Renaissance

Renaissance

Until 29th September 2015 I thought I knew about photography. Hell, I'd been doing it professionally in some form or other for the best part of sixty-five years. I was developing films on my folk's kitchen table before most people reading this were born. I built my darkroom above my Dad's shop in the fag-end of Coventry, right next to the Gasworks then years later built another darkroom, this time for a bunch of rich kids at a landscaped private boarding-school in Hampshire. Look at me; I had become 'Sir' -- the rented-in expert, delivering some reality to their expensively-subsidised lives. 

My subsequent self-delusion was supported partly by the fact that two of those kids not only remained friends but also went on to become successful professionals in the LA film/publicity industry.  I remember the surprise birthday party for one of them -- he who became a movie scene designer -- at his pad overlooking LA; he walked in to choruses of 'Happy Birthday', hugged his wife, said hello to adjacent friends, then saw me. His expression combined disbelief with delight, he hugged me, as Americans do, often to the slight discomfort of us Brits, and tears ran down his face. That's when he told his guests that but for me, he and his photographer pal, also standing close, wouldn't be there, working at something they loved, were good at and which gave them a more-than-comfortable living. His friends' reactions convinced me that I was some sort of revered, venerable professor; a font of knowledge, understanding and experience. I few more Brownie points and I would have been up for President. 

Bathed in modesty, of course I protested that it wasn't all down to me. "I just showed them the route and they made the journey" I said, but actually starting to believe my own publicity.

But let's cut the crap and get to today. 

I'm just starting to plan pictures; my pictures. I've been making pictures for other people for the best part of those sixty-five years: Weddings, Dinner-Dances, Advertising, Corporate, Aerial Survey, Industrial stuff, Portraiture, Photomicrography, Process-camera work -- even Industrial Radiography. Apart from underwater photography, you name it, I've done it and taught it. But not always with enough thought.

Let me qualify that. I do love photography; I always have. It's my work and my hobby; I live it. And that's why I can start again now, shooting for me, working not only towards a folio but also towards understanding current imagery and an ability to read the thoughts and intentions of other photographers. That's the most difficult bit; having run the race and finished ahead of many, I have to go onto an adjacent track and run again but this time with handicaps of heavy limbs and a slower mind. 

Oh, if it's experience of lighting, exposure and invoicing you're looking for, I have that in spades; but this course requires and demands other skills, cerebral, philosophical, perceptive. Excuse me, I must look in my satchell for those.  JB