My Polaroid camera has this magical ability to lead me to the beautiful people and places. Right from our first encounter which was mixed in with the streets of San Francisco, a generous photographer and a bright sky bike ride across Golden Gate Park from Ocean Beach to deliver his films for developing to a […]
McCullin, the high quality documentary about the photo journalist Don McCullin known for his black and white images of war and human suffering, stays with you long after it ends. Born in to the poverty and street violence of Finsbury Park in the 1930′s, McCullin was friends with a gang accused of murdering a policeman. […]
‘We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.” Winston Churchill. Cedar House, affectionately known as The Offices, the headquarters for Shepherd Hill & Co that Grandpa restored with Peter Bond (architect) and worked in, and the venue for big family occasions and parties. Not since has there been such a prominent building in my life […]
It still and always will amaze me that when you ask a question the answer turns up, seemingly out of the blue. BBC TV’s Horizon contained the answer this time in a program called The Creative Brain: How insights come about. Written and directed by Kate Dart (thank you Kate). Just what is going on […]
Bloomin’ Heck! Hilary Mantel has my head spinning. Last night The Bath Literature Festival brought us JK Rowling and tonight’s feast is Hilary. James Runcie, artistic director, is back interviewing her. Hilary Mantel is one of England’s greatest writers. 13 novels, a couple of Booker Prize wins in the last five years, as well as […]
Last night my family and a few hundred other Bath folk enjoyed the inspiration that is JK Rowling for an hour or so. With big thanks to the Bath Literature Festival and its artistic director, James Runcie, the chap who made the documentary ‘JK Rowling, A Year in the Life.’ What I enjoy most about […]
I’ve been trying out hypnotherapy with a friend who is training to become a practitioner. No pocket watches back and forth in front of the eyes. Instead, deep relaxation and imagination to move from operating in the primitive brain to the intellectual brain. The primitive brain is located in the amygdala, the home of fight […]
Bill Cunningham New York, a film by Richard Press, is a very lovely portrait documentary of the photographer who shoots the fashion on the streets of New York for The Times. At 84 Bill still heads out on his bicycle with his Nikon camera, wearing his blue jacket uniform and ‘lets the streets speak to […]
Cascada, a short film by NRS and Forge, is nature, magic, adventure, artistry and film making all mixed up in a oner. Fabulous inspiration for cold, dark January winter nights. The irritating ‘Brad Pitt, I’m on a journey’ narrative, disrupts the mood a little, but can be forgiven for camera crews on high wires suspended […]
I am almost certain that Grandpa was born with a camera around his neck. And then enjoyed a lifetime pursuing photography, capturing what he loved – the natural world, his family, construction projects – always and only through a Leica lens. Beauty, elegance, class right there. He leaves an archive of tens of thousands of […]
