I'm just saying...

outsider...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:37:00 +0000

beer and pizza
Originally uploaded by f2point4

I have always liked looking into lit windows in the dark. Not in a peeping-Tom kind of way, more like a glimpse in passing of someone else's story.

These days with it being dark at 5pm, there isn't much that entices me to go out once the sun is down. But when I do have to leave my cosy home, I like to travel on the top deck of a bus sight-seeing fragments of London life. There are the empty offices with jackets still hanging on backs of chairs, homes with tv screens flickering through half-drawn curtains, and abandoned-looking mannequins in empty but fully lit high street shops. Enough to feed the imagination until arriving at my destination...

equality...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:34:00 +0000

dolls' house
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Earlier this week I picked up a copy of Stylist, one of those freebies they hand out at tube stations. In it I found a surprisingly interesting article under the title 'Should women be fast-tracked to top jobs?' (pages 33-34 in the online copy), quoting Norway's apparently successful quota legislation from 2002, requiring listed company boards to consist to 40% of women.

I had a discussion about this with my significant other that nearly ended in an argument. He insists women should be treated as equals, not singled out for special treatment. I absolutely agree with him but unfortunately, women ARE being singled out currently as generally not suitable for the highest-powered jobs. Apparently, in the UK 62% of the FTSE 250 companies don't have a single woman on the board. Surely, that is nowhere near representative of the share of women in the population at large.

Although I personally see a prescribed quota as the least elegant and most easily abused instrument to redress an imbalance, if that imbalance simply won't adjust itself, it may have to be done by prescription until a higher share of women (replace with ethnic minorities, disabled, older employees - in fact, any under-represented group in any sphere of society) has become a more accepted status quo.

I agree that due to the fact that women have children, they are more likely the parent who is willing to give up a career to raise them, and thus there will never be the same percentage of women in high-flying jobs as their share of the poplulation of working age. However, this is a convenient excuse for people who use this argument to prove that the under-representation of women in career jobs is self-inflicted.

My opinion is that if after having the children women had the choice of leaving them in affordable and well-equipped creches and kindergartens open all day, preferably one provided by their employer in the same building that they work in, with qualified staff; if men got paternity leave and pay on par with women (another form of discrimination), then at least mothers would really have the choice between going back to work and staying at home. Currently, the choice usually simply isn't there.

But let's not forget that it is not only mothers who find their careers come to an early halt. I have read or heard often enough of women who have to watch their male colleagues being promoted despite having less experience and lesser qualifications than themselves. Maybe a ruthless jolt like a legally prescribed quota is exactly what's needed to break those ingrained patterns of by-passing women when a promotion comes up.

After all, Norway now has the highest percentage of women as board members in the world with 44.2% (higher than the legally required quota), and the Norwegian economy has not collapsed...

10:10 campaign...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:43:00 +0000

collage
Originally uploaded by f2point4

This is an email I received yesterday from my MP, Sarah Teather (Lib Dem), after the vote on the 10:10 motion in Parliament:

"I know you are interested in climate change issues so I thought I would update you on the debate in the House of Commons today. I have just come back to my office after voting for the Government to sign up to the 10:10 campaign.

The motion, put forward by the Liberal Democrats, required the Government to commit to making sure all public bodies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 10% by 2010. You can find the text for our motion here.

I voted for the motion, but sadly the Labour Government marched its backbenchers through the voting lobbies to defeat it. I am very frustrated that the Government are not willing to provide leadership in this area in the run up to the Copenhagen conference.

However, I want to assure you that I will keep fighting on this issue. Climate change is something anyone who is committed to social justice should feel passionately about. If we don’t take action now it will have a devastating impact on the poorest people in the world and the consequences are terrifying. You can read what I have said previously in the House of Commons on this here.

I want to thank you for your support on climate change and for continuing to contact me to encourage me to go further! MPs need to hear from the public on this issue. Let’s keep campaigning to make sure that eventually the Government listen.

Best wishes,

Sarah

PS. I have also personally signed up to the 10:10 campaign, and hope if you haven’t already done so, that you will think about doing the same.

Sarah Teather MP
Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East
Shadow Minister for Housing"

when is it too late...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:28:00 +0000

deep breath
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... to start over again?

Today I was in a rather pensive and mildly depressed mood. Looking back, my life seems to consist of several failed attempts at one or the other thing. I know we need life lessons to do better the next time but when you consistently fail or seem to fail in one particular area, it gets harder to take every time. Until we get to the point where we wonder whether it is really still worth even trying.

Don't worry, I'll be fine in the morning. I guess...

time flies...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:14:00 +0000

autumn
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... and it seems to be getting faster every year.

It doesn't help to have had another summer that never was, just a lingering spring teasing with warmer days just around the corner until a look at the calender confirms the sneaking suspicion that it's just not going to happen this year, either.

So away go the summer clothes, unpacked many months ago with the highest hopes yet quite a few of them unworn, and out come the woollies just in time for Halloween little more than two weeks away.

I have always liked autumn, some years it's even been my favourite season. Let's see what I will harvest this year...

P.S.: This picture was taken last week Friday, one of the three days a week that Borough market is open. I'll HAVE to go back there, next time with a real camera!

points of reference...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Astro office
Originally uploaded by f2point4

When I started writing this post, I had been back from Cuba for three weeks, the same time that I spent there. It seemed much longer ago, though, and what's more, it felt like it was a completely different world. Looking at my pictures from there, many of the things I have seen appear ever so slightly surreal now, although I know I was there, and they seemed perfectly normal then. This is not an unknown sensation when coming back from holidays. However, I am experiencing something similar in my London life, too. My sense of time isn't working too well, I find it difficult to place events in the recent past. Talking about it with a friend, an idea occurred to me: it's all about points of reference. When they change, we get lost a little – although not necessarily in a bad way, not at all.

Let me explain: I define myself relative to my environment. Everybody does. I once read somewhere about a volunteer spending a few days in a completely white room with only the most essential things in it, all of them white, and no natural light. The person wrote about beginning to lose his or her sense of reality and of self in the course of the experiment simply because there was nothing to refer to. No distinction between day and night, no contrast in shapes, colours, smells, temperature – things we probably don't realise we need to determine who we are until we get put in solitary confinement.

An easy example from everyday life is moving house. In a new place you need to learn about everything from scratch: your neighbours, where the shops are, how long you need to get to work and so on.

The same works for our perception of time. Following a well established routine every day makes it fairly easy to re-construct an event in the past by pin-pointing where it fits in with that routine – or if it was something out of the ordinary, by how it broke with the routine. When this routine is gone, the grid by which we map our lives has (temporarily) disappeared. We begin to set new points of reference, pick new occurrences to provide the before and after watersheds dividing our lives into neat sections.

This is happening to me right now, and it is something that took me by surprise but that I admittedly quite enjoy. Time has become more elastic, and something that really happened a week ago, may seem like months ago because so much else that is new has happened since then, and at the same time it may feel like yesterday. All of this has made me more aware of my life, and thus feel more alive, as the days are not only passing by, each one looking and feeling pretty much like the one before.

This lead me to wonder whether it might not be a good idea to re-set points of reference every once in a while just for fun, not out of necessity, just to shake things up a bit, to keep life interesting, to make sure a routine remains an aid for organising daily life and doesn't turn into a monster that hems us in and steals precious life time by keeping us in a rut.

keep appreciating beauty...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:30:00 +0000

evening walk
Originally uploaded by f2point4

At the beginning of this week I had a welcome little brush with my own past. I was sent to Scotland to interpret at a conference that I used to work at for a few years in the 90ies when I was still relatively new in the interpreting world.

Back then I liked this particular assignment for two reasons: one was the amazing countryside surrounding us, even distracting me from work with the spectacular view we had from our interpreting booth through the window right next to it.

Secondly, I was still caught up in the illusion that once people – i.e. clients, agencies and colleagues – realised what a competent interpreter I was and word got around, I would get more jobs like this nearly by default.

Returning in 2009 after more than ten years, I know that nothing could be further from the truth. As probably in many other professions, it is not the best who get the most work, it's the best at self-marketing or the bargain basement suppliers. This may partly be due to the fact that interpreters in the UK get booked nearly exclusively through agencies, and very few agencies employ anyone who knows even remotely what interpreting involves, so the quality of the interpreters is not even secondary as nearly no agency project manager can judge it.

Fortunately, my illusions about my glamorous career as an interpreter were shattered so long ago that I am no longer excessively bitter about the fact that my hard work is not really appreciated but that I get booked on the basis of how many months I give the agency to pay me before I start sending reminders and such things.

Fortunately, though, the first reason for liking the job was still there, and undiminished. The weather was absolutely beautiful (as opposed to the two previous years, when apparently it rained on both days of the event) and the view of Loch Lomond was as breath-taking as ever.

It was very enjoyable and comforting to see that some things in life do endure, and will survive us and our petty little complaints, and that I haven't lost the ability to appreciate them.

appearances...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:38:00 +0000

make-up for the show 1
Originally uploaded by f2point4

In Cuba, more precisely in Trinidad, I got to know a young woman who invited me to spend an afternoon with her family during a fun fair in Casilda, the harbour of Trinidad. At her house I was amongst others introduced to her mother. It turned out she was 2 years my senior, although the gap looked more like at least 15 years. Truth be told, I felt quite a bit embarrassed and sorry for her as this fact was relayed to the whole assembly.

Admittedly, I am as flattered as any other woman when people guess my age as at least 5 years younger than I really am. However, as I get older and notice undeniable signs of it in the mirror, I'm beginning to wonder how much of this is mere flattery. Sometimes I even feel mildly offended. After all, it's not just about looks, it's also about life-experience. No matter how lined or smooth my skin is, that I've been around for a while and seen a thing or two should be part of my perceived persona, and if someone thinks I'm in my late 20ies, they are a) obviously lying or b) completely oblivious to the maybe not necessarily visual signs of the more mature person in front of them.

I quite often heard significant others in my life accusing women in general - and me in particular - of being vain. They usually wouldn't accept, though, that it is largely men who put their women under pressure to look good. I've heard many guys say they don't like make-up and surgically enhanced bodies, yet they will turn their heads for exactly that type of female in public, even while their own woman walks by their side. What is she to make of this?

Beauty pageants are a particularly good example of the desire to be the prettiest chica plástica just for the sake of it. Anyone who has ever listened to the cringe-worthy aspirations voiced by contestants about wanting to make the world a better place by looking beautiful for a year knows what I'm talking about. But it goes further than that. During the Miss England 2009 pageant, one of the contestants voted for herself on her mobile phone about 1300 times to bump up her public votes result, and then had a go at the winner of the competition who got only 9 votes from the public. So beauty, it seems, isn't even the point any more. It's all political, manipulated, bought, and paid for.

So why bother? Why don't we stop spending hundreds of Pounds on anti-ageing lotions and use those funds to enrich our lives by travelling, for example, and helping one or the other of those less fortunate than ourselves whom we may meet on our way? Those are character-forming activities that will show in a very attractive kindness shining in someone's eyes, a more relaxed attitude, and the tendency to smile more and feel better about oneself, to name just a few.

I think there is probably a balance to be struck here, as with most things in life. This balance will be a very personal choice. In my case it means that I WILL keep spending money on creams and lotions because I like to look after myself in general, and in particular I enjoy my little rituals of applying them, their scent, and how my skin feels afterwards, but you won't find me at the Creme de la Mer counter. I WILL keep spending money on make-up as I like to subtly enhance the things I like about my face but I will never try to paint on a face that I haven't got. I will most certainly not do peels, laser treatments, liposuction, lifts and what not as I truly think that I can - and should - do a lot through good nutrition and exercise to stay fit and healthy - and as a consequence to look as good as I possibly can - and I also believe that this money would be much better invested in a party with friends, a photography workshop, or a visit to my family.

But as I said, it's a balance everyone has to find for themselves...

tribute...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:35:00 +0000

walking
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Walking around the area where the village of Viñales blends into the countryside one afternoon after a thunderstorm passed us by, I came upon this scene and thought of Polo Montañez.

I first heard his music on my second trip to Cuba in 2002 by which time he had already become a household name in Cuba and beyond with his very engaging way of presenting simple and heartfelt melodies and lyrics. The song I took back home from that trip was Un montón de estrellas, also played in salsa clubs all over Europe.

Everyone I asked about him spoke in warm and proud tones of a musician who hadn't studied music but had learnt it as a child in his family and played it in the evenings while holding down a day-job as a farm hand.

Sadly, the very same year I discovered his beautifully straight-forward, unflourished but moving music, we all lost him as he died on November 26, 2002 from the consequences of a tragic car accident on his way home in the Province of Pinar del Río, having only released two albums.

There is a third one in the shops in Cuba, Memoria, released two years after his death.

I liked that I found a picture that in my opinion could be on one of his album covers, especially since I had wanted to go to Pinar del Río specifically to find traces of this artist who always felt most at home where he had grown up.

The cultural centre in Viñales, where I spent my time in the Western-most province of Cuba, is named after Polo Montañez, and aptly so as he described himself in the song that probably defined him most, Guajiro natural, as follows:

I am a real peasant who comes from Cimaron Mount
I know my condition
I know where I come from
I come from the oxes
That pull the cart
I smell of charcoal and sugarcane
I can take a plane if necessary
But I'll always be back
There is no confusion with me
There is no confusion but laughter and the idea that happiness -
even if sometimes it's missing -is never that far.

(translation from a tribute to Polo Montañez on www.cuba-junky.com, where I incidentally found my casa particular in Havana for this year's trip)

I know that whatever little material he released on CD, will be amongst my favourite music for as long as I'll be able to hear. Sadly, his second album also contained a hauntingly sad bolero that proved semi-prophetic, El último minuto.

housing situation in Havana...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:08:00 +0000

shell
Originally uploaded by f2point4

This time I notice many more houses that are falling to pieces. Not about to but already in the process. Manuel, my landlord, says sometimes they are full of people when it happens.

Not far from where I am staying, families of up to five live in a room, sharing sanitary facilities with several other families. Four boroughs in Havana are over-crowded, according to Manuel.

Many of the formerly magnificent buildings in Havana have massively high ceilings. In order to maximise on the space, people move upwards by building barbacoas, or mezzanines of timber or other material, not usually with the necessary support of an architect. Those improvised structures are then fixed to any walls, without consideration to the load they already bear. This is one of the reasons why so many buildings have the whole inside fall down, leaving only the walls standing.

Note how the left window is split into two levels, the doors to the balcony and the top part with the taped-up window panes (a precaution for the hurricanes, so if the window gets smashed, the bits don't fly around and injure occupants).

I've seen several of those makeshift mezzanines over the years. While I used to admire them as a clever way of using space, without proper building regulations this is just no good. To me, the old colonial buildings are no longer reminders of faded colonial charm. To me they look much more like sinister death-traps now.

Just as if to prove my point, this morning at about 10am, as I sat on the balcony reading a book, I heard a massive dull thud on the street. When I looked down, this is what I saw:

Part of a balcony of the building next to the one I'm staying in had just fallen off. I'd walked under there several times over the last few days...

the socialist way...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:51:00 +0000

barber shop
Originally uploaded by f2point4

My adventure today: I thought I'd find a place that would allow me to upload some of my pictures.

I started at the Hotel Inglaterra. No card reader. No way of making the pictures smaller. Slow internet connection.

I went to the Hotel Parque Central. No card reader. They sent me to a photography shop to get the pictures on disk.

Photography shop can only print. Machine is broken, so can't write to CD or DVD. They sent me to another photography shop in Calle Obispo that had a machine.

Found the shop, queued up, when it was my turn, I asked about copying the files. Yes, they said, they could. But they didn't have CDs, I would have to bring my own. How stupid of me not to travel with a stack of CDs!

They sent me to two shops where I might be able to get some. By now I had decided to trust my guts again and to play the rich tourist card.

So I ended up in the Hotel Ambos Mundos. No internet there. But they sent me to the Hotel Florida, in the same street, still Calle Obispo.

Their computer room is nice and cool, it's not like the others, under the roof somewhere, and the guy running it is so helpful. He has a card reader, showed me how to make the files smaller, and he even has Skype!

So in the end I won. Must say this being sent around in circles happened in East Germany, too. I don't miss that one bit...

how did it all come to be...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:33:00 +0000

ray of light
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Sometimes I have moments when I simply sit (or stand) in awe at the world around me.

One such moment was the recent ad campaign on the tube for the London Dungeon, I think, with promises of demonstrating gory medical interventions in the 18th century. However, we wouldn't have the NHS or the facilities and medical knowledge to fix Felipe Massa's open skull fracture after his recent collision with a spring from the car in front of him during qualifying without first passing through the stage of bleeding people for pretty much everything or sawing limbs off after filling the patient up with a bottle of whisky.

We would not have the wonderful food variety we have on this planet. There are lots of ingredients in world cuisine that are poisonous raw yet delicious and absolutely safe when cooked. Who found this out? How? Why?

Yesterday I learned a bit more about how the shape and material of wine glasses affects the taste of the wine. Who bothered to find that out?

I don't want to bore you any further but these things stop me in my tracks every now and then, and I like it. It's so easy to just notice things that aren't working the way we expect them to, so it's good to counter-balance that with a bit of wonderment at the nice things all around us.

I feel truly privileged to live in more or less enlightened times - at least in this part of the world. Surely, in centuries or millenia, if our enlightenment manages to stretch to keeping this planet inhabitable, our times will look like the dark ages but I for one wouldn't want to live at any other time...

You may ask why I chose this picture for the post? Truth be told, I had wanted to write something completely different with it but that hasn't quite come together yet in my head. But sometimes a ray of light and someone wondering about is all it takes to give rise to to the amazing inspiration that we are capable of and which has produced our civilisation with all its great and bad sides.

my first serious portfolio review...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:12:00 +0000

Hotel_Rooms-Antje-009
Originally uploaded by f2point4

A friend who had taken her pictures to this event last month, encouraged me and stayed on my case at my own request to enter this month. I say 'at my request' because I know myself: I will be all for a new project but I like to put things off until I can say: 'It's too late now, I can't possibly finish it on time.'

My friend did her job well. I paid the £50 for a place in today's foto8 portfolio review and managed to put the finishing touches to my portfolio as early as yesterday. My two projects were seen by Lauren Heinz, editor of 8 Magazine, and Sophie Batterbury, picture editor at the Independent on Sunday, as well as Jon Levy, director of foto8, and David Arnott, Panos Pictures.

The two ladies did not give me a lot by way of encouragement but were not particularly critical, either. Most of their remarks concerned things that had already occurred to me when putting the portfolio together and talking it through with a friend - like having a more precise anchor for the series of pictures than just a hotel room as such; the telly maybe, being a very important fixture for me in any room I stay in, given the distinct chance of being able to watch some German TV for a change.

The two gentlemen were more openly encouraging and actually told me a lot of what they liked about individual images, comments that went a long way to confirming that I achieved bringing across what I was trying to say.

Jon Levy gave me his card at the end, telling me to keep them posted on my progress. Now, that WAS encouraging, although he may have given his card to just everyone.

By the way, if you like a nice photo exhibition, go to the Summer Show at the HOST Gallery. Some really nice work on show there. My winner is "European Parliament, Brussels" by Eleanor Cleasby. If only because she shows my kind of work environment...

charming...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:41:00 +0000

On the final leg of the flight back home to London my colleague from the French booth, who was my very considerate travel companion for the entire week, utterly charmed me with his repartee.

We had seats A and B in a row, seat C was occupied by another passenger who, just before the plane started taxying to the runway, asked a flight attendant if he could move to the row behind us. The flight was fairly empty.

On grabbing his hand luggage and extracting himself from his seat, he turned to us and said: "It's nothing personal but there's more room there."

To which my colleague, bless him, replied: "It's nothing personal but we are delighted."

scarred...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:04:00 +0000

bullet holes
Originally uploaded by f2point4

I am a little ashamed tonight, to tell you the truth, and I want to tell you why:

Ever since I arrived here in Osijek, Croatia, I have been moaning about the accomodation we, the interpreters for a conference, were put up in. The whole place reminds more of a hall of residence than a hotel, down to the fact that there is no 'do not disturb' sign. The rooms are small, positively ugly, the shower is hand-held, the telly occupies most of the table that also serves as a desk, the balcony looks like it might fall off with its occupant any moment...

And then the food, although I had been warned. The breakfast buffet consisted of some bread rolls, butter, honey, one kind of cheese, one kind of sandwich meat, cereals, milk, and some kind of cottage cheese, all of them looking positively forlorn on the big table they were arranged on. There were coffee and tea, but both were awful.

This evening after work a group of us went to dinner into the new part of town along the beautiful river, passing on our way the old town and the fortress. It was here that I first noticed them. Round craters of varying sizes in the rendering, sprayed across the fronts of the old buildings. I had seen them before, at the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba where they are kept and revered as mementos of the Cuban revolution. My first association was WW II, until it dawned on me that these bullet and shrapnel marks must be much more recent. And I started seeing them everywhere and went very quiet.

Back at the hotel I spent some time on Google and found that Osijek had been under siege by the Serbs for 9 months from November 1991 and remained a frontline town in the Serb-Croatian conflict until the end of the war. While I started my adult life after university.

I look at my room differently now. To borrow the words of a friend of mine, Edmond Terakopian, '... shock, horror, a room with a bed, walls and a roof. It must be so difficult...' (he was teasing but he was also very right)

the unexpected...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:49:00 +0000

red arrows 4
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Let me explain today how 'chance' works:

Today I spent a day away from London, having been invited by a lovely artist friend to visit her in Chichester.

I went a day later than agreed, and nearly decided to call it off as I'd had a late night and found it hard to drag myself out of bed in the morning. I also went two trains later than I had indicated.

She met me at the station, and when asking me what I wanted to do didn't produce anything constructive, she decided we would start off in the town centre. Please note that all decisions were taken in an equally haphazard manner.

"Do you want to go this way or that?" - "Shall we go to the cathedral?" - "Are we going to have a coffee here or in the café round the corner?" That's how it went, and it was lovely to decide on the basis of what felt right in the moment.

So the list of things to see or do was made up of: Chichester cathedral with art exhibition, lunch at Maison Blanc, then a little trip to the White Stuff shop across the road where I bought some white stuff and then some... erm, blue stuff. Then we went to fill our lungs with sea air before looking at another little church. Next was the pond with the lovely black swans and assorted other water fowl in another village. After that my friend wanted to take me 'to the top of the Downs'. Getting there seemed a bit like guesswork and might not have happened at all.

But eventually, there we were and climbed up to a bench overlooking fields, Chichester and the sea in the distance. We sat down in the strong sunshine tempered by a lovely breeze and talked. And at some point I saw the jets flying in formation.

We knew Goodwood was there, and as a true F1 fan I knew that the Goodwood Festival of Speed was on this weekend, but neither of us knew about this display nor when it would happen.

So traveling a day late, taking a much later train on the day, the improvised order of places to visit and the time we spent in each of those places all conspired to get us up that hill onto that bench at the right time to see the show. That's how chance works...

let me explain...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:32:00 +0000

cosy...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

A few days ago, one of my tweets very cryptically said that I found some inspiration on my journey to understanding photography more as a language in some very strange place. I promised I would explain, so here it goes:

I happened to learn some facts about the 'painter of light', Thomas Kinkade* (not out of my own interest but at a recent event of one of the many Kinkade licence holders). Amongst said facts was the nugget that he has sold more canvases than any other artist in world history, and more than Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Picasso combined.

You want my opinion? Well, such a statement is a bit like saying that ABBA had more chart toppers than Beethoven, Mozart, Händel, Bach and Jacques Offenbach together. It's like comparing IKEA with Chippendale furniture - in short, there IS no comparison. (I may have over-worked the Swedish connection just a tad in this, but you get the idea.)

Leaving my opinion, for what it's worth, and Kinkade's kitsch aside, there was something later in the presentation that looked very much like what I was trying to describe in my essay on photography as a language, parts 1, 2, and 3. Have a look at what certain things mean in Kinkade's paintings:

Bird/Eagle = Peace and freedom or “the freedom of the spirit”

Smoke of a Chimney = Warmth of home

Lights on in the Houses = Family values, the presence of family and friends sharing time together

Lamp Post/Light Post = The light post reminds us to share the light or to light our way. Also it welcomes friends and loved ones.

Pathways, Trails & Tracks = Path of life and beyond. Also the paths are lit representing faith in finding our way.

Stairways = Struggles through life

Bridges = Cross over from dark to light

This, as corny as it is, helps me see what kind of 'symbols' I myself am drawn to and have as a recurring element in my photographs. It also shows me that at least I am not completely loopy and on a path that's leading me nowhere. Having a commercially very successful, though by no means great, painter work along the same lines is at least an endorsement of sorts for my search. His visual vocabulary is pretty rudimentary, a bit like the sign language I made up with my sister when we were bored at the table while the adults were yacking away, but I think that is intentional. It's a bit like medium difficult sudokus: people like to have to work a little at figuring them out, which then makes them all the more proud of how clever they are, and for making them feel this good, they take a frame. And the light that goes with it. Oh, and that cute little music box, too...

* To anyone who's ever been to London, note the interesting arrangement of Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster, and Tower Bridge in the central painting on his home page, if you can be bothered to go there. Artistic licence?

slow food...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:30:00 +0000

kitchen
Originally uploaded by f2point4

When I left home to go to university, I was proud to declare everywhere that I couldn't cook. Of course, this was exaggerated as I did in fact know how to boil eggs, pasta and potatoes. And I could make scrambled eggs. Just not much else really. I saw it as a badge of honour because I wasn't going to be someone's housewife, I wanted to be treated as an equal. And if men couldn't cook, well, then I was going to be unable to cook with the best of them.

Obviously, I learned a few dishes as a student, out of sheer necessity. We didn't have Heinz beans in East Germany, nor were we great bean eaters, generally, so my favourite quick dish was toast with fried onions and camenbert under the grill. I think. Doesn't sound that thrilling now, to be honest. Mm. But we always had cheap Mensa food to fall back on. It was just a bit of a walk from my hall of residence, which would have made the energy expenditure -v- energy consumption ratio rather unfavourable.

Anyway, somehow I stayed alive, graduated, and pretty much straight away moved to the UK where I had a contract as lecturer for German at Keele University. And not only was student food no longer acceptable in my newly elevated position in academia, I also started to feel home-sick for the first time in my life. So I rang mum on Saturdays to ask her for the recipe of one of her dishes, went to the supermarket to get the nearest equivalent ingredients... and got cooking.

The German dishes mum taught me remotely all needed a fair bit of time to prepare, and as a single person, I only started to cook when my stomach was already growling. So I got into stir-fries mainly for their time efficiency and also a bit for their health benefits. They were also a cheap option during my first years in London when I had hardly any work, as the few vegetables I needed were well within my restricted budget. Meat was optional, anyway. (I've never been a de-facto vegetarian out of conviction, more for financial considerations and convenience.)

From there I moved on a bit once I stopped living in crappy rented rooms for max. £50 a week. I have more room for cooking utensils and my own fridge now. I still like a stir-fry every now and then, but my real love is Italian inspired fayre. Lots of tomatos, fresh herbs, pasta, and all prepared with love and care and the odd glass of red wine next to the cooker.

I don't cook every day as I don't have the time. Not having children helps in that sense as I still prefer not to have to cook, but to do it when I feel inspired. However, as I care more about what I put into my body, I'm inspired often enough these days.

My feminist alter-ego has also made her peace with the fact that I am doing the house-wifey thing in the kitchen. I struck a deal with her some time ago: instead of not cooking, I just wouldn't do any ironing, ever...

photography as a language, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:20:00 +0000

view
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Visual language is far less researched, documented, defined and categorised than spoken and written language. I believe this is one of the reasons why people use it to express things that simply refuse to be captured in a definition or category. @finsbury is right, it works on a more intuitive level. However, everyone is at least instinctively aware that sometimes things aren't quite what they seem. Language and images alike are used to manipulate the way we look at things. Whereas the recipient is unaware or at best has a vague feeling that he's being manipulated, the sender of those messages knows exactly what he is doing and what the likely result is going to be. Advertising and political propaganda are the most blatant examples of this.

One reason for this quest I am on is to become more aware myself of when I am being manipulated. If I am correct, this skill is called 'visual literacy'. It stands to reason that without people who are visually literate, meaningful communication through images isn't possible, not on the part of a visually illiterate sender, and not on the part of the visually illiterate recipient, either. However, whether it is knowing when there is a solar eclipse and timing it perfectly to tell revolting slaves the gods will be angry if they persist in rising against the established order, or whether it is showing a clean war without corpses as in the first Iraq war so as not to upset the taxpayer whose hard earned money is diverted away from services for society to kill thousands in a foreign country for reasons of power and control, visual or any other illiteracy or ignorance will be exploited.

I know this is all getting very theoretical, and even I would have a hard time to explain all of this in any picture you showed me. I am still rather visually illiterate myself, you see? However, as I said previously, I am a linguist, and everything I have written holds true for communication through spoken or written language (and most people would surely be able to see the sense in that), and photography is nothing but communication on a visual level. It therefore stands to reason that the concepts of effective communication apply to one as much as to the other, i.e. that communication is only effective if sender and recipient are on the same wave-length. What exactly this looks like in visual representations of any form in general and in photography in particular is what I still need to figure out. All I have figured out so far is that it will be different from context to context, between different levels of visual literacy and general knowledge, and between those I address in particular (those who speak my 'jargon') and those I don't. And so the search continues...

Thank you kindly for reading this, and my apologies if it is not very clear yet. I am still at the very beginning...

photography as a language, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:17:00 +0000

obvious sign
Originally uploaded by f2point4

It gets more difficult when we set out to communicate concepts like for example injustice in whichever form (poverty, social exclusion, gender or racial discrimination, violence, etc.). Just to give a current illustration, things I find unjust are the way the police in the UK are treating photographers. At the same time I find unjust how those people who get so worked up about the police here beating up photographers, are eerily quiet when it's about deaths in police custody, by far the greater injustice in my book. Worse still, when those same people are nowhere to be seen when in another part of the world people get shot by the police, the wounded dragged out of hospitals by the police, and the bodies dumped in rivers by the police to prevent the numbers of victims becoming known.

I would like to be able to show the injustice I perceive in this in photos. The easiest way would be the famous 'don't hear, don't see, don't speak'. That's a cliché, though, and as such too general for my purpose. So how else can I express this visually so people understand me? I wish I knew.

Back to what language is. @finsbury talked about 'memorised contexts' being the basis for understanding images. I replied that formalising those 'memorised contexts' into agreed conventions for a certain group of people is precisely how a language is created. A set of signs with certain meanings attached that when used in the group that had agreed on the meaning, everyone understands. Of course, the 'same' sign does not necessarily denote exactly the same thing in every language, simply because not every country (for the ease of the argument) has the same institutions or same societal structure, to pick an obvious comparison – a German Kingergarten is not the same as a nursery school, although there are similarities, and there is nothing like the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster* in the German cabinet (@louisehector). Even within one national language there are lots of sub-languages or 'jargons' that regular members of the larger community of a language's speakers won't understand, like medical, construction, aerospace etc. But at least languages are fairly well researched and documented, and if you want to know what 'amber box measures' means, you look it up in a dictionary or on the internet, and you'll find an explanation and the context in which the term is used (although it took me a long time to find it back in the day).

t.b.c.

* Feel free to ask, and I'll explain. ;-)

photography as a language, part 1

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:27:00 +0000

out of the suitcase
Originally uploaded by f2point4

Today I would like to continue the theme of photography as a visual language that has cropped up in several of my previous posts, most recently in the one about photographic clichés.

This next step in my exploration of the subject was triggered by an interesting exchange about the post I mentioned before on twitter. It started with a completely different reading of footprints, namely as something that puts us in relation to other species, or still different, footprints as a great social leveler in the sense of being devoid of any cultural or social or other hierarchical indicators. (Thank you very much, @finsbury!)

These thoughts had not occurred to me at all when I initially wrote the post but they kind of prove the point I made (with the help of some great quotes) in my post can you read a picture? Let me explain:

My mission is to find out (for myself, mainly) how visual languages work. My background is in linguistics, which explains where my interest comes from and why I am approaching the subject from this angle. In linguistics and translation theory we talked a lot about 'sign' and 'signifier' and such things to describe sounds or sound combinations or written symbols alone or in combinations that have become accepted as standing in for objects, events or relationships and such in communication. If I say 'I'm going to catch the bus', you know what I mean because you know what a bus looks like, what it is good for, that I am talking about myself, not you, and what the bus has to do with me.

My belief is that this principle also works for visual or, for that matter, any other non-verbal communication. There are certain things that have become accepted as signifying something else, they have become symbols for something, they are physical expressions of an idea, and ideas can't be photographed, right?

Yet people do it. People paint love, photograph conflict, sculpt beauty, yet all of those are concepts, not physical things. At this level it's still easy as those concepts are fairly universal, and almost everyone will find a tranquil seascape soothing, a sunrise and music in major uplifting, footprints thought-provoking, and so on. Those 'easy' or 'universally recognised' concepts are what we refer to as clichés, especially when they have been rehashed to the extent that we as recipients have become saturated with them to the point of distraction.

t.b.c.

photographic clichés...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:10:00 +0000

"this is MY foot print!"
Originally uploaded by f2point4

I think we spotted the photographic potential of the wet footprints on the stone slabs in the garden at the V&A at the same time, my photographer buddy Paul and I.

Later we talked about them, and the word 'cliché' was dropped. That started me thinking. Those who read my blog regularly (I can dream, can't I?) will know that I am on a quest to find what makes a good photograph, beyond the mere technical aspects of good exposure, depth of field, tonality, composition and such.

The word 'cliché' is deserved in the sense that entering 'footprints' and 'photograph' in Google throws up 7,520,000 hits. But there must be a reason why footprints are such a popular subject for a picture. So let's dig a little deeper:

Footprints are iconographic. On a first obvious level they are evidence of something that no longer is. Someone has been there and is gone, and all that's left to substantiate that fact are footprints. This appeals to human nostalgia. Most of us, except the most enlightened, do have some level of attachment to things in our past and feel a tugging at the heartstrings when we are reminded of what used to be.

To crank things up a notch, the footprints themselves as evidence are transient. On the beach either wind or waves will eventually take care of them, in this case here they will simply evaporate. This reinforces the 'loss' of what has been and is no more, down to the obliteration of even the last trace of its existence within relatively little time.

Ultimately I believe this aspect of the symbolism of footprints somehow points to our own mortality. Something we don't want to think about but can't really deny, just try to bury as deep as we can. So footprints with their relatively short term of reference in the here and now are a safe way to acknowledge the transience of a human's presence at a particular point in space and time without having to acknowledge the transience of his/her very existence.

But footprints have another, nearly diametrically opposed symbolic meaning, too. The prints as evidence of someone having been somewhere also show movement. Footprints usually form a trail, giving a direction, pointing towards opportunity, possibly even adventure, in short: life, somewhere beyond the frame.

This to my mind together with the first meaning described above is precisely why this particular 'cliché' is such an enduring one with it's cocktail of bitter-sweet associations...

sunday afternoon with a friend...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:47:00 +0000

smooth...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

For a very long time, longer than I care to remember, I have been an awful friend. This makes me sound bad, so please let me explain:

Until I was nine, we lived in a small town where I had been to creche, kindergarten and two years of school. That's where I started ballet and gymnastics, and in the backyard enclosed by three 1930ies blocks of flats, one of which we lived in, I was an integrated member of the 40 or so strong gang of neighbourhood kids. I had a 'boyfriend' as soon as I went to school, who just so happened to live across our backyard. I was very well 'socialised'.

Then we moved. And not just to the other end of town but the other end of the country. A much nicer one, admittedly, with a view of the Baltic Sea between the pine trees from our kitchen window instead of the coal dust from the open-cast lignite mine nearby. While I loved it, I lay awake many nights even more than a year into living there, crying for the friends and the backyard I'd had to leave behind, desperately trying to figure out how I could return. Still, I found another best friend and a 'boyfriend', too, so I was fine.

Until two years later, we moved - again, and again half-way across the country! This was really too much now. I decided that getting separated from the most important people in my life, my childhood friends, without having any say whatsoever in the matter, was just too painful to experience ever again, so I stopped making friends. I didn't really have any in the new school, nor in the extended secondary school after that, and not at university, either.

I think this attitude helped me a lot when I came over to the UK as I didn't leave anyone behind to miss (except my family, and I would always visit them). When I went to live in London, however, it compounded the feeling of loneliness that creeps up on you, anyway, when your so-called 'friends' book you in for Wednesday next week when you call them because you need someone to talk.

Then I got into the Latin-American community, and there was Marisol. I am writing this in her honour because she single-handedly made me believe in friendship again. She was very persistent, calling me so many times without me ever calling her first. I don't know why she bothered but I'm glad she did. And I am proud whenever she tells people that I'm her best friend...

Love you, Marisol!

turn a different corner...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:09:00 +0000

water play...
Originally uploaded by f2point4

... and see what happens.

I am old enough to know what I want, what I like, and I have lived in one place for long enough to know where to find it, right? Wrong. Well, at least it's not the whole truth.

London is way too big for anyone to know intimately in all its corners, and things shift and change so quickly that even if the impossible happened and someone did know it all, that person would have the hardest time just keeping up.

But that's not really the point. It's much more about realising how limiting it is to fall into a routine of doing the things that are tried and tested - or not doing them in favour of a night in front of the telly. I really should know better by now.

On Spring Bank Holiday Monday I went out to do a couple of things, including trying to chase down an elusive dress at Zara - unsuccessfully, I might add. I don't really mind as that's £20 saved for a coach journey across Cuba in August. ;-)

Anyway, on a whim I decided to make my way to the Southbank, although it wasn't as warm and sunny as on Sunday, but seeing as I was out already, I thought: Why not?

What I found there was a surprise around every corner. A true journey of discovery - and rediscovery in some cases - that combined to an unforgettable couple of hours at the tail end of the long weekend, as documented here.

The lesson I take from this, probably for the fifth or sixth time already, is to free up some time for discoveries, for doing things or going to places I've never tried before or didn't even know existed. Nothing extreme, no bungee-jumping for me, ever, unless my life depended on it. Maybe it would be just getting on a bus or tube and getting off at a station I don't know yet to see where it takes me...

repeat after me: I am free...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:55:00 +0000

personal message
Originally uploaded by f2point4

At one time or another, I have had one or several of these thoughts going through my mind but this is the first time I've seen them so succinctly brought to a point.

It is said that real freedom is the freedom to be different. We, and with that I mean the Western world, like to present ourselves as the example of freedom for everyone that the rest of the world would do well to follow.

Yet if our idea of freedom includes taking architectural pictures in big cities, these days our freedom often gets superseded by the freedom of the police to do as they please, supported by wishy-washy legislation that gives them all the leeway they need to twist things to suit them, not us, whose freedom they are supposed to protect.

Yet if our idea of freedom includes caring more for the environment than for the latest fashion or the flashest car, we are seen as nutters, tree-huggers, definitely not as people to be taken seriously.

Yet if our idea of freedom is telling our government that we don't want it to waste our hard-earned tax money on wars with a commercial and political hidden agenda at the expense of public services, then we are simply completely ignored.

But all this is assuming that we dare to be different in the first place. How many of us like to think we are, yet if we are honest, we tick all the boxes on that t-shirt, down to the one where we get told that it's those things that are our freedom, and we'd better believe it...