autumn – BLANK CANVAS

Going on a trip with friends it was a difficult choice. Where could we go which was in a couple of hours, that we hadn’t been before and was great for photography. Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prague. In the end deciding on the Polish city of Krakow. Near Auschwitz, Resonating with past wars and brutalities. Unknowable pain. A pretty city. Picture perfect. Scanning the weather before you go on your trip, praying that BBC, Accu, Met etc.. are wrong in their forecast of incessant drizzle. There to take pictures but no light. Mizzle, more insistent but lighter than drizzle, a constant blanket of gentle spray. You don’t really get wet but there is a dampness, a coldness that starts to seep into your bones, breaking through Gortex through non stop lightness. You start to walk around the city and apparent photo opportunities jump out, peering through doorways, into shops. It’s a great way of looking at a city, as a photographer, especially when the light makes your task really difficult. Walking around, constantly, circling the city, heading for landmarks, the grey relentless. Night time and colours arrive, the neon glow of multicoloured bulbs elongating across vast squares, reflections more dramatic than the actuality, peering down, Crouching down by pools of water, reflections illuminating, doubling images. Adding to the misty intrigue. Umbrellas dotting the skyline, adding shape and colour, providing context and interest. Armed with a pocket camera, fixed wide angle, 28mm. No opportunity to zoom in but stay in the same perspective. Interest in the fore and background. Occasionally relenting from the clicking to move indoors, sample local beers. Atmospheric locales, stylised but resonating with Coldwar, Second World War menace. Dark brooding deep reds, greens and blues. Faded. Old photos, people lost to time, coming back to life. People creating new images, taking the space, providing film sets, stuck in time. Continue to walk, searching for images. The mizzle continues. Searching for a shipwreck, graffiti providing colour contrasting to the grey unchanging sky, no shards of light to provide interest just a grey blanket providing consistency. Statues and memorials. Crumbling buildings, memories hanging in the air, trapped, nowhere to go. Keep walking, searching for form, for light. Trams providing blue and red relief, the lights inside glowing through the dank grey. Previous lives trapped in, nowhere to go. Keep walking, observing, a sadness that is flat, not overwhelming, no drama, just constant and plaintive. Puddles continue to reflect, we walk, we peer, the mizzle continues.

Sitting in a coffee shop underneath the arches waiting for my train to arrive. All manner of people, Bristol people, venturing in and out, collecting baked goods created in front of their eyes, too bleary to understand the lack of mystery. Various fashion, individualism, collective lives, coffee. Expectant and a little fraught, a workday in early September provides a unique buzz. The calm beauty of summer gradually seeping away towards getting your head down for the graft of winter. Jumpers and jackets back out of storage, straight away, no real meander but straight back into the thick of it. No time to sit and contemplate what has been, just marching on to the next stage, free flowing downhill into the abyss of winter.

The lcy coldness of early autumn mornings, where the memory of summer is still present but the heat is starting to dissipate. Skies radiate with an orange, purple blue cobalt metallic quality, much lighter than in previous months, a pastel thinness as the light is lower and less intense. The sun more gradually rising, a lower trajectory that adds greater interest like the lamps you have in your rooms rather than the over bright overhead light. Birds seem to talk and fly more delicately, less insistent, waning in energy as they start the process of either heading south or hunkering down. The squawking youthfulness of spring and summer replaced by a thoughtful resigning to the gradual onset of darker and colder times. Like the birds I sometimes get Seasonal Adjustment Disorder, sadden by the onset of darker, colder and often wetter times. The lack of light proving difficult to cope with. I love wrapping up and kicking through fallen leaves on country paths or city avenues, my camera coming to life as vistas take on greater interest, the flatness of summer replaced by interest and hue. I stare at the sky a lot more in autumn, slightly wistful but also thankful for the beauty. September, which veers uneasily between seasons, getting colder but often dry and mini heatwaves providing the last remembrance of fanciful summer times. The last chance to dive into the sea, it’s warmest time of the year, a fitting memory of immersing in nature. The classic colourful months of autumn. Woodland walks. The last chance of light. Bitter sweet. The end of something and the start of the new although it feels more like gradually disappearing, going into a cave, going underground, darkness enveloping. Memories of light transferred into darker days. Wet, cold, neon lights. Avenues of golden trees glinting in the lowering sunlight, rays softly etching patterns on the forest floor. Autumn seems to start earlier every year, snatching summer moments before they have even been fulfilled. Leaves browning and falling in July. I am sure that never happened in my youth where long hot summers seemed to stretch for eternity. Now though early autumn provides a somnambulant air, sleepwalking into colder, wetter and shorter days, life snatched from your very grasp. Before the beautiful colours emerge, it is a prewinter state, a warning sign of life passing. Time turning. Gradual ageing. The garden goes into hibernation, plants stop growing and start to wilt. Stasis is on the horizon.