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Mopping the floor
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View over Portsmouth from Portsdown hill
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Mirror, Mirror (365: 141)
Mirror, Mirror (365: 141) – I almost didn’t spot this picture. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved I almost didn’t spot this picture. I was taking a picture of a ‘Flip-Flop shop’ across the arcade and backed into an alcove for a better angle and something to lean against. I was just about to leave when I realised I was sandwiched between two mirrors.
I had terrible problems with the exposure on this -I couldn’t work out what was wrong. I realised much later that I still had spot metering selected from an earlier shot I did against the sky. D’oh!
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Waiting
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It was nice to get a mention …
I don’t remember how I found this, but ten years after I left Futuremedia it was good of Andy to mention me in his comment on this blog post.
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Drive-by Shot
I drive past this building most days, and I love the way the afternoon light catches it, but I have never had a reason to stop and try and photograph it. Today I wasn’t driving, and I had the camera out for some snaps out of the window. When I saw this, I took it at arm’s length, looking up through the windscreen, and I just turned the camera to make an angled shot. I could almost see the picture in my mind’s eye. I love it when something like this works. I couldn’t have set it up better in an hour.
There is just one tiny bit of windscreen I ought to PS out, but the purist in me says no.
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Calm Centre (365: 135)
Calm Center. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Many years ago I had an important decision to make, and I visited Milton Locks and sat and absorbed the view of Langstone Harbour and the South Downs. At that time I also needed a location, something, I could carry in my memory to provide a calming reference point to help me through tough times in the years to come.
Today, nearly twenty-four years later, even with the distraction of setting up the camera, this place still has a calming effect, it is a memory I can carry away again.
This time I didn’t expect it to help provide inspiration to make a decision. All I wanted was to take away some of its calming energy.
Alternate shot for the day. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Postscript
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve used the memory of this place as a mental refuge when things got desperate.
What I didn’t mention, or more precisely wasn’t prepared to mention when I originally made this post on May 21, 2007, was when or why I had originally sat here.
It was the morning of my wedding on Saturday, September 10, 1983 — nearly 24 years earlier. It was then that I came here to escape and make my mind up as to what to do. The hard truth is that I didn’t want to get married, but I couldn’t see a way out of it. I ended up taking the easy and cowardly path of absorbing the calm and serenity of this spot and going on with the day. Who knows what might have happened, who I would be now if I’d done the courageous thing and called it all off. Instead, I let my fear of a lonely future overrule my desire not to go through with the wedding.
Fast forward to 2007, when I took this picture, by then I had already made my life-changing decision to get divorced. It was just a matter of getting up the courage to follow through. That and I was concerned about being ‘organized’. I wanted to arrange time off from work so I could sort all the details out with a minimum of fuss. Ha! I’m not sure how I’d convinced myself that that would be possible. However, four weeks later on June 16, I took the next step.
Looking back on this day in 2007 with the benefit of many years of hindsight, I am still absolutely sure that I made the right decision to get divorced. I’m not proud of being weak and giving in to pressure and getting married in the first place. But, that brought me my two sons and made me who I am. I’m certainly not proud of all the angst and trouble my decision at this time to get divorced caused, nor for the very naive assumptions I made.
What is, is.
Updated: July 2015, May 2017.
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A quick break (365: 118)
Chasing out for the electrics, I took a quick break for today’s picture.
Not quite as good as the similar shot on Day 90, but what a difference a month makes, two pics in a row and I’m smiling! Just don’t expect it every damn day 😉
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Polling Day (365: 117)
Polling Day (365: 117) – Local council elections, and Gary does his civic duty. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved Local council elections and Gary does his civic duty. After a fraught night, a quick sleep in the garden this afternoon has re-introduced me to the human race. A quick scrub-up didn’t do any harm either. For some reason, this guy looks in good humour too 🙂
Having had all day to get out and vote, I managed to leave it late and had to push up the ISO setting on the camera because it was getting dark, so the picture’s a bit noisy. It was also taken upside down – much easier when using my right hand.
Future Gary: This is not my original shot. But I prefer this one.
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South Parade Pier – Variations on a theme
Two pictures, and one variation of each picture.
South Parade Pier – Aged and Duotone. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. South Parade Pier – Silhouette. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. South Parade Pier – Black and White. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. South Parade Pier – Desaturated. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Support
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Moved in
With all the remaining undecorated rooms in the house being decorated, I was not going to be able to keep an inside workshop. That means I’ve moved my workbench and tools out into my first ever shed. It’s going to take a while for me to remember where everything is. The kids may tease me, but I did know where everything is. When I say it’s in the general toolbox, that’s where they’ll find what they’re looking for (and all the toolboxes are labeled).
Not only am I having to move my workbench, but also my store of DIY and hobby goodies: timber, cable, old electronics, etc. To store all that stuff I have a second shed for stores.
Packing everything away I discovered what I fondly call ‘my favourite rope’. It’s the mainsheet of my last yacht — which was wrecked in the storm of ’97. I’d started growing my beard that year to save me having to shave while sailing and I vowed to keep my beard until I bought another yacht. ten years on, almost, and I still have my beard…
Shed #2. My Favourite Rope… – It’s all I have left of my last yacht – which was wrecked in the storm of ’97. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
An Englishman’s shed is his Castle (365: 113)
365: 113 An Englishman’s shed is his Castle. I’ve never had a shed before, but now I’ve got two. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I’ve never had a shed before, but now I’ve got two. This one for a workshop and another for my spare timber, paint, empty boxes, and disused electronics that one day might come in useful, etc.
American men (I believe) have Dens. Us English chaps have sheds. that’s because it gets us out of earshot of the woman folk. Sheds are outside the house, where we can imagine for a few brief moments we are in control of our futures, rather than having our futures dictated to us by our spouses 🙂
Today’s Outtake
365: 113 Reject: An Englishman’s shed is his Castle. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Disappointing (365: 109)
But only because I had to straighten the image, and I was trying to avoid post processing. I deleted all my other shots for today as they all had a slant to them – I’ll try again tomorrow.
Re-edited August 4, 2015, so this is no longer straight out of camera. However, I think this is a much better picture now.
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Modesty (365:108)
When I took this picture my ‘artistic’ notion was to challenge the idea of modesty. Can a naked person be modest? It’s all in the mind. There’s also something about omitting the head to make the image impersonal and also preserve the anonymity of the model. It’s a great juxtaposition of ideas and imagery. I also had a technical objective to get a picture straight out of camera with no post-processing. Which, looking back, I think resulted in a softer less striking image.
The above picture is a reworking of the original black and white picture I took in 2007. I much prefer this duotone treatment.
Below is the original, plus another shot trying out a different pose.
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Saturday in the sun (365: 105)
Just for a change I thought I’d take a picture straight after coming home from the traditional Saturday morning shopping (more nice ties bought), and before enjoying an afternoon basking in the sun.
We’ve been having a (very) early summer, though today the wind coming from the east was very chilling. Fortunately, the garden is sheltered so I spent most of the afternoon multitasking – sunbathing and catching up on sleep!
My brother and his family came round (I suspect only to watch the soccer on TV) We had a few beers and a meal, and it was nice to see the kids – given my parents’ demise, we seem to be surrogate grandparents as well as uncle and auntie.
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Looking for… (365: 103)
Looking for… (365: 103) – heaven knows, but I’ve not found it. I’d settle for a couple of photo ideas. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 365: 103 Reject. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
DERA Eastney, Portsmouth
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On the beach (365: 99)
I had to wade into the sea, to get one shot, so I thought I might as well take my 365 days self-portrait at the same time, I think the people on the beach thought me a little odd, especially as I was using the flash for a couple of trial shots.
Funny how I ended up sunbathing on the nudist beach; maybe I should have taken these shots there – though I don’t think standing in the sea pointing a camera in the general direction of one’s genitals would be considered gentlemanly behaviour.
And before anyone asks the sea was Bloody cold!
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Langstone Harbour Entrance
This channel marker is looking pretty beat up. That’s probably because it’s close to the beach, and so a good target for stones, and quite likely either someone has run into it, or tried to tie up to it.
In the distance you can see people on the beach on Hayling Island, and the sea breaking on the East Winner sandbank. While checking that I’d correctly remembered the name of the sandbank I uncovered news from 2014 of a newly discovered wreck on the East Winner, revealed — or should that be uncovered? 🙂 — after unusually violent storms.