The Arts – Suicide Sculptures, National Theatre Greed, Pop Pretensions
Mark Jenkins & Sandra Fernandez, Male Suicide
I saw these poignant sculptures the other day walking along London’s South Bank on the LWT/ITV Tower, a powerful and compelling statement about the fact that every week, 84 men die from suicide in the UK. There are 84 life-size statues, based on real people, created by artist Mark Jenkins and collaborator Sandra Fernandez.
Sad as this is, it made me think about the irony that they should be placed on this iconic building which will soon be demolished so the money vultures can make even more from a new building with smaller studios.
Many people were stopping to look, most taking phone pictures and probably some with no understanding about what it was they were seeing; I hoped they would find out as this is terrible blight on our supposed civilised society.
‘The Great Wave’, Dorfman Theatre at the National
The Great Wave production publicity photo by Mark Douet
My visit to the South Bank was because I was on my way to the National Theatre to see a matinee performance of ‘The Great Wave’, not about the well-known woodblock print by Hokusai, but a new play by Francis Turnly about the abduction of a Japanese teenager by North Koreans in 1979. Her mother feels her missing daughter is still alive and tackles the reluctant to get involved Japanese government which eventually takes on a global political dimension. The well written play was moving and well acted, the set and video projection design and lighting were beautiful and should win awards.
But the Dorfman Theatre is such a dreadful design, a studio theatre gone wrong, one that means so many people have Restricted View seats, as I did, which rendered it nothing like the experience theatre should be.
The director used most of the thrust stage which meant that I could not see the action on the right side of it; those parts could have been a radio play. This I can only view as greed with the object of getting as many people in as possible whether they could see or not. A friend who went to an evening performance had the same problem with not seeing what was going on one side of the stage.
None of this will persuade newcomers who venture into a theatre to return, so sad that our National Theatre should have set such low standards for its audience in the Dorfman.
The Secret Science of Pop – Hit Song by Computer?
A rather self-opinionated academic, Professor Armand Leroi, tried hard (and failed) to get computer algorithms to make a hit record, utterly pretentious drivel that was never going to succeed.
With a lot of whizzy computer graphics he managed to get other people involved in it. Nike Jemiyo, a bright young talented singer, Trevor Horn, a celebrated music producer, songwriter, musician and singer, and Rhys Hughes, the head of BBC Radio 1 Programming. All of them seemed slightly embarrassed to be in it but humoured the hapless academic along, which the camera picked up but he didn’t.
He even had the gall to relegate The Beatles to ‘below average’, with average being his benchmark that he wanted to achieve. The words ‘passion’ ‘heart’ and ‘creativity’ were remarkably absent of course; no algorithms would ever have a spark of inspiration. For example, in the 1960s, Eric Burdon and the Animals, recorded a pop song that is still played today, ‘The House of The Rising Sun’, in one take. The Beatles, who he rubbished, recorded their best work on a four-track tape recorder, yes four-track! But they had the true genius of George Martin producing them, not a computer.
So it would not surprise me if the BBC doesn’t ask him back to make another waste-of-time programme about getting a computer to make a new and obviously much better version of Michelangelo’s masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel. For once, I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
All that I could like about this programme was the sheer front the guy had in persuading BBC Four to fill up an hour of primetime TV with this fatuous pap which was a wasted hour of my life.
Travel Photo Tips
Mount Fuji from a JAL 737 in Japan
There are very few rules but shooting when the sun is at its highest is usually a bad idea. Around the middle of the day it can be directly overhead which results in unpleasant shadows, especially with people. Up to three hours after sunrise and three hours before sunset will yield better pictures. The light then is coming from a lower angle so planning is necessary to make sure you are in the right spot to take what you have in mind.
In the past the best and first thing to do was to head for a souvenir shop and look at the postcards on sale there for ideas. That can still work but today you can use Google which can do pretty much the same thing.
Abdullah Mosque, Amman, Jordan
Try and work out the time of day when the ones you like were taken; a church might look at its best in the morning with a lot of architectural detail visible but in late afternoon it could be just an outline silhouette.
War Veterans Parade in London
Planning is essential at a large parade and knowing where to stand can make a huge difference between good and not-so-good shots. If you cannot visit the location prior, either study a good map and with the compass direction or look at it on Google Street View. You should be able to work out where the sun will be so you can plan where to stand. In a city a crossroads corner position gives several angles and also there will be a gap in the buildings to let the sun hit the subjects. An easy ‘rule’ to remember is to get the sun over your shoulder. But sometimes it is better to have it three-quarter backlit to produce better facial modelling.
Saltburn Cliff Tramway
With views and landscapes, try and frame a foreground object to give the picture greater depth which will lead the eye into it; a tree, archway, signpost or a road going into the distance are easy to find examples. If there is time, most places or subjects should be explored, that means you could put together a photo story.
Gondolier on the Grand Canal in Venice
Detail and close ups for instance can sometimes sum up an entire situation in a highly creative and conceptual way.
Whatever you do, have fun with your camera and always remember that it is just a device for telling a story, what that story can be is up to you!
The Cheltenham Festival
The highlight of the National Hunt racing calendar, the festival always provides plenty of winners and losers and inevitably becomes a British v Irish trained horse’s event and this year’s was great.
Held over four days, 13th – 16th March, hundreds of millions of pounds are bet over the week and Cheltenham is noted for its atmosphere, the “Cheltenham roar”, which refers to the enormous noise the crowd generates as the starter raises the tape to start the first race.
The first big race of the week is the 2m½f Champion Hurdle worth £256,275 in which eleven started and was won by Buveur D’Air ridden by Barry Geraghty and trained by Nicky Henderson. In second place came Melon with Mick Jazz coming third.
My late wife Gillian’s 1976 oil painting of the great Night Nurse with Paddy Broderick up who won the Champion Hurdle twice and has been acclaimed amongst the greatest ever hurdlers.
The main race of the whole event is the Cheltenham Gold Cup Chase run over 3m2½f, and worth around £370,000 to the winner. This year with fifteen runners at the start it proved to be a classic head-to-head duel from the start with eventual winner Native River ridden by Richard Johnson and trained by Colin Tizzard just beating Might Bite into second with Anibale Fly coming third.
From another era, Midnight Court and John Francome winning the Gold Cup in 1978, a painting by my late wife Gillian, best known for her Red Rum paintings and drawings, some of which are in my book, click the Link above to see it.
The winning Jockey for the 2018 festival was Davy Russell who rode four winners and the winning trainer was Gordon Elliott who saddled eight winners.
2018 has been a great year for the Cheltenham Festival and also for jump racing!
Black Box Projects – Liz Neilson and Steve Macleod
‘Photographs’ the invite said, as indeed it was; but not as I knew them.
I was lucky enough to attend the opening of a new Soho gallery where the work of two very different photographers was on show. Black Box Projects is a new art gallery which specialises in contemporary photography and contemporary art that is created using photographic materials.
Steve’s work was muted and dreamy, enigmatic and mysterious. You wrote your own story within the structure he gave you. All shot in the UK on a large format camera, he uses nature to share the conceptual impact and influence it can have on our emotions, our health and our imagination.
Liz’s work was from another planet photographically speaking, probably why she calls them photograms. Brilliant colours in wonderful shapes and patterns and each one a unique piece. Her unique photographs are printed in the analogue colour darkroom with handmade negatives and found light sources. The technique I could guess at but the execution here was beautiful, transcending reality into different worlds.
Overall, a very enjoyable launch exhibition but is only on for a week so do hurry to catch this great show.
Black Box Projects, 15 Bateman Street, Soho, London W1
10am-6pm, Tuesday 6 March – Saturday 10 March
https://blackboxprojects.art/exhibitions/6/overview/
Greasy Spoon Cafes London
Okay, I’ll come clean straight away – I like greasy spoon cafes and all they stand for; good cheap food quickly served with no fuss, none of that three small bits artfully arranged somewhere on a huge plate stuff.
While the term greasy spoon used to denote somewhere cheap and downmarket, it is now more often used in an endearing sense. Going way back, today these wonderful places are often family owned and run where you can get a Full English Breakfast and a mug of tea to eat on a Formica table for around a fiver, but they are in decline. The street spaces they use are now usually seen as prime real estate to put yet another boring chain hamburger café or suchlike, I only use those as the last resort and some I boycott completely owing to their tax dodging.
So here are a few London greasy spoons that I have been to in recent times in A-Z order;
Arches Café, 202 Three Colts Ln, Bethnal Green, London E2 6JN
Very recently refurbished, good food, great service, you could acclimatise yourself to earthquakes when a train passes overhead
Belsize Kitchen, 68 Belsize Ln, Kilburn, London NW3 5BJ
Been here for many years, has a Hollywood and James Dean feel, food is fine
Crescent Café, 85 Crouch End Hill, London N8 8DE
Unusually a bit out of a main street location but it is obvious the local regulars like and use it, pleasant helpful people run it
Double Bubble Café, 408 Garratt Ln, Earlsfield London SW18 4HW
Seats outside in good weather, all of these places seem to have their regular customers, this one no exception
Frank’s Café, 132 Southwark St, Southwark, London SE1 0SW
Behind the Tate Modern and does a roaring trade which is hardly surprising as the food is good and cheap too
Fryer’s Delight, 19 Theobalds Rd, Holborn, London WC1X 8SL
More of a fish & chip place as the name implies but any English breakfast combination available, bit more expensive than some though
Jungles Café, Central Parade, Gunnersbury Lane, Acton Town, London W3 8HL
Friendly place with good service on a busy corner can get very busy at lunchtime, tube station across the road and TfL staff make good use of it
Little Portland Café, 15 Little Portland St, Marylebone, London W1W 8BW
Not far from BBC Broadcasting House, this has a very good menu; lots of sandwiches etc, some staff came here from the sorely missed Café Lido
New Star Express, 71 Chapel Market, Islington London N1 9ER
In one of London’s main market streets, students seem to like this place, and so they should as it is good value for money
Regency Café, 17-19 Regency Street SW1P 4BY
Place your order, take a seat then a loud voice will announce it’s ready, all in a busy lovely art deco style ambience, gets very busy lunchtimes of course
There are more greasy spoons in and around London, and outside the capital. When you’re next not sure where to eat and see one of these, give it a try, you will surely like it. A proper meal for the same price as an overpriced sandwich and coffee in many places, the greasy spoons have come of age and are basically great value for money.
Bon Appétit!
Liverpool ECHO
A lovely article by Paddy Shennan in today’s paper, Monday 19th February 2018, really did me and Rummy proud!
A Week in The Forest
The New Forest is just a lot of trees, right? Yes, and then again no. It is trees but so much more than I thought while on a trip there last week. Just 90 minutes from London’s Waterloo, Brockenhurst was a good place to start.
A bus took us the lovely Bartley Lodge Hotel near Cadnam, beautifully styled, welcoming and very comfortable.
New Forest ponies
Lynsey Stride and Tom Hordell
Walk in the Forest
A good walk around part of the forest was led by Lyndsey Stride and Tom Hordell who explained so much that we would have missed. They are both Commoners, people who are allowed to live in the New Forest so are really in touch with it on a daily basis in a totally hands-on way.
Of course, the only rain we got for the week was on this walk, so we headed off into an open barn where they showed us the branding irons used to brand all the ponies as they are all owned by someone, they are not actually wild as I had thought.
Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire
Salisbury Cathedral
It took just 38 years to build Salisbury Cathedral, from 1520 to 1558, and today is stunningly beautiful. John Constable was so right to paint it from the Water Meadows, changed now of course by development over the years but nothing detracts for the tall spire which dominates the landscape.
One of the only four copies of the original Magna Carta is on display there, a small document which has shaped the life of these isles ever since it was written.
Full of light, the cathedral it is inspiring even for non-believers, a wonderful standing testament to the men who built it 500 years ago.
Stonehenge, Wiltshire
Stonehenge
The final day was a very early rise so as to be at Stonehenge for 8am. It was a cold January day and with a wind blowing it was tempting to skip it but I’m so glad I didn’t.
Our guide Pat Shelley gave a good and thought provoking tour around the inner circle of monoliths, magnificent in their simplistic beauty and a testament to the sheer will power and energy of its builders.
Its true purpose can never be known, but academics and scholars have deduced that its purpose was largely ceremonial, not that it can be either proved or disputed.
Red Lion pub, East Chisenbury, Pewsey, Wiltshire
Hospitality
The Bartley Lodge Hotel at Cadnam near Lyndhurst is set back amongst trees and was a lovely place to stay.
Excellent meals were available in many places but the meal at The Red Lion pub in East Chisenbury in the Wiltshire countryside was the highlight, the Old Ale Coffee House in Salisbury ran it a close second.
Would I go back to the New Forest? Definitely, now I can see the wood for the trees!
For travel information about the area visit www.thenewforest.co.uk
My thanks to Go New Forest www.gonewforest.com for all their help and assistance during my visit.
RED RUM
RED RUM
My Red Rum book has now been on sale since Christmas and copies have gone to people in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Japan and Australia.
I have been delighted at the responses and here are some of the lovely comments received;
“Your amazing books have just arrived. Beautiful photos, I’m a bit speechless!”
“It’s a splendid production and you must be really proud of it.”
“That book is probably the best Red book ever, it’s as close to an ” off the wall ” one as you could get, I can’t thank you enough for releasing your photo’s it’s a total Gem!!”
“Jeremy, great images and am proud to have on the bookshelf.”
“Some cracking images of Aintree’s greatest.”
“The photographs are stunning and this book I will most definitely treasure.”
“My copy arrived today – it’s wonderful! Rummy looks so handsome and intelligent in ALL of the pictures, and lovely to see images I haven’t seen before – great work, Jeremy, thank you!”
“Been through your book Jeremy, it’s amazing.”
“Fabulous pictures – a must for any RR fan!”
More to come with luck!
Jeremy Hoare, Photographer, Television Lighting Cameraman
My life has been a huge mixture of things; I am a multi-media image-maker, and part of a three-generation showbusiness family going back over 100 years. A visual sense has helped provide me with a hugely varied career as a photographer, television cameraman, lighting director, theatre lighting designer and camerawork tutor. Showbiz was clearly in the genes. My late father managed London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane and was responsible for giving me my first camera, a Kodak Box Brownie, which I used to capture the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was only a school trip but arguably became my budding photographer’s first experience of an adventure with a camera and the ways of telling a story with it. Since the Box Brownie I have used cameras of most types; still, television, video and movie.
Television soon beckoned, and I spent many years as a Cameraman and Lighting Director with major UK networks, notably ATV at Elstree and Central Television in Nottingham. Throughout my career I have centred on the creation of images for ever more diverse audiences and using ever more diverse media. Recent work ranges from travel photography – my current core activity – to classic Hollywood portraiture, dance and music visuals. Other fields include tutoring in photography, lighting and camerawork, video production, pop group manager, author, journalist and online gallery owner are a few of the other things I’ve done.