Hot Dogs & Hamburgers & Kebabs

OK. So I have two favourite types of lens. I like a lens to either distance me or force me into the proximity of my subject. I don't think there's anything strange in finding the latter the more taxing occupation. London teaches us it's often easier to not interact at all than interact and risk a stabbing, a gay-up, or, worst: the unutterably, impossibly, shit-on-the-flawingly banal. And so there's a lot of enjoyment in spying down from the concrete walkways above, and capturing (literally stealing!) a moment from unknowing, unaware models. And what a set! I couldn't do this in my studio. Though the lighting would be better.


It might not be better than this, however: the kebab shop on the corner of Primrose Street and Bishopsgate, and its owner. When I asked them if I could take their photo, the guy in the background said: 'Oh no... I did this before... And the next thing I knew, I was in a sex magazine. It's disgusting. I'm not doing that again...' But the manager was happier with the prospect, and approved of this shot, which is reassuring. The burger I had was delicious, if a little over-spiced.

Orientation

This reminds me of a dream. Do you like Christopher Doyle? I like Christopher Doyle. I saw a film last night, Dumplings, which was quite fun. Certainly sumptuous. It had that disappointing quality where a director/writer seems to pick up a vivid image or allegory, does it, and then still has an hour and a half of movie to fill. C'est la.

New! Lens.

It's been a while since I posted and now everything is new and different, because that's what happens- that's how we roll. I have new plans.

I bought a new prime lens for my camera last week, and I've been using it pretty much exclusively since. 'Prime' means it is fixed at one zoom position. This makes it less flexible for general purposes, but it means that it can be built with a very large aperture (for the price).

This means two things to me:

1: Narrow depth of field! Get everything really blurry (yeah!) except a tiny bit chosen apparently at random by the autofocus machine in the camera! I actually like this.
2: Great in low light! Which my other lenses aren't.

It also looks really squat and chunky on the camera body, and I find this appealing for some reason.

Boom Barcelona!

So I was in Barcelona last week working with a creative director on a fairly simple portfolio site for him. I say fairly because it was actually pretty complicated as the budget & deadline (a week) were too tight to bring in other people or get any backend framework sorted out. So the whole thing had to be hard-coded(ish) page by page. And there was a lot of content- this guy was prolific. Seriously. Check out the site here.

Anyway, whilst there, I went to my first bullfight. OK, I've always been pretty ambivalent about that kind of stuff... ritualised killing seemed somehow unnecessary in the absence of ritualised life. Or somesuch. And the demographic who tend to approve of such stuff tend in my experience to be every bit as clichéd (4x4 at Waitrose, Victorian wallpaper patterned wellington boots, country retreat for the odd bank-holiday) as the bedreadlocked, badgewearing, soundbitten solipsist student classes who make up the bulk of the protest contingent.



And contingent there is- Barcelona has banned most of its bullfights: there is only one ring left. As we approach we are flooded in the roar of the protesters, a team of samba drummers punctuate the looping meter of a grand mob of dissident activists.

However, today the ring is packed out. One of the Toreadors, "El Juli" is apparently the best in the world, and we are in for a treat.



What happens next I can't really think about. The fights are pretty messy, apparently, and the bulls are, it seems, gradually stabbed to death. Amazing animals, and some amazing displays of sheer nerve. But not an awful amount of grace. However, my back and legs went tense, and remained tense throughout. I was pretty much transfixed.

I suppose my genuine feeling is really one of slight mystification at the emotion this stuff brings out in people. It seems as if the lead protesters are just riding a PR wave to pick up the casually squeamish (a lot of people) and assign to them rather more intense viewpoints. A pretty standard method for padding out a small movement. But that makes me find the whole thing a little revolting- sure the bad guys use massive media agencies to cleverly manipulate information and sway public opinion, but should you really fight fire with fire? Won't that just burn your house down? I don't know.



It is clear that these bulls are seriously healthy (at first). I was taken to see 'Our Daily Bread' recently. It is an amazing documentary about mechanised farming. I won't tell you about it because you should see it. The bulls we eat are not even bulls. The 'issue' of 500-1000 bulls a year being killed in ritual fashion seems to pale in comparison to the issue of the hundreds of millions of bulls who's entire lives are part of a production line. And that seems pale in comparison to the reality that it takes 5000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of beef (next to 1000 tons of water per ton of grain), we are currently depleting our finite subterranean aquifers at a rate of 160 billion tons per year, and the emerging middle classes in India and China (who will more than double the affluent population of the world) have beef on their shopping lists... Ho ho ho.

John & Jehn Photoshoot

These are from a recent photoshoot for Notion Magazine. The people are a French duo called John and Jehn whos music sounds like a combination of Sonic Youth and this special tune I used to hum when imagining the music of one of my little dogs, Pippen. This dog is now dead, and this alerted me to a poignancy perhaps intentional in its indie-music counterpart. It was a fun shoot, we had a beer and they played us a song! It was a Tuesday.

Fear of Headphones

It's not that I don't like listening to music: On the contrary it's because of the music of the world that I object to these things. Why ignore the sounds of buses, birds, air-con systems, the muezzin, beggars, boot-grit, dog-wails, the chattering classes, clattering steel car carcasses, ear-grabs of film music or the passing ill-taste of some fancy driver? Because some pop singer's voice is so damn enthralling? Do they tell you like you are? Right back in your ear? Or do you enjoy regulating your mood with a certain soundtrack? Hawaiian Guitar for rainy foot-soaked bus-rides, thrumming dubstep for choosing non-GM milk and organic eggs down at waitrose? Does the sound of the world offend you so much? Or do you simply need to listen to music as you move around because otherwise you would fall behind, get dragged down in the rapids and drown unmentioned in yesterday's popular, today's mediocre? Is it your Job? To listen on tinny insects, intravenous drippings of unsexed scratchings? To deny the thump and thud, the displacement of the air in your gut as you pass the bass cab... A tear in my eye. I might retract if it turned out that everybody was listening to the frantic conspiratorial diatribes of Francis E Dec, or somesuch. Their need for indulgence and patience would be greater than mine.

It's not, though.

Oh well, each to his or her own alone.

Vienna

This city is fantastic- you can smoke inside buildings, after dinner, over a quiet drink, in a hotel room, or even in a dance club- honestly, wherever you might like. Of course, this will soon change, and the war for our lungs and health organisations will see another skirmish concluded in favour of those who always have our best interests at heart- thank the Lord. It is a dirty, smelly, anti-social affectation to persist with. Soon, hopefully, one will only be able to smoke (indoors) in lawless, undeveloped countries with low GDP and corrupt, miscreant authority. Thus our pure, enlightened innards will be preserved, we will live as statues of virtue, striding the earth in search of other dirty, smelly, self-destructive habits from which to liberate the poor fools.


Habits like music, for instance. I've noticed a great preponderance of musicians are unkempt in both hairstyle and lifestyle. Is this really necessary? Surely the current troubles being suffered by record labels could have been simply avoided through a little personal discipline. The kind of discipline you can detect in the cut of one's trousers, the hour of one's descent into sleep, the trim of one's body or facial hair, the class of one's degree (one does have a degree, surely). If there were more like the cellist I saw busking in Vienna, exquisitely talented and turned out, piracy and internet media distribution would never become a problem.


Even the pigeons in Vienna smack somewhat of the endemic elitism of that city. I like it. A lot.


Architecturally, the Austrian capital was a rather charming hybrid of religious Italianate pomp and that slightly austere Germanic grandeur we find so appealing in our minimally technical club nights, that whiff of autobahn and concrete. But this was emphatically clean. The cleanest capital I've ever visited, certainly.


Perhaps my favourite aspect, however, were the sausages. Though to associate them with our bland, watery, gristly, and distinctly unmeaty offerings seems rather unfair. They shall remain nameless, therefore, since I have no recollection of their textual sensation, merely that of taste, which was sublime. To them, I raise my glass.

The Heavy Photoshoot

We drove for hours in a fantastic cream Merc from the 80's. In the safe seclusion of Noid woods, The Heavy, musicians of the best kind, bundled me into the boot. It seemed purpose built- you could have fit 3 people in there- more in pieces. This was all most enjoyable. The band are signed to ninjatune, and are currently on tour in France. I recommend.
Date: 29/01/08