Cubicle Art
I'm blessed to have a visual diary full of images that take me back to a place and a time. Just like this and the next picture, they fill me with a warmth, and tickle the heart of me.
This image was taken with my Sony Erickson phone, quite awhile before it was drowned in a coffee.
I had a lot of fun with the phone which featured a solarize special effect. With this picture, it's really the writing on the wall, in a toilet, in a bar, where prostitutes were gathered, for a workshop sponsored by Empower, a charity that works to get Thai ladies out of a degrading profession, that's eyecatching.
And yet. There I sat, answering a call from nature, and I see this scribbled on the wall.
Am I in a unisex toilet? I can't remember, so I can only guess that this message came from a lady boy perhaps. And that's another story.
A magic moment recaptured
In my preparation for the winter, I've been looking back at some of my images of temple life, and came across a picture of novices in a temple. I hadn't noticed one of the kids in the background, and his expression. A magic moment gone unnoticed. 
Little pink riding bicycle
I felt an instant connection when I met this bicycle. I’ve met a lot of bicycles in Cambridge, but this one really caught my eye.
Abandoned down an alley. All alone, and no one to love it.
My friend John
I’m doing well with my new Canon G11. It’s a lovely camera, with a tilting LCD screen, which makes portraiture a lot easier, especially when you get down dirty.
And what better a way to do that, than with a shot of the real Cambridge.
Be careful. Do not try this, all you budding photographers out there. This dangerous man is loose, and roaming the sleepy neighbourhoods of Cambridge, stealing kids’ bikes.
I was lucky to catch this image of him, but it was a close shave.
I scream in Cambridge
Ice cream on wheels is a great idea. It’s been done before with the vans. But this is different. It suits the aesthetics of middle Cambridge, and all things quaint.
Cambridge already has the mobile coffee van which is often parked in the centre of the market.
I suggested to the young lady in the photograph that they sell iced coffee, and take on the coffee guy, as well as the Italian ice cream mafia.
Cambridge could get interesting.
Andi in Colourland
The streets of Cambridge are buzzing with characters. Andi Pandi is one of them.
I’ve seen him out and about over the years and have always wanted to talk to him, and take his picture.
You can find out all about him by going to his website, www.pan-d-colour.co.uk. In the meantime, here’s the picture I finally took, that I always had in mind. I think the old door of Sidney Sussex college makes a great backdrop, as well as frame for this colourful personality.
He did however take an instant dislike to my Japanese camera, my beloved Canon G11, that I finally bought, after great deliverance.
Why?
I quote the main part of his lecture to me;
’Everything that you buy made by a Japanese company gives money to the Japanese government who then spend it killing dolphins and whales.’
Now.
I do detest what the Japanese do under the guise of research, but I was left a little dazed, and wracking my brain to find a possible non Japanese replacement to my lovely newly acquired Canon G11.
No luck. I’ll just have to live with the guilt. At least I don’t wear a whale skin jacket.
Donkey Common
It’s been a good week in photography.
I’ve been out and about in Cambridge finishing off the last of the summer wine. Me, my bike and I.
I have a new camera to add to my arsenal. The Canon G11.
It’s a neat size. Bold in appearance. Solidly built.
It’s black. I like black. Black is good.
It feels the way old cameras used to feel.
It’s lovely. It’s my new best friend.
I had a lot of fun with the Sony Cybershot.
We toured the world.
Dragged kicking and screaming into camera retirement, it still had some last great shots in it.
I’ll miss all its gimmicks as I return to the old school of photography. Turning little dials, setting the aperture and shutter speed.
I feel like a teenager again, with my Canon AE-1, and where better to be a teenager than at a skate park, and not any old one, but Donkey Common in Cambridge.
I was just passing. Then I was just thinking, then I
was just asking , and then I was just taking. Just like that and they all did their thing, and I jiggled with my new toy to get the right settings, and off I went.
Skate parks of the world. It’s good to follow a theme, and these guys will sit nicely alongside their Venice Beach California counterparts.
The light aint as a great. No backdrop of palmtrees, but that’s what makes life interesting.
Variety is definitely the spice of life.
Here’s to you boys!
Generation Gap
This is Barbara. To me she's timeless. Always rosey cheeked always Mother Earth.
Her Dad, Alan, sits in the background in his favourite chair. He will be 90 next year. He's a cheerful, thoughtful and gently mannered.
His great grand daughter, Melanie, still measured in months, is showing an interest in a mobile phone, and my camera. She's small, has beautiful golden locks and is very cute.
Nearly a hundred years separate these generations, yet when it comes to feelings, time stands still, and I'm ready with my camera to capture the moment
My friend Alan
What stories will you tell your grandchildren?
I introduce Alan, a friend of mine, who will be 90 next year.
Alan was a navigator in the Second World War, and was actively involved in hunting and destroying German U Boats.
I’ve had the chance to read his autobiography, a labour of love, that his 7 great grand children will read one day.
He reaches the reader, through candid prose, communicating real thoughts.
In one passage he describes his first sighting of a U Boat at rest, 700 miles south, in the Bay of Biscay. He can see a submariner standing on deck.
He can see his face. He can see his expression. Surprise, then fear.Â
Watching documentaries’s gives you an idea. This , or I should say Alan, takes you there.
I celebrate this man with a photograph of him in his favourite chair, at his home just outside Cambridge, where he lives with his daughter Barbara.
He sits at the head of the family, on what I call his throne, and tea is served in his goblet made out of pure gold. His years alone command respect.
He’s hard of hearing and says his sights going. What he says he will miss is reading.
He’s one part of a family I know well. He has 7 great grand children, 4 grand children, and a loving daughter. I knew her husband, who’s bike I have been riding this summer, and featured in previous blogs.
So, there is a connection, a web of connections, that brings me to today’s blog.
The picture, I hope, is the icing on the cake, for a man and his story.
