Blog - Ministract

Not Going. Going.

Tom McLaughlan — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:08:30 +0000

“One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going”

— JB Priestley

Came across that quote the other day and fell for it immediately but sometimes we do go. Like now. We’re away on a short family holiday at Beadnell Bay. Relaxing, walking, doing nothing, not worrying. Perfect!

Still haven’t got back to using my ‘proper’ camera but the iPhone works pretty well and if you click on any of the pictures you’ll go to a Lightbox review.

My first solo exhibition

Tom McLaughlan — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 20:44:35 +0000

Facebook ad.

I never thought I’d see the day but it seems I have - yes, my first ever solo exhibition starts tomorrow.

Now that I live with my dad I've enjoyed becoming part of the local Kirkhouse/Hallbankgate community, 13 miles east of Carlisle and five miles south of Hadrian’s Wall. The Hallbankgate Hub is a special little place right at the heart of the community. It’s a cafe with great cakes, a food/homewares shop that sells everything you could want, and an art gallery...

My (my!) exhibition starts tomorrow and runs for four weeks. There's an index page on my website here from where you can see the 30 pictures I'm showing (if you wish). Any profit I make will go to Dementia Carers Count, a charity that helps folk like me do their very best to care for loved ones and themselves. They're a godsend.

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Shuhari Road

Tom McLaughlan — Mon, 28 Jun 2021 20:29:23 +0000

A while ago I wrote about Arno Minkkinen's wonderful - and wonderfully titled - Helsinki Bus Station Theory. It speaks directly to the topic of creativity and how we find our way to a style that’s uniquely ours. It’s a short ten minute read that’s well worth anybody’s time.

Recently I came across the Japanese concept of shuhari, which seems complementary to Minkkinen’s insights. Although the term has its roots in the martial art of aikido (but some say it first related to the tea ceremony), it is now also applied to agile software development. I think we could apply it to photography too.

The first element - shu - is about obeying the rules. Understand, appreciate and apply them carefully. The next step on the journey is ha, this is the time when we can break the rules in pursuit of new approaches. And finally we arrive at Ri, the time when we transcend the rules.

Aikodo master instructor Endō Seishirō described shuhari thus:

“It is known that, when we learn or train in something, we pass through the stages of shu, ha, and ri. These stages are explained as follows. In shu, we repeat the forms and discipline ourselves so that our bodies absorb the forms that our forebears created. We remain faithful to these forms with no deviation. Next, in the stage of ha, once we have disciplined ourselves to acquire the forms and movements, we make innovations. In this process the forms may be broken and discarded. Finally, in ri, we completely depart from the forms, open the door to creative technique, and arrive in a place where we act in accordance with what our heart/mind desires, unhindered while not overstepping laws.”

The read across to photography is clear; the lessons too. Arguably we find ourselves jumping in at ha - breaking the rules before we’ve learned and applied them. Sometimes that works but it’s hard to learn from what we’ve done by accident.

As for me and my journey down Shuhari Road, I’m somewhere between Shu and Ha. It would be lovely to get to Ri but in the meantime I plan to enjoy the journey!

Incidentally, today’s pictures were taken in northern Honshu, Japan’s main island, during a dream of a holiday a few years ago. Click on any image and it’ll open full size in a scrollable lightroom view. You’ll also be able to see a bit about where each picture was taken - including the two from public loos!!

A river of passing events

Tom McLaughlan — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 18:09:30 +0000

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Thoughts from last week.

I’m walking through Gelt Wood under an electric green canopy that keeps most of the rain out and much of the path dry. Bark peels off a tree - musty - and the trunk of another is wrapped in wrinkles, little finger deep. Alongside me is the Gelt River, shifting effortlessly between calm and cacophony, and revealing golden pebble pools when the sun shines on the shallower waters.

This is now my special place and if - when! - I finally pop my clogs I’d love my ashes to be scattered in the golden pool at the foot of where Hell Beck meets the river. I’m not being morbid. No, I’m celebrating an important change in my outlook. You see, the truth is that until recently I couldn’t even have written about scattering my ashes. Ashes mean death and, more than that, death followed by cremation brought connotations in my mind of a death more permanent than one followed by burial. Weird thinking for sure but such was my fear of death. Not a fear of dying as such but a fear of the state of death. It’s something that’s hounded me for years to the extent that my family have always known not to talk about it in front of me.

The fear was reignited by my ICU visit last year. The consultant who put me on the ventilator told Barbara to be aware that I was a ‘grade three’ intubation, which basically meant it was difficult for them to get the tube into my windpipe. This was in the first few days of January. As we moved on a few weeks and the Covid pandemic really started to take its toll, intubation and ventilators entered common parlance just as Brexit and backstop had a few years back. With every reference I was reminded of my short time in ICU, reinforcing the image in my mind of a nurse standing behind me struggling to get the tube in. Add to this my fear of death and you can see why I was a pain to live with :)

The solution was found when the psychologist (under whose excellent care I’ve been for 18 months) recommended we use Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing or EMDR to help me recover from the trauma surrounding my episode of convulsive status epilepticus. It worked and now I’m in a much better place, free of the fear of death.

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

— Marcus Aurelius

The golden pool where Hell Beck meets the River Gelt (see on map).

Theo showing off!

Flo aka Floella aka Little Lady

Click on any image to open a larger, scrollable Lightbox view. All shots were taken with Sony’s A7iii camera and 70-200 lens.

When the bark is better than a byte

Tom McLaughlan — Wed, 19 May 2021 20:11:01 +0000

I wrote most of this blog in one 30 minute sitting - ‘in the zone’, as they say - and then managed to lose it in one one-minute sitting… Squarespace doesn’t have autosave when you’re using its web application nor does it warn you that you’re about to leave the page and lose absolutely bl**dy everything. So I’ve rewritten it as best I can. Grrrrr! At least it gave me the idea for a title :)

“And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

— John Muir

A fortnight ago I hugged a tree. Last week I stroked its moss. And yesterday I fondled some bark. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?!

There are few more relaxing and inspiring places than Gelt Woods in Brampton, Cumbria. The home of a very special Roman quarry upon which ancient graffiti was carved and from which the stone for nearby Hadrian’s Wall was extracted. Running (sometimes crashing) through it is a beautiful river with wise old trees standing guard in their suits of bark armour and most days these days there’s me wandering mindfully amongst it all whilst the dogs chase pheasants and ducks and - as ever - fail to catch anything.

I love the dappled light in forests, light that works it way through the canopy, casting its playful shadows across the paths. It’s been one of the magic elements in a treatment regime - along with an amazing family network and a superb psychologist - that’s helped me deal with depression and anxiety since my stay in intensive care last year and more recently with related trauma thoughts. There’s a forest-clothed hill just behind our house - the red hill that gives Redhill its name - where I reckon I’ve walked 1000 kilometres since the first lockdown.

When mum died last April I was barred from travelling north to attend the cremation (I take medication that compromises my immune system) and, again, the forest came to my rescue - this time the one surrounding Leith Hill where I walked with Barbara, sharing AirPods to listen to a Spotify playlist of songs that reminded me of mum, whilst recalling Philip Larkin’s poem, The Forest:

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

The Japanese practice of Shinrin yoku - forest bathing - was mentioned recently in Green Spaces, an episode of Michael Mosley’s excellent Just One Thing programme on BBC Radio 4, during which he mentioned the value of experiencing the forest with all of our senses. I look at the trees, listen to the birds and smell the scents but rarely do I use my sense of touch - hence all that hugging, stroking and fondling I’ve been getting up to! One day I’ll learn how to forage and then I can taste the forest too.

Click on the pictures, which were taken with my iPhone, to see them full size in a lightroom view.

Belated

Tom McLaughlan — Mon, 03 May 2021 12:53:50 +0000

I forgot my blog's birthday yesterday and now it won't talk to me...

It was only this morning that I noticed the copyright dates of 2011-2021. Twenty eleven. That’s ten years ago. (I’m good at maths). Anyway, I went and looked at my first ever post, In praise of uncertainty, and there it was: 1 May 2011.

The process of me trying to regain my photography mojo includes looking at pictures I took but buried away on my Mac almost immediately. Yesterday it was the turn of the ‘London’ folder and as a result I posted two or three I liked on social media without realising they’d been taken the same year the blog was born. I’m reusing them now along with 14 others that are escaping the hard drive for the first time.

Belated birthday wishes, dear blog - forgive me for forgetting your birthday and for neglecting you these last few years.

Screensaver screenshots

Tom McLaughlan — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 12:38:53 +0000

The screensaver on my Mac is set to grab whatever it wishes from my pictures folder, marrying together images I’d never dream of viewing side by side. Some are processed, others aren’t. Many have been used already whilst a fair few have never previously seen the light of day. Anyway, this morning I sat in front of the Mac snapping away with my iPhone, taking pictures of the ever-changing screensaver.

Perhaps Susan Sontag was right when she said “Today everything exists to end in a photograph”, even a screensaver. Then again, she also said that “Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution” - and both can be true at the same time, of course…

There’s a tiny bit of method behind the madness of me posting these screensavers - I’m trying to get back into a habit of blogging more than once every 12 or 18 months…

The thoughts of Chairman Dad

Tom McLaughlan — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:50:54 +0000

I’m up on the Borders at the moment visiting my Dad. One of the things I love about him - one of the many things - is his wonderful ability to make a quick, incisive and memorable observation. I've given up trying to work out if they're aphorisms or maxims but, whatever they are, they're good and I've pinched many of them, as anybody who's worked with me can testify.

A quick run through some of my favourites:

"Every silver lining has a cloud". This one could have been said by Puddleglum, the Marshwiggle in CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. Like many folk, Dad doesn't like to tempt fate but he takes it further by expecting something negative to occur after a positive outcome.

"Doing good around here is like pissing yourself in a dark suit - you get a nice warm feeling but nobody else notices". Enough said!

"He fought for centre stage and then didn't know what the hell to do with it". Usually targeted at politicians (he saves a lot of his best ones for them) but occasionally used more widely. Although the saying/maxim/aphorism predates Boris Johnson by many years, Our Dear Leader has been on its receiving end more than most.

"He has delusions of adequacy". Some might say that that's two in a row for Boris but I couldn't possibly comment!

"How do you spell incompetent?" Used in relation to a former work colleague of his ("Come in ****, I’m just doing your annual report. How do you spell incompetent?"), this was an example of Chairman Dad bringing levity to a situation - but only once he was sure the recipient would take it the right way!

The pictures were taken on a very quick visit to Venice in mid February last year just days before the travel restrictions were implemented.

People are people

Tom McLaughlan — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:21:00 +0000

I don’t read that much poetry but every now and again, I’ll come across one that really resonates. 2020’s discovery was This is the time by John O’Donohue - I mentioned it in my last blog - whereas thirty or so years ago it was the turn of RS Thomas’s Affinity. Apart from the wonderful language and metaphors (“Ransack your brainbox, pull out the drawers That rot in your heart's dust”), it spoke directly to a simple but profound belief I inherited from my mum…

‘People are people.’

This was no vacuous ‘Brexit means Brexit’ remark. This was mum teaching me that, at the end of the day, we’re all the same. Rich, poor; young, old; black, white; male, female - nothing inherently makes one ‘better’ than the other. No, we are all - in RS Thomas’s words - guided by “the same small star”.

Consider this man in the field beneath,
Gaitered with mud, lost in his own breath,
Without joy, without sorrow,
Without children, without wife,
Stumbling insensively from furrow to furrow,
A vague somnambulist; but hold your tears,
For his name also is written in the Book of Life.

Ransack your brainbox, pull out the drawers
That rot in your heart's dust, and what have you to give
To enrich his spirit or the way he lives?
From the standpoint of education or caste or creed
Is there anything to show that your essential need
Is less than his, who has the world for church,
And stands bare-headed in the woods’ wide porch
Morning and evening to hear God's choir
Scatter their praises? Don't be taken in
By stinking garments or an aimless grin;
He also is human, and the same small star,
That lights you homeward, has inflamed his mind
With the old hunger, born of his kind.

The pictures I’ve posted today were taken in a variety of places over the last few years. Clicking on each one will take you into a Lightbox view and will also reveal where the picture was taken.

I’ve been struggling to find my photography ‘mojo’ for quite sometime so I decided to take things slowly. The first step was to look through my hard drive and pick out a few of the thousands of pictures that are sitting there. The second was to have a go at refreshing the design of my blog. This is its first outing and so I’d be enormously grateful for any thoughts on how it could be improved further. Many thanks indeed.

Blue

Tom McLaughlan — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 12:38:33 +0000

It's a year since my last blog. Who'd have known then what was to follow for us all? 2020 was a blue year.

During the first week of the first lockdown, the Today programme broadcast a series of poems of comfort and hope, each one selected and read by a different member of the News team. Fergal Keane, who'd struggled with PTSD after his experiences as a war reporter, chose This is the time to be slow by the late Irish poet John O'Donohue. It's been my companion throughout the year.

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

You can listen to the recording of him reading it here.

At times like this I take my strength from nature and two places in particular - Birling Gap on the south coast and Talkin Tarn up on the England/Scotland border where my dad lives. These pictures were taken there on a cold, windy visit when O'Donohue's fresh pastures of promise seemed an eternity away.

I thought I'd share the music I was listening to when I put this blog together just in case there's anything of interest - the Spotify playlist is here. Finally, feel free to click on the individual pictures so that they open up in Lightbox mode as - unusually for me - they’re not square.

Rhythm (and blues)

Tom McLaughlan — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 17:15:00 +0000

Today is International Epilepsy Day so I thought I'd tell my story of something that happened 33 days ago. It's a story still in search of an ending but if it helps people build an understanding of what epilepsy can be like then it will have done its job.

It was Wednesday 8 January and I was in Caffé Nero doing some emails; a normal day and I felt fine. The next thing I knew, it was Thursday and my wife Barbara was leaning over me, saying that I'd had some seizures. I was in intensive care with tubes everywhere, scared stiff I was about to die and asking if we could get a helicopter to fly my parents down so that I could hold them. Sounds odd now but it was a very real feeling at the time.

Apparently, I'd had an episode of convulsive status epilepticus (SE), a medical emergency that can lead to permanent brain damage or worse. In essence, SE is when a seizure becomes self-sustaining and puts your brain and heart under severe stress. In my case, I'd had three tonic-clonic seizures (the archetypal convulsive seizures that used to be called grand mal) separated by partial seizures (formerly petit mal), with the whole thing lasting for over an hour. Before this episode, my seizures had followed the 'standard' of one seizure lasting about two minutes.

I get no warnings of them and never have any knowledge afterwards of what’s happened but that usually doesn’t matter - I’m out for the shortest period of time and it’s time I don’t mind not knowing about. But this one was different and so I’ve tried to construct a picture of what happened. It’s been a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle except that when you start off you don’t empty all the pieces on the table, you have to find them first and only then can you try to put them together. So that’s been my project for the last few weeks. I‘ve been humbled by what I learned.

Eve, a regular in the cafe, saw me stand upright and then fall. “Made such a noise. Everybody heard it. I didn’t really know what to do so I just sat there, holding your hand and speaking to you just in case you could hear anything. I think I was talking rubbish, but I wanted you to know I was there for you”. Lisa, a trained first aider who works in a candle shop down the road and had just popped in for a quick coffee, stepped forward to help, protected my head, got somebody else to time the seizure duration and found another person who knew how to access my iPhone Medical ID information and thus see what medication I was on and call Barbara. The cafe manageress called 999 immediately, ensuring that the Paramedics got there quickly. They struggled to get things under control and so, while she emptied the cafe of other people, they called two extra crews. After the best part of an hour I was stable enough to be shifted to the ambulance (where I had another seizure) and then on to hospital. I had a CT scan there but my breathing deteriorated so they put me on a ventilator. Somewhere down the line I was sedated too. I know all of this because the ICU lead consultant took the time to review the paramedics notes along with her own and then emailed me the information. Like I said, everybody has been amazing.

They brought me around on Thursday morning (on the second attempt - when Barbara arrived - having aborted the first because I tried to rip out the tubes (apparently that’s not uncommon) - and moved me to the High Dependency Unit at about 5pm. I was discharged from there late on Friday and arrived back home exhausted, confused, sad and scared - and 6kg lighter. I slept, off and on, for several days, interrupted only by hugs from the family and well wishes from friends. I've never felt so sad and I've never felt so in need of hugs. And I couldn't be more grateful for all the love they gave me. Since then so many people - other family members, friends and work colleagues - have been amazing. Chatty emails, phone calls, house visits, practical offers of help - nothing has been too much. And the circle of professional help is outstanding - from the paramedics (whose names sadly I don’t know), to Claire the critical care lead at the hospital, Rebecca the neurologist, Zoe the counsellor, my GP, and the HR team at work too. One person who’s been particularly helpful - somebody I’d never heard of just three weeks ago - is a lady called Torie Robinson, an epilepsy sufferer herself who’s committed to raising awareness of the condition. Torie called me and chatted for 50 minutes to help me prepare for my session with the neurologist, explaining what I needed to find out first if I was to maximise its value. In effect, she guided me through the game of blind jigsaw. So, you can see that I really am blessed.

My journey with epilepsy began in 1982. I was an undergraduate at Oxford Poly when one day I woke up on the floor near my bedroom door. The guy in the room next to me was the son of a doctor and a few days later he suggested I might want to see somebody. After several weeks of investigations, a letter arrived from Professor Matthews, the consultant at Oxford's John Radcliffe Infirmary: "As suspected, the tests confirm that you have epilepsy and will need to take medication, probably for the rest of your life". They knew how to break news gently back then... So, no driving for three years (those rules have changed now), no rugby and no swimming. It took a few years for them to get my medication right but once they did, things went well. In fact, by 2017 I'd gone 20 years without a seizure. As long as I took my medication I could do anything I wanted.

But in August 2017 I had what's known as a breakthrough seizure while driving my car. Fortunately, nobody else was involved and I only sustained a couple of cracked ribs but it was devastating to be reminded so abruptly that living life as a controlled epileptic means there are no guarantees. However, I made it through a year of not driving - walking 5.4 million steps covering 4,500 kilometres - and thought I'd never look back.

And then this.

Physically, I have recovered really well - although it will take some time for my stamina levels to get back to where they were, plus I have to wait three months before I'm allowed to walk in the woods by myself, and it will be a year before I can reapply for my driving licence - but the bigger challenge is my mental health. I know the things I have to manage - reduce my anxiety and stress levels, get more sleep, drink less and never ever forget to take my medication - but even then there are no guarantees. It could happen at any time, including when I'm alone. Right now, today, I don't know how to handle that thought but in time I hope I will find my new comfort zone. What I know for sure, though, is that not only do I have many special people in my circle of friends, there are many, many special other people out there - people I’ve never met - who won’t hesitate to help. And above all else, I know how wonderful my family is.

Disability comes in all shapes and sizes, sometimes visible, sometimes not. The important thing is to talk about it, to share our experiences and to be there for others. If anybody is reading this with a personal interest then feel free to get in touch (tom@ministract.com) and I’ll do my best to help and to point you in the right direction. There are some wonderful resources out there and nobody needs to endure epilepsy alone. We can get rhythm back into our lives, without the blues.

See here for a simple guide to epilepsy first aid. Great sources of help and info in the UK include Epilepsy Society, Epilepsy Action and Epilepsy Sparks

The pictures are rhythmic shots from a trip to Marseille almost four years ago and were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and either the 12-40mm f2.8 lens or the 40-150mm f2.8 lens. If you click on any of the thumbnails you'll be taken to a scrollable lightbox view.

But nature more

Tom McLaughlan — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 18:05:00 +0000

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”

— Lord Byron

I’ve been off work for a while, recharging my batteries. At times like this there’s nothing better than immersing yourself in nature - it’s an ever-changing, anxiety-busting counterpoint to everything else that’s going on.

And it’s free.

That great sage Winnie the Pooh once said “Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering“.

More curiosity

Tom McLaughlan — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 18:07:00 +0000

I was honoured and surprised to be invited by my friend Nicki Gwynn-Jones to write an article for the January edition of Visual Art, magazine of the Royal Photographic Society's Visual Art group, of which she's just become the editor. The group doesn't have an online presence (yet) so Nicki has very kindly agreed that I can post this collage of the pages. (I was using my iPhone in a badly lit room so apologies for the poor quality). I've cut and pasted the article too, which the eagle-eyed amongst my readership (approx 3 people at the last count) will notice builds on a recent blog. Some may call that an exercise in developing a deeper, more profound point of view, whilst others may say it's simply laziness... You decide! Thank you for the opportunity and the permission to post the piece here, Nicki!

“Well, curiosity is everything. If you don’t have curiosity, you don’t have anything. That’s the thing that keeps you going—you’re curious about what’s around the corner.”

— David Bailey

It's 20 years since we moved to Tokyo. 'We' was me, my wife and our son - we came back with an extra one - but it didn't include a camera. It was another 10 years before photography joined the family.

We'd hesitated over the decision to go but our minds were finally made up one Saturday morning at Clapham South tube station. There on a billboard ad was a couple at a greasy spoon cafe, a chrome condiment caddy on the table between them, stuffed with salt and pepper, and all the other condiments. There was an ashtray too. He looked like Andy Capp and she wore the same expression as the women in L'Absinthe by Degas.

"We never did make it to Paris", he said mournfully in her direction. Bucket lists weren't called bucket lists back then but it was as though he was listing all the things that would have been on theirs if they could live their lives again.

We decided to move to Japan on the Monday.

I loved Japan for many reasons but none more than the way the country brought a new surprise every day - something that fed my deep sense of curiosity.

When Einstein said 'I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious', he wasn't displaying false modesty, he was highlighting how questions - the everyday symptom of a curious mind - lead to discoveries. He was extolling the creative force of curiosity, and much of what I was to experience in Japan would impact my personal photographic journey when it began ten years later.

Nobody visiting Japan can fail to notice how the country and its culture embraces the natural world. I enjoyed the arts and crafts movement – pottery, furniture, woodblock print maps – and was curious about the associated myths. Many were spiritual with Zen Buddhism featuring strongly. I read about Zen's seven aesthetic principles and when photography worked its way into my life, I took pictures that attempted to illustrate each one. In truth, I failed miserably but the principles have driven much of my work.

Datsuzoko. Some people are lost without routine and the formulaic approach that often accompanies it. Datsuzoko on the other hand is the absence of both; indeed, some have called it a reprieve.

Fukinsei. Symmetry and regularity bring a predictable rhythm but asymmetry and irregularity generates a dynamism that excites.

Kanso. Simplicity. Focus on what matters and get rid of the rest.

Seijaku. "Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." Winnie the Pooh understood the importance of tranquility but Saijaku goes further by stressing its creative power.

Shibumi. Simplicity doesn't have to be simple. Look for subtle details to bring complexity into the equation.

Shizen. Whether natural or made by human hands, the principle of Shizen means there will be no sense of pretense or artificiality. Photographs Shizen-style won't feel 'photoshopped'.

Yugen. A tease. Curiosity piqued. Show less, communicate more. If Emily Dickinson had been writing about the aesthetic principles, it would have been Yugen she was describing when she urged us to "Ignite the imagination and light the slow fuse of the possible".

Curiosity played its part again recently during a visit to War Photo Limited, an exhibition centre for war and conflict photojournalism in Dubrovnik's Old City. Founder and former photojournalist Wade Goddard concludes his introduction to the exhibition guide with these words: "We cannot hope to answer all your questions on this subject but do hope you finish with more questions than you started with".

When we apply this questioning and curious mindset to photography we find ourselves trying out new things. We take risks. We look beyond the obvious in search of something new. Perhaps this is what Robert Mapplethorpe meant when he declared "I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before."

With Mapplethorpe's words for inspiration and energised by lots of questions, I went looking for the unexpected with my camera. I've never had a photography lesson so I didn't know what would happen if I pulled the zoom lens out quickly as I pressed the shutter or if I zoomed in on architectural details. Could I disguise what I was photographing? Could I draw out a feature that people might miss as they walked past? What if I photographed the colours of lights reflected in steel columns and turned them through 90 degrees? Could metal become the home of a seascape?

Curiosity has been the catalyst for a wonderful photographic journey.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

— Walt Disney

Ignite the imagination

Tom McLaughlan — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 17:04:00 +0000

Every now and then I love to take blurry photos. Schmocus photos.

Oftentimes you can tell what they are - a Modigliani-style headshot of a lady, four chit-chatters on their lunch break, a moustachioed man in the shadows, birds sky-dancing as the sun goes down, polka dot patterns around a doorway. Maybe sometimes we can't - spotlights on a shelf or multicoloured sculptures on the high street. And occasionally we think we can but can't - the blue hour seascape with thunder clouds above, the heavy setting sun above the deserts, another thunderscape but with aqua-coloured water and a beach in view too, all of which are streetlights reflected in metal columns.

Who cares what they are or what they nearly are? They can be whatever your imagination wants them to be.

Emily Dickinson urged us to "Ignite the imagination and light the slow fuse of the possible".

Click on any of the thumbnails and you'll be taken to a scrollable lightbox view.

Curiosity

Tom McLaughlan — Mon, 29 May 2017 16:03:00 +0000

“Well, curiosity is everything. If you don’t have curiosity, you don’t have anything. That’s the thing that keeps you going—you’re curious about what’s around the corner.”

— David Bailey

Any day now will be the 20th anniversary of when Barbara, little Finn, a bump (later to be called Fabian) and I moved to Tokyo.

The decision to go had taken a while, not because we didn't want to live overseas (we definitely did); it was just that Japan was firmly on the Maybe list.

Our minds were made up one Saturday morning at Clapham South tube station, standing in front of a billboard ad featuring a couple at a greasy spoon cafe. A chrome condiment caddy sat on the table between them, stuffed with salt and pepper, vinegar, ketchup, HP sauce, sugar and paper napkins. There was an ashtray too. He looked like Andy Capp and she wore the same expression as the women in L'Absinthe by Degas.

"We never did make it to Paris", he said with words that hung there, somber and mournful in equal measure.

We said Yes on the Monday.

There are lots of reasons why living in Japan was special but none more so than its never ending ability to surprise. Every day was a day of discovery, a day for a curious mind - an 'around the corner' sort of day.

All the pictures were taken in London yesterday, with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 12-40mm f2.8 lens. If you click on any of the thumbnails you'll be taken to a scrollable lightbox view.

Helsinki Bus Station Theory

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 12:17:45 +0000

“Art is risk made visible”

— Arno Minkkinen

Arno Minkkinen's Helsinki Bus Station Theory is a five minute read I go back to regularly. At it's simplest it's a Vision 101 for photographers but in truth it's so much more, with insights that go way beyond creativity. It talks to journeys going Somewhere that seem only to be getting Nowhere. It gives a peek into how one person pursues personal contentment. And it tickles my curiosity with a treat of a title.

These pictures have nothing to do with either Helsinki or bus stations - they're ministracts of London that have been sitting on my computer for a couple of years waiting to be let out.

The fourth dimension

Sat, 30 Jan 2016 21:52:11 +0000

"An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere." (Einstein)

The Calatrava-designed train station in Liège is a fabulous cathedral of lines - a point-and-shoot Mecca. These pictures were taken on a visit with Tim Allen 18 months ago. It's a great place and certainly provided some relief from the greyness of Brussels where we were based.

All the pictures were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and either the 12-40mm f2.8 lens or the 75mm f1.8 lens. Please click on any of them to go in to a scrollable lightbox view.

Tokyo

Sat, 09 Jan 2016 13:13:02 +0000

A few pictures from a wonderful visit to Japan over Christmas. It started with a trip into the mountains before returning to Tokyo to see my best mate get married and then, a few days later, we celebrated my youngest son Fabian's 18th birthday. Fabe was born in Tokyo so there was a lovely symmetry about the occasion.

I guess you could call the collection a Godzilla Sandwich since the top and bottom rows are shots of the exterior of the Hotel Gracery in Shinjuku, a hotel that's dedicated to all things Godzilla. I'm not a Godzilla fan myself so I'll have to take Google's word for it. The two centre rows are made up of buildings in the Otemachi and Marunouchi areas of the city, near to Tokyo Station.

I'll try and post some pictures of the trip to the mountains another day.

All the pictures were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 12-40 f2.8 lens. Please click on any of them to go in to a scrollable lightbox view.

Munich / München

Sun, 19 Apr 2015 19:32:26 +0000

Barbara Stumm is barbera* on Flickr and b1 in Jibbr. She was also my companion on a short trip to Munich last summer. It was a wonderful few days - my first visit to the city - with plenty of sights. These included the Brandhorst Museum (designed by Sauerbruch Hutton), Herz Jesu Church (by Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten), Highlight Towers (designed by Murphy/Jahn) and, of course, lots of wonderful u-bahn stations, such as Olympia-Einkaufszentrum, Olympiazentrum and Marienplatz. I'm sure I'll return one day as we only scratched the surface of this wonderful city.

(Many thanks to another Jibbr member, Rita Vita Finzi, for helping me select the images!)

All the pictures were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and either the 12-40 f2.8 lens or the 75mm f1.8. Please click on any of them to go in to a scrollable lightbox view.

Whitstable beach huts

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 19:57:33 +0000

Yesterday saw my first visit to Whitstable. I'd heard it was famous for oysters but didn't realise it did a colourful line in beach huts too. A lovely place and definitely somewhere I'll head to again.

All the pictures were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 12-40 f2.8 lens. Please click on any of them to go in to a scrollable lightbox view.