By Clive G — As I dropped my little boy at school the other day, one of the Filipino nannies remarked, “Oh, Mr Clive, you got so fat these days!” Lovely! Just what I wanted to hear at 7.30 in the morning! But then again, my eponymous Anglo-Norman ancestor, Edmund Le Gros, who lumbered off his boat and onto the Irish shore sometime in the 12th century, was thus named because he was morbidly obese. So perhaps a burgeoning waistline is my birthright. Oh well, I guess it just means that as the years go by, there’ll be more of me to insult.Actually, I don’t believe I am alone in gaining weight during the summer months in Oman, when long walks on the beach are out of the question and the only feasible activity is to sit under an air-conditioner and imbibe large quantities of calorie-laden cold beverages. Nevertheless, when I go on holiday to the cooler — much, much cooler — climes of Ireland at the end of next month, dropping a few pounds is on my to-do list, though to be honest, quite far down. Much higher up the list are my Photography Goals for the summer.A couple of weeks ago, I suggested some ways in which you might invigorate your photographic practice while on leave. Just to jog your memory, I suggested that you become slower and more deliberate in your photography by having a passionate reunion with your old film camera that’s been languishing in the attic for years. I guarantee you won’t regret it. Another suggestion was to check out a few photography magazines in order to get some inspiration. This week, I have some more useful advice for you which, by the way, I will also be following myself.
Score some goals!No, that is not belated and fanciful advice for the Republic of Ireland football team, who sadly will not be in Brazil this summer. Rather, it is my next tip for breathing some life into your photographic practice during your summer vacation. Without goals, any skills-based activity is just aimless messing about. My grandfather had a word for such directionless activity — ploutering. I used to think it was just another word that he had invented, but I now know that it is a real word. So, stop ploutering around in your photography and set yourself some goals! For the sake of argument, let us divide our Photographic goals in to two sub categories; technical goals and creative goals.
a. Technical GoalsThere is a lot of talk these days, surprisingly even in top notch photographic magazines which should know better, that technical knowledge and expertise are redundant and that fully automatic digital cameras and Smartphones allow us unfettered creativity. That is as idiotic as saying that just because you can buy a disgusting red sludge in a jar labelled ‘Bolognaise Sauce,’ the technical know-how of cooking Italian food is obsolete. No, cook-in sauces are for people who can’t be bothered to learn how to cook, just as automatic cameras and Smartphones are for people who can’t be bothered to learn the technical aspects of photography.In this age of the wide dissemination of knowledge, it is very easy to get your hands on excellent books that can tell you, step by step, how to cook fabulous Italian food, just as there are excellent books that can tell you, step by step, how to take technically competent photographs. And if you feel that reading a book is just too old fashioned, then check out the many informative tutorials on YouTube.So, why not set yourselves some technical goals for your summer holiday? It could be that you want to learn how to get shallow depth of field in your sports photographs. Maybe you would like to find out what Photoshop can do for you. Perhaps you would like to try your hand at black and white photography, or maybe even infrared photography.My main technical goal this summer relates not to taking, but to printing photographs. Last time I was in India, I visited a handmade paper workshop in Tamil Nadu, where they manufacture the most wonderful, heavily textured and deckle-edged sheets of thick creamy paper out of old cotton rags. I bought 10 large sheets for the unbelievable sum of 250 rupees (about 2 rials) and brought them back with me to Oman. I want to be able to print some of my photographs on these lovely leaves, but as they are as porous and blotting paper, they would suck up a whole set of ink cartridges on one photograph. So, my technical objective this summer is to find out how I can coat this paper in a way that will allow me to use it in my inkjet printer and still get correct, vibrant colours. I know it can be done as I have seen beautiful examples in art galleries.
b. Creative Goals
Of course, all the technical know-how in the world is worthless if you don’t put it to some creative use, which is why you also need to set yourself some Creative Goals for your summer of photographic renewal. Now again, my grandfathers ‘p’ words applies. No point in just slinging a camera round your neck and wandering around in the hope you might come across some good picture opportunities. The chances are you will come home with some terrible shots and a badly wounded photographic self-esteem. No, you need to pick a subject matter that really has resonance for you, something that really makes you feel alive and complete. For some poor misguided individuals it may be sport, in which case they should photograph football matches or athletics meets. It could be nature and wildlife that get you going. Or maybe your dear old mum’s quilted bedspreads, or your dear old dad’s garden shed, or that bleak park where you met your first boyfriend/girlfriend. There really are no taboos when it comes to subject matter, except those that are against the law!If you are a regular reader of this column, it may have come to your attention that ruined or abandoned buildings do it for me. Not to say that I don’t have other subject matter. I regularly photograph my dear old mum when I see her in the summer (“If you point that thing at me again, I’ll clobber you with it!”). I’m not averse to doing a bit of macro photography in her lovely garden, which hums and flutters with all manner of insect life. And for years I have been building up a collection of images of my late grandparent’s house in rural Ireland, where I spend so much of my boyhood. My Uncle Gilbert, the aging horsey man whom I wrote about a month or so back, and Gerald, the ghost boy who wanders the upper floor singing his childish songs are the house’s last occupants. In the not too distant future, only poor Gerald will remain. Then the hall door will be locked for the last time, the windows boarded up, and Time and the unforgiving Irish weather left to do their worst. Pity, but the house is just too far gone to save, except in photographs.The two photographs accompanying today’s article were taken last summer at Lisball House, as it is called. No doubt I will be taking more photographs there this summer to bore you with at some future date. In the meantime, let me leave you with a little anecdote about a rattrap similar to the one you can see in one of the photographs.When I was a lad of about 8, I overheard my grandmother say to my grandfather that she had seen an enormous rat running behind the water barrel just outside the hall door. So without a word to anyone, I got an old rattrap from the tool shed and set it behind the barrel, with a piece of corned beef on the pan to lure my prey.Next morning when I went back to check the trap, there was indeed something caught in its steel jaws. I knew it wasn’t a rat because it was too long and had ginger fur, but what it was I had no idea. Surely this will earn me praise, I thought, as I carried the trap with its dead victim round to the yard and into the kitchen, where my grandfather was sitting in his habitual armchair in front of the stove. But instead of praising me and fishing the pound note out of his pocket that I’d hoped for, he jumped to his feet and shouted, “Get that bloody thing out of here now!” My grandmother, who was stirring a pot of porridge on the range, looked around in surprise and then shrieked when she saw what was in the trap. She ran across the kitchen, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of the house, across the yard and half way down the lane to the duck pond, where she made me throw trap and creature as far out into the muddy water as I could. Of course, I was crying my eyes out by this stage of the drama, but between sobs I managed to ask her what was wrong. “You stupid boy,” she hissed. “Do you not know a weasel when you see one. There’s nothing brings worse luck than a weasel. Honestly, you’re like a Billy goat. If you’re not getting into trouble, then your just coming out of it!”
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