Budapest statues and humbug
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
There’s no doubt about it, Budapest has lots of statues. On day one I was capturing virtually every statue that presented itself. Day two and I was being rather more selective. Day three emerged and my interest level dipped. There’s a shade under two million people living in the city. Every single person has their own statue. Fact.
This is my hotel room view. What you can see is the national gallery, once home to Hungarian royalty. It probably would have celebrated the reign of Archduke Franz Ferdinand if he hadn’t been assassinated triggering a string of complex historical odds and bobs that led to the first World War. I learned that at school. My own children will no doubt only know Franz as a musician, who by the time they’re time able to buy their own toons, will be a golden oldie and as uncool as Dad’s McCartney collection.
I love art. I love galleries. I prefer a photographic experience, but I’m just as happy observing brush strokes, albeit slightly more contemporary ones. The Tate Modern remains one of my favourite places in the World. The sport of proclaiming “My Son could do better and he’s only two” is par for the course when you view modern art. This one is for my favourite carpenter, ‘Soccer Stu’ who would LOL at the bad dovetailing of this priceless piece above titled ‘Great Prism.’
Not far from the gallery is the Matthias Church and nestling in the grounds is this. I quite like it, hence the shots.
January is seasonably chilly in Budapest, so the concept of capturing lovers canoodling by the Danube, street entertainers strumming their Hungarian chords and general busy-ness was somewhat lost during my visit. I did capture these two musicians, but my hunt for further locals in pursuit of their profession was pretty fruitless. In this temperature, people simply buckle up and walk on by.
A Beetle for no other reason than I love Beetles. I had one, once. Favourite car. In the snow it suffered heating failures, bellowing exhaust and smoke fumes in to the cabin. Maybe that’s why this one clearly hasn’t been used for weeks. And so I come to the end of my mini tour. It’s been fun, and I return with many images to show for my stay. Budapest is full of history, full of places of worship, full of statues. And full of Burger Kings. As a place to live, it ranks third out of sixty five European cities in the quality of life index. You’d think with that statistic the locals would be positively radiating a smugness. But, it’s not so humorous Pestside. It may be the cold, but natives don’t seem that friendly on the street. Passing nods and smiles seem to be greeted with mute indifference. I’ve never thought of myself as a travel togger, though it would be fun, artistically. Sadly, I’m not a huge fan of air travel it has to be said. I rank it fairly low in pastime pleasures, somewhere between root canal surgery and half marathons. Paradoxically I hold a private pilot’s licence of the rotary variety; machines that defy all known laws of gravity to lift off, when really they should in fact screw themselves into the ground. So, as I sit here composing this post enduring a bout of clear air turbulance which the BA First Officer has profusely apologised for (they don’t do that on Malev) I look forward to composing my next travel blog in April when we take our family holiday to somewhat sunnier climes. Next post, back to weddings.
Budapest bound
Monday, January 25th, 2010
It’s a truism that the aircraft icon on any in-flight cabin display map showing your route and time to destination is approximately the size of Luxembourg. It’s not an aviation coincidence either, as I passed through the place once on a road trip; it was like crossing your front room. And so here I am half an hour into my Malev flight to Budapest for a spot of unadulterated Leica M8 street photography. Just post Christmas I splashed out on this digital fancy in classic clothing with the aim of using it more freely on the street and so this, is it’s first test drive. To be fair it’s equally a kick up the proverbial from Sam, my wife, who bought me this trip as a Christmas gift, a little easier to wrap tickets than an E-Type; there’s always next year. I’m not a great one for using my chunky Canon gear in cities, and though my somewhat less than svelte frame makes it tricky to completely fade into an urban backdrop, it’s fair to say that something that protrudes from my fleece no further than a wallet stuffed with store cards (slight disparity) doesn’t attract quite so much unwelcome attention. So, one M8, a 50mm lens, handful of SD cards, a city guide I’ve not even read yet and I’m good to go.
One of the first things that struck me about the place is just how much graffiti there is. Banksy would be at home in a city like this, as it appears nobody seems interested to curtail the artform. It’s everywhere. People’s apartment blocks, the underground, the overground, government buildings. Maybe they don’t do community service out here?
If you’re not daubing the walls with pictures and tags, you could join the elite set of craftspeople that fashion all manner of statues.
And… another tram.
Courtyard shops are common. I’m armed with a 50mm so the focal length doesn’t allow me to easily show you how these shops squeeze into the tiniest backstreet corners in-between apartments. I did spot one or two impressive ornate arcades too. Budapest appears to be in a transition commercially, where the arcades are emptying, traders favouring the shopping centres. This is one such arcade above; a solitary shop illuminates a small segment of what looked like a hub of commerce once.
Five degrees under and falling, I was heading back to the hotel when I came across a ‘table water musician.’ I asked if he did requests. My joke was lost in translation.
Enough with the trams now.
Shop stalactites
Thursday, January 7th, 2010Perhaps if proof only to the landlord that our shop needs that guttering work doing pretty soonish, look, a shop sign stalactite. I took this seconds before some little urchin passed by and snapped one of the strands off. Another snowed in day at Breathe HQ.
What no customers?
If Carling made Snowmen
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010Look it’s not a competition, but this chap’s a sizable contender surely for ‘largest Snowbloke on the block.’ Yes you guessed it, it’s not been the busiest day at Breathe HQ. Nat was pretty much snowed in, so the retouching department was somewhat quiet. It’s been a snowbound day then. I caught up on some album design and email answering, before working with my father in law to create our Snowbloke. For scale, this is my wife. (She’s in the jacket.)
And our tip to you Jack (hasn’t he grown?!) – don’t eat yellow snow.
Glazed bricks and Mick
Friday, January 30th, 2009
I went back to the town I grew up in today, Hertford. My mother still lives there, but on the outskirts, so I usually just brush by the place via the town’s ringroad. Today though I was there upon the request of the secondary school I’d spent seven years at, to take some photographs for the new business manager, a post I don’t recall from my youth in education. Adding up the years, it’s easily two decades since I last visited my old school, there, age me if you will. Plenty has changed in Hertford as a town. It will sound a little cliche, but Barclays where my father had banked all his life has become a fancy wine bar. The town’s established newspaper that had graced my Friday paper round bag each week during my teens with hugely over paginated copies that felt like a leaden weight, has turned into an hotel. Woolworths has gone, obviously. The Addis toothbrush and bucket factory has turned into flats and offices. The penny sweet shop is some kind of fancy kiddie boutique. The stationery shop is now a tanning centre. The smelly pet shop has turned into a Toni and Guy’s. The town’s department store called Gravesons, there since money had been invented I’m sure (every town has one) has become Accessorize. Many an hour had been spent with my mother in the habadashary department there, pulling at her handbag to move on to a far more exciting shop. But yes equally, there were small pockets of the town where I truly believe Father Time had forgotten to visit. I remember a barber’s shop called Mick’s which my late father used to take me to; kind of place where the adults would exchange jokes and knowing winks while their offspring wondered what was funny and why grown ups seemed so weird. That’s still there. And when I peeked in through the shop window, there was Mick. Mick as I remembered him. Mick hadn’t changed. And so it was with my old school. It was lunchtime when I turned into the driveway and there were blue blazered boys playing football and knocking lumps out of each other with hockey sticks. It’s odd, but I felt a sense of melancholic nostalgia. It was as if I was watching a scene from my youth on a telly. The only thing that didn’t fit, were the cars. The car park was full of new metal, double parked new metal. Not a Cortina in sight. I was itching to walk the old corridors. They too, didn’t disappoint. The sight of reddish brown glazed brick, which seems to be a feature of pre-war school hallway construction hit me like the proverbial, well, brick. And you must remember exam halls? Rows and rows of uniformly spaced single occupancy desks? My first photographic task was to photograph from the back, a hall full of boys about to start their written music exam. As I focused for my primary shot, I felt transferred back into the 80s, with all the noises, the smells, and the ambiance about one’s past school life. For that moment, I longed to be back in a blazer with all the dreams, hopes and naive expectations of a young man who hadn’t yet met the weekly shopping bill, slower metabolism and self assessment. I’ll return next decade and the decade after. I hope Mick will still be cutting hair in the town. I hope he’s found a pocket of Hertford that will continue to remain unaltered. Glazed bricks.
Our Jack’s first photoshoot
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
You would have rightly expected us to be champing at the bit to pop our boy Jack (Baby Breathe) into the studio for his first official shoot. Arguably one of the best times to photograph a baby is in his or her first few weeks of life, when they’re floppy and retaining their foetal position. They’re also quite relaxed about the whole thing at this age, especially if they are post feed. I’m not expecting a very young baby to photograph wide eyed and smiling, their real emotions influence a shoot at this age; sleep, some tears even. Features also play a strong part in a baby shoot; little feet, little hands, little ears. I usually prefer to keep shoots fairly short at this age. We are using studio flash, so I keep a watchful eye on how baby reacts to short bursts of visually stimulating light. Here are a few shots from Jack’s shoot.
Our little baby boy Jack
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
Baby Breathe has arrived! Pictured above; the first few moments of our baby Jack’s life in the outside World. His our firstborn and so understandably we’ll be taking a few weeks to adjust, even though the brand new Breathe shop opening is imminent. He was born Wednesday morning (26th March) at 12.05, weight 7lb 4oz. I have to say as I write this blog of a Saturday morning, he’s found himself a healthy set of lungs, that’s for sure! For every father who has those early days aspirations of his son one day lifting the World Cup for England or becoming a famous surgeon, I think perhaps we have just bred a booming broadcaster; the next Simon Bates perhaps? Obviously far better looking. Anyway, he’s quite rightly the apple of our eye even at 2am of a morning when he decides to really come alive! Thanks to all our friends, clients and suppliers for your good wishes and pressies – and Jack I am sure echos that. Loudly. (Neale and Sam James, March 2008)
Tasoulla – a break from the usual
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
The setting was a superb restaurant in Camden called Gilgamesh. I’ve certainly never set foot in a restaurant quite like it; I’ve certainly not seen bespoke wood carving of the quantity and quality on display in an eaterie. Trust me, I’m a man who likes his food – so it takes something for the furnishings to affect me quite the way Gilgamesh did. The influences are a real mixture of Far East meets Goa meets… and so on. The restaurant was bathed in a mixture of soft pin spot illumination and natural light from large windows looking out on to Camden’s famous market, some of which sadly disappeared under a blanket of flames only a fortnight or so ago. I knew instantly that I would be setting the strobe units aside that I had brought along, to favour utilising the natural and artifical light offered up by the location.
The shoot was to build musician Tasoulla’s pictorial portfolio. Her voice is rightly described as ‘youthful Bassey’ with the range and pitch Mariah boasts. She’s got incredible presence on camera and to be fair, did not need too much direction. As a photographer, I work in a somewhat more subtle way than some of my peers. There’s no right or wrong way, there’s just ‘my way’ when I photograph. It works for some snappers to bark orders at their subjects. I prefer mature reassurance, where between capturing each frame you’ll look up and comment on how good the images are turning out, or how well the subject is ‘performing,’ without the requirement for me as a photographer to dance across the set like a Whirling Dervish, shouting “BELLISSIMO BELLISSIMO!!!”
Incidentally, Tasoulla was that close to being the voice behind the Bond theme for Casino Royale. A little birdie tells me that we should watch this space for the next time!
