Winging It

St Louis. Mo. I'm taking a tour group on Route 66. I don't know why, but I'm having real trouble coping with jet lag. Actually, I do know why. I'm anxious as I don't know my stuff inside out so I try and catch up on my studying at night in my room but usually end up falling asleep. It's my fourth time of doing the trip but I've not done it for two years so I'm rusty.
I was going to bring my monopod with me in an attempt to get sharper pictures, especially when I go to Huntington Beach to photograph the surfers. With luck, I get a free day in Long Beach and I usually hire a car and drive out to the beach. Any how, my case was overweight so the monopod had to go.
I enjoyed Chicago and I'd really like to come back and visit properly with Marianne. One day in town when you are half asleep is not the way to do it, though I do appreciate the chance to be here.
I got up early on the first morning and walked to the Bean, where I was one of only a few people. I love the Bean; it's beautiful to look at and underneath it's like the most complex hall of mirrors you've ever seen. The official name for it is Cloud Gate, sculpted by Anish Kapoor. I'd love to see a copy in London.

Cloud Gate

This is one of the myriad ever-changing views from the underside of the sculpture.

Last night we were in Springfield, the Capital of Illinois and I treated myself to a really nice meal in an expensive restaurant on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel (Known as the Penis on the Prairie - if you saw it, you'd know why). I had a large filet mignon, rare, with fantastic mashed potatoes and asparagus followed by a huge chocolate creme bruleé. Heaven. It came to seventy dollars but it was worth it. It's nice to spoil yourself sometimes. And besides, it's my first dinner of the tour.
So far we've made a side trip to Wilmington to see a Route 66 icon, the Gemini Giant, and we've stopped at the Chain of Rocks Bridge which spans the Mississippi north of St Louis and used to carry Route 66 across the river. It has a twenty-six degree dog leg bend halfway across ( due to having to move the pillars one one side after construction was well under way) it used to play havoc with traffic when two trucks met at the bend.

Tomorrow, we visit the St Louis Botanical Garden which is lovely, followed by the Budweiser Brewery, which is not: it's slick and soulless, rather like the beer.
Once we are done, I intend to get a few photos of the Gateway Arch, maybe slightly different from the ones I've taken before (Chance would be a fine thing). It's an impressive structure.

A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

I spend a lot of time looking back these days; maybe because I have more past than future. I'm not alone: I peek at nostalgia sites for the town of Newhaven where I grew up to find several familiar faces from my childhood posting there.
I've taken pictures since I was ten and most of them were put into albums and forgotten about, but as time goes on, I want to sort them out; remember the times and the people captured in those images and maybe chart my path through life via the pictures that document it.
Truth be told, I'm not sure why I want to do it but I know I have to do it. Is it for my family or for whoever might happen upon it? Or just for me?  I may figure it out one day.
I also have the family photos, some going back to the nineteenth century. I feel like I'm the guardian of the family jewels, though nobody else has shown much interest in them - just as well, as I wouldn't give them up without a fight.
When we were kids, we used to get the photos out at my grandparent's house and go through them. They would reminisce while telling us stories about the people in the pictures and giving us glimpses into their lives. I look at those same photos now and see some familiar faces but there are many who mean nothing to me; I should have written those names down when my grandparents were still around. Too late now and it's the same with my parent's photos, though at least we know most of the faces in those as we met them and lots of them are still around.
I want to document my pictures while I have the chance.
This photo is a case in point. I took this at a Pow Wow in England in the mid-Seventies when I was aged nineteen or twenty. I went with my friend and co-worker at Woolworth's, Alan. He was into Native American culture at the time (He changed enthusiasms on a fairly regular basis back then, though a quick check on the net reveals that he's into rockabilly and Rock 'n' Roll, which he discovered not long after our pow wow adventure).
All I remember was that it was in Northolt and that there was a miniature railway running around the perimiter of the park. Thanks to Google Satellite, I was able to pinpoint the location as the Northolt Community Centre by zooming in on that railway track.
I wanted to find out more so I searched the web for UK pow wow sites. I found a few but they were rather neglected. I sent emails and received no replies, though I found a link to a Facebook page through one of the sites - Pow Wow England. They were able to put names to several of the faces and I've put the pictures up on their FB page so that others who are likey to be interested can see them and maybe be connected to their past (There are not many old photos of British pow wows up on the net).


Ted Blackmore in the mid 1970s Identified for me courtesy of the good folks at Pow Wow England
You can see the rest of them Here.

Getting My Kicks on Route 66

I'm back on the road on Sunday, taking a tour from Chicago to Los Angeles on Route 66, or as much of it as we can see from a tourist coach.

I've spent the last couple of days compiling cds for the trip. It took me a couple of days because the software kept freezing and I had to restart the laptop to get it going again, losing what I'd done in the process.

I really enjoy making music for the trip, though I try to tailor it to my clients' potential tastes, curbing the urge to include anything too raucous, leaning towards the slightly safe. It's frustrating but rewarding too. As we leave Chicago I'll be putting on a selection of Blues, Jazz, and other artists who either came from the city or sang about it, like Frank Sinatra and Christy Moore. I'll even squeeze in a bit of John Prine & Sarah McQuaid.

I've been trying to interest others in the  music that I like since I was a kid. It's always been an uphill struggle, from making compilation tapes for friends who were completely indifferent, or to going to gigs on my own because my friends were too slow in making their minds up. It's a lonely road I travel but I have an evangelical zeal when it comes to music. "You'll love this - it's great!"

On my last tour, there were two people who came up and told me that they liked the music. Two out of eighteen is a pretty good success rate, though the tour was to Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans so it's safe to assume that most of them were there for the music. This time I have forty so we'll see how I do.

Old Dog, New Tricks, or Lost in the Land of Fuckwittery

I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada, leading one of my favourite tours - the Maritimes. I'm not having much fun though as the tour company has engaged the services of an agency which seems to be interested in creating an ocean of paperwork and alienating our suppliers.
I have to sell optional trips and fill out forms for each credit card by hand. Once I've done that, I have to phone the details of each transaction through separately. I've not had the chance to do my job, which involves planning ahead, preparing in the evening for the following day. All I'm doing is filling in effing forms and trying to convince nervous suppliers that, just because the agent hasn't paid them for services rendered six weeks ago and they never return their calls doesn't mean that they can't be trusted...
God forbid that I should be allowed to get on and do my job. The tour company is owned by a venture cowboy outfit, and it seems that the bottom line is all and clients don't matter. Several of my colleagues have thrown in the towel but I'm still hopeful that this is just down to teething troubles.
I'm not holding my breath.

Ely Cathedral

M. and I popped over to Ely to visit the Cathedral and to have a look around town. It was a spur of the moment decision, but something I've been wanting to do for a while,

mainly to get an interior photo of the Lantern, the window-filled tower above the cathedral choir, which sits on the Octogon; an eight-pillared support for the lantern.
Originally, it was a standard square tower but it collapsed in 1322. In those days, people didn't think too much about firm foundations - Ely's are around 5 feet - and collapses were not uncommon. The new man in charge, Alan of Walsingham, decided to rebuild it as an octogon, having eight pillars to bear the weight of the tower instead of four. It's a unique and fantastic structure, the lantern made mainly of oak.

Ely Cathedral - the Octogon and Lantern are on the right.

The ceiling in the nave is unusual and fairly new - part of the nineteenth century restoration overseen by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

Below is the lantern, taken on a previous visit. The panels open so that people can look down into the choir below.

We spent so much time in the cathedral that we never got around to really exploring the town, so we will have to go back at some stage.

Mooching In London: 3rd August 2013

A lovely sunny day spent in London: M was working at Wimbledon so I wandered around taking pictures. On days like these, London has a nice feel to it; there were people everywhere just enjoying themselves.
In the evening we met with our friends Mei & Simon. We showed them the Oscar Wilde monument as they didn't know about it. When we arrived, a girl was sat on it, which is what it's there for, really. It's a statue, monument, a coffin-shaped bench. Oscar would have loved it.

Glum in Gum: 2nd June 2013

What you do if you don't want to shop in the GUM mall, Moscow.

This blog has travelled: I've moved it from Wordpress, which I couldn't get to grips with and before that it was on Blipfoto, which wasn't right for what I wanted to do.
Eventually, I'll be blogging in real time but there is also a lot of past to catch up on which is why I put the dates in the titles.

This was taken while I was on tour in Russia - just. My visa arrived the afternoon before I was due to leave. I'd applied weeks ahead of time but the tour company didn't seem in a hurry to supply me with the letter I needed to get the visa. By the time they did, it was a bit late and it coincided with several Russian public holidays, which mean't that the embassy got behind with processing applications, putting mine back a week. I got home from another tour and was straight on the phone to the visa agency, who thankfully were a lot more on the ball than the tour company and my passport and visa arrived at around 4pm.

This photo was taken in the GUM store (an upmarket shopping mall these days) during our city tour. I didn't want to shop so I took this pic of a fellow snapper who was taking a breather. He didn't look too happy about being in front of the lens instead of behind it. Maybe he was just sick of shopping.

Airborne: Huntington Beach, 15th May 2011

I've led a few Route 66 trips which finish in Long Beach and I get a day to myself, all being well. Usually, I hire a car and head down the coast to try and find the surfers and Huntington Beach is normally the best spot for me as I can go out on the pier and get fairly close to the action.
This time, I brought along a 2x extension tube for my lens which got me close but, unfortunately the autofocus wasn't quick enough to keep up with the twists and turns of the surfers. Out of the 400 or so pictures I took, hardly any are really sharp. I won't be doing that again.
This guy was a long way from the pier and he was flipped through the air by a crashing wave, describing a beautiful arc before coming back down. He looks as if he can fly, which he could, briefly.
Technically, the photo is hopeless but I like it and maybe I'll get the chance to go back soon.

Sri Lanka: Don't Mention The Boar. Sunday 11th November

Sunday 11th November

To get from my room to the restaurant, I had to get past a herd of wild boar. Thankfully, they were as wary of me as I was of them.  The monkeys were always ready to steal anything that wasn't nailed down. I didn't see any elephants at the reserve, which is probably a good thing if this notice is anything to go by. The writer has a sense of humour...

Much as I appreciate the chance to visit Sri Lanka, I felt that this trip was a missed opportunity; too much time spent on a coach with almost no contact with locals. Our guide was interested in history but not in the wildlife. Shame.

Sri Lanka: Elephant Orphanage

Thursay, 8th November 2012
Orphaned elephants at Pinnawala, near Kandy. The elephants are taken to the river twice a day, watched by lots of tourists. The Mahouts are there to make sure that they don't wander off to the far side of the river. There are currently around eighty elephants at the orphanage. Around a third of them were brought to the river this morning.
Elephants at Pinnawala are used to contact with humans and so cannot be released back into the wild, unlike at the Elephant Transit Home where they are kept away from people as much as possible.
Controversially, Pinnawala has sold Elephants to private interests leading to allegations that some have been neglected or mistreated.

Elephant Transit Home
Elephant Orphanage

Sri Lanka: Tasty & Toasty

Sunday 4 November 2012

I've just started my final tour of the season - Sri Lanka. I'm here without laptop or fancy lenses as I've got shoulder problems and lugging heavy gear around is giving me grief. I took this shot of the chef at our first hotel in Colombo with my iPhone.

Sharing A Moment

Sunday 14 October 2012

This is Maria Meerovitch & Sergei Nakariakov rehearsing on board ship on the 2012 Music Cruise, from which M & I have just returned. It was fabulous, but hard work. This could be the last of the Music Cruises, at least, for the time being. We've been doing this for ten years and had a great time but all good things come to an end.

We also had Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Behzod Abduraimov, Maxim Vengerov and a host of other brilliant musicians - a worthy swan song for the cruise, if that's what it proves to be.

Dame Kiri

Maxim Vengerov & Lawrence Power

Music Cruise 2012

Previous Music Cruises

Muscle Shoals Alabama: The Queen of Soul

Wednesday 26 September 2012

I've been to Sun Studios in Memphis, where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Howlin' Wolf and many others made their first recordings and I've been to RCA Studio B in Nashville where anyone who was anyone in country recorded. Today, I visited FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought the newly signed Aretha Franklin to try and harness the magic that she possessed. That day, she worked with the Muscle Shoals Horns, organist Spooner Oldham found the groove, the musicians followed, Aretha responded at the piano and let rip with that voice and the result was I Never Loved A Man & Do Right Woman, Do Right Man. A star was born.
I can now die happy (but not too soon).

The Canadian Maritimes: Fiddler's Elbow & Other Stories

Friday 14 September 2012, Judique, Nova Scotia

We got our whale watch in at 7.30 this morning in Cheticamp - saw a few pilot whales but mainly it was just nice to be out on the water early in the morning.

Lunch was at the Celtic Music Centre in Judique, an area that has produced more than it's fair share of fiddlers as well as singers and other musicians. It was a nice way to round off a musical tour for me: I'd seen Gordon Belsher & Richard Wood in Charlottetown, Sylvia LeLievere in Cheticamp and Kinnon Beaton here for the second time. I'm just fascinated by the way he holds the fiddle upside down and back to front.

We'd also spent a couple of days on the French Shore in New Brunswick, where,as the name suggests, the locals speak French. There are also French speaking communities in Nova Scotia (Cheticamp is one) but most are in New Brunswick. They are Acadians, descendants of the original French settlers in North America. The Acadians were forcibly removed from Nova Scotia by the British in 1755 during one of the many conflicts with France. Some ended up in Louisiana (a French colony at the time) and became known as Cajuns. Others either took to the woods  in Nova Scotia or escaped across the Bay of Fundy or to Prince Edward Island.
Most just wanted to return to their homes in Nova Scotia. When the war between Britain & France ended, they were allowed back but most of their lands had been given to English speakers, mainly from New England, so they either ended up in small pockets dotted around Nova Scotia or they moved to what is now New Brunswick (followed by many Loyalists who had fled the New England Colonies during the War of Independence).
Officially, around 37% of New Brunswickers speak French but they have to work to keep the language and culture alive, though in common with many minority cultures and languages, there has been a reclaiming and resurgence of pride in their culture and identity.
The bottom photo is of a dory at Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia.

Kinnon Beaton

Acadian Gentleman, New Brunswick

Peggy's Cove: I'll Go To Sea No More

London 2012

Monday 6 August 2012
Commuters?
Probably not. These three Japanese ladies were on their way to Wembley to watch their women's football team take on the French (and win). It was a terrific game and as usual, the fans were fantastic. The guy next to them didn't seem to be too interested in the outcome of the match.

We happened to see three of the Japanese football matches; it was great fun being amongst the fans as they really went overboard when it came to decorating themselves to support their teams: rivers of facepaint were used, tons of fabric in costumes and flags. Add to that their good natured enthusiasm whether they were winning or losing and you had a photographer's dream. The fans are what makes the Olympics so much fun.

We also found a few French fans who'd got into the spirit of the occasion. There are lots more fan pics via the link below.

More London 2012 Photos