The Great British Breakfast…

is probably kippers or kedgeree for kayak fishermen like these, but what did you have for breakfast this morning?  Did you have anything at all?  Are you a cooked or cold lover?  Healthy or heart attack?

I know from my links to education just how important this meal is in given brain and body the fuel to get the day off to a good start yet I fear that an area where we once were world beaters is falling into a sad decline.  It may be called “the full English” but how many of us partake of it, other than when your trying to extract maximum value from your accommodation costs in a hotel with a good buffet option?

The morning fry up was an Edwardian innovation; an opportunity for landowners with a few pigs and chickens to demonstrate the quality of his produce to overnight visitors.  With the household staff otherwise occupied with chores it was designed to be eaten without domestic servants waiting on diners, leading to the “help yourself according to what you fancy” approach that continues in larger hotels now.  What probably began as bacon, sausage, eggs and mushrooms has grown to include beans, tomatoes, black pudding, white pudding, haggis, saute potatoes, hash browns, and more.  I’ve eaten most, but have never really been drawn to devilled kidneys!  Got to have HP sauce though.

Over the years, this morning repast was claimed by the working classes and became the staple fayre of any greasy spoon worth its salt!

So what started the decline?  I blame our transatlantic cousins, and in particular the Kellogg family.  John Harvey Kellogg, a doctor and theologian was a keen advocate of vegetarianism, and a strong believer in abstinence.  He gave momentum to those hard-core porridge and muesli lovers who believe that if it tastes of anything pleasant it is to be spurned!  John Harvey invented the cornflake.

His brother Will Keith Kellogg, who was having none of this restraint, took his brother’s invention, liberally added salt and sugar and founded what we now know as Kelloggs.  Millions of dollars of advertising, and brightly coloured boxes later and I grew up to be a cereal eater, and I still am, though appalled at the food industries insatiable appetite(!) for adding to chocolate to everything cereal now.  What is that doing to the diets of our children who are lured by the cartoon characters that adorn every tooth rotting box?

Today’s portrait subject John would have to opt for “other” if this morning is representative of his normal start the day routine.  He had cheese on toast.

A tale of two settlements

The coastal scene was very different this morning – blue skies and sunshine replaced by a thick fog, leaving everywhere damp grey and autumnal.  Even the fog was insufficient to hide the devastation of the beach.  The weekend has probably seen more visitors to the beach than any other outside of the Sunderland International Airshow weekends but they haven’t treated it kindly.

Whether brought by tide or human traffic the rubbish on Whitburn Beach was widespread, and it was easy to see where it had originated.

The fact that this devastation is not a regular problem suggests that it isn’t those who live on the coast who are responsible; it’s someone else that has a complete disregard for the environment.

Just 3 miles inland from the coast lies the village of Southwick.  It has some things in common with Whitburn, each centres around a village green with listed buildings.  Each can trace its history back to Saxon times, and for each the local collieries were once the major employers.

That is probably where the similarities end.  Whitburn sports its affluence openly;

Southwick is the most deprived area of Sunderland.  Here you see the evidence of those who don’t care for their own environment.

What factors have led to the disparity between the two?  Largely financial – the owners of those same collieries lived in Whitburn, yet this doesn’t fully explain the attitudes of those who leave graffiti and litter.

My mother-in-law originates from Southwick and a more house-proud and responsible person you couldn’t want to meet.  Today’s subject Jean was out walking her dog in Southwick this morning, fastidiously clearing up after him.  Talking to her she was a genuine “salt of the earth” individual. 

Perhaps the attitude is more generational then, but what would explain the lack of any social conscience that has grown up in some of the area’s inhabitants.  I’m no sociologist so have no theory, but it does worry me that society does seem to be polarising.

Of the three listed buildings and monuments in Southwick, one is the war memorial, another is a pub, the Tram Car Inn, and last of the three is right in the centre of the village green.

It is a large and ornate memorial lamppost; covered in generations of repainting, it probably never warrants a second glance from those who pass by.  Yet the inscription plate, though cracked from top to bottom, is still legible and reads:

In memory of

Robert Thompson Esq.

of West Hall, Whitburn,

for 25 years,

chairman of the local council,

this green

was restored by his sons

Resilience

This gallery contains 28 photos.

I worked hard yesterday to free myself up to “break eggs with sticks” today (as my mother-in-law would say), and yet come this morning it just didn’t materialise.  My get up and go had certainly got up and gone! I … Continue reading →

Welcome to the Costa Roker

Sun, sea, sand and Sunderland.  Time to make the most of the weather and so many ways in which to do it:

For some it’s a time for romancewhile other prefer a different type of companion.

Some want to get active

while others just want to chill.Some want to sit and enjoy the sunwhile others want to put their bucket and spade to use!

Some want to cool their feetwhile some want to keep everything out of the sun.Visitors come from far and wide (Carolyn & Celine)There’s even a handy car wash…and entertainment for the ladies.People even dress formally to eat ice cream!

Photographers come to do their thing…

which for me means finding a portrait, and on Roker Pier, amongst the sea angling fraternity I was bound to find someone.

This is Ian, who joked that he would have caught a fish by the time I’d returned from the lighthouse end of the pier, and then when I did so explained that he’d had to let it go because it was too large.  The perennial one that got away.  I was more successful I think!

A bit of a headache…

Another beautiful day today and I was in paparazzi mode.  No, I wasn’t getting in people’s faces against their will or chasing princesses at high speed, but I was on two wheels.  It’s been a while, but it was nice to feel the pedals turning under my feet as I cruised along the coast.  (I wouldn’t have troubled Augustus Windsock in a race though!).

Despite my gentile approach I did seem to bring out more resistance than usual in people (hence the paparazzi comment) which is a shame since some of my refusals would have made great pictures; particularly the man with the white handlebar moustache who very curtly made the point that he would mind if I took his picture, and the woman who was beautifully framed by the open window in her car, but was too self conscious to pose.

Against this background I encountered two girls taking pictures of each other with a Blackberry, so did the decent thing and offered to take one of the pair of them.  Having done them a favour it was their turn to reciprocate and be photographed by me, and that’s where the headache begins.  What do you do with two pretty young girls on a sunny beach?  (Clean answers please!)

The problems are these:

• It’s so bright that the dynamic range is too bright for the camera.  Any angle that cast shadows and I’m reduced to either blown out, pure white highlights or deep, black shadow with no detail.  I shoot into the light to avoid this, but end up with flat uninteresting lighting on their faces; less of a problem with well lined faces but with fresh, peachy skin like theirs I’m on a hiding to nothing.

• They’re young and fashion conscious so they’re both wearing shades.  No chance then to really make their eyes pop and sparkle.  What’s more, the trend being for large shades I’ve lost a good proportion of their faces.  Worse still, because they’re so large you can clearly see me reflected in them and this wasn’t supposed to be a self-portrait.

So Sarah and Kirsty, what am I going to do with you?

If I keep it dark enough for Kirsty’s hair I lose Sarah and her vibrant hair colour in shadow…

If I go to monotone and try some different filters I can compensate a little, but then I lose Sarah’s crowning glory even more completely…

What about a bit of cross processing?

Too contrived, I agree.

How about a high fashion glow?  Interesting but now I’ve lost Kirsty’s hair.  This might have come off if I’d gone full length and the girls had made the most of their great legs in some angular poses.

What it came down to was that there were two elements that kept drawing my eye – Sarah’s smile and that bright red hair, so sorry Kirsty but my solution had to be to reach for the cropping tool.  Now I had just one colourful character I could really boost that colour and hey presto!

What would your preference have been?  Leave me a comment below with your ideas please.

 

Hot and Cold…

…well not exactly hot for those of us on the North Sea coasts, but compared to recent weeks today felt like the height of summer.  Layers of clothing were shed and the world and his wife headed for the beach (leaving their children at school of course).

Now I know I try to see myself as a non-discriminatory kind of guy, but if I’m honest whilst not knowingly racist or sexist I am a snob.  Consequently my normal photography playground was off-limits today; the combination of a sunny beach with pubs, chip shops, slot machines and Morrisons all within easy reach will be a magnet to those who will leave the place awash with litter, before returning tomorrow to do it all again.

I didn’t have to go far to get away though as you can see.  The Roker Marina is close at hand, but a quieter experience on a day like today.  Quieter that is until the shrieks of teenage girls on this unlikely vessel disturbed the air.

I assumed they were screaming in case they fell in, but once out into clear water they disproved that theory immediately.

Even the motor-sport enthusiasts racing around the perimeter were making less noise – (not sure who won though!)

Then there were those who were content to sit in the sun and people-watch as others went by.  As a photographer I do this all of the time, usually in the search for a good face to photograph, but in a more leisurely context I might take this a stage further.

I read an interesting book a few years back about reading people; the things we give away about ourselves by our appearance and body language.  This is cold reading, the technique used by tricksters and “mediums” to  convince people that they know more about you than they really do.  It’s a probability game where they make statements that are probably correct and then based on the level of reaction pursue that further or move on to a different subject before you begin to challenge their powers.  Derren Brown has used the technique on several occasions to debunk a variety of scams.

A cold reader meeting me for example, would probably mention that I’ve put on a little weight recently.  They’ve never met me before so how could they know that?  Yet a little observation would reveal that the belt I commonly wear is worn around the next notch, showing that it has been fastened tighter frequently in the past.  Were the notch the other way, they might enquire as to whether I’d suffered some illness recently.

Educated guess-work, yet in America where lawyers have the right to screen jurors for signs of any bias against their client the technique is regularly used (and used to try to produce juries that might be inclined to think a certain way).

I don’t profess any expertise in this field, but if I was a betting man I’d say that my subject today, Thomas, had been out in a boat.

Why would I think that?  The collar and tie look a little formal, but then many of the older generation don’t feel properly dressed without them, but on such a warm day the hat and sweater suggest that he’s been somewhere a little more exposed.  Elementary my dear Watson.

Oh yes, and there’s the matter of the dried sea-spray on the left lens of his glasses.  Move over Benedict Cumberbatch! 

The Gift of Memory

Like most people there are aspects of my memory that are pretty good (I just wish I could remember what they are right now), and other things that I’m not so good at like remembering people’s names.  When I’m photographing street portraits I like to use the individual’s name at least twice to embed it in my memory for when I write the blog later, though I might also record it on my iphone to be absolutely sure.

My wife’s family love to have parties, and more often than not these involve party games, which tend to become very competitive and not just between the teenagers, but also those who are old enough to know better.  One regular event is to play “the tray game” or “the memory game” where the objects from a covered tray are revealed one by one before the tray is covered again and the task of trying to recall the objects begins.  I’ve never been beaten at this.

This is not a feat of memory though, but the use of a technique.  I begin by having something in mind that I can mentally walk through and then place the objects along the way, visualising some connection that will help me to recall them.  Consequently I can usually recite the order they were shared in as well as the actual objects.  When the objects were relatively few I would work with calendar months, but attempts to thwart me by adding more objects have forced me to refine my strategy to the various premises and landmarks of a real journey.

Derren Brown at the Garrick Theatre, Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve never made a secret of the technique, which has been in use since Simonides in the Greece of the 5th Century BC, yet no one has successfully adopted the same methodology to challenge me.  It’s called the “method of loci“, loci being Latin for places, and with some variations is the basis for many feats of memory.  You may have seen those who can remember the order of multiple sets of cards, or Derren Brown playing multiple Chess masters by remembering the moves to effectively play them off against each other.

One of the more recent TED talks is by Joshua Foer and is entitled “Feats of memory anyone can do”, but that’s where I have a problem.  I suspect that since the method involves visualisation that some may have greater abilities than others in this field.  I am a very visual person, hence my love of imagery.  Derren Brown is an accomplished artist as well as an entertainer.  Might this be a common factor amongst those can take these techniques to extreme levels.  Might the phrase “photographic memory” be more meaningful than we think?

Of course memory is so much more than being able to recall information visually stored for short-term use (these “achievements” are after all little more than party tricks rather than true learning)  but I suspect that there is some gift that allows some to excel at them.

Which reminds me of today’s portrait subject, whose name is Donna.  There was no way I could forget that name for although it means woman in Italian, it sounds like the Latin worddona.

It means a gift.