Pete Ashton’s Blog

Home, September 30th

I can always tell when I’m getting over some kind of illness or funk. I start changing my environment. It’s not so much tidying as radically moving everything around. In the last 36 hours or so I’ve piled all the small press comics and graphic novels in the alcove of my attic garrett with the intention of eventually thinning them right down. Meanwhile the space that used to have shelves now has a new desk. Currently it’s piled up with non comics stuff that used to be on shelves and now has no home but we’ll deal with that later. This new desk is for photography - building new contraptions, sorting out (and eventually selling) prints, that kind of thing. You’ll have picked up a subtext here.

I never did write my Farewell to Comics essay. It would probably have been very long, somewhat tortured and rather dull to most people so it’s probably for the best. Farewell comics. You did good by me and I hope in my small way I did good by you.

That’s not to say I’ve quit reading comics. If anything I’m reading and enjoying them more. Brendan McCarthy’s Solo was terrific and Scott McCloud’s Making Comics came through from Amazon this week. On first read it’s very good and rather dense with a lot of interesting ideas which can be applied to artforms outside of comics, not so much pushing you to new adventures but codifying and crystallizing things you already knew but were having trouble putting into words. Naturally I apply to them photography since that’s my big thing right now.

The big one for me was his notion of four tribes of comics culture. Briefly these are:

Classicists: “Excellence, hard word, mastery of craft, the quest for enduring beauty.”
Animists: “Putting content first, creating life through art, trusting one’s intuition.”
Formalists: “Understanding of, experimentation with and loyalty to the comics form.”
Iconoclasts: “Honesty, vitality, authenticity and unpretentiousness. Putting life first.”

where the most common combinations are Classicist/Animist and Formalist/Iconoclast.

What this told me was I don’t need to worry about my recent move away from “perfect” photography (classicist) towards more fucked up experiments like Through The Viewfinder (iconoclast), partly because they’re both equally valid forms of expression but also because, goddammit, the comics I was into were rarely if ever in the classicist camp. Give me Tom Hart over Hal Foster any day. So it makes sense that as I get more comfortable with that art of taking photos and start pushing my own envelopes I’m going to be drawn to the stylistic equivalent of the scratchy free-form cartoonists I love.

One possible reason for my confusion is that I don’t really know much about photography. Everything I know now has only been learned in the last year or so and my awareness of the masters of the artform is negligible at best. Until recently photography was about recording and replicating reality. There’s an interesting thing - I shall make a record of that thing as accurately as possible. Now it’s something else and I don’t really have the vocabulary yet to express what it is without sounding like a tosser. I suspect it’s Art and I’ve never really considered myself to be an Artist. Maybe it’s time I did.

– — –

Illness update: Really bad fever on Tuesday, kinda weak on Wednesday for the blood test but didn’t go green which was odd, much better Thursday (hence the room rearrangement) and a clear head for the first time in ages on Friday but still planning to take it easy over the weekend. Will get results from doctor middle of next week. Could be, after all this, that all I needed was a bit of down time physically and mentally. Or not.

Movie update: A History Of Violence, watched this evening, is a terrific film. No big surprise given it’s Cronenberg at the helm but worth saying all the same. I think I need to go on a Cronenberg binge again. I taped most of his back catalogue from the Alex Cox Moviedrome days but they’re lost now and it’s been a long time since I saw Shivers, Rabid, Scanners, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, et al.

Weather update: First couple of rather chilly evenings have injected themselves into our balmy September. Here it comes…

Home, September 23rd

Home, August 2006

As this was recently picked up by Lake Oz Fic Chick to illustrate a blog post I figured I’d drag it out of the archives since it’s kinda nice.

He lives on a bookshelf in our living room. He is our god. Well, one of them anyway.

Centenary Square, Birmingham, September 10th

Wolverhampton, September 24th

Sunday morning at eight am we all trundled off to the Wolverhampton Camera Fair for a Flickrmeet Fieldtrip. It’s held in the entrance lobby / bar of a racetrack near Wolverhampton. It’s full of dealers selling a mind boggling array of vintage and second hand cameras. If you’re a camera nerd then this is your temporary church with services held every other month.

I’m not a full-on camera nerd, at least not yet, but the environment was very familiar bringing back memories of the marts and dealers halls I used to rummage around in my comics collecting days. Not so much the small press era but before that when I used to collect the things and store them in plastic bags. When you go to these events, and they exist for every niche hobby if you look hard enough, you travel to another place outside of normal time and space. The sheer depth and saturation of stuff overwhelms all other concerns. Things you never really conceived of are available, tempting you into new avenues of obsession, and when you snap out of the absurdity of paying silly money for a thing you’ll never really use there are the bargain bins full of nonsense without the investment risk. Naturally I found myself digging through them and came out with this bounty for £13.50…

It’s like eBay without the postage charges!

Naturally I had TTV in mind, although only one of them is any use for that pursuit. The rest, needless to say, can be used for other things. Maybe. I’ve already adapted one to take 35mm film (similar to what Gareth did here) and am quite tempted to actually get some 120 film and use it properly. Next time I’m hoping to get the guts up to buy something useful.

The Fair was something of a rite of passage. While kit nerditude is only one facet of photography, and in many ways an unfortunate one, it’s probably something you have to go through if only to cherry pick the important lessons. And needless to say it was nice going as a group, especially as many of us are novices. Or at least are suddenly aware of what novices we are.

In other news, feeling much better today (handy because I wasn’t sure I could deal with the Fair all morning) and, after a bit of an Abba fest during the above mentioned camera conversion, watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert for the first time in over a decade. With some minor qualms over the dialogue put to one side it stands up well. I’d forgotten Hugo Weaving was in it. LotR and The Matrix will never be the same again.

Birmingham Artsfest, September 10th

All my Artsfest photos are, finally, online. 156 of the buggers in this set. In the actual Artsfest group pool we’ve got 780. Which is quite a lot. And I know there’s still some more to come from the film shooters.

Okay, in short I’m still really tired all the time and something really needs to be done about it. I went to the doctor today (which, being Bournville, was a slightly odd experience in some very non-specific ways) and will be having a blood test on Wednesday. While I’m not worried about having a needle stuck into me and a small but significant amount of blood being removed I know that I will turn a shade of pale green, feel faint and have to lie down for a few minutes because that’s what always happens to me in these situations, which, in the context of having a blood test to see if it might explain why I’m feeling so weak and tired and dizzy and stuff sounds like it might be a huge clanging clue. But then everything seems like a huge clanging clue at the moment.

It’d be so much easier if my arm had fallen off. Then I could say to the doctor “my arm has fallen off - please sort that out” and he’d go “hmm, I know how to deal with fallen off arms” and would deal with it.

I have a suspicion there’s nothing wrong with my blood. I have a suspicion it’s something psychological. Because I’m overdue for some more of that shit.

In the meantime I’ve been off work and watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica. Actually all of Battlestar Galactica, something I was intending on spreading out over the next couple of weeks before the next season starts (Oct 6th - warm up your bittorrent machines!) but when you’re not only physically but mentally tired there’s little more you can do. Or at least that’s my excuse. The fact the BSG stands up as very good sci-fi doesn’t help matters.

But I’m going a little stir crazy with all this inaction, so I’m back to work on Monday. We’ll see how that goes.

Ostensibly there’s nothing really wrong with me. I don’t think I’m dying or anything so if you’re susceptible to worrying about me please don’t. I’m just annoyingly tired.

It occurs to me this is the first time I’ve used this blog to write something like this for an age. It feels weird.

Nothing serious. Just be aware you may not get much out of me for the next few days.

Kitchen, September 19th

Kitchen, September 16th

So I’m dragging my heels processing the Sunday photos from Artsfest. While Saturday was mostly TTV with a bit of “normal” DSLR, Sunday was all DSLR and while there are a few gems in there it’s all a bit yawn. To me anyway. Nice enough images, a smattering of decent composition but, at the end of the day, nothing special. Too perfect, perhaps. Which opens that whole “perfect digital” conflab in my brain and it starts hurting. And it was notable, to me, how little feedback I was getting on them. The occasional comment, usually about the subject matter rather than the photos, but not much really.

So to clear the cobwebs I went through the TTV folder, worked through the bits and bobs I’ve been taking over the last fortnight that weren’t Artsfest specific and threw a bunch up on Flickr. All in all about an hour’s work for 11 photos. A little later and there’s a whole slew of comments and faves, all for the TTV.

This pleases me because I like the Through the Viewfinder technique. I think it has enormous potential and produces beautiful images. But, and this is the big thing, it’s actually really easy. You just point your contraption at something and click. Even if it’s not framed properly it still looks cool. The imperfections of the glass and the warped colours mean you can take good TTV shots pretty much with your eyes closed. (In fact, those long exposure shots taken at Artsfest, like one of my most popular photos ever, pretty much were taken with my eyes shut it was so dark.)

Of course that’s not to say it’s easy to take amazing TTV shots. Pushing the contraption to that next level is actually quite difficult, not to mention the challenge of building and modifying your kit (see various threads in the TTV group like this one). It’s just…

Look at it this way. If I point my expensive Nikon D70 at a tree a snap a photo then I’ve got a photo of a tree like any other photo of a tree. If I point my TTV contraption at the same tree from the same angle I’ve got a mini masterpiece.

This doesn’t worry me. I just find it interesting. If anything I’m coming full circle having started my photography with the shittiest of shitty digital cameras back in 2002. And like I said, basic TTV is easy but advanced TTV is another matter altogether. This also doesn’t mean I’m giving up on the D70. I just need to develop some way of fucking up the images it produces, either in Photoshop or when taking the photos themselves. Hmm. Filters…

I’d be interested in what you lot, particularly those who aren’t on Flickr, think of the TTV stuff. Do you think it’s a one-trick novelty that I’ll soon move on from? Or do you think it’s something more than that?

Birmingham Artsfest, September 10th

Birmingham Artsfest, September 10th

Birmingham Artsfest, September 10th

I’m pretty pleased with my eBay feedback While it may be a modest 116 it’s the quality of that counts. Like most good eBayers I take it very seriously and do all I can to avoid anything other than a positive rating. It’s all part of the game - I must maintain 100% at all costs.

And so, thanks to my going the extra mile or two, my feedback has a tendency to glow.

“fan bloody tastic,top seller,well pleased,quick delivery,superb.10/10″

“amazing seller! Honestly, he was quick to respond and very patient. Kudos”

And then, sitting there after the sale of an Iain Sinclair hardback, is this gem:

“fine”

It’s weird how something so minimal, so non-commital, can get under your skin. Every time I see it there it burns into my eyes. What does “fine” mean?

So I figured I’d check his feedback left for others and see what he usually said. As you’ll see (unless you’re reading this in the future and he’s suddenly gone all verbose) most of them are “fine”, which made me feel better, but scroll down and some variations in feedback occur. “Good” makes a few appearances, along with “OK”. Go back a year and “very good” pops up a couple of times along with a rather startling “FINE” in caps.

I accept I’m reading far too much into this but when you’re given bugger all you tend to do that, so I have to ponder, what is the difference between “fine” and “good”, not to mention “ok”? They’re all positive, apparently, but do they sit on a scale of positivity? You might think “good” is better than “fine”, but in the world of collectable stuff “fine” is actually a higher grade than “good” (or even “very good”) which actually means kinda shabby. Is he using this nerd scale of judgement? Should I be very happy with my “fine”?

I could, of course, message the chap and ask him. But that would be taking things a little too far. I mean, I don’t want to get obsessive about this or anything.

Birmingham Artsfest, September 9th

I’ve been tired now for over a month. I’ve cut my work down to four hours a day (and took Monday off after Artsfest), I’m taking vitamin supplements, I’m eating properly (fruit, fresh veg including broccoli, less bread / pasta) and I’m getting a reasonable amount of sleep.

But I’m still tired, and that makes me irritable which, worst of all, makes me tedious. I don’t like being tedious. I want to stop being tired.

Any tips?

Birmingham, September 9th

Insect report: Thankfully no repeat of the wasp nightmare of last year but tonight we’ve been invaded by hoards of Daddy Long Legs, which is a name I always feel slightly embarrassed to say, like announcing you need to go poo poo or something, but seemingly everyone else uses it so it’s not that bad. They’re actually called Crane Flies which makes sense and they are the most fucking stupid of all insects, even moreso than the moth. Like the moth they come for the light but proceed to bounce around the room in a most annoyingly random fashion until I’m forced, forced I tell you, to get up and squish them. Andy came out with a fact which I have my doubts about but will pollute the internet with anyway. Apparently they have the most potent poison load of any and all insects but have no way to deliver it. Which is just typical of the dumb fuckers. I’m so buying a handheld mini-vac.

Coming soon - my war with snails.

Family report: My mother passed the age of sixty yesterday. Last November my father also passed the age of sixty. Both my parents are now over sixty. My sister has two children. I have white patches on my (occasional) beard. This is all cool.

Movie report: Election, starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon, is a very good movie indeed.

Mac user report: Forgot to mention that I upgraded to Tiger the other week. Since Leopard has been announced I figured it best to try and keep up. It runs fine on my old G4 tower. Andy installed it on his G3 iMac and it also runs fine. Which, when you think about it, is rather impressive.

Other reports are pending.