I am nothing but a transient soul in a white Opel Manta

(For those not familiar with the North East of Scotland, stick with it.)

This morning I went on a course in Banchory. Then I had to go to work in Huntly. The most direct route I felt was to go over the Sluie Hill (or is it Suie Hill?) to Clatt and onwards.

There is car park and a great view at the top of Sluie Hill, so I stopped to eat my lunch. As I sat there I remembered a photograph I took at the the same car park, around about 1982, which showed my late father Jimmy, my mother Catherine and my future wife Yvonne admiring the same view I was enjoying eating my lunch. We were on route from Buckie to Banchory to meet up with my sister for some get together - maybe for Chris Barber jazz band concert? Or maybe it was Christmas time, I can't remember now.

The memory of that picture brought a smile to my face, not only because the frame of the picture was filled with my new white Opel Manta and everybody else squeezed to the left! No, more than that, it was because my father was to die of cancer only a couple of years later and it was one of those simple decisions to just stop and admire the view. We did, and I captured a wee moment in time which I now cherish. 

My father has gone. My mum remarried and found happiness again. My sister lives in Aberdeen and we see her as much as we can. I have been happily married to Yvonne since 1986. That is part of my story. It is just a puff of wind on a heather branch.

When I had a look at the photo tonight, I thought you could remove the car and the people and the view would look almost exactly the same. The land endures and has the biggest and best stories. We are just transient souls on this amazing planet who need to take more time out for ourselves, for our loved ones and for our planet. ( I know, all that from a wee photo!)


Here's the photograph:

Where the Manta went to I've no idea. :-)

(Oh, by the way, to the left was parked my dad's green Hillman Avenger. You'll understand why that was not included in the picture!)

It's not the building but the people.

It's not the building but the people., a photo by James_at_Slack on Flickr.

This blog needs some attention. Slow restart starts today.

Since the last post way back in August, my main job, as a secondary school teacher of History, has consumed not only my time, but also my energy and thoughts. Clearly, this is not a healthy state of affairs but I'm not here to seek sympathy. There's nothing much I can do about it but get on with it as best I can. Thing is, it shouldn't be an excuse to stop doing the the things I enjoy.


On many occasions I thought I should really get a blog post up.

One of the things that put me off posting was the negative influence other blog post I had been looking at were having on me. They seemed so deep and meaningful, full of big words and obscure references to photographers, poets and artists I'd never heard of. Made me feel right stupid and ignorant. So I felt I had nothing of interest to say.

Of course, this is daft thinking.

This is my blog and I should be 'me' on here and nobody else.

However, the content should be interesting too! Trouble was, I tended to see what I was doing in my spare time as not very interesting. I was over thinking this whole blog thing I concluded.

Fact is, quite a few people are interested in my work, if the recent CD covers/booklets, messages and print sales are anything to go by. So, I have decided to just do more regular, short and pithy posts that may or may not interest you.

You see, when all is said and done, I look forward to Andrea's blog posts more than any of the other 'deep and meaningful' lengthy blogs. I must be a philistine with a short attention span who likes humour more than debates on 'art' that baffle me, bore me and go nowhere.

I recently tweeted a comment along the lines of: 'I'm just going to keep churning out my stuff and remind myself why I wanted to do this in the first place. To hell with the rest.' I was feeling that there was too much crap getting far too much attention on social media for my liking. Jealous maybe, jealous probably, but it was getting to me so much I just wanted to remove myself from the
backslapping, mutual appreciation environment and get back to me, desperately attempting to satisfy a creative itch.

Like the title of the image of the abandoned church above, my creative efforts are not about social media, they should be about me.

We all feel like this right?

Recently, I changed the title of this blog from 'James Dyas Davidson Photography' to just 'James Dyas Davidson'. The reason I did that was because I asked myself what was the purpose in keeping the blog?

Well, way back, this is was the answer. Essentially it was recording my return to photography. Looking back I think, 'Who would be interested in that?' and of course nobody was. It was good to get my thoughts on 'paper' though.

Reading photography books and blogs, you learn that embracing life and following YOUR passions could make you a more consistent and interesting photographer. Great. That led to this post.

So you go and shoot your 'passion' and soon find many others have the same passion and do it better than you. You need to find your 'voice'.

But you get distracted by requests to shoot the odd wedding, events, promos, etc. You try the odd competition. You try to emulate cool stuff you see in magazines and websites. Essentially, you don't shoot your passion and you don't get the praise and adulation you thought you might and you hit the ground with a bump.

You start to worry again about technical stuff, your workflow and your post processing skills because compared to others, you suck.

You go back to what kind of photographer are you? and that dreaded creative block hits. You need some inspiration and lo and behold, they tell me to shoot my passion and embrace life. Oh yeah, you lost that for a moment there.

Your off again on the right track for a while. It's beginning to all come together. Shame you can't do this full time perhaps? (At this point, for me, illness and time off work forced a rethink.)

Great, it's all sorted - you know what to photograph and why, you will remain a 'hobbyist' photographer and you're getting the hang of social media and websites. Positive feedback and comments begin to flow in you get some work requests. Oddly enough, not in the type of photography you shoot but hey ho.

Ah, but old habits die hard.

Time to learn the history of photography, learn about the past masters and to see what has been done and how you could add to that legacy in your own small way. (Many of my posts in 2011 were about the history of photography.)

Your blogs posts get closer to what you want your blog to be but again, 'life' happens to you and you have to deal with other stuff.

You meet or read about other photographers who 'say something in their work' and reflect their age. You want to too, but what are you saying? what is your world about? You ask around.

Your thoughts about what part do you want photography to play in your life is a recurring thought.

You start to get annoyed with yourself for going round in circles and always promising to not go back over old ground or to stand still. One step forward to your goals - always.

But good God! here you are blogging about losing focus again and how you're not going to again!!

You stall.

Then you listen to this and think, 'I am not alone. I am not a loser. Why don't more people talk about such things as fear, procrastination and self doubt?'

After all, don't we all feel like this?

So this blog is really about me, my struggles and what interests me, not just photography. Hence the name change.

Summer months will be different in future.

Hello!

I missed blogging on here in July and I'm sure I could have and should have done at least one. Sorry guys.

A few things to report and update. My summer shooting started off well with a walk up a glen I drive past every day near Alford. Initially I went up the wrong track but this happen to be fortuitous as I spotted a ruin I didn't know about. Re-traced steps, moved the car and park it beside the gamekeepers house which meant I had to walk passed him and explain where I was going. No problem really with him but I think it is important to not draw attention to yourself or to antagonise gamekeepers. I got to the ruin which looked promising but, and I need to remember this, when I got to it, it was surrounded by nettles, ferns and gorse. Rural exploration should be saved for Spring, late Autumn and Winter. An internal shot of the the ruin called Mains of Brux is above and an outside shot below:

The great thing about this day was when exploring this place I spotted another ruin just up the hill a bit. I also spotted a red rusty roof - great! The place was called Ferneybrae:

So a good day and a fantastic start to the summer. More shots here.

Unfortunately, the weather this summer has been restrictive, so I've decided that, with the current poor weather we're getting in the summer in Scotland combined with the fact that the houses are so covered in undergrowth, I'm going to concentrate on other aspects of my photography during these months.

One project I'm starting to build up is photographing local musicians. A local folk club is run by renowned fiddler Paul Anderson and his highly acclaimed singer Shona Donaldson. Luckily, I know them both and have done work for them so I have been allowed to shoot during the folk night in Tarland. Here is a shot I took of Jonny Hardie of the Old Blind Dogs:

The challenge for me shooting the folk club, apart from the fact I am not really a portrait photographer, is the low light. I use the 85mm f1.8 on shutter priority to maintain the shutter speed no lower than 100s so it ends up shooting wide open, making focusing tricky. As the evening went on I resorted to flash which I hate when shooting performers, but it was needed in the dimly lit room. Next time, I'm going to  try the auto ISO to see how that goes.

Anyway, I'm glad to get back to the blog. I did actually listen to another Jeff Curto podcast but I didn't feel a blog could be constructed from it so that also delayed things. Also, my wife's father has been ill and in and out of hospital, so that takes priority.

Thanks for visiting, all the best, James.