More things on flickr - the last batchelor pad.

Don't know where I saw this type of shot before but I guess that it was in some art students work on women and society. The photoessay, last batchelor pad, is rather weak and to most will just be an excuse to have pictures of the 'most attractive women in world' online somewhere with rather purile splats of paint over them.

The colours were dropped down to contribute to the muted feel of the situation and the privacy of the interaction between the decorator and the world famous models who were being splatted with white gloss in a Pollock like perversity - which is what the images of the women are for I assume. I don't know if Lord Lichfield did take anything like this - I seem to remember that he did. God knows why... There was meant to be a large element of sarcasm in some of the images- the most important thing in the world to some people, the shape of a woman's body, the perfect geometry of her face, the fact that she can disguise everything about her real life as if she were some latter day Geisha.

There is something also meant to be a strong reflection of my life at this stage. I was generally psychotic, only able to do a few things including work, decorate and read pornography. The soft porn end of the market is far more offensive to me in some respects as there tends to be too strong a dominance of the 32-24-30 type of women - though this is something that varies from magazine to magazine. FHM seemed to be the worst perpetrator of the images of women who were all around the same size, although this may have changed more recently - I stopped buying the magazine for this reason - it must be for teenagers I guess.

Anyway, check out the last batchelor pad it's at least worth a look at.

Commuter Jazz - shots from September 2007

The shots of Bryan Corbett's band playing at Rush Hour Blues are what I can call okay in the form of a photo-essay. It's not what I call that good a piece of work but some of the images are quite pleasing.

There are some other shots that have gone online that are from the family album from years ago. Most of them were taken by my mother who seemed quite frequently to place the subjects of the image, usually my three brothers and myself in one quarter of the shot leaving much of it relatively empty. I assume this was for some form of artistic impression - on reflection, as there were four of us, this appears to work relatively well. Some of the shots have been over sharpened and saturated to give a sense of the impressionist influence that she may have been using. Otherwise they're a stronly discoloured set of images which may reflect much of the fashion and style of the era they were taken, the mid to late 1970s.

There are some shots of the Parkes family online now as well as the very ancient Victorian style family shots including the one above. It would be interesting to get some of my surviving relatives together to try and work out who's who but that's another job for another day.

Another week job hunting....

Interesting though it may be to get a call from an agency who are possibly only registering candidates because they have so little in the way of jobs coming through, I do find that I can still fill my time even though this only seems to happen about once a fortnight at present. I have spent much of this week looking into the possessions that I have and then reorganising them. It's been interesting to find what I still own and how much I ammassed while I had a house. It wasn't what I wanted at the time and I don't think that I can really explain how good it feels to get off the property ladder in some respects. Now I've got the hellish challenge of getting back on it again. Will I succeed? It's possible if things go well for me over the next few months but not likely to happen this year. Next week, it may be okay to re-visit Manchester.

Being and nothingness, that is what sorting out decorating equipment is all about.

Another day spent sorting out the rubbish I own that I used to call possessions. It was a day of hitting the blankets and duvets, hard not that most of them are worth keeping, hen the 'Pièce de résistance' - working through all the decorating and DIY equipment that was the centre of my life for four years. What an enthralling way to spend an afternoon. I found all manner of screws and nuts and bolts that were are the most facinating things I've ever possessed.

That aside I tried studio cycling at Billesley Leisure Centre and it was certainly acceptable - not bad at all. It was the second burn on a bike in two days. The ride I went for yesterday from Hall Green to Wychall and then back via Earlswood Lakes was certainly enjoyable and I didn't really exert myself to any ridiculous degree. I read off the weight in fat that I was likely to have burnt on the ride on Sunday through the new cycle computer and felt better before I realised how little it was. The amount was only 26 grams, about an ounce. I never thought there'd be days like this...bad days indeed...

Last week of nothing.

I'm still job hunting to no avail and I don't think that I can really do very much more than what I've been doing. I've had to make a major stocktake of my life and my possessions of recent and there are too many projects that I've tried to get on with that have only left me achieving very little rather than a lot. I don't know to what extent I can really control what I do within the scope of a project but I guess that I can only try to do what seems right to attempt in order to keep me feeling optimistic about getting work in the near future.

Some relatively weak shots of Kenilworth Castle and some shots from a random jazz band at Commuter Jazz are also online and I don't think that there is a lot to say for them. Semi-decent record shots they may be but even I'm getting just a little tired of the record shots that I've done. The shot above is of myself looking ravishing, I bought photoshop 6 and I've I'm yet to get to grips with it as the dodgily adapted image indicates.

Commuter Jazz shots from March 2008.

Finally, as if it really mattered in any way, I've put up some shots of the gig that Percy's bandplayed at Commuter Jazz in March of this year. In the digital age it's nice to be able to get to a gig and then get home do a little work on some shots in the digital darkroom, or on your PC at a gig - and get some shots online within minutes of the gig finishing. These took me around six months to deal with and as per usual I've not done a huge amount with them. I haven't had any real luck with jazz as a photographer - everything I've attempted has tended to flop somewhat. I can't state what the reasons for this were but I've got a real tendency to find the jazz artist as a more difficult subject matter than the rock or other performer. Wish I could explain why in detail but I guess I'll just rest content when shots do go well. One day some decent shots of Fat Chops....

Job hunting - what a laugh....

Well after the four weeks I've been job hunting I've done remarkably badly. I don't think I can really do very much more than I have and I've found very little in the way of opportunity. Four weeks is not a long time to be unemployed I guess and I did get back from central America without too much in the way of plans for how I was to get work and it does always tend to be more difficult to get work when the students have taken up those easy to fill positions. All in all the credit crunch is hitting hard and I am one of the one's who are hit.

I made a £1.00 investment in a direct dating pass in order to try to meet someone special - what took place was a few illiterate women contacted me and have not impressed me with their command of the English language. I received a few emails and pictures through that were meant to be from seductive Russian women – to me it’s got scam written all over it. The picture above is of a frightfully attractive Russian woman who has stated she's available and trying to meet me. I assume I'm to be led on and then asked to send a proportion of the fare for her to visit the UK and this would be carefully researched so it's too small an amount for someone to want to get the police involved in order to recoup - perhaps about £50.00. Sad and cynical, I know but I guess I don't think a woman like Britney Spears is going to make advances towards me unless there is some form of complication. I guess I’m showing my age. Are the Russian mafia reading this, I wonder....

Some how I don't think half of them are real let alone available. See the Russian Girls here.

Leamington or bust....

Well, hectic times and this is all I can really do is upload some rather puerile shots of the afternoon I spent in a park at the bottom of the high street in Leamington Spa(30-03-08). The Leamington shots do bring me some pleasure. It’s a nice enough town and late afternoon sunshine does give it a rather pleasant tint – I didn’t have the digital SLR set on 'faithful' so the camera was adding in just a little colour but it does work well with the daffodils and ducks. The squirrel does make me feel just a little like a natural history photographer, though I don’t imagine David Attenborough is going to be on the phone just yet.

The shots aren’t scintillating but they’re a reasonable reflection of what the place did look like that one Sunday afternoon. What was surprising, if anything, was seeing the squirrels take food off children who were offering it on the pathway. I don’t think I’ve seen squirrels with such good manners – that’s Leamington for you though.