Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Ten)

A Pig Of A Year

'Well,' she said opening a box of Belgian truffles that had arrived on her desk on the last day of teaching.  She popped one in her mouth, gave a little grunt of pleasure.

The Faculty Christmas get-together was finally over; another inimitable festive extravaganza comprising powerpoint presentation of statistics from the Admissions Department (on slides that deployed the corporate template) and a finger buffet.  She had long ago perfected the art of occupying a strategic space at the food table for the duration of such lamentable occasions: her only solace in the face of forced convivial conversation with her colleagues.  With the appearance that she was only ever helping herself for the first time, the secret was to place slowly and intermittently four sandwich quarters (humus and roasted vegetables, egg mayonnaise, cheese salad and something that might not have been meat), a few hand-crafted crisps and an onion bhaji on the paper plate; the process interrupted with the cleverly clandestine activity (requiring both speed and dexterity) of a left-handed platter-to-mouth movement. To the casual observer, she was merely a slow chooser and pernickety eater.

'A pig of a year,' she continued, popping another piece of cocoa-dusted confectionary in her snout. 'And, they certainly made of pig's ear of it, it has to be said.  You have to admit it.'  She gave a snort at the thought of it.  

'To begin with, not covering my sick-leave.  Left me high and dry.  I was turning over essays like a battery hen lays eggs; and, with A grades - as always - as scarce as hens' teeth, I felt quite disillusioned, not to mention hen-pecked.

'In addition, I was having to juggle new modules, old modules in need of modification (however minor), modules I was scheduled to teach and those that had been scheduled for the semester I was absent.

'And then there was that old horse.  Don't get me back on that old horse.  I ensured I only ever rode side-saddle but it still left me sore.'

'Pigs' swill,' he blurted out, about to gesticulate and shout, but she interrupted sharply.  'Just hold your horses,' she commanded.  'As I've said before, that old horse was never going to recruit; any reasonable wanna-be student would have realised immediately, if not at interview, that they were buying a pig in a poke.  That horse had no tried and tested content.  You have to acknowledge it.  The thing was a crippling joke.'

'What makes you so sure, you pig-headed cow?  That horse was a winner, it just had a false start.' But he was lost in metaphor, and starting to choke.  The battle was finally lost.  

'And pigs might fly,' she said, somewhat sly, as he made a grab for the chocolate box.  She let him have it, it would have been churlish to do otherwise.  She unplugged her computer, packed her bags and put on her coat and gloves.  She was going 0.6 in the new year; it was hard not to gloat.  She turned off the light as she left, leaving him in the dark.

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Nine)

All This Marking Is Barking

'So, here we are again,' she said.  'Barking time.'
'I thought it was Christmas-time,' he said: obviously, momentarily, off-guard.  (He was dreaming, hoping, that the grass might be greener on the other side.  He knew, deep down, that it wouldn't be long before they put him out to graze.)
'May be for you.  But for me it's just barking.  From now until the new semester.  Barking, barking, barking: until - and then again, when - the Level Six dissertations are submitted on the sixth of January.  This current load of assessments must be completed before that next batch of assignments come in, you see.'
'So, what's your problem?'
'Problem?'
'You've obviously got a problem.'
'The problem is all this barking.  I get the feeling I spend more time barking than the students spend writing the damned essays.  I'm getting a sore throat, you know.'
'But what are you after?  Some special kind of dispensation?'
'Just parity,' she said.  'Parity when it comes to barking.'
'But you all have to bark,' he opined, whinnied and whined.
'Yes, but my barking is more labour-intensive than those who teach on practical modules.  You know, the others, they tend to co-teach 30-credit modules and the barking is not only timetabled into the academic year, it's shared.  I teach alone, on 15-credit modules, and have to bark in my own time.  It's starting to feel like a dog's life.  I'm working like a dog.  In fact, I've gone to the dogs.  A real dog's dinner.'
'It's you that's barking, just you,' he replied.
'Exactly.  I concur.  I just wish that I didn't have to bark so much.  It really seems unfair.'

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Eight)

Did They Take Her Advice?  Did They Hell.

'So, here we are,' she said, 'recruiting for an antiquated horse that will have been put out to graze by the time next year's initiates arrive. (We're revalidating our own dear old horse, you know.  In case you didn't already know,' she added.)  For the record, she was seriously knackered.  It was looking like the knacker's yard for her.
The back-story: musical hand-held developing tanks as a strategy for separating the wheat from the chaff had been mostly ignored.  Instead they had returned to the established list of questions that ensured both interviewee and interviewers would be thoroughly bored: rather than prove themselves to be thorough-breds.  'Why Photography?' 'Why Fine Art Photography rather than the other Photography?'  'Why our Photography rather than Photography at an institution anywhere else in the country?'  For the most part, no one had a clue.  Including her.  It mostly came down to proximity to the family and, thus, access to free food and laundry.
'So, you want to be an artist,' she encouraged, quickly changing tack.

Apparently, yes.  Always yes, yes, yes.
'Have you got a life?' she mused.  (Yes, yes, yes.)
'I'm sorry, I'm improvising,' she admitted.  'I digress.  Back to the list of questions.  Can you name a nineteenth-century photographer?'
Silence
'Can you name a photographer working in the Victorian period?'
'I'm not very good at names or dates.'
'Then just name a dead photographer,' she spat, momentarily forgetting she was supposed to be a professional.
'I did do someone as part of my research project, but I can't remember his name.  I did write the essay on him, but it was a long time ago now.  I mean, I'm talking a good week or so ago.'
'Is he dead?'
'Well he looks kind of old.'
'Dead, please.  Dead.  Just name a photographer who's dead.'  She was beginning to feel a bit tense.
The response was sadly lacking.  It turned out that 'he' was a 'she' and apparently still definitely alive and kicking (even if her work was moribund).
She took a moment out to practise a bit of cerebral mindfulness (a useful aid against depression) and some positive thinking.
'That's good,' she said.  'Good, good good.'  'Have you considered Level Zero, at all?

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Seven)

The New Photography Criticism

'This looks like a tree, but really it's me,' she said, apparently without irony. 'That's the beauty of photography, you see.  (A point I might return to ultimately.)
'But it hasn't been easy.  Harnessing photography, harnessing photography to me.  Indeed, no.  To begin with, Nature took all the credit: her hand, her pencil. What tosh, Talbot, what tosh.  (With your prescient vision, couldn't you see it was only ever going to be about me?)
'So came Modernism.  Well damn me.  Medium-specific: photography was suddenly all about photography.  (What about me?)  And, then there was Sontag's On Photography (we're talking the early 1970s).  At the back of the book she reproduces a list of all photography's applications, the so-called 'fields of photography' derived from Roget's International Thesaurus (third edition); 31 entries, can you believe?  Thirty-one entries including astrophotography and photospectroheliography. (And, nothing about me.)
'When Winogrand claimed 'I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed', I thought I might die.
'Well, thank the Lord for the advent of Post-Modernity.  It freed us from the medium-specificity of photography-for-photography's-sake.  Allowed for relativism and revisionism; even found a space for post-colonism and feminism. But, my, it was dull.  Thought October would never end. Couldn't understand a word.  Crimp and Kraus: what were they on about?
'But, in his attempt to follow in the footsteps of Foucault, Tagg made it all possible, possible for photography to be all about me; according to him, the medium had no inherent meaning, so it could be harnessed to anything.
'So, back to that tree.  Of course we all know it's not a real tree.  It's a photograph of a tree. Check out your semiotics, sweetie.  Check out Magritte, if you find it easier.  That wasn't a pipe, and this is not a tree.
'No, my time has come.  At last.  Photography is finally all about me.'

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Six)

Gnomes and Noemes:

'We were talking horses for courses, last time, I seem to recall,' trying to breathe through her mouth as she spoke, while momentarily regretting her nicotine addiction.  Her laugh was becoming a death rattle.
He tossed his head and brayed. Animal, she thought, while assuming his neigh must be an affirmation, a confirmation, of her initial assertion. (The thing that distinguishes Man from Beast is language.  He was doing his best, all things considered.)
'So now it's time to talk noemes,' she continued.
'Gnomes?'
'Yes, noemes. Photography's noeme to be precise.  If we're to revalidate that old horse we need to understand photography's noeme.'
'Does photography have a gnome?' he asked.

'Well, yes, according to Barthes at least. Yes, of course,' she reiterated forcefully. 'Do you need me to elucidate?  Throw light on the situation. Have you not read the book?'
'Baths? I thought we were talking plastic figurines.  Miniature men with fishing rods and red hats?'
'Well, it's possible that some fly-fishers got fixated on Barthes and became photographers.  He uses the term 'metaphoric' after all, and what is art photography but a metaphor for something else?  And, why not a metaphor for fly-fishing; hours spent in absent-minded navel-gazing and hopeful anticipation only to return home with nothing but an old boot dredged from the mud and silt of a cloudy river bed?  But I'm not sure where the red hat comes in to it, if I'm brutally honest.'
'My giddy aunt,' he hissed, giddying up and baring his top lip to reveal his gums.  'What are you talking about now?  Come on, I want it straight from the horse's mouth. What have flies got to do with photography's gnomes? Or baths, for that matter?'
'Apart from that one stuck in amber?  I mean the fly, not the bath.  A lovely analogy for the photographic medium, isn't it just?  Now, let me think, now let me see.'

North Pier, Blackpool, Sunday, July 19 1905

Family Tree

He whisked her away on their honeymoon.  She was inexperienced, uninitiated, feeling terribly inadequate. 'My Lady' he bragged on the back of a studio portrait to his childhood sweetheart - who had left him and married someone else.  He underscored the words for emphasis, but the gesture was childish.  In the end it could make no difference.

Family Tree

She wasn't stupid. She knew she'd made a mistake. One of those few and far between moments when you forget who you are and end up being someone else. When the world is your oyster, and all that.  He'd noticed her and she'd noticed that. He'd seen her the way she had wanted to be seen. As she'd never really be, or been. So she accepted his advances and basked in his attention. Did she mislead him, or lead him on?  Regardless, the damage was done. In those days this was a fact: there was no turning back.

Family Tree

It wasn't that she failed to leave an impression on people, rather that she was just too hard to read.  When asked to describe her, people were stumped. Tall for her age and relatively slender. Dark hair, strong limbed. Possibly timid. Though they could not remember her face they could not forget her eyes, and the feeling of discomfort they experienced when subjected to her casual gaze.  

As for him, he was definitely, defiantly memorable, right from the start.  His presence always felt. Some considered him spoiled, but it wasn't that simple.  He simply knew what he wanted, and was hard to refuse.

They married in February 1957.  It was winter. It was cold. The night before the wedding her father kissed her good night and, as he moved away towards the door - without looking at her, while just looking at the floor - he said: you can still call it off, you know.

But she was already asleep.  Or feigning it.

Taxonomy of Spirit Manifestations: The Shadow

The Shadow.  Dracula didn't have one.  Neither, according to Sam Taylor-Wood, did Bram Stoker's chair.  Fred Flintstone had a six o'clock one, and then there's all that stuff about Plato's cave.

Taxonomy of Spirit Manifestations: Spirit Photography

The only given in life is that we die.    

But, three cheers to photography for providing indisputable proof that the spirit lives on. 

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Five)

The Written Assessment

She said: 'Where to start?  That's always the problem.  Personally speaking, I'm no fan of the historical survey or theoretical stratagem.  Memory's selective, the omissions always glaring. That said, it's what you leave out, not put in, that's always more interesting. But, please, mark my words - you must provide a context.  Can't expect critical analysis if one doesn't know the circumstances.  Are you listening?' she suddenly demanded.  'You should probably write this down.


'Another thing', she added,  'and this is important.  I maintain it's not possible to separate structure from content.   If I can refer you to the Written Assessment Manual (new edition), you'll see that 'signposting' is essential.  Make clear what you're saying; you don't want to be misconstrued. Let the sentences, the paragraphs, the episodes flow; whether enumerative, additive or - even - constructive.  Aim for integrity and precision, don't try to be clever.  The point is this: the prose must be persuasive, seductive, concise, not evasive.  I trust I don't need to remind you about split infinitives?


'I generally find a pertinent quotation is the best way to start.  Get the show on the road and the horse before the cart.  But remember to source the author you've decided to reference.  Harvard is the method we prefer for citations.  And, don't forget, plagiarism is an academic offence.  It's stealing, and it's wrong.  Acknowledge that person who has succeeded in articulating what you've been trying, and failing, to say for so long.'


'We must leave it there,' interrupted the mental health nurse.  'When I've written up the notes from your assessment, I'll send you the transcript.  The same one I'll put to the Psychology Department, to see if you're fit for intensive therapy.'


(Photo: Mike Berry)

Taxonomy of Spirit Manifestations: Channelling an Artist

A parallel universe: word has it there are artists who have passed (died, deceased, call it what you will) who still feel compelled to practise, channelling their painterly prowess through the pencils and palettes of artistically-uninitiated mediums.  For some reason, Toulouse-Lautrec, always already slightly off-the-wall chose a plasterer in Brighton and a living-room wall to show-case his latest creation.

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Four)

Formative Assessment (Multiple Choice)

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) used a very small wooden box with a lens, crafted by his joiner, to make his very small negative of the lattice window at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.

What did Talbot's wife call this early camera?

A. Mousetrap
B. Catflap
C. Kitten-sized Cat Litter Tray

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Three)

Horses for Courses:

'I've made a decision.  The decision is this.  I am not able, not willing to run that old horse.'
'But it's not an old horse.  It's only just validated.  A horse you helped write, let me remind you.'
'Even so,' she replied, now chomping at the bit and hoofing the turf, 'I'm neither ready nor happy to flog a dead horse.'
'Are you deaf?' said the horse-breaker, nostrils flaring and shaking his mane. 'Or just stubborn as an ass?  This horse is not dead. It's a champion horse, a pedigree horse.  A veritable stud.  It is yet to recruit, of course, but that's neither my fault, nor that of the horse.  It wasn't we who made a pig's ear of advertising it in time for the new academic year.  Running around like headless chickens once the error was realised.'
'No point in that', she replied.  'Shutting the stable door when the horse has already bolted.  Out of curiosity and just for the record, were you by any chance born in a barn? I'd wager you were. You have a habit of not closing doors when you leave, you see.'
'Be careful, madam, you should start to watch your back.  Never look a gift horse in the mouth, that's what they say and, if you don't jump when I tell you to, you'll be the first to fall; with the imminent redundancies, departmental re-structurings and all.'
'I see your point, appreciate your need to take the reigns, whip us all into shape.  But wouldn't it be better to sack those who are long in the tooth? Put them out to graze rather than a young filly like me?'

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part Two)

She was tired of not being taken seriously.  Take today.  When asked to suggest the criteria for selecting prospective students, she stated her plan accordingly: up-front as ever and with her usual temerity. Would-be photographers must place their portfolios in the corner of the studio before entering the darkroom.  When she began playing 'Like a Rolling Stone' the students should move - as best they could - under the warm-red glow of the safety lights.  The institution has 26 hand-held developing tanks; any candidate left standing but not embracing the aforesaid equipment when the music stopped would be immediately eliminated and told to go home (not forgetting to claim previously discarded portfolio en route).  A flawless plan, and surely no more arbitrary than the current system of offering a place to anyone who might name a photographer, alive or dead, operating since 1839. Moreover, at least her way - the Developing-Tank Way - would ensure the programme meet its annual target number.  The original method had never guaranteed this.

So, why was her scheme not unanimously endorsed and adopted?

As Seen On eBay (or, What's It All Really Worth?)

Lined Linen Jacket, Boden, Size 14.  Friday 18 November 2011.  £21.24 excluding P&P

Solid as a Wok (So Much Better Than Being Stuck Between One and a Hard Place)

Reasons To Go 0.6 (Part One)

'Was too busy and bored,' she said with disgust,
'With all that I should do and all that I must'.
'I'm tired of being interested'.

Ossified

Suddenly, she felt fully alive: not ossified.  In addition, lack of ambition ensured she would never be cast in plaster, nor bust-ified.

The Shadow Stage (2): We Rock

My First Success (After Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815-79)

Or, more accurately, historically, the trial run of her first-ever scanner, done by somebody else.  A success, nevertheless, not lessened by the fact that another pressed the button.

LowePro 2 (October 2011)

LowePro 1 (Sometime 2006)

In Passing

It was odd, she hoped not prescient, to find her likeness included on the mantle piece; her mother's shrine to those who were loved and lost.  She had always hated that photograph. 

The Shadow Stage (after Duane Michals)

At night,

 The stage was set.  No need to be alone.

From out of the shadows she conjured her man.

  They whispered together til dawn.

Like a Red Rag to a Bleeding Heart

Heart of Stone

As George Gissing once observed - and I paraphrase - she could afford to be kind when she was financially and emotionally secure.  But it's hard to be generous when life's a bitch.

She Hadn't The Heart For Much But Her Hair Got Everywhere

The Devil You Know

She's Living at 72dpi