The Gentle Breeze Of The Blast

Photography & Text by Derek Clark

I had planned to follow-up my H2O post with another elements based piece about Air and decided to shoot something at Whitelee Windfarm on the 23rd of May. But that morning I woke up to the news that a suicide bomber had killed 19 people and injured many more at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (UK). More details found their way into each news bulletin as the morning progressed and the death total rose to 22.

I eventually got to the windfarm around 1:30pm and decided to listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto's latest album ‘Async’ as I began to photograph my subject. Ryuichi is in the middle of a battle with cancer and this album is heavily influenced by life and death. A perfect choice of music for this place and time. The mixture of vast open space with the eerie sounds of Async, mixed with the noise of the turbines that crept past my earphones. Then track 8 'Fullmoon' started to play and the voice of American author Paul Bowles spoke these words...

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really! How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood? Some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty, yet it all seems limitless."

Some of the victims of the Manchester bombing were children, the youngest being just eight years old. They'll never get the chance to look back on a special afternoon of their childhood. Likewise the countless others that have felt the wrath of western drones. It's all too easy after a devastating event like this, to see everything as good or bad, black or white. But there is no black and there is no white, only grey.

All pictures were shot with the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Edge 80 optic. I used the Acros+R film simulation and applied a tone curve (S Curve), plus Clarity in Lightroom to the JPEG's. I also applied a vignette to some of the pictures. I shot RAW files too, but didn't use them.

Walk The Line

Walk The Line

As cities grow, they evolve. But sometimes evolution is cyclical, it seems.

Sydney streets have been torn up before, many times, and for many reasons - this time, it's light rail, coming up the heart of the downtown and through the neighbourhood where I live; but it's not the first time trams have run through many of these streets. They're literally finding some of the old tracks when excavating to make the new ones.

It's just the first time in a generation or two; and, in the same way some people opposed the original trams and had them removed, some people are against the new ones coming back.

Meanwhile, these old buildings have seen it all before...

X100 Series : A Brief History Of Time

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEREK CLARK

Back in the first quarter of 2011 when I was lucky enough to get one of the first X100's in the country, I had no idea how this little camera would change everything for me. Fast forward to the last quarter of 2016 and I'm being asked to be a part of the Aquarius project and test the pre-production X100F. I'm so glad the embargo has finally been lifted and I can now talk about this new supercharged X100. You can find my review and other X100F posts on my site by clicking HERE , but I wanted to showcase a few pictures I've shot over the last five+ years with the X100, X100S, X100T and now the X100F. I hope you enjoy.

IMPACT

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

My family has been cruising for a long time. By that I mean we have been luckier than most when it comes to tragedy and drama (maybe a little of the latter now and then). So it’s always been at the back of my mind that every good run must come to an end someday. That day came on the 17th of November when I was sitting in a coffee shop with my two photographer friends.

My phone rang and I checked the screen and saw it was my dad, so I answered it straight away. He told me that he had bad news about my sister. Bad news on this occasion was an understatement. He said that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Time slowed, my heart rate rose and I felt everything from my shoulders to my stomach go into free-fall. Nothing can prepare you for a kick like this. I knew Joyce had been taking seizures lately and had been getting tests done, but I never thought for a minute that it would be anything serious. Not this. Not my family. Not my sister. But cruising was over. Time caught up, the red button had been pressed and the missiles had not only flown, but found their target and hit with full force. IMPACT.

Within days she was under a surgeons knife, in the form of a four hour operation to perform a biopsy, resulting in the picture you see above. The size of the scar and the metal staples that hold it together have taken something that wasn’t visible, but lurking beneath the surface, and brought it out into the open. All of this shit and I haven’t heard a single complaint. She takes it on the chin and moves on.

It’s too dangerous to try to remove the tumour, but the results from the biopsy say that the size of it can be reduced. So weeks or months of Radio and Chemotherapy are stretched out in front of her. I always think this time of year is all about looking back at what you have done and planning ahead for the year to come. But at least for now, the future isn’t what it used to be.

So right now it feels as though there is nothing much to celebrate. But. Celebrate courage. Celebrate modern medicine. Celebrate the man that dedicates his life to Neurology. Celebrate a country with a health service that treats everyone equally, not just the ones with medical insurance. But also celebrate the little girl in the old black and white photo with faded handwriting on the back. Because she shouldn't have to go through this! And lastly, celebrate the parents, who in their 70's and 80's are still looking after that little girl.

horizons

White Sands, New Mexico, USA

By Charlene Winfred

Reflecting on the different edges of the world, all of the metaphors that come to me are an echo: boundaries, fences, walls. Go forth and conquer, but leave the strangers where you found them. The horizon as a line in the texture of numerous such edges, fruitful and varied, is hidden.

It has been three years since I've started returning to the mother country regularly. This time, I find myself appreciating subtleties that were lost to me before. Finding hope in small corners, against the onslaught that usually drives me to despair and a whole lot of anger. I am learning to listen, and finally understanding what I cannot yet hear. In doing so, shrugging off my own yoke.

Third time's the lucky charm. 

Long may we seek to broaden our horizons, and discover all the remarkable things that lie between ourselves and eternity.

To Be Free Is To Have No Fear

To Be Free Is To Have No Fear

I'm as bad as anyone else, really.

I spend too much of my time trying to improve things, to make something better, or to upgrade - whatever the 'thing' is, there's a new one, and it looks better than whatever I've got. And this time of year just amplifies that feeling, many times over. Every second email shouts 'New! Shiny! Buy!'

But when you look around - really look - it's hard to miss the fact that actually, there are much bigger problems to solve in the world than the tiny incremental improvements I could make to my own life…

Moments of Cheer

By Kevin Mullins

As we come to the end of a very busy year for myself, both personally and professionally, I'm drawn back to a single day in March.

I'm not a gambling person, but once a year I head to the Cheltenham Festival or racing.  I'm always drawn to those that seem to have so much resting on a four legged beast as it rumbles over the turf.

It's been a year of turmoil for many, with huge choices being made in the political world, and for me, personally and professionally.

But one thing will always make me smile.....and that is other people smiling.

Keep smiling folks, and have a very wonderful end to 2016 and a most prosperous 2017.

Lose Yourself

By Flemming Bo Jensen

In that moment,
Everything feels right.
We are all in this together.
Celebrate the music.
Dance your cares away.
Worry's for another day. 
Music is the answer.
To your problems
Keep on moving
Then you can solve them.
Music sounds better with you!

(Credits/inspiration: Human Traffic, Eminem, Fraggle Rock, Danny Tenaglia, Stardust and others I may have forgotten) 

Time Gone By

Bobby Wellins | Saxophonist | 1936 - 2016

Photography & Text By Derek Clark

The jazz world lost another great musician last week. Tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins passed away at the age of 80. I had the chance to photograph Bobby on the 23rd of May 2013 during the recording of the Culloden Moor Suite CD with The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. These are the pictures I shot that day for the inside of the gatefold CD. We talked saxophones while he waited for the next take. Bobby found it interesting that I play sax and photograph musicians. It was a privilege to speak to him and an honour to stand a few feat away while he recorded the sax parts.

There's been a couple of times during the three years of shooting this jazz project (I don't even think I can call it a project anymore. It's just what I do) that I have questioned my motivation. Am I done? Have I got to the point where I'm shooting pictures I've already shot? Is this important in Scotland? After all this isn't New York or Paris during the jazz heyday. But I stick with it because I always come back with at least a few pictures that I'm proud of and that I would happily hang on a wall. I get to meet and photograph jazz legends from the UK and abroad, people that have been part of my Record/CD collection for years. But above all else, I get to shoot pictures for a few hours while listening to some of the most beautiful music I've had the pleasure of hearing. There hasn't been a gig went past that I haven't just stopped taking pictures and closed my eyes to hear the music. I mean REALLY hear the music.

It's so easy to get lost in the technical side of things while we're photographing whatever is in front of our lens, the aperture, the shutter speed...etc. But we need to set it and let it be sometimes. We need to take in the moment and witness it not just as photographers, but as human beings. Time is linear. It's here, it's gone and it will never be repeated. This could be the last day for any one of us, young or old. Live it like it was!

Tommy (Smith) put together a montage of my pictures from that day and set it to one of Bobby's tunes (below). I watched it in my car and realised, beyond all doubt, that the pictures I capture of this great music we call Jazz, are important!

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Meetings & Collisions

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Meetings & Collisions

At the most basic, fundamental level, photography is about collision.

Light hitting an object, bouncing, and being gathered.

I like the intersection of planes, the crossing of lines, the meeting places between people, between objects, or just between constantly shifting, fading shadows.

Surfaces. Textures. Light, shade.

That's all we have.