I should carry a spare
Friday, 5am, rain lashes the windscreen of a car. Its near silent electric operation ruined by wailing sounds from inside and excessive use of the F word.
That’s me, realising 15 mins from home that my beloved Leica is on my desk and that I will be without a camera on a solo trip south for 4 days. The universe decided to rub salt into the wound too, I arrived at the airport to the promise of a three hour delay. I could have turned around and gone back for it after all. What a numpty.
Never mind, Grandma was visited, a new diary was purchased for her, and I made my way to London while watching the 1961 Classic, Paris Blues. Saturday was family, Sunday was Fujikina, a multi-day photography event in London across three venues featuring a range of talks and lots of gear to try out. Most of my time at the event was spent tinkering with an X100VI, I can see what the fuss is about, bumping into previous guest Marcus Haslam, charming company as always, and then going on a photo walk led by Jade Keshia Gordon, a fashion and portrait photographer who thrust a hybrid camera and 2 packs of instant film into our hands and led us around Covent Garden, China Town and a bit of Leicester Square. Instax instant film is a wonder, I love using it and the Evo wide was good fun. I got through about 30 photos, there were some unused ones inside the camera, and gave one away to a man who came out of a shop to ask what sort of camera I was using.
Instax prints a plenty!
Jade was a great guide who you’ll hopefully all meet on a future episode. In our time together, she also managed the impossible, a photo of me where I look fairly like myself, well myself with increasing hints of Dad crossed with Nigel Havers. That’s aging, I suppose.
Me in China Town
In stark contrast, on Monday, after the wonderful folks at Leica found an ad hoc space for us to record in and supplied us with water and coffee, Mathieu Bitton made these images of me. Imagine that. Imagine being in the presence of a great artist who photographs legends, you are going to be immortalised in his archive, he’s trying out a rare vintage lens he just picked up, and you give him this to work with 😅
Me by Mathieu Bitton
One day, years from now, some poor photography intern will be going through his archive and come across these images. They’ll tap a colleague on the shoulder and say “Any idea who that is?” And they will simply shrug and say “Dunno, but he doesn’t look very comfortable does he.”
Nevermind. It’s my birthday this week so I’m going to edit this weekend’s episode with Bil Brown and eat some carrot cake, oh and of course, make some pictures with my camera.