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Favourite angling books

March 27, 2018 By TC

The book that combines insights into the art of angling with general reflections about life is a book to savour. The book that accomplishes this with literary skill in a quiet understated way is a book to treasure. Over a lifetime of angling, as a boy in the seas off Brazil, as a man in quiet shady streams in north-west Britain, I have read many angling books. Of these I would like to mention a few ‘in despatches’. I hope the reader will forgive the parochialism of my choice of books. But angling is really about place and identity and therefore it is quite natural that ones’s chosen books reflect one’s local world.

My first book choice published in 1863, is ‘The Art of Trout Fishing on Rapid Streams, comprising a complete system of fishing the North Devon Streams, and their like”, by H.C. Cutcliffe, F.R.C.S. Cutcliffe’s understanding of the development of trout behaviour across the angling season and its effect on the manner of angling and the type of fly dressing required is extremely detailed, written from the standpoint of a naturalist who must have spent many hours watching trout activity in small remote streams. A surgeon by profession, Cutcliffe applied similar skills to his angling: attention to detail based on observation, argument based on logical thought. For what is noteworthy about this book is that it could have been written today. Looking at any recent copy of a fly-fishing magazine, you could be excused in thinking that the prevalence of gold or silver tinsel or brightly coloured feathers is part of a modernist trend in fly-dressing. Not so. Cutcliffe had thought through the need for what we now call attractor patterns when fishing fast streams 160 years ago. For example, his pattern ‘XXXV’: Body: Hare’s flax dyed yellow. Rib: Gold twist. Hackle: The most brilliant yellowish red obtainable – to be fished in June.

What makes this book invigorating is that Cutcliffe wrote it against the trend of his times. Rivers were fished with small subdued drab flies many of which we now recognise as ‘north country flies’. Fine for the quieter waters of big rivers, so reasoned Cutcliffe, where trout have choice of station and sufficient time to investigate food items, but not so for fast rolling streams where station and time are of the essence to a trout’s life chances. For Cutcliffe the art of deception lay in understanding by how much one needed to ‘sex up’ a fly to make it conspicuous enough to attract a trout but at the same time by how much to avoid making the fly so odd to a trout’s sensibilities as to propitiate the opposite effect than that intended. After reading this book, one is left thinking that there is very little new in fly-fishing. But of course, as the late Lord Denning said, ‘that argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere.’

I am indebted to a very fine angler and fly dresser for introducing me to my second choice of book. Louis Noble gave me a copy of ‘Let’s Fish the Clyde’ by Robert C Sharp when I was taking some instruction from him on the art of the wet-fly ahead of my first visit to the Clyde with him in 2007. Since then I have fished the upper reaches of the Clyde, from Thankerton Bridge all the way up to the ‘Waters Meet’ at Daer Waters, on many occasions and each occasion necessitates in me a bout of dressing flies ‘Clyde-style’. Fishing ‘Clyde-style’ is not just a matter of pattern choice, (as for example in May I would always include Black Spiders, Medium Olives and Sand Flies in my fly box). It is also a matter of what we today call a ‘mind-set’. Flies are dressed very sparsely and, importantly, are slim. In a size 14 or 16 hook, the fly should be as delicate as a natural. The Clyde demands a certain type of approach particular to that river, as indeed do all rivers. We learn this over a life-time of visiting different rivers. The act of fly-dressing prepares me for the trip and in this ritual I open this little book and my mind is taken back to the Clyde.

The third book confirms my parochial side to book choice. ‘Flyfishing the Welsh Borderlands’ by Roger Smith published in 2011 has become a favourite of mine. Spending a good deal of time on the northern Welsh Border streams myself, learning about the anglers of yesterday and their fly patterns, such as the Rev. Edward Powell and Cosmo Barrett, instills in me a sense of tradition and history, of place and community. After all isn’t it this sense that lies at the root of why we fish?

Despite this parochialism, it would be remiss of me not refer to the fine genre of fly angling literature from the USA. It is difficult to single out one particular book. Of the ‘how-to’ books, Sylvester Nemes on wet flies has influenced me as has Vince Marinaro on the dry fly and Swisher and Richards on ‘Selective Trout’. Of the more literary offerings, Gierach, Duncan, Leeson and Dennis all have a place in my book case. Forced to choose, I would plump for W. D. Wetherell. ‘One River More‘ published in 1998 which combines a folksy attitude reminiscent of many American writers with a style of prose that is beautiful in its thriftiness. ‘To find words (that) fit the beauty of the locales it inhabits’ is indeed a laudable approach.

Finally, I come to ‘Fishing and Thinking’ by A. A. Luce, published in 1959. I think this book, more than any other, is one of the the main reasons why I fish. The combination of detailed observations about  nature with deeper reflections about life affected me when I read this gem of a book in 1998. After all, are not all thinking anglers philosophers too?

 

 

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Filed Under: blog, favourite angling books, fly fishing, post Tagged With: A A Luce, Cutcliffe, flyfishing, Lets fish the clyde, Louis Noble, Robert C Sharp, Roger Smith, Wetherell

Alex Titarenko

January 15, 2018 By TC

It comes as no surprise that Shostakovich forms the aural backdrop to many of Titarenko’s photographs. Just as Shostakovich played with ambiguity, tonality and sharp contrasts, so too Titarenko’s images beg to be noticed, highlighting the edges and dark corners of visual experience.

Perhaps his best-known work relates to St Petersburg, but it is his more recent work about New York that best showcases his range of darkroom and in-camera techniques. Long exposures, camera movement, selenium, sepia and gold toning, solarisation, bleaching  – all come into play as Titarenko edges towards the limits of silver gelatin possibility.

Very interesting work….

 

New York Public Library ¢ Alexey Titarenko 2017

 

Fifth Avenue ¢ Alexey Titarenko

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Filed Under: blog, post, Titarenko Tagged With: Titarenko

Knut Skjærven

October 28, 2016 By TC

Blow Up © Knut Skjærven

Blow Up © Knut Skjærven

Of course, good photographs should at one level speak for themselves, as this wonderful photograph by Knut Skjærven does. But, I venture to ask, why do they?

There is so much else to a good photograph than the sum of its components.

It has nothing to do with beauty or the specific content of the photograph or the tonality or indeed any individual ‘property’ of the image, although these things contribute. They may be necessary but they are not sufficient. These things attract your attention, but they do not in themselves give you an aesthetic experience. The individual qualities of the photograph invite you to sit at the dinner table but you don’t get to taste the delicious food by doing nothing more.

The aesthetic experience occurs when you become engaged in recreation with the photograph. This is actually quite complex, but as the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said “…the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”

At first, there is the encounter with the photograph as an object of experience, pre-cognitive if you will. Then there is a physical feeling – the photograph is objectified as being the subject of the feeling; a relationship of distance is recognised. This gives rise to a conceptual feeling which is the subjective reaction to the physical feeling, the distance. Other emotions and memories enter the arena of experience and thereby a relationship to the photograph evolves. It starts to become part of you. A fresh feeling emerges from the contrast between the ‘conceptual feeling’ and the ‘physical feeling.’ Finally the resulting relationship is contrasted once again with the ‘physical feeling’ giving rise to a ‘completed unity’. The energy behind this process, called ‘Concrescence’ by Whitehead, is causa sui,  that is, self-generated.

At heart, therefore, is an interplay, a recreation, between the photograph and you such that the photograph establishes a you that is different in some way from the you of a moment ago. The extent to which this happens depends upon the ability of the photograph, acting as a whole, to set up the aesthetic experience.

And this particular photograph is very successfully at setting up such an aesthetic experience. We can analyse the components of it that create something ‘other than the sum of its parts’, of course, but the end result is that it is complete in-itself – causa sui.

So, yes this image speaks for itself at one level. But it opens up much more if you are quiet and listening.

 

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Filed Under: blog, Blow up Tagged With: knut skjaerven

Presidio – Stephen Shore

October 28, 2016 By TC

© Stephen Shore

© Stephen Shore

A picture that stops me.

Gerry Badger identifies Shore with the “quiet photo”. To a certain extent he is right, (although Shore has bridged many genres in his long career). For me his images are particularly compelling because they start quietly, but get louder like an underground train approaching at speed.

You look down this street. Telegraph post shadows cut across, suggesting a divide. The dog checks your thoughts. The man stands there, unmoving, passive and staring. The fence hems you in. It is late evening. What to do? A moment of doubt opens.

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Filed Under: blog, Presidio

Beachy Head by Tony Ray-Jones

October 28, 2016 By TC

© Tony Ray-Jones

© Tony Ray-Jones

A young man and woman embrace, seemingly oblivious to everyone around them. They are intimate and gentle, locked into a private world – a love affair, a love scene even. A very private act in a public space. But although the lovers hold centre-stage, the photograph is not principally “about” them.

We see the other trippers looking out of the frame, presumably at Beachy Head’s chalk cliffs. Their faces betray unease. Everyone is quiet, pensive and above all avoiding the love scene that is playing out, as though there is an unspoken agreement at work – an act of collusion. Very English! “No sex here please, we are British”!

So the photograph is about the relationship between the lovers and the other trippers. The lovers with life-unlived, care-free; the trippers with life-lived, care-worn.

But that’s not all. A parallel scene is being played out:

“Photography is the process of rendering observation self-conscious” Berger explains, “What it shows invokes what is not shown”.  1.  What is shown is clear: the lovers and the travellers, (the “also-rans”). But what is not shown? The lovers have a different destiny to the travellers. The two groups are bound to different fates. From premises, consequences flow. The lovers look forward in time, entwined within a common fate. The travellers look back, remembering their own past experiences which are now unfolding before them in the guise of the lovers, momentarily halting the remorseless succession of moments. The former with Future; the latter with Past. We see ourselves as simultaneous members of both groups. With a foot in each camp we are caught between them, between past and future: outside of time and place.

  1. Understanding a Photograph by John Berger; Penguin 1967; ISBN 978-0-141-39202-8
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Filed Under: Beachy Head, blog Tagged With: tony ray-jones

Intersections by Josef Koudelka 1976

October 28, 2016 By TC

Uninterminable sameness. The road travels straight and up, beyond and over (to a difference, perhaps?). The man seems unsure. He is at a crossroads, but is turning to the right. Deep down he realises it is already too late for change.

A wonderful picture by Koudelka.

© Koudelka

© Koudelka

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In search of a classic photograph

August 4, 2016 By TC

I went out recently, film camera in hand, specifically in search of a ‘classic’ photograph. I happened on this scene in which the man’s hat, coat and briefcase would give me that ‘timeless’ look, helped of course by TRI-X film.

I think this would have been difficult, but not impossible, to create using digital equipment. It’s the combination of the grain with the slightly faded greys.

film street photography

© Tony Cearns 2016 St Georges, Hall, Liverpool. Tri-X rated at 320 developed in XTOL 1:1.

But what do we mean by a ‘classical look’? Is it simply a photograph in black and white? Well, no, as this do not necessarily give such a look. We could take a photograph of a modern scene in black and white and still it could look modern. Is it the fact that a photograph harks back to a previous era by virtue of its costume, street furniture and architecture? Again, no, as it would be possible to take a photograph of a historical reenactment without it looking ‘classical’. Is it more to do with the way that a photograph is expressed through the rendering of a film. I think this has more to do with it, but it is difficult to define. We seem to know when we see it but find it hard to define. This is because it’s more a mood or atmosphere rather than a specific set of attributes, although it is the attributes that give rise to it.

 

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Filed Under: blog, in search of classic, post Tagged With: Classic photography, Classic street photography, Liverpool, St George's Hall, tri-X, XTOL

In Praise of Joel Sternfeld

March 30, 2016 By TC

Sternfeld’s pictures can leave me strangely quiet, as after leaving a church service or a long meditation. The scale of his backdrops, the counter-pointing of urban against rural, of people against artefact, all have the effect of making one feel small and insignificant.

Perhaps best known for ‘American Prospects’, Joel Sternfeld // American Prospect ‘Stranger Passing’ and ‘Walking The High Line’, his images seem disarmingly simple and unified despite their epic scale and ambition. Perhaps this is partly achieved by his muted use of colour, integrating objects together rather than forcing them apart, a technique he learned from studying William Eggleston.

In “Architecture Museum” we see these hallmarks coming together: muted colours, the juxtaposition of scales, the ethereal quality to the framing.

© Joel Sternfeld

© Joel Sternfeld

As he himself said on the use of colour:

“The job of the color photographer is to provide some level of abstraction that can take the image out of the daily”.

And on framing:

“You take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo. No individual photo explains anything. That’s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium”.

And here is why Sternfeld so interests me as a street photographer: his ability to control all the elements (none of his photographs were posed) and his ability to keep you guessing with only half the story – surely two crucial components to good street photography.

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Japanese photo-angst

February 24, 2015 By TC Leave a Comment

If the reaction to the Open Eye Gallery exhibition in Liverpool provides a good indication, post war Japanese art photography seems to be back in vogue. [Read more…]

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On Colour Street Photography

February 9, 2015 By TC Leave a Comment

“I even think of black and white as colours, it just happens to be limited to two,” explained Bruce Davidson, comparing himself to a baseball switch-hitter able to swing both ways depending on the score 1

A far cry from his mentor Henri Cartier-Bresson who famously rejected the use of colour. We can now look back on this sterile debate (i.e. B&W versus Colour) with the advantage of having seen the wonderful colour work of Cartier-Bresson’s contemporaries Helen Levitt, Ernst Haas,  Fred Herzog and in  particular Saul Leiter.  [Read more…]

  1. see http://time.com/3696223/bruce-davidsons-ode-to-color-photography/ ↩
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Filed Under: blog, post Tagged With: Alex Webb, Bruce Davidson, Cartier-Bresson, colour, Gaby Wood, Karl Baden, Melanie Einzig, Saul Leiter, Trent Parke

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