Me and my camera are back on the streets of London. First thing I come across: a lamp post with an identity crisis. To be fair it was a bit creepy and not funny at all so maybe it’s right, who am I say? Would I hire it to entertain a group of kids? Probably not.
Normal service has been resumed! Apologies for the break. Hopefully your life was painfully incomplete without me…
p.s midday (U.K) will be the new post time as mornings are still proving a struggle…
Merry Holidays to y’all…I know it don’t feel super merry this year. More merry-lite instead of jolly jolly, more diet-merry than festive cheer but for those of us who are lucky enough we’re all still here. And that is much to be thankful for. If ever there was a year to appreciate what you have rather than what you don’t it is this one.
For my own part I am back from the dead and slowly re-introducing myself back into the land of the living where I am seriously hoping to become a permanent resident again. Please excuse my absence (I will at some point share all the gory details) but I have basically been down the very deep dark hole that is Long Covid for a ridiculously long time. I have just managed to claw my way out and am finally resurfacing, ironically just as everyone seems to be going back underground. I have returned to a world where the mood feels sombre to say the least but I am joyous. Compared to the hell I have been in this is paradise. Turns out the more shit your life becomes the happier you are when it isn’t. Who knew?
I’m not quite 100% better and not quite back to my previous self but I am back taking photos as you can see and my brain is working again enough to write so am hoping to resume some sort of service in the new year so see you in ’22!
Truth is it wasn’t just my website that needed maintenance, I do too. ..Long Covid and it’s evil twin Chronic fatigue are still beating me down so am gonna take some time off and try n get my energy levels back up but I promise to be back as soon as..x
Masks are a paradox as they are the only things I know that make people look both scary and scared. I have recently started photographing people in masks (after having mostly avoided) as the more normal they become in society the weirder it gets for me. Masks are worn at Halloween to freak people out so there is no way this constant sight is not having an effect on us all. It makes people feel unapproachable, almost hostile, and that can’t be a good thing. And once more for the record, I am not an an anti-masker, I understand their necessity but now, when I look at people wearing them, including myself, it is starting to disturb me.
I know we’re all just trying to get on with it as best we can, but I would really like for a return to a world when masks were only seen on October 31st or when being operated on (which you wouldn’t even actually see if you were under general anaesthetic..heckling my own reference there for some reason).
Funny story..I was recently asked by a potential client if I had any shots of people in masks so I had a root around in the vault and found some great shots from fancy dress parties, Comic Con and so forth and sent them off to them and they came back to me and said..no, that’s not the sort of mask we mean, we want the Covid kind. Oh! Right..of course. Soz. Gotcha. I was a lil bit embarrassed as I should have worked it out, being in the middle of a pandemic surrounded by people with face masks on everywhere I went. And yet, in spite of all we have witnessed this last year, in my head, masks are still for cosplay not for virus protection. Umm, was that a funny story? Ish I guess. Best I got right now.
I don’t really know why I all of a sudden feel I am freaked out by people in masks, I should have got used to it by now, but I can’t quite shake it. I think it’s seeing all these startled eyes peering out from underneath going..is it over yet? Is it safe to come out? Truth is the reality of the threat is way less relevant than people’s perception. For example they now know that it is microscopically unlikely that you can become infected whilst walking around in the open air and yet, from what I can see, mask wearing outdoors is actually on the up which shows how terrified people still are, regardless of the actual threat. Personally I just wanna see faces again and I’m sure, once that happens it will make everyone chill the fuck out as they won’t have to deal with the sight of hoards of Jason’s from Friday 13th staggering towards them everyday…won’t that be pleasant?
P.s I will not be posting anything next week as have to do maintenance on my website..normal service will resume the week after 🤞
Just some randomness this week that I stumbled upon during my foot fuelled excursions…I did write a post about how I was focussing on the small things because the big things are just too umm big to deal with which then evolved into this whole observation about how we all magnify the miniscule and microfy the massive in order to function. (I know, microfy isn’t a word but just run with it yeah?) Anyway, it eventually led to some dark realisations so have shelved for now as still trying to stay on the hope tip from last week…and also thought you might appreciate just one week when I wasn’t wanging on about whatever…
So instead here are a few more photos of beautiful chaos in all its glory unladen by a depressing diatribe which I will save for a rainier day..
Ok, so the person that lives here either works in clubland and is missing it so much they have turned the entrance to their home to look like a venue in which case we should pity them…or….they’re just a dick with catastrophic delusions of grandeur…in which case we should also pity them.
Spring has arrived this year in U.K at the exact same time that we are coming out of lockdown. There is always an injection of positivity that comes with spring. You feel good because you have survived another winter and you are finally emerging from your semi-hibernation as the sun also emerges from its own. This feeling, synchronised with the release from lockdown, has created a sense of hope emanating from everywhere & everyone. We have finally come out the other side of a long dark tunnel and we don’t ever want to go back in there again.
Everyone is still fearful of an unknown future but now is not the time to focus on what might happen down the line. We must enjoy this moment. It is time to live again. Yes, we must remain precautious (not a word, still trying to make it a word) but we must lighten our load for a while. We cannot carry the burden of misery on our shoulders at all times. It is too heavy a toll on our psyches. As we are now officially in a lull we have to make the most of it and re-adopt a lightness to living in order to purge ourselves of the heaviness we have all been under these last few months.
And for now, we must remain hopeful. Until proven otherwise. Hope not fear is the order of the day. Even if it is false hope, it is still hope. In fact, technically all hope is false because it is not based on fact. It is based on desire and will. It requires faith in a future not yet known. Hope is also a defence mechanism which shields you from the debilitating effects of pessimism. And both the pro (and the con) of hope is that it prevents your brain from accepting negative scenarios even when directly faced with them.
And yet it is hope that will ultimately propel you towards that imagined positive outcome. You will not and can not get there without it. So now is not the time for doom n gloom & relentless despair. We cannot make these negative outlooks our default mode. Look to nature. See how it blooms and blossoms. It shines with optimism. Let spring guide us…
I’m detecting a smidgen of sarcasm…whadya reck? And yet there is some truth to this statement as the death rate from Covid has plummeted by 92% in the U.K since January so staying in actually did stop tons of people dying.
As we lurch out of 4 months of lockdown we might be currently winning the war on the virus but the war of information has been truly lost. Everyone seems convinced they are right but no-one appears to agree on anything other than those who think differently to them are wrong and have somehow been duped, misled, deceived and manipulated.
Maybe we have all been brainwashed. How the fuck would you know? Truth is our minds have been moulded since the day we were born. Pulled around like putty and moulded into shape by a multitude of pushy sources. Education, parenting, the media, your peers..all have had a hand in dictating how you think. We feel that our thoughts are our own but they are anything but. It’s just they have been forced upon us so relentlessly that they feel like we instigated them. As if they were formed in a pure and virginal state from within. And yet there are almost no opinions in our heads that have evolved independently.
They say you are what you eat and for our entire lives we’ve all had to chow down on an endless stream of ideas that have been shoved down our throats , just like those poor fucking geese that are force fed to make foie gras pate. We , however, are just being fattened up on a diet of bullshit and it takes a strong will to keep our eyes away from the clickbait and an even stronger will not to be taken in by it.
It is ultimately up to us to try and evaluate all the information we consume and come to our own conclusions but we are still at the mercy of our sources. It has been revealed that since the arrival of the never-ending feed people do not spend enough time disseminating what they read. Instead everything is absorbed and accepted wholesale then regurgitated back out again with the click of a button, without barely a moment spent establishing how factually correct the information we are spreading is. We become the conduits of lies because none of us have the time or can be arsed to fact check that shit before we pass it on.
Next time you are banging on about something with absolute certainty, defending it against all counter arguments and convinced it is nothing short of the word of God, ask yourself these questions…where did I get this information from? Do I know for 100% it is true? Should I be so adamant with 2nd hand opinions? Does this nugget of info deserve to be presented with such conviction when chances are, I probably just picked it up from godknowswhere and have no definitive proof it is actually correct.
I have a mountain of information in my head but I have no real memory of where it came from. Did I read it? Did someone tell me at a party? Did I imagine it? In general I have no idea but once its on the inside and been assimilated into our minds our brains decide it is gospel and that is that. It doesn’t care what’s real. It just wants its world view reinforced for the rest of our lives. This is confirmation bias and we are all at its mercy. So sadly not only can you not trust your sources but you can’t even trust yourself.
So where does that leave us? It means we must remain open & fluid, a work in progress, not set in stone. We cannot become a fixed moment in time or else we will not continue to evolve. We must always be willing to take new shit on board.
I once saw a massive sign in a field in the middle of rural America as we were driving and it said: “Don’t have too much of an open a mind or your brain might fall out”. Eek. (scared face)
So this is all really just to prepare you because as we all emerge from our lockdown cocoons and are re-integrating with each other after a very long time with nothing but our own opinions for company it might come as a bit of a shock to find that not everyone thinks as we do.
