Sometimes I cycle into Huddersfield for a coffee, and this time I had a camera with bit of film left. Seeing the opportunity, I captured some random images…
I gave away all my vinyl records several years ago, it was part of a process of simplifying my life. As I’ve embraced analogue photography, I’ve travelled in the opposite direction with music: to streamed services. I think this is because photography is a creative process. This is my art. Music is someone else’s art that I like to listen to, but it would be a mistake to think I owned it. Music has the capability to speak into my heart and soul, and leads me to the false impression that my emotional response makes the music mine. I wonder if this emotional response is why fanatics pester musicians, is there some assumption of connection? I don’t own their music. I do enjoy it. Vinyl records gave me a sense of ownership, and simultaneously became physical objects that defined me. My record collection said; “this is my taste” / “this is who I am”. Letting go gave me the freedom to discover a wider range of music without ever being defined by what I’m listening to.
That was a lot to type out of the blue. Prompted by a photograph. Perhaps a less interesting photograph, something to which I have no connection will serve to calm my mind:
While I was cycling around, looking for things to photograph, I came across a few car related scenes, all of which have an irony to them… they tell a story. Wheel clamping being the least of this person’s problems.
Pavement parking in Huddersfield is ‘normal’, or perhaps Prof. Ian Walker’s term: Motor-normativity. There is a car showroom on the Manchester road that regularly puts cars half-on-half-off the pavement and cycle lane. It is like a metaphorical ‘screw-you’, to cyclists and pedestrians:
“Hey, cyclists, why not buy a used car.”
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal towpath has an all weather surface, and I much prefer slowing to a dawdle pace and mooching along the side of the water to get from Huddersfield to Slaithwaite. There’s a huge selection of urban-industrial decay beside the canal that I like to take photographs of, but there’s also this wonderful aqueduct where the Narrow Canal goes over the River Colne. The river also passes over a semi-circular weir, which creates a fascinating engineered scene. I took a photograph of this with a Kodak Ektar H35N and Portra 160 film once, which gave a sort of Pre-Raphaelite feel.
Stopping again on this outing, I was losing the sunlight and I had to balance the Pentax on a wall, and use the self-timer to avoid too much camera shake. I am absolutely delighted with how it came out.
Pentax MX with SMC 50mm/f1.4 lens and Ilford XP2 Super film. Except the colour image, Ektar H35N with Portra 160.