A Respite, A Relief

We pulled up in our rented vehicle, dwarfed quite comfortably by the incumbent coaches ferrying tourists from sight to sight, and prepared to disembark once again as travelers in a foreign land.  In reality the location reminded us, perhaps more grandly than we remembered, of our own homes and the landscape therein, the coast battered by salt-fused waves whilst brash accents announced a population who had become ingrained into the very land they lived on.  Our identities remained the same half the world away and we became a self contained unit, a family of friends.

Photograph by the author using a digital camera. If used elsewhere please credit as appropriate.

Leering Billboards

‘…the car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides and a dark wind blows. The government is corrupt and we’re on so many drugs with the radio on and the curtains drawn. We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine and the machine is bleeding to death. The sun has fallen down and the billboards are all leering and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles…’

(from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9thvHDskYvA).

I saw a triangle between fantasy, religion and law.  I saw a watchful man with his hand on his hip and the law on his side, separated from the crowd by the machines speeding past.  I saw politics, stories and figureheads of world religions mixed into one neon mixture, spat back out onto the maddening crowd below.  I saw the Holy and the damned.  The failures of a thousand people wrapped around the hopes of a few who never knew how much they had invested in this dream, this flashing light paranoia of a thousand suggestions and a hundred hooks wriggling with the baited breath of hope.  The engine of a city, hot air shouted up into the sky to meet the cold winds blowing in from the Atlantic.

Digital photograph by the author, if reproduced please credit as appropriate.

Cityscapes: NYC Part 2

Taken with a cheap digital camera, if reproduced elsewhere please credit myself as the photographer.

Cityscapes: NYC

Shot on a cheap digital camera, if reproduced please credit.

The Wharf

Photograph by author, if reproduced please credit as appropriate.

The Cliché

How much the American journey seems so much like a dream…

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Photography Abroad: People & Buildings

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Photography Abroad: Three of a Kind

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The Sand People

I tried to capture this awesome band, The Sand People, with a cheap digital camera at a bar in San Francisco – a beautiful city I was fortunate enough to visit recently whilst on holiday.  Trying, and failing I think, to capture it in a black and white Charles Peterson style, a style reminiscent of the punk rock/alternative/grunge era of the 80’s and early 90’s, predominately in the north western United States of America.  It is period of music of which I am very fond of – probably no surprise to readers of this site!

The photographs definitely have the swirls of movement, indicating the music and the activity of producing music itself, but lack the clarity and the outline detail of the musicians themselves.  Still, it is interesting to try different techniques, even if it is with a cheap digital camera as opposed to my slightly cheaper film camera!

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