It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

The best of times…

At the beginning of the year, we went to see Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. I loved the film immediately. After all, so much of it spoke of things I like – steam trains, railway stations, clocks, mechanical toys, classic film, Paris; and it was the work of a master film-maker with a stunning cast (even if Sacha Baron Cohen seemed to be channeling ‘Allo! ‘Allo!‘s Arthur Bostrom.) (“Good moaning.”) True, I had a few issues with it – I do get slightly peeved when film makers use the wrong trains or aircraft when these things are wholly CGI constructs and therefore just as easy to get right, and Hugo erred in this respect as nearly all the French engines shown appeared to be German class 44s, cosmetically altered to look Swiss, of all things (and Switzerland was one of the few mainland European countries not to have had access to German locomotives in the post-war era); and I found it a bit improbable that all the trains in and out of the Gare du Montparnasse would be Wagons-Lits. But that’s just me, and it didn’t detract from my delight in the film, with its very steampunk aesthetic and utterly believable 1930s scene setting. I was even more intrigued when I found out that the film’s depiction of the later life of Georges Méliès was actually based very much on reality: he did lose everything (though not due to the First World War, but the film’s version was easier to explain to a film audience), he did end up running a toy shop concession on a Paris railway station, and he was rediscovered (by an investigative journalist), his story told, his reputation rehabilitated and proper recognition given him by the French artistic establishment. And let us be clear; whatever you may or may not think about the French (or Parisians, depending on your viewpoint), they do love and honour film-makers, and rightly so.

So when Hugo was trounced at the Oscars by The Artist – which at that time, we hadn’t seen – I was a bit miffed. Certainly, Hugo deserved the Oscars it did get, but these were mainly in the technical categories. Still, I could see the attraction of The Artist for a Hollywood audience; and it also spoke of a transitional period in film, the coming of the talkies.

We finally got to see The Artist at the weekend, and now everything is clear to me. The Artist is an excellent film. It is so very true to its period, it is excellently acted, the cinematography is authentic to the period, and it was a brilliant move to make a film about the movie industry in the late 1920s in the style of a film made in the late 1920s. The soundtrack is remarkable, too; there is a sequence where the main character, George Valentin, has attended a private screening of a talkie screen test, and he later has a nightmare where he is assaulted on all sides by sound, from the clink of a glass and the ringing of a phone to the barking of the dog and the babble of all the voices in a great city.

The film is packed with cinema references, though the only one I can specifically remember is that they appear to use the same hospital corridor towards the end of the film that was used in Terminator 2, of all things! (T’Internet can’t throw any light on this, though the set decorator, Robert Gould, did work on Verhoeven’s Total recall and Starship Troopers…) There is also a musical quote, in that the music over the film’s climax is Bernard Herrman’s love theme from Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The film opens with the premiere of Valentin’s last film, A Russian affair, and that is pure Hollywood melodrama with Buck Rogers-esque super-science baddies and a dashing masked hero. (And a dog.) (“You can never go wrong with a bit with a dog.”)

So: I am now entranced equally by Hugo and The Artist. Both pay homage to the industry that gave birth to them, both are lovingly and well made, and both deserve all the success they’ve had.

We went to see The Artist at Berrington Hall, a National Trust property near Leominster in Herefordshire. It was an outdoor showing, arranged as part of the Borderlands Festival, a film festival designed to bring cinema – both mainstream and more unusual films – to rural areas of England. Berrington is a fine house which we have visited before, but it was worth going to experience the setting as the sun set, and then sit out under the stars watching a film. We were treated to a couple of meteors during the performance (and a visitor’s dog who joined in at one point at exactly the right place!), and it was a delight to have a proper projector and delightful surroundings.

The park at Berrington

In the park

Berrington Hall

The inflatable screen at Berrington

A real projector and a real projectionist!

Sutton Modellers at Manchester Museum of Science & Industry, 2005. L to R: Andy Lawson, Jim Bell, Doug Burchell

The worst of times…

Still no joy on the work front; I apply for between 15 and 20 jobs per week, and rarely get a response on any of them. I’m particularly irritated by an IT publishing company in Birmingham who advertised a job that was a 99.5% match to the job I used to do in Ofwat, but which has shown no interest in my application whatsoever, even when I pointed this fact out at the top of my covering letter. I can only assume that they are ageist. What is the point in raising the retirement age to 68, when employers lose interest in you once you’re over 50? It makes a total mockery of any politician who pontificates on the prospects for pensions and employment and shows that they know nothing about real life.

Still, there are times when events put this into proper perspective; and this is one of them. A very good friend of mine, Jim Bell, has passed away and I want to write about his life and his passing, and his influence on me.

Sutton Modellers at Manchester Museum of Science & Industry, 2005. L to R: Andy Lawson, Jim Bell, Doug Burchell

A Merseysider by birth (with all the dry humour that goes with that origin), Jim was a marine engineer by profession, and spent a number of years at sea with the merchant marine in the 1950s. When he returned to shore, he became a boiler inspector for insurance companies. His life was spent in an engineering environment, mainly connected to steam power, and he had a fund of stories from workshops, factories and ships.

But it was as an enthusiast for German railways that I knew Jim. As a man of steam, he had developed an attraction for locomotives, first relating to the London and North-Eastern Railway, but later that interest transferred itself to Germany, in part because of his travels. In German railways, he said, you could have infinite variety; the latest diesel and electric trains would rub shoulders with steam locomotives and coaches of the previous century, and this contrast was most appealing to him. In due course, his interest settled on the inter-war and wartime years of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, when the pace of technological development was possibly at its height. Whilst recognising that the German railway system played a full part in the German war effort, with all the darkness that entailed, he nonetheless delighted in the technological inventiveness and energy of the German railway industry of the period; inventiveness that Britain barely matched then and has not achieved since.

Although my interests in the railway sphere were broader, and I had already gone down the route of my interest in Austria and its railways, Jim was my mentor when it came to Germany and was the cause of my joining the German Railway Society.

Jim was also a fine modeller, and his exhibition engine shed layout was notable for its authentic atmosphere, especially when matched with its extension depicting a railway workshop. So much of this model was drawn from first-hand observation; and when Jim decided that he had to give up exhibition attendances, it was my pleasure to take this layout over and keep it on the exhibition circuit, as a tribute to a fine modeller and great gentleman.

Dreaming, interrupted

Things never quite work out as you expect.

Since my last post, I have had something of a setback. The freight audit job i was in didn’t work out. I had some difficulties with the boss’ business style and some ways of working (I found it particularly difficult when a conference call with visuals between the office and clients in Singapore was taking place across my desk); I was suffering from being sat directly underneath an air conditioner that was always being adjusted to be hotter or colder, with the result that I had a succession of sore throats, dry eyes and a minor chest infection; and to cap it all, the major client whose work we were trying to get kept encountering delays at their end in completing the contract. All the pilot study work was completed before Easter, and I was effectively laid off pending further progress. But at the same time, the client was opening new negotiations over their Far East work, and I suspect that another pilot study may well have been started up whilst the European work I was specialising in was put on hold – especially as there was also some friction between the German head office and the Austrian factories that were the subject of much of the European work. Too many people labour under the misapprehension that because Austrians and Germans speak the same language, they are essentially the same sort of people. That is completely false; the relationship between Austria and Germany (and sometimes between Austrians and Germans) is a bit like that between the UK and the USA, and the worst possible insult you can give to most Austrians is to call them Germans.

So it was back to the job application websites. So far, I’ve had one application out of the five to seven per day I submit pass the first sift of candidates. Part of the problem is that I’ve been too much of a generalist – nearly every job nowadays calls for some sort of specialist knowledge or qualification, and unless you can tick every box on an application, you are likely to be overtaken by someone else who can. But I have so many strings to my bow that it’s difficult to know which area to concentrate on enhancing with additional training – software testing, proof-reading, editing, industrial relations or general admin? Or perhaps, even, photography…

Of course, my other great disadvantage is my age. Age discrimination is, of course, illegal nowadays. But I suspect most employers don’t realise that. And you do get wary of adverts talking about “our dynamic, funky, fast-moving workforce”, which I suspect means “disgustingly young”. Being an old fart does make you unpopular with some younger managers, simply because you are so often right and can be seen as a threat to the younger high-flyer because you know more than they do.

The trouble is that we are all supposed now to work well into our 60s or even 70s; but how are we to do this if prospective employers won’t look at anyone over 45? And how are we to exploit our vast experience when HR teams either don’t have the knowledge or the confidence to pass a candidate through a paper sift on the strength of their experience rather than their paper qualifications?

I’ve tried looking at freelance work, but the trouble there is that there are so many people trying to do the same thing; and the glory that is the Internet means that we are all now competing globally. One site in particular is very good (if that’s the right term) at offering what are essentially Third World pay rates for complex creative jobs; one such was asking for a 50,000-word book to be written in ten days for something like $350. That’s neither economic nor fair, especially as the concept of “copyright” seems to completely pass these clients by. Another site offers you the opportunity to write articles for clients using your knowledge and experience – except most of these clients appear to be rich kids trying to get someone else to write their school, college or university course work for them. And then, of course, they get their qualifications and come onto the job market and take the jobs away from people who may have written the assignments for them in the first place…

We did get to go to the annual Easter science fiction convention, held this year in a huge hotel just by Heathrow airport. A friend of mine was launching (as it were) an anthology of short stories he’d edited on the theme of ‘scientifically plausible near-future spaceflight’, called, not suprrisingly, “Rocket Science“, so we wanted to see that; but mainly, the convention was full – literally – of people who’d come to see the Guest of Honour, George R.R. Martin, who is enjoying some notoriety these days because of his novel A Game of Thrones, which has been dramatised for Sky TV.

Ian Sales, ‘launching’ Rocket Science

  

George R.R. Martin

The main circulating area at the Easter SF convention

But I’ve had some light relief recently. I took myself to mid-Wales to see a steam gala at Llangollen. The last such gala was held there some three years ago, and it was so good I was determined to go back the next time they held one. It lasted a full ten days, but my sister was up from Cornwall to visit over the first weekend; then I had some other freelance photographic work which occupied me at the beginning of the week; and then the weather turned seriously bad. Eventually, a window of opportunity opened on the next to last day, so I made my way up the A5 to Llangollen.

My prediction of a window in the weather was accurate; it stayed dry throughout the day, and in fact the sun even shone for a while! I saw and photographed every engine they had to offer except for their resident Black Five, which I missed seeing the last time I went in 2009 (though I may well have a picture of it in Carnforth or on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway in its past).

Not all steam is on rails…

‘Tornado’ and ‘Britannia’ both looked well, and the LNWR Coal Tank and Super D were star performers, as was the Caledonian 0-6-0. The main problem (apart from the crowds) was operations, They were running double-headers and quite long trains, and this was pushing the capacity of some of the passing loops somewhat. The last train I travelled on actually had to set back to allow another train into the station, and even when it pulled forward as far as possible after the other train had come in, one coach was still fouling a level crossing… And there were some instances where trains sat waiting for platforms to clear for some considerable time; I possibly spent fifteen to twenty minutes in all sitting on trains held at signals through the day. If that was a normal passenger service on the “big railway”, I’d complain about that, and indeed the thought that I’d paid £25 for the privilege of sitting on a stationary train did cross my mind from time to time.

‘Tornado’ attracts attention from the faithful

On the plus side, they were running auto-train services down their new extension towards Corwen – about a mile.

LNWR ‘Coal Tank’ and Super D at Carrog

The organisers seemed to think that the weather hadn’t put too many people off, though apparently the Wednesday was bad and the car parking fields were pretty well churned up – but they were being managed intelligently and I had no problems.

Auto-train enters Carrog

I wish I could have afforded to do more than one day so as to maximise photographic opportunities, though I certainly did well with the weather.

The steaming engine

Caledonian Railway No.828 at Carrog

At least the camera manufacturers are doing well in the recession…

The dream goes on

Much has happened since the last blog.

I’m now back in the old routine, roughly. I signed on as unemployed for about a month; then I got a request for interview from a job I actually found at the JobCentre. A firm of international freight auditors based locally wanted someone with German language skills to work on an up-coming contract, and after we had a conversation and talked about the work, they took me on. This firm audits freight shipments and international freight invoicing, and it employs people of all nationalities for their language skills (foreign tongues being something the English do not do well). But German is a surprisingly uncommon language in these parts: my German, especially my business German, isn’t all that good, but I do know my way around the language somewhat, as well as having some local knowledge, especially about Austria where one of the potential clients does a lot of business. The company anticipates needing three full-time German speakers when their new work comes on-stream during March; so far, they’ve got me and a woman who is a native speaker, but she can only commit to two days a week.

There are still a few issues over this job, but nothing that can’t be worked out, one way or another.

I did manage a couple of Northern excursions during February. The first was a trip on the “Cumbrian Mountain Express”, a steam charter service from London to Carlisle, running out over the Settle & Carlisle line, and back over Shap. This turned into something of an adventure, as the weather on the day I chose to travel, 4th February, was forecast to deteriorate with heavy snow. There was a fairly civilised pick-up (0838) at Nuneaton, and the train then continued up to Preston behind  a 1960s era electric locomotive, finished in (reasonably) authentic period Electric Blue livery. At Preston, a Black Five was attached to take us via Blackburn, Clitheroe and Hellifield over the S&C to Carlisle.

Nuneaton morning

For those who don’t know it, the Settle & Carlisle line was built in the 1860s to give the Midland Railway independent access to Scotland. It is a spectacular piece of railway engineering, crossing the Westmoreland fells via a series of spectacular viaducts and tunnels, none of which can be appreciated from the train… Of course, we were treated to snow on the wildest section of the line.

Upper Dentdale in the snow

Dentdale farmhouse

Black Five 43505 pauses for water at Appleby

We were to time at Petterill Bridge Junction, just outside Carlisle, but got held there for 30 minutes awaiting access to Carlisle Citadel station. It was throwing it down with rain in Carlisle, and the late arrival meant that there was little time to do much else than find a chip shop for sustenance. Then it was back to Citadel station for a return run over Shap.

Carlisle Citadel in the rain

Enginemen

Departure from Carlisle was delayed by about 20 – 25 minutes due to the engine not getting a good path to get back from the turning/servicing point to Citadel. Then it made a great ascent of Shap in rain which was turning to snow, without the booked class 47 diesel assisting in the rear. The line over Shap Fell was the earlier one built, by the London & North Western Railway. It is the easier route, having been built at a time when locomotives were less powerful, but it is still a stiff climb even in good conditions. The engine we had, and its crew, performed magnificently; but we were put into the passing loop at Grayrigg to allow two Virgin Pendolinos, a local train and a light engine past. Then we got held at the engine change at Carnforth for another half-hour or so despite a very slick swap back to the electric locomotive. We made up a little bit of time on the journey back south but we were still some 75 minutes down when I bailed out at Nuneaton.

As if that wasn’t enough adventure, then I had to get home. By this time, there was about six inches of wet snow everywhere, and it was still falling. In Britain, that means that everything grinds to a halt. The six miles back from Nuneaton at 9:30pm took about an hour, mainly avoiding idiots with no idea how to drive in snow (second or third gear, let the engine do the braking wherever possible). Just on the way out of Nuneaton, where the road goes over the canal by what used to be the Nuneaton Town FC stadium, some lads stopped me, saying “That’s my sister’s boyfriend up there,” (pointing to a car sideways across the road) “He said ‘My sports car can get up that easy.’” “What a pillock” I agreed. They gave me a push and I purred past on the wrong side of the road. Halfway back, in the surprisingly remoter and high countryside between Astley and Fillongley, I saw one shiny new 4×4 pickup in the ditch with a bent front end. Ha!

In retrospect, having got home safely, I quite enjoyed it! (But I wouldn’t want to do it again in a hurry.)

As is so often the case,  the heavy fall of snow disappeared within a couple of days, and by the time the next weekend came around, there was almost none left. This was the weekend that we would go to Showzam, Blackpool’s annual festival of fairgrounds, circus and new variety. This year, there appeared to be fewer events on, but the main exhibition area, Showzam Central (in the Winter Gardens) was offering an expanded show with a new sideshow attraction and a daily performance by The Insect Circus – all good, clean fun (mostly). Audiences gasped with especial amazement at the spectacle of the Man Eating Fish and The Giant Bat…

Dr.Phantasma's Ten-in-One Sideshow

The cast of Dr.Phantasma's sideshow

The Insect Circus - Man locked in mortal combat with Stag Beetle!

The Insect Circus

Blackpool itself is suddenly showing some signs of the regeneration that Showzam has been a part of. The modernised tram system is due to open at Easter, and an area of the promenade immediately outside the Tower has been completely refurbished as well. The Tower has changed hands and is now in the hands of the council, who have appointed the same management company to run it as runs Alton Towers and the London Eye. They have spent quite a lot on renovation works, with more to follow. And the Winter Gardens themselves are getting something of a makeover, with the main foyer having been spruced up and a new, upmarket restaurant opening there. And one of the more run-down, semi-derelict hotels along the seafront was showing signs that someone was taking an interest in its renovation and restoration. It will be interesting to see what changes another year brings.

Winter Gardens, Blackpool

We attended the Carnival Ball in the Tower Ballroom, a lavish event with entertainment and dancing until the wee small hours; and went to see a show of early film presented by Professor Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield. She presented archive film of early fairground and circus performers (including the earliest surviving movie film made in Britain), interspersed with live acts from the performers attending Showzam. Our one criticism was that there were events that we wanted to see but which were being held either in the week or on the following weekend, and the idea of spending a week in Blackpool in February was just a bit much to countenance (though with a bit of thought, perhaps something might be done).

Carnival Ball - the Tower Ballroom

Carnival Ball

The Carnival Ball - "Madame Galena, Ballerina" was this year's Mistress of Ceremonies

The Carnival Ball - Marawa

Limelight

And then it was back to the daily grind; except that during the course of the week, I had some good news on the photographic front. Just before Christmas, I entered a competition in the USA organised by the Center for Railroad Photography & Art. Their competition (or “Creative Awards Program”) always takes a theme; this year, it was “Railroad photography inspired by [Richard] Steinheimer”, an American photographer who died in May 2011. I had never heard of him – British railway enthusiasts are pretty insular, as is the publishing industry that supports them, so this was no surprise – but when I looked at some of his work online, I was struck by how much his approach to railway photography was like the style that I’m evolving – an emphasis on night photography, on trains in the landscape (or cityscape) and a focus on the people of the railway. This struck a chord with me, so I contemplated my recent output and selected three photographs to enter the competition with.

And one of them won first prize.

Wolsztyn conversation

The picture shows Howard Jones of the Wolsztyn Experience, discussing the burning matters of the day with railwaymen on the platform at Wolsztyn, just before the PKP Pt47 2-8-2 that is generating the atmosphere for this picture takes an early afternoon train to Poznan. The picture is actually a crop from a larger image; it was one of those situations where if I stopped to swap lenses, the moment might disappear (especially as I was supposed to be on that train!). I’m rather pleased with both the picture and the result; I’ve spent the past few days sending press notices about this to anyone I can think of who might be interested, in my search for a rich benefactor who might want to pay me to take photographs! Hence the title of this posting. Well, you never know…

Not the end of the dream

I have become a statistic.

More particularly, I am now officially one of the unemployed. I signed on at the beginning of this week – well, that’s not entirely true. I actually completed my first claim for Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) on 4th January, but the DWP computer system promptly lost it. Fortunately, it did send me an automated receipt before consigning the claim to the outer darkness, so I can at least backdate my claim to then.

There is a school of thought that life as a benefit claimant is all ease, with no worries and a generous cushion of state funding to fall back on. Well, that’s never been true – after all, I used to administer the system back in the 1980s – and it’s not true now. I shall have to spend the next few days writing to people who I regularly pay money to so I can tell them why I can’t pay now. My only consolation is that I’m not the only person so suffering right now. I shall inevitably fall behind in my mortgage payments, as mortgage relief only kicks in after 14 weeks – another result of the popular belief that benefits are too generous and that life as an unemployed person is a bed of roses.

I also have to demonstrate that I’m actively seeking work – which means that work on The Lost Railway has to take  back seat whilst I do job applications. At least with the benefit of the Internet, I can make multiple job applications quickly and easily. I suspect that I have applied for something like 70 jobs since the beginning of the year. Tellingly, I have not yet had a single invitation to interview, though I did hear today in respect of one application that my CV has made it through first sift and has been passed to the agency’s client, so I may hear something soon. I have to keep a record for the DWP so I can prove that I’ve been actively seeking work.

And I also have to be available for work – so my other activities have to take up no more than 16 hours per week, or I shall be deemed to be “not available for full-time employment” and my benefits would cease. Those 16 hours cover both paid and unpaid work; and if I do any paid work, I only get to keep £5 per week of what I earn. This “earnings disregard” has gone up a whole £1 since I worked in benefits in the 1980s! Even the DWP staff commented that it was hardly an incentive, though to be honest, I might be inclined to take up such work because then I really would be “just doing it for the exposure”! But in any case, the purpose of JSA is not to subsidise failing self-employment, so I have to scale back most of my ambitions on the freelance photography front. Not that that’s particularly difficult, given the lack of work generally.

I have allowed my paid advertising to lapse, and I’ve made an agreement with another local photographer that I shall pass her any enquiries I do get for weddings, bar mitzvahs and christenings. In any case, she seems far better at them than I am.

But as the title says, this isn’t the end of the dream. Rather, I can concentrate on the photography that I can do well and that I enjoy. If I have to take a menial job up again, then hopefully I shall still have time to follow photography in my spare hours, in between working on The Lost Railway. And after all, many pundits in the photography business say that if you have a niche, you should exploit it; so that’s what I’m doing.

And there is some good news on that front. My photobook, The Soul of the Machine, has been reviewed by the UK specialist model railway magazine Continental Modeller in its February issue (out tomorrow). The review was particularly complementary; it said “…the railway subjects are recorded not just with technical skill but also an original and artistic eye.”

I can’t argue with that! It’s comments like those that keep me optimistic about pressing on with my photography despite all the obstacles.

Reflections at Portmadoc - another of the "original and artistic" photographs from "The Soul of the Machine".

What a difference a year makes

I’m jumping onto the end-of-year bandwagon of reviewing the twelve months just gone and looking forward to the next one. It’s now just over a year since I gave up my full-time employment to take a chance with the business of photography; and although it hasn’t been an unqualified success, I still don’t regret it for one minute. My occasional returns to Ofwat for leaving dos just continues to reinforce that view. From what I hear, it’s now reached the stage where people are leaving who are not being forced to; that’s a pretty damning indictment of any organisation. And from what I saw on my last visit, the London office (as I said at my leaving do, “a short brown nose away from the Seat of Power”) is, as anticipated, turning into a London HQ in all but name. The CEO seems to spend as little time as possible in Birmingham, and morale is bumping along the ground amongst people at all levels. Yes, whatever happens in the next year, I did well to get out when I did.

The situation in the public sector generally looks little better, with PCS and the Government set on a collision course over pensions and continuing misinformation being laid on thickly. I’m not going to start any arguments on this, but I’ll point out one thing that really does irritate me; that is the number of otherwise intelligent people who crop up in the media who say “We are all living longer”.

That is just totally untrue.

What is true is that, on average, life expectancy is increasing. But that’s not the same as “everyone living longer”. It means that more people are departing this life at later ages. But within those numbers, there must be some interesting variations. I understand that male life expectancy in central Glasgow, for example, has moved on very little from age 67 in the past few years. (If anyone has more accurate or up-to-date information, I’d welcome correction.) This raises the prospect that in one part of the UK at least, the average male citizen won’t live long enough to draw any state pension if this inequality in health outcomes isn’t addressed successfully.

Interestingly, the government has all the data on this. The key study on public health and work is called the “Whitehall II” study, because it takes as its study group a cohort of civil servants of all grades based in London. This study has consistently shown that the further down the pecking order you are in any organisation, the worse your health is likely to be, from infectious diseases to stress-related illnesses. This study is well-known, highly regarded and is considered to be one of the key works in the public health arena. Yet the Government is ignoring its findings and (almost) concealing it from the general discussion in health, age and pensions. I wonder why that could be?

And in the meantime, I constantly hear supposedly clever people saying “We are all living longer”. which either suggests to me that they (or the people pulling their strings) have their own agenda; or that a very large number of people are too stupid to understand what the word “average” means. That’s depressing, whichever way you look at it.

Enough of that. Let’s look at other areas of disappointment, such as the profession of photography. I can honestly say that this has been a commercial disaster for me; a wedding reception and a 16th birthday party have been all the paying work I’ve had this year. I did manage to get some script editing work for a video company, which was good; but given that it was quite specialist, it’s unlikely to give rise to more of the same in a hurry. This hasn’t been for want of advertising; and it hasn’t been for want of me putting myself Out There. I’m contracted as a freelancer to an online estate agency, an on-line bed & breakfast booking agent and a freelance writer’s agency, but none of these have turned in any work in the six months or so that I’ve been on their books. The only good thing I can say is that it’s not just me; I was talking to an established wedding photographer during the summer, and he was saying that he’d had half the business up to then that he’d normally expect. So it’s hardly surprising that an unestablished name wouldn’t be attracting the business. And I now have competition even within my village; another photographer has started advertising herself for portraits, weddings and so on. I decided that the best thing to do there was to cut my losses, so I contacted her and did a deal to swap leads – if I get any further enquiries about weddings, bar mitzvahs and christenings, I’ll pass them to her, whilst if she gets any enquiries on corporate, architecture or events, she’ll pass them to me. I suspect she’ll do better out of that deal.

Print sales haven’t been brilliant, either, though I realised early on that that was a market that would take some breaking into. What I have decided is that I need to raise my profile as a railway photographer, as well as offer customers something a bit more conventional than a mounted A3 picture of a Polish locomotive shed. So I set to and produced my first photobook a month or so ago (as I said in my last blog). I’m very pleased with the results, though sales have been disappointing. Partly, that’s down to limited exposure, and partly down to the fact that a lot of the best work I did this year was on my Polish/German trip in February, and British railway enthusiasts are incredibly insular about this sort of thing. I’ve been promised a magazine review in the Spring, though, and I’m hoping that will bring some cheer on that front. As for one-to-one sales, I feel I need more than just the one book; if people are put off by the content, then I need to get The Soul of the Machine 2010 out there as soon as I can complete (and afford!) it, so that I have a range of books for customers to choose from. Once they have the first in a series, I’m hoping that the collecting bug will take over – and to be honest, the reaction I’ve had is that the images are very good, it’s just the subject matter. One bloke actually said to me “There’s not enough Great Western in it”, which  shows the problem I’m up against.

Work continues on The Lost Railway; chapter two is now written, and as soon as I post this blog I’ll fire up the scanner to get more pictures from the dim and distant 1970s digitised. The interesting thing about this exercise is how much information I’m able to glean from these old pictures now I can get them blown up way beyond anything I could ever achieve in the darkroom. And some of them are coming out as nice pictures in their own right – something I’ll have to bear in mind when I get around to compiling The Soul of the Machine – the early years!

Class 37 370 at New Mills Central, 1972

Meanwhile, I shall most likely have to come up with a new way of earning a crust in the New Year. And events keep happening: for instance, I had to have a new clutch in the car this month, and seeing as Saab are now in protective receivership because of GM wrecking the sale deal with the Chinese, I had to pay for the parts up front, a fortnight before the work was actually done. But seeing as the old clutch was the original and the car’s now over the 145k mark in terms of mileage, I suspect this one will last for quite a while.

Still, I do feel strangely upbeat about my photography. All the pundits say that if you have a niche, you should exploit it; and I also have some competition results that I’m waiting for. Up to six of my pictures have been shortlisted in the Outdoor Photographer of the Year competition, and I recently put an entry into the annual competition run by the Center for Railroad Photography and Art in the USA, which received a very favourable comment. So the New Year might just start with some good news!

I’ll leave you with an image I made on a visit to Lichfield a few days ago that I’m really pleased with. Perhaps it’s some sort of metaphor for the year ahead… Best wishes to all for 2012.

 

Gargoyle, Lichfield Cathedral

 

The Soul of the Machine

I realise that I’ve been fairly silent on this blog for a while. Well, the simple reason is that nothing’s been happening.

In one way, that’s bad. There is certainly no work coming in at the moment, which is provoking thoughts of possible Plans B. But it’s also given me time to work on my own projects. Chapter One of The Lost Railway - the Midlands has been seen by my editor and found good, and chapter two is complete in outline. The latest photographs I’ve finished for it can be seen here:

Midland Place, Derby, 1977 (photo by Ted Day)

Loco Works Sports & Social Club, Midland Place, Derby, 1977 (photo by Ted Day)

However, that project is all very well, but it’s not exactly remunerative. Ian Allan’s advance structure is one-third on signature, one-third on delivery and one-third on publication; and these are not life-changing amounts. And a year of doing model railway shows and antiques/crafts fairs have shown me that photographic prints for the wall are not big sellers. A lot of people have gone “ooh” and “ah” at my pictures, but their wallets have, for the most part, stayed firmly in their pockets. I decided that I needed a product to sell. I contemplated making postcards, but that didn’t seem right for the pictures I have been making. The scale is too small. So then I thought of photobooks.

For anyone not familiar with the concept, photobooks are self-composed, print-on-demand books showing off photographic work. You download the composition software (essentially a desk-top publishing application), design your book, upload the pictures, add whatever text you need, and then send the whole lot up to the site provider. They then print as many copies as you want, from one (the minimum order of the provider I’ve been using) to – well, however many you can afford.

I was recommended Blurb.com, and I have to say that I’ve been impressed with them. They claim that the end product is “bookstore quality”, and I would broadly agree with them. The book is available as a paperback or a hardback, and price is dependant on format, binding and number of pages. I have produced a 144-page book and I’m able to price it competitively with similar books from mainstream publishers.

Of course, the question then is what to select. I had various thoughts, but what I really wanted to showcase was the set of pictures I took on my trip to Poland and Germany back in February, because I consider that to be some of the best work I’ve done to date. After some thought, inspiration struck. My friend, the Canadian science-fiction writer Cliff Burns, had commented a while back on some of my pictures that he’d seen on-line. He said that I’d “…captured the soul of the machine”, and I liked that so much I’ve been using it as a strapline. Why not do a collection of my best machine pictures of the year, and use that as a title? I could produce a different book each year, and I could work back through my portfolio, producing retrospectives at least as far back as my digital photography can reach, and possibly further as I get more material scanned in. Of course, given that my photography has developed (if you’ll pardon that pun) over the past ten years, it’s possible that I won’t necessarily find the same amount of material in earlier years for a high-concept portfolio as I had to choose from for the first volume. Well, I can worry about that later.

Further thought suggested that I could also produce generic titles along the same theme: ‘The Soul of British steam’, ‘The Soul of the narrow gauge’, and so on. But that’s for the future, too.

Earlier this week, I received my first copy fromthe printers in Holland; I’m really very pleased with it. You can preview a copy on-line here: The Soul of the Machine 2011. It was comparatively quick and easy to do, and in my opinion the results are impressive.

The Soul of the Machine 2011

Now to get back to work on the project I’m actually being paid for!

The one that got away

I had a surprise this morning: looking out of my front window onto a tree only a few feet away on the other side of the lane, my attraction was caught by a rather lively bird. It was a woodpecker.

The area where I live has quite a lot of wildlife, both birds and small mammals. The birds include various tits, nightingales and assorted birds of prey, including little owls. I knew that there were woodpeckers in the area, but I’d seen no evidence of any for more than ten years.

I immediately went to get the camera out, but before I could get it set up, a magpie came along and frightened the woodpecker away.

(The mammals are all the usual suspects you’d find in the countryside – mice, rabbits, foxes, moles, badgers, the ubiquitous rats [which are kept under control by the foxes] – and some less common creatures such as weasels, voles and shrews.)

As I can’t supply pictures of the woodpecker (I’ll keep my eyes open and try to fix that in the next few days), here are some more steam engines. These pictures were taken on the Great Central Railway, which runs between Loughborough and the outskirts of Leicester. At their Autumn steam gala this weekend, they inaugurated a new turntable; but some teething troubles meant that it took some eleven men to turn one engine, suggesting some balance work is still required…

Turning the Robinson O4 at Quorn

The “rude mechanicals” providing the muscle

The driver of the Somerset & Dorset 7F confers with his guard

“West Country” Pacific “Wadebridge” takes water at Loughborough

Stowing the water crane bag

“Wadebridge” moves away from the water tower

GNR N2 awaits duty

8F under repair

Worksplate

Skills preserved

“Wadebridge” under the canopy at Loughborough (1)

“Wadebridge” under the canopy at Loughborough (2)

Somerset & Dorset 7F at Leicester North

8F tests the turntable at Quorn

Driver’s discussions

Iron ore hopper (1)

Iron ore hopper (2)

Iron ore hopper (3)

A matter of Trust

Last weekend, we decided to take a trip to visit Hardwick Hall, in Derbyshire, a property held by the National Trust (NT).

For those unfamiliar with the body, the NT is a charity in England and Wales (there is a separate National Trust for Scotland) which exists to safeguard places and buildings of exceptional historical or architectural merit, or outstanding natural beauty. It started out as a philanthropic exercise to make such places available to everyone, in an arts-and-crafty, vaguely small-s ‘socialist’ way. It has been at the forefront of conservation, often before that word was fashionable; it nowadays has an air of comfortable, middle England respectability, which makes it all the more interesting from time to time when it opposes things politically, such as the current Coalition Government’s proposals to streamline the planning process. (In my experience, when a government wishes to ‘simplify’ or ‘streamline’ a process, inevitably there are all sorts of unforeseen circumstances that creep out of the woodwork years later that everyone wishes hadn’t happened…)

We had decided to visit Hardwick because it had been on television recently with repearts of Lucy Wordsley’s series for the BBC on the history of English domestic interiors; Cathy hadn’t been there before, and I hadn’t been for around twenty or possibly even thirty years. It also featured in one of the recent Harry Potter films; and so, given the unseasonably hot weather, a lot of other people decided to visit Hardwick on the same day as well.

The house has an interesting history; it was built by Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as “Bess of Hardwick”. She was born in Hardwick Old Hall, adjacent to her later house, as daughter to a middlingly prosperous local squire; but by virtue of some very judicious marriages and innate business acumen became extremely wealthy. Her second marriage, to one William Cavendish, established one of the great family lines of the English aristocracy. During that marriage, she carried eight children to term, five of which survived; the surprising thing perhaps is that she also survived, at a time when wealth and position were no guarantee that a woman would survive childbirth once, let alone eight times. She outlived all her husbands, and built the current Hardwick Hall at the age of seventy, a  prodigious age for Elizabethan England. She lived a further ten years. If ever a life story needed to be made into a film, it must be hers, especially as she had connections to Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and to the Stuart succession. She was also responsible for the building of one of the other great Derbyshire houses, Chatsworth, and the family tree since her time keeps cropping up with the names of the Good and the Great.

Of course, in her time, the likes of us wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the property in the way that visitors are now, given that neither Cathy nor I have anything much of nobility in our backgrounds. One of the things that the National Trust has done is make us take it for granted that stately homes and other great houses will be open to the public; indeed, it’s quite noticeable when you travel to other countries that you find equivalent properties are not generally open in the way that we accept as the norm in the UK.

The NT nowadays is as excited by the acquisition of ordinary houses, such as an Edwardian villa in Worksop (Nottinghamshire) or the “Back-to-back” houses in central Birmingham, as they are by the great country estates. But though these vernacular buildings are special survivors, as their ordinariness makes them more liable to redevelopment by a succession of owners, there can be no doubt that it is the great houses of the country that are the more notable properties to the average visitor.

And Hardwick is a very notable house. Strangely enough, although I’d visited the house three or four times as a child and young adult, I had never appreciated fully how extraordinary a building it really is until this visit. Suddenly I realised that the property had massive state function rooms, lit by towering windows at least twenty feet high. The tall window embrasures suggest the building styles of the twentieth century rather than the early seventeenth. This was a building designed to impress; and although I have been in larger properties, I cannot think of one with so many rooms that enclose such huge volumes of space.

Given that I had not visited for so long, I suppose I approached the building with almost new eyes. One thing that was very new to me was the old Hall, adjacent to the newer building. I had always known that building as a ruin, cordoned off for safety reasons. Now, parts of it have been restored, and the whole building is in the care of English Heritage (the arm of Government previously known as the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works); and it is accessible to the public in a way previously unimaginable.

Another thing that has changed a lot is the NT’s attitude to photography at its properties. For a long time, interior photography was not allowed in NT properties, mainly for reasons of security. Restrictions were eased a little in the 1980s and 1990s on a trial basis at a few properties, although flash photography was (quite rightly) not permitted under any circumstances, given the fragility of some of the materials on display. But it has only been with the rise of digital cameras and phone cameras that the NT has bowed to the inevitable and has started permitting indoor non-flash photography at most sites. There are a few where it still isn’t permitted, mainly in situations where the property still contains works of art owned by the family who bequested the property to the Trust in the first place, and therefore where they wish to retain copyright on the artworks. But otherwise photographic restrictions are easing inside properties, and this is a good thing – although one does worry a bit that some visitors end up appreciating the property through the camera lens rather than experiencing it directly.

When I take interior photographs, it tends to either be things that appeal to me that may well not be shown in the guidebooks, specific architectural details, or scenes which I think capture the atmosphere of the place and which I have a direct artistic reaction to. So that means that my photographs of a place like Hardwick consist of a series of disconnected views which appeal to me and reflect my reaction to the property – unlike one visitor who was filling his camera’s memory card with multiple views of almost every step of his visit. That just seems plain wrong to me.

Having said that, the NT’s attitude to what people do with their pictures is still rather restrictive. They say that any photographs taken on their property are subject to their clearance as to non-personal use; commercial use, even if unpaid, is not permitted. I can see their point, sort of; but equally, I feel that their desire to control every type of use is a little too restrictive. If a third party wishes to re-use a photograph with the photographer’s permission, and it is not a commercial transaction, I get the feeling that the NT’s insistence on their clearance is going one step too far. Were there to be issues of public safety on a particular site, under their current rules the NT has the ability to close down public debate on issues that might be illuminated by relevant photographs being widely circulated. I’m not casting aspersions on the NT’s standards here; but I do worry about the thin ends of wedges. It’s a bad habit of mine, but I know a thin end of a wedge when I see one.

It’s not only about third party use. The NT has some excellent photographers working for them; I understand that quite a few of them are freelancers who have got into a selling relationship with the Trust. This is all very well and good; but it used to be that you could submit your work to the Trust and they would decide whether to take you on or not. That has changed in recent years, and now they are saying that they have no need of any further photographers. I think this is short-sighted. By closing their doors to new photographers, they are effectively locking the current view of a handful of photographers and picture commissioners into the NT’s mindset for quite a few years to come. And that will mean that their photographic signature, the images of the Trust that are presented to the outside world, may over time stagnate. If the NT isn’t being exposed to new views of their properties and activities, then they may wake up one morning to find that the rest of the world’s view of them is that once again, they are old-fashioned and pedestrian, and that they look after old piles of stones with no relevance to the outside world.

I have a proposal. I suggest that once every few years, the Trust runs a photographic competition for the best pictures taken by amateurs, professionals and semi-pros of Trust properties or taken on NT land. The prize would be, say, a photographic bursary, or admission to the Trust’s list of preferred freelancers, or some similar such arrangement. That way, the National Trust can refresh its view of itself and the picture it shows to the outside world; new photographers can get their work seen by a highly-influential potential client; and everyone would benefit.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures of Hardwick, just to give you an idea of what so impressed me…

 

Hardwick Hall

The Muniment Room, where estate records were kept

Frieze in the Great State Room

The Long Gallery

Tearoom reflections

Hardwick Old Hall

Evening sun (1)

Evening sun (2)

Surfacing

Another enforced silence on the blog front, due to finishing off a stage in my book. I had agreed with my editor to deliver Chapter One plus some sample scans by the end of the second week in September, and this I duly did. In the meantime, I had a few shows to go to, and I’m pleased to report that sales of prints have picked up from their previous low level – instead of selling nothing, I’ve managed to sell something at each show I’ve been to recently! But don’t get excited: this isn’t exactly coining it.

I’ve also been working on a voiceover script for a video production company – not originating it, but doing some background research and a bit of editing. Other irons are in the fire.

I gave myself a day off to go to the Severn Valley Railway’s Autumn Gala a couple of days ago. I thought I’d go on the Friday, as it looked as if the weather would be the best out of the days that were available to me; and I reasoned that it might be a bit quieter. Not a bit of it! When I got to Kidderminster, both the SVR and the main line car parks were full, and there were lots of people around. It quickly became clear that many of the retired or otherwise Day Job-free population with a penchant for such things had thought the same as me. No matter, I thought, I’ll head to Bewdley. But that did mean negotiating the awfulness that is the Kidderminster ring road; and to make matters worse, there was white-lining in progress on the hill out of town, resulting in a massive queue of traffic. I eventually got to Bewdley to find the car park full there, too. I was just about to give up and head for Bridgnorth when some kind soul in an Alfa left and made room for me, restoring my equilibrium and frazzled state somewhat.

And so to train.

I timed things a bit badly: it turned out that nearly every engine I was able to photograph was running tender-first. Nonetheless, I came back with plenty of pictures, not so many of them of engines! Star of the show was undoubtedly the Caledonian Railway 0-6-0 No.828, visiting from the Strathspey Railway in Scotland, though Tornado was doubtless a draw for many (even though I find its current Brunswick Green livery less exciting than the original apple green it was first turned out in), and GWR ‘King’ 6024 King Edward I was also worth seeing especially following the court battle over its ownership in 2010.

I travelled from Bewdley up to Highley, where I briefly visited the museum there, the Engine House. My reason for this was to see if I could have a word with my editor, and indeed Peter was on the Ian Allan stand, so we were able to have a short chat. I doubt that qualifies the trip as tax-deductible, though! I then travelled back to Kidderminster, but late running meant that I had no time for a look around, just a cross-platform change to a north-bound train behind Tornado – the first time I’d travelled behind this engine. A run up to Bridgnorth was followed by a quick look around the yard, and then a return to Bewdley. There, the Caledonian engine was marshalling trucks for the demonstration freight train that was going to run that evening back down to Kidderminster.

By this time, it was beginning to get dark, so I went back to the car and collected my tripod, which I’d made sure I had with me. I secured a few nice shots, and then was able to assist a fellow photographer who was bemoaning the failing light and the fact that he’d only been able to track down the Caledonian engine in a good spot for a nice shot as darkness was falling!

All in all, a good day’s photography, even though I’d been able to photograph very few engines! Because of anticipated traffic loadings, the SVR was running trains with as many coaches as the track layout permitted, and this meant that on many occasions, the locomotives came to a stand in positions where they couldn’t be photographed easily in the time I had available. Obviously, the trick with these galas is to make a number of visits; one day to ride the trains – after all, that’s where the money comes from – and at least one more to lineside and take photographs.  However, I was struck very much by the number of people linesideing; in some places, especially near Bridgnorth, there were lines of photographers stretching out to twenty people or more. I’m sure they all got nice photographs, but they all got the same photograph!

Exciting things, trains…

Bewdley

Conversation at Arley

Spit and polish

Guard

9F arrives at Highley

‘Tornado’ at Bridgnorth

What it says on the box…

GWR 28xx at Bewdley

Shunting in sepia

Bewdley sunset

Caledonian Railway 0-6-0 No.828

Bewdley evening departure

Caledonian Railway 0-6-0 No.828

This is ALSO Britain

I normally try to keep politics out of this blog – as much for the benefit of my blood pressure as anything else. I also recognise that last week’s riots were a manifestation of lawlessness. I find it ironic and sad that whilst people across the Middle East are taking to the streets to assert their democratic rights and seek to get rid of oppressive governments – and are paying for this right with their lives – the motivation in parts of Britain seems to be the desire for a new tv or a pair of trainers. As someone who is no stranger to street protest (as those who know the range of my work will know), I am irritated that all this energy and the right to protest is being squandered on robbing stuff and damaging communities.

At the same time, I do not ignore the political aspect to the riots. I am equally irritated that many people are leaping to the conclusion that this was only naked lawlessness. I am pleased that the Prime Minister has acknowledged that those at the top of society must take some personal and moral responsibility for the state of Britain today, and that he specifically named bankers, MPs and the popular media. At the same time, I am irritated that he ignored a whole herd of elephants in the room. He ignores the fact that many in the establishment don’t see themselves as implicated in this moral decline; so the Communities Secretary and Tory Party Chairman Eric Pickles is surprised when he is booed for suggesting that he needs a second home at taxpayers’ expense in Central London because otherwise he’d have to commute to work like ordinary mortals. Or a former Liberal Democrat councillor escapes jail for a £12,000 benefit fraud when two men who tried to incite a riot on Facebook and failed get four year custodial sentences. These people obviously do not feel that they should shoulder any blame for the nation’s moral decline.

And as an MP and a millionaire himself, the Prime Minister cannot exclude himself from this condemnation. I seethe when David Cameron tries to lay some of the blame for the riots on Tory betes-noir, such as health and safety legislation, in a month when the number of ordinary workers who die at work has shown no sign of decreasing, with three deaths at the Sonae woodchippings site in Kirkby, Merseyside this year, and three managers of a Manchester steel company finally being charged with manslaughter four years after one of their workers fell to his death from the factory roof – and these are just the stories that made the national press. And I also seethe when the Prime Minister talks about “broken Britain”, because he ignores the whole question of who it was who broke Britain in the first place. If the Thatcher government of 1979-91 had not connived and maneuvered to allow British manufacturing industry to go to the wall, then we might not have had two generations of joblessness in some parts of this country. The Britain of 2011 is the result of adopting a model where the economy has been based on nothing more than our buying stuff from and selling stuff to each other, instead of actually making things.

Having said all that, I spent the week of fire and riot touring Shropshire and attending Fairport Convention’s annual Cropredy Festival in rural Oxfordshire. And social media notwithstanding (just as in the riots of the 1980s, when CB radio was one culprit fingers were pointed at that supposedly made the unrest possible), I for one saw no evidence of civil unrest, or had any sense that there were agents provocateur trying to set the shires alight. I’m not trying to whitewash the state of British society, nor am I seeking to absolve anyone from responsibility. I don’t know how the riots played overseas, though I can guess. But I want to show you some scenes from the Britain I’ve moved around in the past week/ten days.

View from the Long Mynd Hotel, Church Stretton (1)

View from the Long Mynd Hotel, Church Stretton (2)

View from the Long Mynd Hotel, Church Stretton (3)

Sculpture in the woods, Long Mynd Hotel, Church Stretton

Directions

Picnic in Cardingmill Valley, Church Stretton

Stokesay Castle (1)

Stokesay Castle (2)

From Wenlock Edge, near Easthope (2)

From Wenlock Edge, near Easthope (1)

Croft Castle, near Leominster (1)

Croft Castle, near Leominster (2)

Croft Castle, near Leominster (3)

Croft Castle, near Leominster (4)

Broadway Tower (1)

Broadway Tower (2) – the view over the Vale of Evesham

Broadway Tower (3)

Cropredy Festival (1) – Sambassadors of Groove

Cropredy Festival (2) – Sambassadors of Groove

Cropredy Festival (3) – Sambassadors of Groove

Cropredy Festival (4) – Sambassadors of Groove

Cropredy Festival (5) – sky over the campsite

Cropredy Festival (6)

Cropredy Festival (7) – Campsite 7

Cropredy Festival (8) – catering