Notes on somewhere
How to take photos like Steve McCurry
= Buy a one-way ticket to India instead of a new camera!
I’m not a huge fan of Steve McCurry – a decent travel photographer who too often drifts into sentimentality – Max Pam is more my cup of tea. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny the fantastic colours in his photos. I once looked up what camera he used, but who cares, buying the same camera as him won’t turn you into Steve McCurry. Just go to India or Burma or similar such places, hang out, and take some pictures with whatever camera you happen to own.
From cave paintings to film in 40,000 years
This may be a bit rambling but it started with ages ago with my iPhone telling me about its amazing new Photos update – I was prepared for a big interface update; when I downloaded it I was underwhelmed when all it did was change the scrolling of the albums section from vertical to horizontal, or vice versa, I can’t remember. Likewise a recent so-called major upgrade to Whattapp – the only major thing I noticed was a new colour green added.
The earliest cave paintings date back at least 40,000 years, and the moving image – known as film – is only over a hundred years ago. I don’t know, we think we’re so amazing, us humans, yet it takes us over 40,000 years to essentially animate a cave painting. We – humankind – were doing other more important things all that time, of course, like murdering each other and destroying the planet, and despite so-called advances like religion and technology I still feel we’re back in those caves in the dark.
As I blogged some years ago, there is really no such thing as inventions, only small increments of advancement. We like the idea of the lightbulb, Eureka moment but it rarely happens like that.
Imagine a caveman holding a flame near the painting and telling the story of how he killed the gazelle or escaped the mammoth – theatre or cinema is not a huge leap even if electricity and things like that had to come along first. Because it’s essentially just storytelling and that certainly hasn’t changed much.
Top five Lindas in music
Linda Smith
The Linda Lindas
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Perhacs
Linda McCartney
Cars and cases
People’s suitcases are like modern cars – big, bulky, loud, on wheels and completely unnecessary. They are not designed for train corridors or airplanes, just as big, bulky cars are not really designed for roads, car parks or towns. Everything is getting bigger as the planet gets smaller. Obviously I have never owned a suitcase on wheels or a car.
Not is
Google is like that mind test when someone tells you not to think of – say – ice cream, obviously all you can think of is ice cream. I was trying to find an issue online about a stereo but NOT a car stereo. The only results when I searched for the issue with the word stereo came up with car stereos, so I typed in stereo but NOT CAR… and it still came up with car stereo results, probably even more results. Why can’t Google understand the word ‘not’?
Notes on coughing
In any confined space with other people, otherwise known as the general public, from public transport to cinema or theatre, there will always be at least one person coughing. In a room of five or more someone will cough at least every thirty seconds.
Music biography
I am obsessed with features on music sites like Bakers Dozen in The Quietus and The Music That Made Him / Her in Pitchfork (even if I’ve never heard of the musician being interviewed, which is mostly, but I usually prefer it that way anyway), where musicians pick their favourite albums, the ones that defined them.
Even if we’re not musicians, albums and songs still tend to have epoch-forming events for us all, and tunes that instantly take us back to a certain time, place and person.
This is less true of any other art – “That Monet painting really reminds me of Zoe in Madrid, 1999” is possible if unlikely – but film sometimes comes close.
The closest film gets to the likes of The Quietus’ Bakers Dozen is, perhaps, the Criterion Closet Picks videos (who knew me and Willem Dafoe share a love of Onibaba? Or me and Jude Law of Stalker?). But seriously, who can go through their life in film the same way we do with through music?
No one really dissects film directors or even actors the same way musicians are; their childhoods aren’t combed for formative influences and inspirations. No one really cares about Jude Law’s favourite films or childhood.
(Either way, I still always think why can’t they just ask normal people, i.e. music or film fans to do these lists, who cares about famous people already in the business? Oh yeah, because in the case of film it would be Batman and X-Men. The impact of the Marvel Universe on cinema is akin to the Conservative Government on Britain. Just a barren wasteland devoid of hope, depth and feeling.)
Hollywood’s history
A traditional biography of someone’s life, or retelling of a historical event, sticking to the truth, telling it like it is, has never been high on Hollywood’s agenda. Twisted versions of lives and events are the order of the day, mostly to accomodate a 90-minute narrative form based on action and drama. There are many famous examples, from Argo and Braveheart to JFK and Pocahontas, Hollywood always takes the easy and safe route, and usually lies through its teeth.
The 2022 film Blonde, about Marilyn Monroe, made up a manage a trois with Charles Chaplin Jr. and Eddie Robinson Jr. In the appalling film, Ammonite, Mary Anning has a complely made up lesbian relationship.
The worst thing about it is it becomes a kind of fact, especially with viewers who don’t know any different. People see a film about a person or event, it becomes real, they suddenly think that’s how it happened. It’s on the big screen, it must be true. Rewriting history is a dangerous thing to do in films, as people are pretty lazy and probably assume what they see on screen is the truth. Just look at the proliferation of fake news online, and how easy it is to believe what is in front of you.
Quentin Tarentino is a director who doesn’t lie but, erm, rewrites history. Inglorious Bastards has Brad Pitt kill Hitler; most people would know this is false. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is more problematic as it combines fact and fiction, and uses real people, locations and events to create a realistic story but then mixes them up a bit. It seems utterly pointless. In Tarentino’s history, Brad Pitt kills Charles Manson and Sharon Tate lives.
(I must have mentioned before that I don’t have the kind of blind devotion to film director’s that, say, fans have to football clubs. I used to love Scorsese but he hasn’t made a decent film since Goodfellas. I never loved Tarentino but he hasn’t made a decent film since Pulp Fiction).
Bike mine ride #3 (March 2020)
I left Heartlands in Pool early, cycling through the college opposite into the road that goes to Tedhidy Woods. No time to say hi to the squirrels or swans, I cycled upwards towards the golf course, which I cycled round, ending up leaving the woods and cycling along another golf course and past ostriches being fed in Feadon Farm. Downhill I went through the woodland into Portreath. Tempting though it was, I didn’t go anywhere near the beach or a cafe but left the town almost immediately along the B3300, turning off for Porthtowen – only 1 1/2 miles according to the sign, until I came across another sign in another mile, also saying 1 1/2 miles. Anyway, I got there. The plan had been to park the bike at Porthtowen and walk the coastal path to Chapel Path and St Agnes but that was miles away, and I’d have to walk back to pick up my bike. So I cycled – or rather, partially walked – the very steep coastal road to Wheal Coates, one of Cornwall’s most beautifully-situated mine engine houses. I took lots of photos from lots of angles. An annoying drone buzzed above the engine house, a family nearby operating it, with the son taking advice from the father.
A couple helped me find a place to lock up my bike – no bike racks at the National Trust car park. Ate lunch. Cycled into St Agnes, stopping at a cafe for coffee and cake.
I then attempted to find Wheal Rose via Google Maps, which involved cycling round the entire village – twice. What was a 23 minute journey, according to Google, took me over an hour. Whilst I would be the last person to blame any map app for any errors – being such a terrible map reader, I always blame myself first – the destination was forever 2-3 minutes away, and I turned left so many times I ended up back in St Agnes after an hour.
Enough was enough. I boldly turned the app off and went solo. I knew it was the opposite way to St Agnes, so off I went, and got there eventually, past the Rodda cream factory in Scorrier, which I recognised, past a mine engine house converted into a holiday let – yours for £2000 a weekend.
The day was boiling. I was sweltering, I’d wasted at least hour in wrong turns. I seemed to miss Wheal Rose altogether, and after cycling along a midge-infested path running parallel to a dual carriageway, then up a deserted road (pausing to look at a random engine house chimney in a field), I found Wheal Peevor, a magnificent complex of three engine houses – and a fine chimney. Further on, there were a couple more engine houses, including one tantalisingly out of reach – a proper ruin, inaccessible and crumbling down (where most others have been made safe, cleaned up, with paths and information boards about them).
Determined to get to the genuine abandoned mine, I went up and down several paths before finding a narrow one two men were spraying god-knows what. I asked them if it was toxic – yes it was. Then I asked if this was the route to the abandoned mine – we’re not from round these parts was their replay. Nevertheless, I abandoned my bike against a tree on the path and set off. I got to the top and found a large, breeze block wall, then a house – with guard dog signs – then an overgrown field. This is what half of Britain should look like – tall grasses, left to run riot, butterflies and creatures everywhere – talking of which, I glimpsed a somewhat larger creature out of the corner of my eye a few feet away from me, partially hidden in the long grass – and immediately thought “dog”. What was I to do? Nothing. I turned fully towards it, saw it was a deer, and off it ran. I eventually got to the engine house, legs cut and bleeding, but it was worth it. And whilst it probably didn’t feel like the equivalent of discovering Anker What, it felt like a personal find, a small triumph. I had the blood and sweat to show for it. White doves flew around the broken chimney.
I scrambled back to my bike, still there, and cycled randomly around, mostly paths on scrubland, not going back the same way and not consulting Google Maps. I cycled like this for some time, where a path or road looked nice, and not too steep. So I was gobsmacked when I saw the familiar shape of Carn Brae and the celtic cross in the distance like a beacon. I followed it into Redruth and arrived home shattered. I started having some kind of coughing and sneezing fit, my legs were red with bites and sunburn. I had a shower, dinner and was in bed by 8pm.
Bloody hell. I looked up my route on Google Maps. Wheal Peevor was one mile from Redruth, it seemed. I couldn’t believe it, that couldn’t be right – I was thinking maybe 10, maybe 20 miles. But one mile! Jesus.
Cornwall after dark
As soon as the cafes and shops close and it gets dark (4-5pm depending where you are in the county), the kids start to come out. No one over the age of 15 can be seen. Adults seem to mysteriously disappear as soon as the shops and cafes shut.
Girls and boys are dressed up, ready for a night out. Except there’s nowhere to go. The bus station, car park and chip shop are popular destinations.
The adults either go home to watch TV or maybe go to the pub, though these mostly seem empty nowadays and it’s easier and cheaper just to drink at home.
Previously on Barnflakes
Notes on nowhere
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