F16

 

 

 

 

 

The world is going down the toilet. As Israel bombs whichever the fuck country it wants to, Russia continues its brutal destruction of Ukraine and Poland's had to launch F16s to shoot down Putin's drones. On top of that, and literally as we speak, France is going nuts at tyre-burning blockades around the country because a Prime Minister had the temerity to tell them they're up shit creek without a paddle ..

What's wrong with this picture? Yes, exactly .. this is two people TALKING to each other, back in the days before tweeting and texting and thinking the worst of your fellow man (woman!) because they didn't agree with your social media stance. I wish our leaders were like this, meeting over the divide to communicate and hammer things out. Maybe even reaching out a considerate arm to better facilitate their dialogue ..

I pine for simpler days, when F16 was a camera aperture and tweeting was left to the sparrows and the blue tits. I realise they were only simpler because I was young and gormless and ignorant of the world about me, but it would be nice to go back there for a while, wouldn't it!

Balls ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today's blog isn't a blog, because I was going to blog about all the pretensions that surround a lot of photography but, having just watched the 'I am Martin Parr' documentary, I can leave it to Grayson Perry, who sums it all up nicely, thank you very much. In the film he talks about the 'wafts of philosophical waffle' that often pervade the art of photography. It's a load of balls, in other words! Ooh look, a picture with a ball in it .. deep! (I can't explain why I like this photo so much. As a kid, 'training' myself to be a press photographer in the 1970s, I used to photograph the Sunday League footballers who played on the field behind our house. It used to amuse me that, just like us, these 'grown-ups' would often lose their ball too, and have to send someone off into the undergrowth to retrieve it!)
 

End of non-blog!

    

Backs against the wall ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hearing a lot about the British flag appearing all over the UK, and how that's not going down so well in some quarters. Here in France the tricolour flies everywhere, a welcome sign of civic and national pride. If only that was the reason a lot of the Union Jacks are being displayed in the UK. Anyway, I'm not getting into politics, I just wanted an excuse to show you one of my old photographs, a picture taken on Jane Street in Salford during the celebrations for the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee. Jane Street has long gone, a chap takes his life in his hands when he attempts street photography of kids these days, and the simple meaning behind the good ol' red, white and blue has gone out of the window .. Sigh!