Monday 29 September 2014

A quite remarkable lady







Lost and found

One of the joys of running multiple film cameras is the unexpected pleasure of discovering a long forgotten undeveloped film.  I have a little Olympus Mju II tucked deep in the glove-compartment of my car that rarely sees the light of day, but last week it was pressed into action once more.

The Mju II is a fantastic compact which you can hold in the palm of your hand. It has virtually no features or fancy controls, but it looks great, is as light as a feather and has a fantastic lens. I have a second one I take with me on occasion when I go to watch football but this one stays in the glove compartment just in case I forget to take a camera with me when I'm out in the car.

It was pressed into action last week when I wanted to do a little impromptu lunchtime street photography.  I carry a Leica Minilux (another of my favourite 'little 'uns') in my work satchel but discovered to my horror I had just four frames left to shoot. The Mju was rescued from the inner recesses of my car and I scraped another two or three shots out of it before it too reached the end of the film. And that's when the fun starts!

I got the film developed yesterday and to my great joy I discovered some pictures on it of my eldest grandson's Sports Day last year.  Not great photos, but ones that bring back fond memories and here they are…







Saturday 27 September 2014

Just another day

I descended to the depths of the stark, neon-shocked car-park in which my eyes were lead to pumping steam-pipes tuned to the dull thud of an mp3 richie hawtin mix that had accompanied me across the scudding ribbon-grey motorway to this place.

I ascended in halos, circled in the ambient elevator that paused to take on fresh stocks for the restaurant one floor up, the missing porter no more than a thin red line of blood traced down the corridor with sweated meat and fresh vegetables extracted in the dull dawn of the market just round the corner. He was not here, the porter. But his boxed traces reeked of meals to come and flashing lunch-time smiles beneath the long drop of a glass-ceilinged atrium, floored deep beneath my offices.

I hid in the shadows.

The elevator rose.  Each floor passing in an aluminium cell, windowless, unknown and incensed, spitting sparks to the steam-pumps still beating the rhythm of a dark mix playing to no-one in a silent, gated car-park long below.

I arrived to find I had been here before.

There was a vacant chair and rain to greet me as I flattened myself against the glass and shot into the morning.  Just another day as I pressed my heart to feel the pulse of the city streets below.