photography – Page 27 – Babycakes Romero

20/01/201719/01/2017

#MYBKK 05

Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok

Bangkok is kinda insane. A giant sprawling relentless metropolis chock full of buildings, people and vehicles. It reminded me more of fictitious futuristic cities like Mega City 1 where Judge Dredd lives or an Asian Gotham. It makes London seem quiet and tame by comparison which is nuts in itself. Although the population seems more concentrated than London, it feels like it runs smoother, more in unison, more like a functional ant colony. There seems to be a more collective understanding with everyone moves at same pace in steady flows rather than here where everyone marches around at their own pace, darting about, pushing people out of the way as they fight for space. For example, despite a chronic traffic problem, there is almost zero road rage.

It is very hot and very busy and I found it slightly overwhelming when I first arrived. I was actually photographically paralysed for the first few days I was there and barely took my camera out as everywhere I looked there was something that I felt I should be documenting but somehow couldn’t. There was just too much to focus on and I didn’t know where to start. So I just tried to soak it all in and get a handle on the place.

I also felt that a lot of what I wanted to capture had already been covered by other photographers who’s feed I had seen on Instagram. I follow a lot of street photographers from all over the world and felt, in some ways, I had already seen a lot of what I was looking at. So I felt I really wanted to hold back, not just to snap away at every turn but to think about this new alien culture I was in and to try and get an understanding of what I was surrounded by before attempting to document it.

What does strike you immediately is how friendly and warm and smiley the Thai people are. Mostly. Obviously. But they are genuinely fucking lovely. Here’s a question for you…if you make a negative generalisation about people it is considered racist but what if you make a positive generalisation about a country’s population? Is that ok? Is that reverse racism? Is there a word for that? Positivism? Proracist? (answers on a postcard)

e.g.: “I love the blah blah people” “Oh my god, you’re such a positivist! Its 2017, you can’t say things like that anymore. Its respectful!”

Anyway, food for thought. Actually I should mention that the food is also spectacular. Everything we ate was delicious and every dish was like a little taste sensation firework display went off in your mouth.

What also I worked out about Bangkok it that it is a city that visually comes alive at night. It is also manageably easier to get around as it is essentially too hot with too poor air quality to walk around in the daytime. This is also slightly true of the nighttime but comparatively better. Next week’s photos will cover this nocturnal side so stay tuned for MYBKKnites..coming up!

19/01/201711/01/2017

#MYBKK 04

Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok

18/01/201711/01/2017

#MYBKK 03

Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok

17/01/201711/01/2017

#MYBKK 02

Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok

16/01/201711/01/2017

#MYBKK 01

Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok

13/01/201711/01/2017

#MYLDN (865)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

12/01/201711/01/2017

#MYLDN (864)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

11/01/201711/01/2017

#MYLDN (863)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

10/01/201710/01/2017

In memory of Sid Roberson

In memory of Sid Roberson (1937-2016)

In this current social media era of PDGs (public displays of grief) I am a little apprehensive about joining the fold but Sid Roberson was a man who was just too fucking cool to go unmentioned.

Championship body builder, star of Strongbow campaign in 70s, art director, photographer, tv director, film director, socialist millionaire, political academic..he was all of these things and excelled at all of them but most importantly to me he was my friend & I loved hanging out with him. He was very funny, very intelligent and had the best stories of anyone I have ever listened to. There are way too many to go into and involve mostly unmentionable jaw-dropping tales of debauchery but one of my favourite was when he was personal trainer to Reggie Kray in the 60s (I shit you not) and he said he used to call Reggie a ‘fat fuck’ as he did sit-ups which would crack up his psycho bodyguard because there was no-one else on the planet who had ever spoken to Reggie like that. That was Sid all over. He didn’t give a fuck. This is me. You deal with it.

He actually got through life saying what the fuck he wanted to whoever he wanted, regardless of who they were or what they could do for him. He never looked up or down at anyone and never compromised himself ever and even though he was blunt as fuck to everyone in his life, people loved him for it. No-one has probably ever been ruder and more liked in history. He got away with it mainly because he wasn’t being malicious, he was just being straight up and took bare faced honesty to somewhat of an art form.

But one of the reasons he also got away with it is that he was as honest about himself as he was about others. Not even he escaped his own bullshit free observations. Sid was a major body builder back in the day and was built like a brick shit house most of his life. As he became more infirm his frame shrunk but he still always looked like he was carved out of granite. Even just a couple of months before he died he had a push up bar installed in his house and was still working out regularly.

But inside this fairly scary very tough exterior was hiding a very fragile man and as his illness & age swept away his physique it revealed more of this person. Even though few would ever have been aware of this he never tried to hide it from me which I considered a privilege. He was always very upfront about his anxieties and fears and he had in fact battled with them all his life but somehow revealing his true vulnerability just made him seem stronger to me.

I originally met Sid in the 90s as I got a job working for him but it was only in the last five years we became really close friends. He lived local to me and as he was essentially housebound, we hung out at his all the time and I always loved going round there. Being both photographers & directors as well as both being ardent atheists and socialists we had quite a lot in common and had great conversations & debates about a shitload of stuff. He was a very argumentative opinionated fucker which is probably why we got on so well.

As a person he taught me one very important thing. He taught me to just get on with it. Don’t talk about it. Just fucking do it. He was incredibly supportive and would do anything he could to help you. He helped me get my first film made. It simply wouldn’t have happened without him and this was while I was working for him. Who helps an employee kickstart a new career while they already supposedly have one on your payroll? Sid did and at his funeral yesterday, I spoke to other ex-employees, now devoted friends, who he had supported and inspired in equal measure.

When I told some people a friend of mine had died they looked horrified and sympathetic and when they asked how old they were, and I would tell them, nearly 80, you could see their face soften a bit as if it wasn’t so much of a tragedy. Good innings and all that shit but the truth is you don’t like someone more or less because of their age and you certainly don’t miss them any less. You are upset because you will not see or talk to them again, it doesn’t really matter whether they had a long or great life (of which he had both), there is now just a big hole where they were and that’s it. Whether it is someone’s time to die or not, it always hurts like fuck to those who were bound to them.

We form very strong emotional bonds with people, we intertwine ourselves with those we love and it is very difficult to unravel those connections without a lot of pain & that is why death is such a killer (no pun intended) but there is sadly no way round it. No-one gets out of here alive. The true irony of existence is that the one thing we all pretend is never going to happen is the one thing that is definitely going to happen. It is the one certainty of living and yet we can’t take it on board because to think of ourselves or our loved ones no longer being here is just to hard to bear so we don’t.

Sid Roberson rinsed life to the max and whatever came his way, he took it all on the chin. He really was a fucking legend. One of the greats. A true one-off. I can’t do him justice here but understand this, the world is a seriously duller place without him. This goes out to all those who will miss him, especially to his family, who he adored more than anything.

09/01/201709/01/2017

#MYLDN (862)

RIP Sid Roberson – you were a fucking legend x

06/01/201704/01/2017

#MYLDN (861)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

happy new year! Some Nye shots this week to keep the celebratory mood going in a desperate attempt to fight off the January blues…

05/01/201703/01/2017

#MYLDN (860)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

04/01/201703/01/2017

#MYLDN (859)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

03/01/201703/01/2017

#MYLDN (858)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

23/12/201622/12/2016

#MYLDN (857)

Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london

And so i bid you all a merry whatever and a happy new year – a lot of people seem to want to see the back of 2016 but I’m not sure why…ok, so it seems the dark forces have taken over the world, racial hatred, xenophobia, inequality, terrorism…all on the rise, innocent lives no longer protected, violence, genocide and murder rife in various hot spots around the planet…I really don’t see what the problem is. This is just the human race doing what it has always done. Don’t forget this is from the species that brought you the holocaust, slavery and the extermination of most of the other species on the planet bar the ones we want to eat – so what’s the surprise here? What are we so horrified about? Its just business as usual. Look back at our history – its always been like this. You can take the human out of the jungle but you can’t take the violent hirarchical ape out of the human. Its just won’t go away.

Although to counteract my own argument (someone’s got to cos its just depressing and this is supposed to be a goodwill xmas message) it feels like we are making no progress as there is so much hideous shit going on but what we have to remember is that it is only being done by a tiny section of any population. The majority of any population are basically non-violent bods who just want to go about their business. I know it doesn’t seem that way if you watch the news but that’s because the moderate masses aren’t in the news. The news is full of violent extremists, both personal and political, and I include world leaders in that group. Its just this tiny demographic creating all the chaos. The rest of us, the moderate masses, don’t really care where you’re from or what you do as long as you don’t fuck with our shit..or anyone else’s for that matter. This is a positive.

Its just a shame our lives have to be dictated by the minority when most people are basically alright. There is a wave of populist racism on the rise seemingly everywhere which isn’t so great as it whips normal folk up into hate-fuelled hot heads but I read recently that this has always happened throughout history in the first five years after a financial crash and generally subsides after 10 so if we are still feeling the effects of 2008 it will be over by next year. This is also a positive. Maybe I’m clinging on to hope that things are going to improve and they will and also we must remind ourselves that for most of us, life isn’t riddled with the misery so intertwined in some people’s lives.

So over the festive season, when your relatives are annoying the tits off you and your presents suck, just celebrate that you are with people who aren’t trying to kill you, suppress you, torture you and destroy your way of life. If none of this is happening to you, and you actually have a home and a family who love you (even dysfunctionally) you are winning. Most of us live in the good part of the jungle and won’t ever have to encounter anything more horrendous than our ical being on the blink but you don’t have to feel guilty…you just have to feel grateful.

See you in 2017 people…lets mebbe try n make it a wee bit better than this year’s shit show…and if someone could try and clone bowie that would be lovely…