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

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

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

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

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No words this week, (well other than the ones I am going to use here to explain why there aren’t any this week..even in silence I can’t keep quiet!) just photographs of people hanging out in groups outdoors. Urban wolf packs grazing in the street. I will let you draw your own conclusions for a change…picture should tell their own story and I might let them for a while (until I find something I can’t shut up about which probably won’t be too long).

To impose meaning on a photograph does limit it in some ways. Quantum mechanics show that reality is not the fixed thing we believe it is – it is much more in flux. An infinite number of possibilities all co-existing concurrently and only achieving solidity once the observer is involved.  To be honest I can’t really get my head around how the fuck it works but it has been proven. All I understand is that the fabric of reality is not as smooth or as tailored as you would imagine it was).

In the case of the photographs this week, each one told a story, revealed something about the group dynamic and the people in it but maybe you didn’t see what I saw, maybe you saw something completely different. It is not for me to limit your experience. You are the observer. You get to decide your own reality.

p.s worst attempt at saying nothing ever

p.p.s I really am going to shut up now for a bit

 

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

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

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

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

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

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on dying vs living:

With Bowie’s departure and Lemmy before him and Rob the Throb and Amy before them it really feels that the breed of wild hell raisers is dying out. The ones that are left have either got old and/or cleaned up their act (slash, keith richards, pete doherty) and are probably alive as a result. I tried to rack my brain trying to come up with any living artists still out there who are still having that sexdrugs&rocknroll existence and couldn’t think of one person. Not one. In fact the only name that sprang to mind, and it pains me to say it, was Justin friggin Bieber which just shows you there’s no-one left.

Back in the day, they didn’t quite know how bad substances like alcohol & cigarettes were for you so there was a certain amount of blissful ignorance attached to certain lifestyle choices. Nowadays there is so much reported in the news about links to cancer and the effect these drugs have on you is there any wonder that people are picking health over hedonism?

and yet as the quote goes: “you should never give up a vice for a couple more years in an OAP home”.  I have been in these establishments. I have watched people deteriorate in old age. There is nothing good at that end…so why preserve yourself for something that unpleasant?

They say that heavy consumption of alcohol and cigarettes will individually take 10  years off your life but they take the 10 at the end. The worst 10. The 10 when everything falls apart. So who wants to stick around for that? If they took 10 in the middle it might be a different matter. They also say living too sedentary a life will knock 10 years off so what you would rather do? Be out having fun or sat at home watching box sets?

Charles Bukowski said:

bukowsky

A little drastic possibly and I am not suggesting that getting constantly loaded on your choice of poison is the answer to a happy and fulfilled time here on earth.  And let’s be honest, if any of the dead hellraisers mentioned had lead a healthier lifestyle they would undoubtedly be alive today…but what kind of life would they have had? What would they have done?

As Mae West so eloquently put: You only live once but if you do it right, once is enough.

There is currently a debilitating amount of available information declaring how bad things are for you and how they will shorten your life but surely its about quality not quantity? What is longevity without living? And as we will never know in advance what it is that will ultimately finish us off  what is the point of altering our behaviour for what is nothing more than a giant question mark? (way bigger than this one).

What we do know for absolutely sure is that we will all die at some point. Does it really matter what from? Truth is, you can really do what you like as long as you are prepared to suffer the consequences. Play your life however you want to, just make sure you play it your way.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger was once asked what people might do to lead better lives. He replied that we should “all spend more time in graveyards”. His work proposed that only by confronting and accepting the fact that we are going to die that we can start to live. (source: the week. didn’t want you to think I was trying to make out I had actually read Heidegger)

I’m not really advocating saying fuck it and abandoning all your healthy choices. Your body requires looking after. It is the only one you have. If you fuck it up completely you aren’t going to have a barrel of laughs but if you have too tight a rein on yourself you might empty your existence of all the joys life has to offer. Life is all about balance. Too many ‘no’s and not enough ‘yes’s and what are you left with? All work and no play makes people stressed and that also kills apparently.

As far as I can see, there is only one thing worse than dying, and that is not living.

We are here for such a fleeting amount of time you gotta squeeze as much as you possibly can out of it. In Louis CK’s stand-up routine he does this bit bout how when you get to middle age everyone starts asking..what’s going to happen after I die? What’s going to happen after I die? He says, I tell you what’s going to happen after you die…lots of things are going to happen..they just won’t involve you.

(p.s if you are having a dry jan this is in no way meant as a derailment. Good luck with all that as they say…)

 

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

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

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

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#MYBOWIE

babycakes romero

he was my absolute hero and I am far from alone in that, but now we will have to be the people he gave us the courage to be without him…bye bye beautiful brilliant bowie, there will never be another like you & I wouldn’t be me without you…we all owe you so very very much x

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my an daingean, my dingle

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to see the full gallery please click here

Dingle or as its called in Ireland, An Daingean is at the end of the most western peninsula of the Emerald Isle with nothing but the Atlantic ocean for a neighbour. Its remoteness has meant it has existed largely in isolation and as a result is probably the closest you can get to time travel without getting in a Delorean. It feels largely unaffected by modernity and the people that live there seem to have a genuinely close community,  a relatively rare thing these days.

It is strangely alluring and a perfect antidote to 21st century city living. Many have come here and fallen in love with the place and then never left, including a dolphin named Fungy who has lived in the bay for decades. There is a small possibility he might just have an appalling sense of direction and can’t find his way back out to the ocean but I did actually see him whilst there and he was repeatedly leaping out of the water to interact with a man in a boat and he looked pretty happy…although saying that dolphins always look like they’re smiling so kinda difficult to tell really. I mean, how would you know a dolphin was depressed when their face is designed to show the opposite? I dolphin digress…this really has nothing to do with the photographs I have been showing you this week.

Every year they stage a procession on St. Stephens Day aka Boxing Day aka The Wren which is a pagan festival dating back centuries. Everyone gets kitted out in costumes and masks and I have to say it is a little bit creepy. There is a darker tone to it than it just being a bit of dress up. It feels  like you are in the Wicker Man (the original not the laughable Nic Cage version)  only they don’t actually set fire to anyone, not as far as I’m aware anyway…

 

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my an daingean, my dingle

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my an daingean, my dingle

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my an daingean, my dingle

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Me and my camera in someone else’s town, my an daingean, my dingle

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Happy new year!

Wishing you a festive whatever…

MYXMAS

..wherever you are, whatever you’re into, whoever you’re with…just make it a good one!

I know I said it was my last post of the year, clearly I lied. Somehow seemed wrong to end the year on rusty plinths. Not that I really give two hoots bout xmas but feel it is important to celebrate what is good in our lives and be thankful for everything we have. Never take anything or anyone for granted. Remember, its a jungle out there…

bcr x

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Question: What am I?

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Answer: I am a rusty plinth where a sculpture once stood.

And so endeth this week’s series of worlds within worlds. To see the full gallery please click here

All photographs available as prints. Please see info page for prices & sizes.

This is also my last post of the year. Wishing you all a great holiday and see you in 2016!