Author Archives: Jem
Waiting for Never
“Waiting for Never”
Olympus Trip / Profilm 100
“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire
Hold Tight
“Hold Tight”
Yashica 124G / Ilford film
My funny little boy is a real treasure, so full of love and yet so hard to reach. He teaches me to live one day at a time and to let go of the small stuff. And the medium sized stuff. And most of the big stuff too.
Synchronicity
This morning I was looking through a photobook of Victorian pictures when I saw this portrait of Julia Stephens & her daughter Virginia, who later in life wrote novels (Virginia Woolf). The picture was taken by Henry H. H. Cameron.
I was amazed by how much Virginia resembles my little Teddy – although her mouth shape is very different by comparison.
Just now I saw a beautiful photograph online, it’s called the Gardener’s Daughter:
This was taken by Julia Cameron, Henry’s mother, whose niece – Julia Jackson – was Virginia Woolf’s mother. Such a pleasing synchronicity. Julia Cameron discovered a love of photography at the rather late age of 48, and she gave up taking pictures just 11 years later after moving to Ceylon (she found chemicals impossible to source), but even so, she took many beautiful photographs during that short time. Here is a remarkable portrait she took of her niece in 1867, aged 21.
Late Afternoon
“Late Afternoon”
Lubitel 166 / Kodak
“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
― Dr. Seuss
Four in a Row
“Four in a Row”
Kodak Coloursnap 35 (1959) / TMAX 100 Profilm (5y expired)
“What strange creatures brothers are!”
― Jane Austen
The Fells
“The Fells”
Lubitel 166 / Kodak film
I forget which camera took this roll, my best guess is the Lomo. It’s medium format and 6×6, so it’s that or a Yashica. Just now I am using another Kodak, this time a Retinette 1B, made in 1959, the same year as the Coloursnap I used last week. The Retinette has a much higher quality feel, and a Rodenstock Reomar 45mm f/2.8 lens in a Prontor 500-LK shutter, with speeds from 1/15 to 1/500th, so already it is considerably more promising than the ‘snap. If it takes pictures half so well, I will be happy.
Everything about vintage cameras is an exercise in uncertainty and patience. That is good for the soul at least. Last year I read The Left Hand of Darkness for a second time (I first read it in my teens). This stayed with me:
“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Uphill
“Uphill”
Superheadz / Kodak film
“Nothin’ wounded goes uphill, he said. It just don’t happen.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
Deep Water
“Deep Water”
Superheadz / Kodak film
“I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
To where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer,
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings
I will arise and go now,
For always night and day
I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
― W.B. Yeats
A & H
“A & H”
Kodak Coloursnap 35 (1959) / TMAX 100 Profilm (5y expired)
Two (beautiful) pieces of the increasingly complex puzzle of family.
“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.”
― Barack Obama
