# 9 Stormy weather

I watched the recent storms from a Co Devon (west england) window still thinking about the projects ahead.

The weather/energy/environment topic needs to be addressed if only lightly in some shape or form....even Salgado feels the same....if only to have it in the flow of final portfolio and not ignore such an important issue......

I raised the question during the Bresson lecture on whether magnum chose correctly not to cover the 1930's german story.....

I now ask myself if there is room for me to be political or ethical in doing what I feel is my privilege to record what interests me as a photographer without considering the views of Sontag or others...........

# 8 London Town

I've been in London for a few days and unfortunately I'm leaving this afternoon. I haven't been in town since 1994 and what a difference a decade makes. I wanted to do a Sco and use the mobile phone in dark and underground places. I have no idea what the picture quality will be if any at all but still it was a thrill to be able to use the digital format candidly in areas where I would have stood out as a professional photographer with my bulky nikon.....I will try to post on my return......This has put me in the mood to seriously think of a good digi for night time life and subdued situations.......

# 7 Planning for spring

I can't seem to get beyond the idea that a major trip has to be planned for this spring summer and autumn......for the past two years I restricted travel to the Netherlands as there had been a major tour in 2005.....Now a re-think on how travel should be planned is shaping around the future of my projects that have taken on a life of their own and are challenging me to forget other ideas and focus on their completion and development for its sake and its sake alone........

I had heard this forecast and predicament during a conversation with an artist friend in his Bucharest studio in 1999.....

# 6 on the wall.

Last week I took a trip with my brother to the city of Londonderry......While he attended some meetings with local drama people I walked on top of the historic walls....about a square mile.......there was hardly anyone around but the few who were there were enough to make a couple of pictures.....nothing specular...... but because the place was a different environment to my usual abode it stimulated me.......I got a sense that the discussions on changing approach to the way I see and make pictures is gonna be not just beneficial but also fun.......

I think I'll keep an eye out for an old rolliflex or something similar......I mean they must be as cheap as old boots right now........and ask kodak to supply the film....

#3 50/35mm

I have decided to finish the 50/35 mm assignment tomorrow. The weather here has been putting me off.......dark and damp......still the dark can be a friend if it is dry. There is a gentle sweep into night time were the city lights and the fading sky do justice to one of my worker subjects.......a large ferris wheel parked in the centre of town which has litterly lifted the spirts of the people..........this is the 35mm shoot. The 50mm shoot went well even though it was pretty dark in the guy's workshop. The 50mm is my most used lens so I treat my 23yr old nikkor F1.2 with respect. In fact if anyone one wants to make me happy out there in cyberspace.......post a leica F1.0 noctilux.

# 2, 50/35mm

This first assignment is a good exercise. Like everything else, we need from time to time to tune, repair and service everything. Working with one lens is a great exercise to sharpen the senses.......but I see it as an exercise and I'm not sure I can pass over a good picture, if it presents itself, by not selecting the lens for the job......so should I focus on subjects which matter little to me or to my projects????? Its also hard to give full attention to that which comes and goes, but then, isn't that part of the business.......... I'll think about........

My Diary, intro

Classmates,

This diary will serve as a record of the journey I've commenced, with the help of the LCC course, to becoming a full-time documentary photographer/photojournalist focusing on the topics, projects and issues that have interested me as a photojournalist/documentary photographer. If during this transition I manage to carve out a decent living to accompany this lifelong goal.... then I will be one hell of a lucky person.

For me, like the most of us, this blogging is also a first. When I made the picture of the baby camera above earlier this summer, I was thinking it would serve as a logo for an old fashion business card.....the same week while viewing the graduate photography exhibition in the Hague Netherlands the students were asking not for a visit card but an internet address. Don't get me wrong I've been at the website photo-sales counter since the outset but those little requests for a blog address made me think.

I am astonished at the speed and development of the digital era and more than surprised at the complete shake-up or shake down of our newspaper industry over the past number of years....my last two post were on the picture desks of iffy national tabloids ........but that's part of the life in being involved in a technological revolution, which these days, is simply continuous. You never know what's around the corner.

I returned to the UK after enjoying the nineties and the first part of this decade, living, travelling and working in central and south east Europe, the Med basin and the near East from my base in Bucharest, Romania..........As people in a similar situation you can imagine my amazement at the change of attitude towards the status of the once respected press photographer. It all got summed up in a footnote on the BBC's website news pages inviting the world's citizens to help out and donate their pictures to the agency with a short line cautioning them on laws and personal safety.
Everyone was now the worlds press.......but strangely enough....rather than humble our work as professionals, it seems this surge in cheaper digital visual communication has enhanced the general public's awareness, appreciation and appetite for the best photography this remarkable medium has to offer.....we need to find new highways and by-ways to feed that hunger. For me, as a student once again, the LCC programme is a revolution in itself. A programme that has stepped forward in a time of change to lead and guide...........so good luck to ye all and lets work as a team to achieve our common aims.............