make the whole exercise easier . . after all who is going to pay attention to a loony with a stupid-looking old camera . .actually, scrub that . . most people don't even realise that a 5x4 camera is a camera!
If you've ever seen Monty Python's Village Idiot sketch, you'll get an idea of what I am getting at.
Village Idiot on the outside but ready and willing to discuss Cartesian Dualism with anyone who cares to ask.

Yer average Large Format Photographer
Sitting on a wall . . waiting for light to happen.

So who is going to pay attention to a loony with a weird wooden contraption on top of three poles, who keeps ducking under a cloth attached to it and reaching round the front and twiddling with knobs?
I'll tell you who pays attention. Security Guards and The Police.
In this lovely old isle you are on CC TV most of the time.
Operating a LF camera illicits one response . . Extreme Suspicion.
Call me paranoid, but on the contact sheet I am about to show you, the first frame I took, was up a close and around the back of a takeaway restaurant. It is a shite photograph, but that isn't the point (yet) . . about 45 mins after I took it I wandered back on the other side of the road and there was a police car nearby and two officers! What? For me? I have nearly been arrested before for being SAIPOC (Suspicious And In Possession Of A Camera - you can read about it here if you like). Do the police really think that someone using a camera that requires you to mount it on a tripod is going to actually be of danger to the State? Has no one heard of iPhones???


Anyway, I digress - to use a LF camera in a City, you really need to get out early. In my case around 5 or 6 AM. generally the latter - it takes me two hours on average to make four photographs, so I can be back and having a cuppa before the rest of society deems me too dangerous to ignore.
So there I was, a surfeit of film, a bad conscience and the prospect of Winter looming meaning no hiding from the eyes of suspicion under cover of extreme earliness. What can you do, save, get everything together and head out. Which I did.
To say the results were bad and the photographs dull would be an understatement. I think the term I would use both for composition and technical prowess, would be ahem (better get your Mum out of the room) . . Shit.
Quite why I find it hard to compose with a 5x4 camera is beyond me. It isn't for want of trying. I've exposed approximately 250 sheets of 5x4 film and I still can't get the hang of it! Taking in the length of time I have been doing this and film costs then versus film costs now, and averaging everything out to a conservative 75 UK pence per sheet, that approximates to around £190 on film costs for little gain.
So what is it I struggle with? Well, I am beginning to suspect it is all about proportions. I've mentioned this before in FB so won't go into it again . . suffice to say it is duller than a small grey man, painting a small grey building, battleship grey . . inside and out.
Back to the Shit.
Here - have a deco at the Contact print and see if you agree with me . . I know you will!

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud.
It's all there folks - look at the edge effects from uneven development.
Glory in Hippo Heaven!
Ilford MG RC Mudtone, Grade Mud, Kodak Muddymax, Agfa Mudbath Fix.

I have here dear reader, broken the rules set down in Paragraph 6, Subsection 2, of The Photographer's Law . . namely:

Thou Shalt Not Show The World At Large Thy Worst Bits.

If thou showest your worst to The Worlde, then The Worlde will mistrust you implicitly. 
Keep your worst for your own misery. 
File that print away in ye olde paper boxes . . 
If 'they' see thy worst, how are 'they' going to know if thou ist any goode?


So what does this have to do with not trusting everything you read?
Well, I have fancied using David Vestal's formula of Divided D76 for a long time. It is quite easy to mix and I wondered whether it could give me grey tones along the lines of this:

I love the grey scale in this photograph. It is of course of Sir Ansel Of The Adams and was taken by Vestal. Surely if I mix up some of his own discovery of a compensating version of D76 I could not only have a developer which deals with a vast array of lighting situations, but also, maybe might give me greys like the above.
Well, that's what I thought - ever the hopeful searcher for photographic truth.
Here's Vestal's original Formula as stated in Anchell & Troop's semi-Bible, The Film Developing Cookbook:

Bath A:
Metol 2 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Hydroquinone 5 g
Water to 1 Litre

Bath B:
Borax 2 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

The only problem I had, was that I didn't have any Hydroquinone. However on re-reading the text I discovered that A&T were saying you could omit the Hydroquinone, by upping the Metol and Borax. I had Metol, Sodium Sulphite and Borax so I was in business!
And here's their version:

Bath A:
Metol 3 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

Bath B:
Borax 5 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

5 minutes in each bath, temperature variable, constant agitation. No pre-soak.
OK I thought, interesting - this goes against all my 2 Bath experience (Barry Thornton  - lots and lots of it). I have developed films both with and without a pre-soak with BT 2-bath and through practical experience came to the conclusion that a pre-soak was an essential thing.
A lot of people say it isn't, because with constant agitation you'll get even development anyway. I'll agree with that for a lot of developers, but for some reason me and 2-baths (and actually all developers) . . without a pre-soak I can often get uneven development, and I am Captain Agitation!
There is also the theory that giving a pre-soak, means that the developer has less chance to soak into the film, because it has to displace water from the soaked emulsion . . there is some sense to that, however when you think about it, the developer has to expel/mix with water with a pre-soak, or has to saturate a dry film with no pre-soak.
I can see no difference, and especially if you are using constant agitation.
It is almost like calculating how many Angels can dance on the head of a needle . . so hair-splittingly, hair-splitting as to be of only a navel-gazer's interest . . but for me, a pre-soak works, however here were my elders and betters A&T (they have written a wonderful and highly acknowledged book after all) telling me: no pre-soak; so balking against it like a surly toddler, no pre-soak it was!


When I process sheet film, I do it carefully, lone sheet after lone sheet . . one at a time. I am also a pretty conscientious and methodical developer, so sheet film processing can be a looooong process. With the Vestal DD76, this was 10 minutes development time plus the stop, and fix so you are talking about approximately 20 minutes per sheet . . that's nuts . . . in the dark . . . with nothing but yer brain for entertainment.
But the goal of a long grey scale and tonally wonderful negatives was ahead of me . . what was such time spent when you could be nearer nirvana!
So, I developed my first sheet. I am going to detail each one in  . . er . . detail, that way you can get an idea of what I have done.

Frame 1:
90mm Schneider Angulon.
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from shadowy area on tree and placed on a rough Zone IV.
2 Minutes at f32, extended to 4 Minutes Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
Does that look like a thin negative to you? Too bloody right. The developer has dealt with the leaves and things quite well and the extreme range of brightness, but that's about it. HP5 and 1:2 Perceptol would have done it a lot better.

Frame 2:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from concrete highlight and placed on Zone VI.
8 Seconds at f22, extended to 11 Seconds Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
This is the best one. I actually think there is almost a glimpse of the tonal scale you can apparently achieve with this developer.

Frame 3:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from pipe and placed on Zone IV.
1 Second at f22.
Totally ghastly. Exposure was rather hurried though as a Security Guard and his van were bearing down on me and I had to hurriedly make this and then shift my tripod!
To be honest, despite asking what my camera was, he was alright, and I did ask him if it was OK to be photographing here. He also remembered Joe McKenzie (my old lecturer) so that was fine too.
Look at the uneveneness though, caused by lack of a pre-soak.

Frame 4:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from skull and placed on a rough Zone VI.
4 Seconds at f32, extended to 11 Seconds Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
Unfortunately I didn't compensate for the fact that I was massively extended in the bellows department (oo-er missus) and this is the thinnest negative of the lot . . and the one I most wanted to come out the best!
I so desperately wanted this to work, but it is deadly thin. Not enough exposure, and uneven development.
What a shame.

So there you have it, a Quadrille of Doome. I should have stopped when I saw how thin the first negative was, but I was too trusting and the photograph of Ansel was in my mind's eye . .
So, having got 4 really quite thin negatives, I racked one of them into my enlarger and had a butchers at the grain . . Oh trump. it is that really non-existent soft grain which I am actually beginning to hate, simply because it is so difficult to see. The Sodium Sulphite had done its worst and made the grain all smooth. Conversely, if you want smooth grain, then this could be a good developer for you with TMX, but for me. Nope. Sorry. All it seems to have done is ushered the brass out of the room, when I so desperately wanted the full-on blare of a high-powered horn section! Know what I mean?
I actually think (and maybe I am being daft here) that given a traditional film with a traditional grain structure (ie, NOT T-GRAIN!) and given enough exposure then DD76 could well be a good choice. I have a roll of Agfa APX 100 that I am willing to sacrifice in the best interests of my readers . . so watch this space. But for films like the TMX's, then walk away, and quickly. The results are not pleasing.

Turned Out Nice Again
Ilford MG RC, Grade 4.5, Kodak Polymax, Agfa Fix

I had to make a quick print of the above - it is a work print (again heart on sleeve). In a final Fibre paper print, I'll keep the shadowy tonality, but use liquid lightning (Potassium Ferricyanide) to emphasise some of the skulls towards the back. You can do a lot to make this into an interesting print.
Also, a note to readers - if this looks all soot and ash on your monitor, I can assure you it isn't. I have my minotaur calibrated and what I see more or less emulates the prints (that doesn't say much eh!). I didn't do it expensively either, I used this. It is a great little piece of freeware.
My other thing I must say about this negative is that in all my years of enlarging negatives, I have never had to try and focus such a grain-free one . . so maybe that is an advantage . . I suppose.
It was totally, utterly, incomprehensibly, incredibly, difficult, even with a fine focuser like the Omega. Honest, the grain was invisible. 
So there.
Want grain free?
TMX 100 and Vestal's Divided D76!

These results have cemented something in my mind . . and it was something I hadn't realised until I did the Ralph Gibson Experiment all those months ago . .
I am a Density Junkie (or at the very least, I think I might be)
Dense.
You know - over-exposed, possibly over-developed.
Thick and black.
Through density comes a form of luminosity (in my view).
I viewed my contact sheet and hungered for more oompah!

The 1973 Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band salute Sheephouse's Quest For More Density!

Yes you can compensate for an underexposed (read: soft) negative with a higher grade of paper, but honestly, a denser negative printed at a lower grade will, I believe, give you a nicer result.
I am determined in the future to throw away all ideas of lovely whispy, 'perfect' negatives.
Give me it dark and dense and I'll take it from there.


So there y'go folks.
I hope you have gleaned something from this, because I have.
It is a lesson learned by me, and written almost immediately, for you.
Hopefully it has been instructive.
Let's call it growing up in public.


Tune in next time for Part Two, where I make a discovery in a good book, roll out an (almost) final 10ml from my ancient bottle of Rodinal, and further cement my thinking about 5x4 Photography.
Take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.

If You Could See What I Can See .  . When I'm Cleaning Windows
I managed to get my didgy camera through the bars which restricted the Wista
Imagine coming across a sight like this at 6.30AM

36 Not Out. Oops, He's Been Caught By A Googly

Morning folks - well the reindeers are coming and this years final FB was meant to be a traditional (well if you can call a handful of years traditional) Christmas Round Robin of "this is what I did this year . . blah blah blah." 

But as we all know the taste in the world isn't for "blah blah" any more, so without further ado we find ourselves cast adrift into a Dickensian world, of empty grates, fingerless gloves and "HUMBUG!".

Oh and there's NO Photography in it either.

Y'see, in this lovely, grey, arse-end of the year, I have found myself caught out. 

Back in 1985, after graduating, applying for bloody millions of jobs and being told on more than on occasion that I was "far too qualified for Scotland" (! - true answer to job application) and had to move to London for any chance of work etc etc.

"Blah blah."

I found myself faced with the prospect of penury.

However in a rather timeous manner (in those Thatcherian, "on yer bike" times) I was fortunate enough to be interviewed for a job by a bloke in a baked bean-stained Virgin Aberdeen tee-shirt and torn pixie boots; he looked a bit down-at-heel (literally) but had a demeanour, knowledge and humour that I found utterly charming. 

His name was Dougie Anderson (R. I. P.). 

He was the Scottish Regional Manager for Virgin Retail and there was something about the cut of my jib he liked, so he employed me.

Like a kid being given the keys to the sweet shop, I was excited because I was going to work in a Record Shop!

The only thing was, it wasn't what I really wanted to do.

Whether there was something in the water at Duncan Of Jordanstone, I don't know, but I graduated knowing that what I really wanted to do was 'fine art' printing. 

Not graphics (my Degree) no. 

Indeed the majority of my Degree show was landscape photography, not graphic design, much to the chagrin of my lecturers 

I'll blame Joe McKenzie for lighting a fire which still still burns bright over 40 years later.

However in line with Thatcherian Britain at the time, I was a poor ex-student with no financial backup or contacts; to become a printer would definitely have involved me getting on my bike and moving to London *** (see below).

It was a vicious circle with no way out.

So I was effectively stuck here, drowning if truth be told, until some bloke who looked a fair bit like Nigel Tufnel put out his hand and pulled me free . . . and so began 36 years of work in my other passion, MUSIC.

To-wit, Music Retail.

Virgin Dundee Circa 1987.
© DC Thompson.

That's me at the back, far left, rifling through the racks . . the one with the hair, and to the right at the far back you can see the door to my kingdom . . . the stockroom.

I think even in those hirsute days I was too hairy for public consumption, so like a troll in its lair, the stockroom it was.

But before we even got there, I shrink-wrapped pretty much the entire shop stock on a spare floor (where the concessions were) in the Glasgow Megastore. I travelled to Aberdeen for what seemed like ages, to learn stock control, filing, more wrapping, cataloguing etc.

When we moved into the Wellgate in Dundee I travelled in the back of a van from Glasgow, alongside some of my compadres, with stock, more stock, security tags and what must have been nearly a ton-and-a-bit of shrink-wrap machine. 

Try getting one of those up two flights of stairs with tight corners!

Once esconced, I estimate that I probably shrink-wrapped the best part of a million pieces of vinyl in my time there.

Having been brought up with the sanctity of handling records - y'know the drill: the open palm support, the gentle twist to the B-side, the careful cleaning with every single play - you quickly lose your awe at handling so much. 

Proprietry goes out of the window.

It was a real mill - roughly 35 boxes from suppliers A DAY.

Lugging THREE 100 size boxes of vinyl at a time (the most I could carry) up two flights of stairs - yes that's approximately 300 pieces of nice n'cheap old school vinyl with each journey up.

Then opening each box, checking the quantities on the advice note were correct, breaking it down into price points, and then writing that up on a SUP (never knew what that meant) sheet, before security tagging, price stickering and putting aside for shrink-wrapping.

When you had enough LPs sitting you got going:

Bend, pick up LP, slide it onto plattern between a sheet of 2-ply PVC wrap; pull forward with your right hand; bring down heated L-shaped 'cutter' to pinch off the PVC; use left hand to move LP onto rollers.

The rollers took the bag of plastic and sound into a heated tunnel (that didn't look too dissimilar to an airport security device) and out it came, shrink-wrap shrunk, to fall into a box, ready for collection and transport out onto the shop floor.

The PVC released really nasty fumes, and I operated like this for months until Virgin stumped up and got proper ventilation. 

This was a large electrostatic fan - the air moving through two charged grids and the floaty bits of loose plastic (from the L-shaped frame's heated cutting wires) collecting on the grids. 

It was a great system, except that said burning PVC had to pass by my head (and mouth and nostrils) before reaching the vents.

When we cleaned the vents, a thick grey sludge accumulated in the sink - it was the dickens to clean off.

All I can say is that I had a really fine lung-capacity when I started, and now I can't really puff for Puffins.

I eventually got an assistant (Hi Earl!) and between us we shifted tons and tons of 'product' in what sometimes approached 90 degrees of dry, smelly heat, in a small windowless room.

Earl eventually left to become a commando - I'll bet his basic training was on a par with working in a Virgin stockroom!

It was highly tough (OK, not like digging graves or shunting dustbins) work, but it was FUN. It stimulated the senses, both in sound, sight (all those classic 12" square covers!) and smell - all that burning acrid plastic. 

It kept you fitter than a butcher's dog, because the work was constant and heavy. It destroyed skin tone, concreted lungs, helped RSI, and was both physically and mentally exhausting,  but at the end of the day it got the ackers into the money-making machine that was Virgin Records, so that was all that mattered eh!

Sir Richard should think about his ex-employees when he is gadding about in space - if I am anything to go by, a lot of his ex-stockroom folk are either dead or pretty buggered health-wise.

But back to the FUN - in those halcyon days, you could buy a brand new chart LP for £4.99. 

Nowadays it's £19.99+. 

Back catalogue, the real grist to the mill, started at £3.49 for premium titles like Led Zeppelin, and so on and then worked down from there. 

The average 12" single was a strangely expensive £1.99.

7"'ers were around a pound. 

Cassettes were similarly priced to LPs. 

The new-fangled Compact Disc ran to around £10+ - they were expensive. 

Seeing as I have made my life's living off of selling them, I'll maybe write about them more.

They were initially the ground of the:

 

"Hey baby, wanna come back and listen to my new CD player" 

working man!

That's true, oh you tucked-in jumper, white-socked smoothies with your beefy pay-packets!

God bless you.

We stocked on opening approximately 350 CDs - that was just about it for UK production, but as their popularity quickly disseminated out into general use, manufacturers got on board pretty fast, and a tidal wave of both UK, European and the delightfully environmentally unfriendly American anti-pilfering long box came onboard. 

It still astounds me that in 1987, people were paying £20+ for Japanese imports of Pink Floyd albums on CD, because EMI over here hadn't really cottoned on yet.

Weird how the world changes when music becomes devalued by online retail and then streaming becomes the norm and people ditch CDs like they're anathema.

For all that the humble silver disc is slagged off as being hopeless these days, you know, these wonderful little 5"ers are still valid. 

Aside from the fact they've put a roof over my head and expanded my knowledge of the wonderful world of recorded music and catalogue, they're so fecking easy to deal with.

I find the 'vinyl revolution' very interesting - one drunken stumble with your favourite premium £35 copy of 'Are You Experienced' and you're stuffed. 

I know because I did it in 1974 with my copy of 'Mott' - I wasn't drunk, but it slipped, bounced off the edge of my Dansette and forever (even today) - I still hear that click during 'The Ballad of Mott the Hoople (26th March 1972, Zürich)'.

But back to Virgin - gosh I miss that shop (and I never thought I'd hear myself saying that). 

I was lucky enough to work with a fantasticly talented team of people - all of them PUMPED about the music they loved, all knowledgable (y'know, like the geeky assistant in Hi-Fidelity) in ways that probably wouldn't seem normal these days. 

We covered the breadth of music, from Be-bop and Swing (Hi Stuart!) through Punk (Hi Graham!) R&B and Funk (Hi Libby!) Disco (Hi Audrey!) Ghastly Chart Pop (Hi Jan!) ALL back catalogue (Hi Jim!) weird pre-Americana (Hi Brian!) standard stuff (Hi Jill!) through others and back to me and my love for rock, metal, and guitar instrumental music.

We worked bloody hard for Richard Branson and for a smaller Virgin shop (albeit on two floors) we sold a TON of stuff. 

We would rack out say every Iron Maiden 12" single available to that point (approximately 7 or 8 titles - most of them imports at around £6) 25 deep on a Friday and they'd be gone on a Monday. 

Dundee is a music town. 

At the time is was delineated by its tribes, and they mostly all bought music (some nicked it of course but that is another story).

When they excavate Tayside in 20,000 years time I am sure they'll find a layer of Talking Heads 12" singles, with sub-layers of The Mission and The Cult; pockets of Led Zeppelin and Neil Young and Van Morrison; a Smiths magma, Dirty Dancing Soundtrack shale and don't forget the Farley Jackmaster Funk sub-layer . . .

Then in 1988 disaster happened and the Virgin group, in their bid for world domination, sold off 67 smaller shops to Our Price to fund said operation.

Everything changed overnight. 

Goths sacked for making the place "look too dingy"; colleagues told on a Wednesday that they were starting in a different branch on the other side of the country on the following Monday; myself, banned from serving the public because my hair was long; managers placed under so much pressure that the Voddie bottle in the filing cabinet was de rigueur.

It was a Pogrom. 

Our Price only wanted their own people in charge and as such made it as difficult as possible for ex-Virgin staff who asked too many questions.

On the whole, to us seasoned vets, Our Price People seemed to know little about music save what they'd seen on Top Of The Pops, and they were consistently placed in charge of people who breathed, slept and ate at the broad table of The Gods that was Modern Music.

The Regional Manager for Scotland and his henchman were like the Batman and Robin of rules. 

They had precious little musical knowledge between them, but knew what to say (sound familiar?) and knew how to enforce the new house rules. 

Having engaged their ire (like the Eye Of Sauron) by standing up for a part-time Saturday girl (who was brilliant at her job but got sacked all the same) the pressure came to bear, and I found myself (after a period of great pressure and angst) in the position of having to resign.

Bastards.

It was difficult.

They call it Constructive Dismissal - being forced into a corner where your only option is to resign.

And then like a hand reaching down into the mire of despond, Rock City came along (Hi Graham!).

You've never heard of them, but they were a secondhand and new shop based in St. Andrews in Scotland in the late 80's/early 90's. 

And they gave me a job. 

I think the proto-KT Tunstall bought some records there.

It was a great little business - furiously busy at times, and then tumble-weed at 11am on a Winter's Tuesday morning. 

I really enjoyed my brief time there; discovered great new/old records; learned the ins and outs of the used vinyl trade; bought stuff; sold stuff; had big laughs with customers; cleared the shop with the then virtually unheard of  Nirvana's 'Negative Creep' and just generally had a good time that kept the wolf from the door.

Then one day I got a phone call:

"Are you Herman Sheephouse?"

"Yes."

"The same Sheephouse that worked for Virgin?"

"'Yes."

"Would you like a job?"

Well it paid more (and more importantly had access to all those luscious guitar import CDs that weren't available in the UK) and so I found myself in the longest stretch of my career.

Hello CDS!

For 31 years I have dealt with customers that are wonderful, weird, annoying, funny. knowledgable, kind, appreciative and generous. All of us linked by that one thing - music.

It has been the bread of my working life.

I have handled and processed boxes of stock from literally around the world.

I have dealt with and sold music to people from the UK through Europe to Turkey and into Asia, Japan, and Australia and New Zealand, and on into Polynesia, making the jump across the Pacific into the whole of the Americas from Alaska and Canada right the way down to Patagonia.

Every phone call has been a discovery, pretty much, from funny regulars through to people who were/are quite frankly cracked. 

We've had loonies, freaks, 'normal' people, passionate music fans, celebrities, musicians, all sorts.

I've fielded questions and sourced the impossibly rare.

It's been a blast actually.

Back at the start in CDS, pre-internet days, it was a brain and a bunch of catalogues that got you there; that and the ability to follow leads and jump, Sherlock-like, on a trail long-gone cold, in search of that elusive catalogue number. 

Wonderfully logical, cats (that's a 'trade' term) were Willie Wonka's Golden Ticket, so long as you could match them up to the correct distributor.

Once all the tumblers clicked into place, you then had to assume the item was actually still in stock - not always the case when dealing with catalogues that were out of date as soon as they were printed. 

This was the days before live computerised stock control too.

But like I said, you got your magnifying glass out and followed the bloodhound!

Navigating the seas of Asian catalogues, replete with Asian characters, transposed Ls and Rs (Yes, Beatres, Lolling Stones etc); through to Russian broadsheets printed on the thinnest paper ever; underground dance culture catalogues that arrived incognito through the post; home-made affairs cobbled up from a typewriter, photocopier and proper old school punk cut and paste; glossy corporate affairs through to the firm favourite single-sheet faxed over.

I saw it all, and reacted appropriately.

Ordered.

Imported.

Paid the MCPS sticker.

Sold the disc.

I was going to write a bit here about how massive online retailers, well one in particular, selling at cost or below cost have pretty much destroyed an industry I loved, but I won't because what I was going to write was so full of piss and vinegar and sheer bile, it frightened me, and was probably all too easily misinterpreted as the rantings of someone who is just about to lose their job (4 days and counting down folks!)

I will say one thing though to you, the buyer and your need to save a couple of quid with the easy lazy click - you're playing into some strange hands and you're dreaming yourselves into the most bizarre Dystopian future that nobody could have imagined.

I'm not criticising though, just pointing a few things out, because they're coming for you too.

So in the future, when you're in a lovely new care home, that was made possible because you released the equity in your house to a super-massive corporation, and you're currently having your drool wiped by a Care-bot, branded by the same, whilst shitting into a nappy branded by the same, you'll be able to watch a lovely drama, starring a holo-actor that used to be someone to do with Star Trek and laugh and point and remember a time when freedom and choice went hand in hand.

Y'see, unfortunately in the process of this worldwide application of megalomania, my beloved Music Industry has been hit and left at the side of the road like a squashed forgotten hedgehog.

In the UK, the small. local record shop? Pretty much gone. 

America - the Mom and Pops; the local emporium of joy and discovery? All gone.

Europe is a wasteland apart from a few small beacons of light - Hi Judith! Hi Ron!

Everywhere you look in the world something massive has taken place, and all because you the customer want the convenience of sitting on your bum and purchasing with the easy click, and more to the point, want to save money - no matter how little in real terms.

Like Isis firing missiles and lobbing grenades at Ancient Babylonian monuments, so a vital, collective culture, has been utterly destroyed.

Record shops were a right of passage. 

They held meaning. 

They were where you went and met people who weren't at all like you and you loved them, or people who were like you and you hated them.

They informed, annoyed, delighted, transported, captured, enthralled. 

In short, they gave meaning to people's lives. 

They brought joy.

And it's nearly all gone, courtesy of that easy click. 

And gee, you get that CD delivered, in a day or less. 

You don't go and rake. 

You don't go and ask to listen, or grab an opinion from another customer. 

You don't head home, wondering whether you've bought the right thing. 

You don't get that transition whereby you can't really tell if you like it or not, but you've bought it so you might as well give it a go. 

And that wonderful, slow, transition from strange taste to nectar, whereby your new purchase becomes the most important thing in your whole life. 

No, you send it back - done - not my taste man.

No wonder we're in a cultural maelstrom of shit and brilliance, that's more blended with shit than it is with brilliance.

Cultural discovery and curiosity have been poleaxed.

"Like this? You'll love this!"

As the Algorythms (yeah that is misspelled - so what!) judge your 'thing' and chance is largely by-passed, you are only fed stuff you like. 

Your whole DNA of taste is laid bare and open to what something thinks you'll like.

How fucking boring.

I've done this for long enough to know that I don't even know what I do and don't like.

That's the beauty of being a human.

You could take the super-highway to your destination and get there in double quick time, or you could go via the backways and maybe, just maybe, you'd find somewhere you liked even more.

I know which I prefer.

And that's what world-dominating online retail has done. 

I lay the blame firmly at someone well-known's feet.

Well I would except he is in space.

Saving mankind.

With an old guy.

And that as they say is that.
My work is now in the process of 'winding down'.

The future is cancelled and certainly more uncertain than I have ever known it.

To coin a phrase that weirdly and coincidentally I found pencilled on the wall of our house when redecorating a couple of years back (it is literally 3 yards away from me as I type this, buried for the future under wallpaper):

A Dickensian Requiem

"2 paid off, December (??) 1883."

God only knows what losing your job in 1883 must have been like.

My thoughts are entirely with the spirits in this, because to me it has felt like a death in the family.
And I'll draw a line under it there.

On the positive side, and to quote a meme that is entirely my own:

"Time is the most precious thing you don't own."

I'll see how things pan out - I have time to dedicate to photography and all the million things I've always meant to do, but have never had the time for.

I bless the day I met my wife - without her, things would be considerably darker.

I feel positive in the weirdest way.

So until the Solstice turns and the nights start drawing out again, this has been an unusual one and as always thank you for reading.

As you've no doubt realised there's no photography. 

Normal service will resume in the New Year - Winter is here - what better time to break out the 5x4!

To you and yours and to your attitude to the world in general, be kind to people.

Mankind needs to act now for the greater good of mankind.

I wish that the era of egotism and greed were coming to an end, but sadly I can't see that. 

As long as you keep buying and believing in these really very socially awkward people and their dominion over data and technology, then they'll continue to stamp their weirdness on our future.

Culture will start to feed on itself, instead of growing.

The future is branded and wants every last penny.

It's not the world my parent's fought for in WWII.

Nor is it the golden Space Age that my contemporaries and I foresaw back in the 60's and 70's.

It's something considerably darker; more akin to the Film Version of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep.

And I really don't like that.

So on an end note, be good, take care and even if one of you starts thinking about how the world we're going to hand to our grandchildren is going to pan out, we can make it turn now.

For good.

We have to.

Be good and take care.

Merry Christmas

Herman XXX

*** Good buddy and long time FB commentator Bruce Robbins has told me that I was exactly the sort of guy that could have ended up in the photography department at DC Thompsons. Who knew!