Boys with bananas

Olliethekid bought a bike yesterday! He just woke up and said "right, im not going to stand for this any longer. I'm buying a bike." And hark on the horizon, he comes! He turned up to Rocket at closing time when the heat was high and there was no getting any fresher for me. So me and Olliethekid saddled up and put our peddles where our mouth was- away to Crammond.

From the lofty heights of Churchill, we set off down a ready decline to our waterfront. Me aboard the Red Mage, Ollie on whatever his bikes called...bit of a beast though! What a breeze. Down and down, blowing away toil and torment. A great rush of the purest stuff into the deepest recesses of the lungs, fire and ice to the brain. Total exhilaration. Passed the nostrils cross the best of things. Wild vegetation and damp, ancient stone from the subterranean cycle paths. Hot cement and cut grass from the balmy estates. A barbecue somewhere, and another. Everything golden, everything green. And every part of you is saying, that's what you got out of bed for.

Down in the Inn, the crispest, coldest, sweetest beer, basking in our brilliance. We didn't know what to do with ourselves! We didn't know of course, how we were going to get home exactly. And of course we forgot in the ecstasy, that what goes up must come down, which works fine unless you've already done the down part and you have nothing but an hour uphill cycle coming right up. And those few pints aren't going to be much help to you so they aren't.

Still, there was no stopping the messin'. And where any two messers enjoy themselves, there's always a trace left behind.

Fest-ering away meanwhile

The Edinburgh International Film Festival. What happens when a young man is welcomed to the bosom of a kindly, altruistic organisation, given the unrestrained charges of charming the public and minding the staff, fixed to the spirit and soul with all cinematic urgencies and ceaselessly implored to indulge in its lavish surrounds?

Oh no - creeping ennui! Retiring camera finger! The great enemies. No worries then, red carpets all round. So i popped up and covered one of them. Press photography is a funny animal. A badger if nothing else. Simple minded and docile (a bit furry) until, faced with not getting its slab of MEAT, the teeth are bared and all manner of comments expelled from its jaws. Look out - a badger!

Nah, not really. Here's a few of what i took from the red rug of Pelican Blood: an enfent terrible of Karl Golden if ever there was one. An earth dark interweaving of obsession and ornithology. You will want to at least see the trailer.

The line up included Harry Treadaway, Emma Booth, Ali Craig and the beshaded director. A few other notables include the off-handed, enigmatic Artistic Director of the festival Hannah McGill and wayfaring photographer slash amazing person Helena Smith.

And as the Captain said

Make it so

And it wuuzzzz

Crossings

Its now or never. The end of a first year and the post submission lull- after a scramble of prints and a deluge of proofing and checking- and i am very happy to say that i am launching my final graded project into its own blog.

Crossings was conceived through an open brief single module project and, like all projects, started as a tiny whim, a microscopic notion that i can scarcely trace back to its origins. It became an exercise in unpredictability, a "this can be done only if i don't not do it" conundrum. It, quite simply, just started.

Much more is explained about the thinking and concept work that went into the project on the site, and with time i will hopefully propound on the legwork that it took too. As my first single body of work, under a genre of documentary photography, nebulous with conditions and reservations, in which i had never trod before, i am very pleased with something i proudly call work. The hobbiest was left at the door and, given its reception and the feedback of my peerless peers, I am here, in June, contending myself with the identity of a photographer.

Big steps indeed, lets see a bit more like that.


Please, take a look at the blog and drop by in future if you can:

http://photographycrossings.blogspot.com/

When the rains come down

They come as one hell of a surprise!

Once again, the weather stands right out at the forefront of conversation (like we secretly wish it to) and, ahem.... once again, it leaves everyone standing in for cover. Out of where can such a torrent of water come from? Like an upended swimming pool from the skies. Everyone savouring the fruits of their Bbq or absorbing themselves in the bodyless rapture of some mad drumming session at the meadows fair this weekend got a heavy slap with the surprise stick when they discovered, yes, they were soaking! It was impossible rain. Not a stitch of fabric had time to absorb a drop of moisture before the whole field was a mire. And Edinburgh's largest public open air recreation space did what it does the best...sent a deluge of people leggin' it for a single distant tree. Everyone except the drummers, who were long soaked.

For the hard hard life my camera gets, i cannot say i am happier that i keep pulling it out. A long few weeks of preps and hand-ins and not a lot of using a camera at all. Rain or shine, there is always a photograph worth toting a camera along for.

God i love the rain. Say what you like but when that sun's back we'll be back in no rush to go anywhere