A weight off the shoulders

At weddings I used to shoot with a full frame camera and strobe hanging from each shoulder. When using one of them, I’d always hunch the shoulder that was holding the other one to stop it slipping down. Worse still, when using neither, I’d do the same with both shoulders. This was such a subconscious thing that I barely even knew I was doing it. Years went by and I coped with a little pain here and there but never addressed the problem.

That was, until one day, after a particularly busy wedding photography season. I was staying away from home on a futon for just one night, and I awoke to severe pain in my left shoulder.

By midday after a few hours of agony I resolved to book my first ever private medical treatment (the NHS had done me well until that point, but this was pretty urgent).

I’m sure, dear reader, you must think I’m silly. How obvious the cause!

In my defence, and fellow wedding photographers will totally understand this, one’s mind during a shoot – not to mention the night before in preparation – is applied in its entirety to the job at hand. During the day one can easily forget to eat, drink water, and one certainly isn’t thinking about how one holds one’s camera. No wonder you need a full day to recover after a 16 hour day!

Long story short, I needed a way to get the weight off my shoulders and down to the hips. The legs still ache after a long shoot, but legs tend to deal with weight better than the delicate muscles in the shoulder cuff.

So the product I fell immediately in love with was the Think Tank Pro Speed Belt v2.0.

Pro-Speed-Belt-V20-ML-4

Image published with kind permission from Think Tank

Let me tell you about it.

Think Tank is the name of the company that make it. This US company has a fabulous range of wearables and luggage for cameras, each item designed to perfection by people who understand the challenges photographers face (unlike some other very well-known camera luggage brands whose products are mediocre in comparison).

The Pro Speed Belt v2.0 is one of three belts they make. It’s essentially the mid-weight one with padded edges and buckle stops. There’s a “skinny”, which is definitely not enough to hold 2 full frame cameras plus lenses and a third lens, and a “steroid” which is enough to carry quite a bit more.

Think Tank also sell a wonderful range of things you can put on this belt, called their modular component system (see the range here). They twist and rotate, you can get different types and sizes of lens pouch, covered adjustable size holsters for camera plus lens (the “digital holster“) – these also have a load of little pockets for mobile phone, tiny pad, rain covers, etc., and full-on camera bags that can be carried on the waist. Brilliant!

Problem is they don’t do a gun-holster style attachment, like the Spider Camera Holster (a different manufacturer). The latter is a great product, which includes the belt, but I’m addicted to my Pro Speed Belt. and they also do an adapter version for the Think Tank Pro Speed Belt, problem is in the UK at least it costs £140, essentially for a piece of metal that securely clips on to your belt.

Enter the Eggsnow. This little puppy costs £23 on Amazon. It comes with its own belt, but with some careful modification I discovered today it can be used with the Think Tank. Hurrah!

61i6-x8W2cL._SL1110_

Here’s how I did it.

What you’ll need:

Firstly I removed the retaining screws and plastic washers on the Eggsnow. The screws are not “structural”, they don’t take the weight, they just prevent the holster from sliding upwards. The plastic washers are next to useless, but you can replace them if you like. I didn’t bother as my solution below didn’t require it.

When you remove the screws, slide the holster away from the Eggsnow belt. Measure the screw locations carefully, I used a Vernier gauge and made the screws 25mm apart and 36mm down from the top edge of the belt.

Now use a bradawl or something very sharp to mark holes in the Think Tank belt in the right place. I’m right-handed, so I marked it at 90 degrees to the right of the belt clips which I keep at the front. A bradawl won’t make it through the Pro Speed Belt – it’s very tough! So I used a 3mm drill to get all the way through. I used a proper drill press because I have one, but careful use of a hand-drill would work. It does of course break the webbing, but not catastrophically so.

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-drill

I needed to replace the screws provided with the Eggsnow, as they aren’t long enough to go all the way through the Pro Speed Belt. Luckily I had some M3 machine screws (3mm diameter). 22mm long worked for me. I bought mine on ebay, a couple of quid for 50.

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-screws

If you were to push the screws the Speed Belt and attach them to the holster, the heads would get lost in the rubbery insides of the Speed Belt. So I cut out a section of the Eggsnow (yes, it’s good for nothing now!) as follows:

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-cutout

Actually I didn’t need this shape, I just needed the rectangle around the screws. You’ll see what I mean below.

When cutting the Eggsnow belt, you’ll see there are 4 layers. I discarded all but the toughest layer and put that layer around the back of the Pro Speed Belt like so:

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-rear

Getting the screws through the belt took a bit of work. The material inside the Think Tank Pro Speed Belt v2.0 is rubbery and the holes drilled seem to close up, so I used some needle-nosed tweezers to open the holes up a few seconds before getting the screws in. I shoved the tweezers in so far that the handle of the tweezers opened the hole up.

After a little shoving, we have a very secure holster attached permanently to the Think Tank Pro Speed Belt v2.0:

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-front

Right – add to this the digital holster and a lens drop, and we have ourselves a mean camera carrying machine! The holster makes for super-fast shooting, that extra 2 seconds it saves compared with pulling a camera out of the belt case makes all the difference!

mat-smith-photography-speed-belt-think-tank-eggsnow-kaboodle

iPhone 4S Lock Screen with Camera Icon

iPhone 4S Camera Review – in-depth

Having braved the upgrade queue – a decision driven mainly by my current iPhone 3GS and its pitifully depleted battery (lasting around an hour into the day) – by 9.30am Friday I was a proud new owners of the iPhone 4S.

Mat Smith Photography - O2 iPhone 4S release in Chiswick

O2 iPhone 4S release in Chiswick

There are myriad features on the new iPhone that I love; after 24 hours of testing Siri to its limits, playing with notifications, the integrated Twitter features, the location-based reminders, and more, I’m in no doubt the ‘phone will enrich my life albeit in some small way.

Rather than focusing on these features, however, here I’m reviewing the iPhone 4S camera from the perspective of a professional photographer.

Summary of improvements

Here’s a list of improvements you’ll see in the iPhone 4S camera, whether they are down to the iOS5 upgrade (which can be installed on older models) or to the iPhone 4S itself.

This review expands upon all of these improvements.

  • Ease of access
    • Quick access from the lock screen (iOS5)
      • No access to existing photos if iPhone was locked with passcode
  • Ease of control
    • Quicker camera-ready time (especially compared with iPhone 3GS and older)
    • Vastly reduced shutter lag (un-noticeable delay in taking shot after pressing button)
    • Increased ergonomics: use side button to shoot (applies to iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S under iOS5)
    • Optional grid for rule of thirds
    • Flash (improved on 4S) – photographers: keep that flash off at all times!
    • Quick Edit after taking photo
      • Crop / free-form rotate
      • Separate 90 degree rotate function
      • Manual red-eye removal
      • “Auto Enhance” – photographers: avoid!
    • Vastly improved focus and exposure seek time
    • Pinch to zoom – photographers: avoid!
    • Photo Stream (iCloud)
  • Redesigned sensor
    • Increased resolution (7.99MP: 3264 x 2448)
    • Lower noise despite increased resolution
    • Increased sensitivity: especially great for low-light photography
  • Redesigned lens system
    • 5 elements: sharper images
    • Wider aperture: f/2.4 – brighter and more impressive images. Reduced DoF for more ‘artsy’ photos

Some background – a personal disclaimer

As a professional photographer, there is a small part of me that despises the concept of a cameraphone. This ubiquitous device has landed in the hands of The Many, which has led to an explosion in the number of photographs taken across the world in any given second (which should be good), yet a proportionally huge reduction in the average quality of a photograph.

If this sounds a bit abstract, just consider what you see on Facebook. Every minute detail of our lives is now captured on our mobile phones in poor light, at low definition, and with little thought. Every moment, including the seminal moments – a child’s fifth birthday party, a graduation, the first dance at a wedding. These seminal moments are being lost in the sea of photos that we take, their significance diminished in our memories.

facebook-photo-with-permission

A Facebook Photo...

However this problem is not because of the technology itself; we can’t blame technology. It’s how we have adopted the technology. But then, neither can we blame lack of expertise; it’s not only the average Joe who doesn’t realise that ‘less is more’ when it comes to curating our lives’ photos, I have seen professional photographers who take the easy line and offer clients quantity over quality.

No, let’s not focus on the effect that ubiquity is having on the social function of photography. Let’s focus instead on the camera itself.

I wish I could attribute the following quotation to someone like Henri Cartier-Bresson, alas it’s a modern idea;

“The best camera is the one that’s with you”

The History

As a cameraphone, the iPhone has long been behind the competition. Users of the original iPhone, the 3G, and to a lesser extent the 3GS, have bemoaned the poor camera.

The iPhone 4 brought the ‘phone’s camera up to modern expectations.

The iPhone 4S, released yesterday, greatly exceeds expectations of a camera phone, and many are saying it’s the best camera on a ‘phone to date.

What makes a good cameraphone?

From the perspective of a photographer, here’s what I believe makes a good cameraphone.

Ease of access: capturing ‘the moment’ is difficult if you have to navigate through menus and buttons before the shutter is even ready

With iOS5, it is now possible to access the camera from the lock screen. This may be done by double-clicking the home button, either when the lock screen is already showing, or when the phone display is off altogether.

And for those who protect their iPhone with a passcode, there’s no need to worry that this could be used to circumvent entering the passcode to view existing photos:

iPhone 4S Lock Screen with Camera Icon iPhone 4S Phone Locked in Camera Mode

Controllability: how responsive is the shutter release? To what extent can focus and exposure be controlled? Is it quick to change the settings? What about other tools like composition guides or in-app post-processing?

One of the main issues with the iPhone 3GS was a delay when entering the camera app. The shutter animation would hang for a second or more, which really affects your ability to point and shoot. The iPhone 4S has an upgraded processor, and there’s no more waiting.

Another major gripe was that you had to use the software button on the screen to take a photo. The iPhone 4S now has a physical button for shutter release: the up-volume button on the side. This is a lovely button which provides a good level of physical feedback without jogging the ‘phone in the slightest when pressed. Great for macro shots, where the tiniest movement can throw the focus off.

Most importantly, something that angers most photographers about cameraphones – and indeed small point-and-shoot cameras – is the shutter release delay. These inferior cameras usually use autofocus; even if you have pressed the button, that shot isn’t taken until the camera thinks the image is in focus. This can lead to a delay of a second or sometimes more, and we professionals (or anyone with an SLR camera!) absolutely hate that!

The iPhone 4S has an instantaneous shutter release – like an SLR.

The result is that inexperienced users may end up with photos that are out of focus – but let’s face it, in many cases if you leave the camera to choose your focus point then you won’t be getting the best results anyway. At least this gives power back to the real photographer.

Combine this with the new face recognition feature, and the new super-fast focusing, and it’s actually very difficult to end up with photos that are out of focus.

The new iPhone 4S sports a grid for composing a shot according to the rule of thirds. Of course, this grid may be turned off, but it’s great for shooting landscapes. Here it is with the options screen:

iPhone 4S camera review - grid - rule of thirds

Naturally, of course, we have the ability to turn the flash on or off, or set to auto. For a professional photographer, this switch is set to the ‘off’ position 95% of the time. If there isn’t enough light, the last thing we want is a horrible harsh flash lighting the scene. There are some occasions it is nice to switch the  flash on, such as … wait for it … when the sun is shining. Why? This is called fill flash, and if the subject is close enough to the iPhone, the bright LED light is just enough to take the harsh edges off the shadows that are cast on the subject’s face. Similarly the flash is useful for more ‘functional’ photographs, e.g. if you are trying to read a number from the rear of a box and you can’t quite reach it otherwise.

Other than that: turn that horrid flash off, and leave it off!

From the above screencap, you can also see the switch camera icon (top right). This allows you to use the front-facing camera on the iPhone instead. Whilst this might be great for that narcissistic shot of yourself, it most certainly won’t do your photography any good. The front-facing camera on the iPhone 4S is still pretty horrid, and should be avoided for anything except its primary intended use which is video.

Another brilliant boon to iPhone photographers in the release of the iPhone 4S is the quick edit function. This is where, after taking a shot, you can quickly crop, rotate, or fix red-eye. There is also an option to ‘Auto Enhance’, however this should be avoided if you are serious about the photo. Apple have mercifully avoided any other ‘artistic’ editing functions, as well as manual post-processing control over exposure or contrast, and stuck to the basics: crop, free-form rotate, and red-eye. This is a good thing.

iPhone 4S Review - Mat Smith Photography - Accessing Quick Edit  iPhone 4S Camera Review - Mat Smith Photography - Crop and Edit

The focus and exposure control offer a similar interface to previous generations – tap anywhere on the screen to focus on that point – however they are noticeably faster and more accurate. iPhone 4S now also has a face recognition feature which assists when focusing on a single subject or taking a group shot. The focus can of course be overridden by tapping the screen to focus on another point.

Unfortunately, there is no separation of exposure and focus control, which means the point you focus is also the point which you choose for correct exposure level. Personally I think that separating these two controls would indeed have been one step too far for the average user. If you require this kind of functionality… there’s an app for that.

The zoom control now uses multi-touch pinch rather than the slightly fiddlesome zoom scroll-bar on previous generations. However, as this is digital zoom as opposed to optical zoom, the result is that you are cropping the image rather than actually zooming-in. Therefore, never use digital zoom; it’s a bad idea because it reduces your options. If you need to see something close-up, you should crop the image afterwards using the new iOS5 in-app editing (mentioned above) or using other software e.g. on your computer. (The same applies for any camera with digital zoom!)

One final point of interest about the improvements to photo handling in iOS5 worth noting is the integration of photos into iCloud. A new folder appears within the pictures app when you upgrade to iOS5 (or by default on the iPhone 4S) called photo stream:

Mat Smith Photography - iOS5 iCloud Photo Stream folder

iOS5 iCloud Photo Stream folder

If you have upgraded to iOS5 (whether you restored a backup of your older phone to a new iPhone 4S, or just upgraded your non-4s to iOS5), you have the option of using the photo stream function. If you switch this on, all photos you take from that point onwards will be uploaded / backed-up to iCloud, and will appear in both the camera roll and the photo stream folders.

This is a real boon for those who use desktop or laptop computers (Mac or PC) as your iCloud photo stream can be synchronised with your computer. No more emailing yourself files, or uploading them to Dropbox! Windows users will need to download the iCloud control panel application (download link here) for Windows, and Mac users will need to upgrade to OS X Lion and switch on iCloud. The windows client allows you to set the location of your photo stream, if you choose to have this downloaded to your computer.

The Lens and Sensor: more important than megapixels

Everyone knows how futile the ‘megapixel race’ is; this is where camera manufacturers play on the general public’s lack of knowledge and get them to focus on meaningless specifications such as the megapixel count. Of course, it’s not an entirely meaningless specification, but in many cases over the last decade, cameras have been released with dog-awful lenses and a high megapixel count; all this does is to show you in even higher resolution how terrible the photograph is!

It’s like matching hi-fi speakers with an amp. No use spending a tonne on lovely speakers if the amplifier doesn’t do them justice.

iPhone 3GS resolution comparison 3MP

iPhone 4 resolution comparison 5MP

iPhone 4S resolution comparison 8MP

As long as the megapixel count does justice to the lens and the quality of the sensor, that’s all the matters.

Apple upgraded the iPhone 4S camera’s megapixel count (this is a function of the new sensor itself, of course) to 8MP. This resolution definitely does justice to the upgraded lens and sensor. It’s worth noting at this point that the video function does not use the full resolution of the sensor, and as such the image is cropped. Therefore, it’s no longer possible to take such wide angle images in video mode. This is a great shame, and it would surely have been possible to use the full sensor frame but reduce the resolution on-the-fly.

So – onto the good stuff: the lens and the sensor.

Apple stated that, despite having a higher resolution, the new sensor is 73% more sensitive. This essentially means the lens performs better in low light, which means that there is less blur and less noise. Let’s take a look. This is actually a comparison of images from iPhone 3GS rather than the iPhone 4.

The image from the iPhone 4GS had its resolution reduced in Photoshop to match that of the 3GS, for comparison’s sake. The images were taken in the same light.

Comparison of 4GS camera with 3GS camera - Sensitivity and Noise

Comparison of 4GS camera with 3GS camera - Sensitivity and Noise

The brighter image is from the iPhone 4GS.

As well as poor response to light and higher noise, below we can also see the increased JPG artefacts from the iPhone 3GS, however this may be due to the fact the image was not reduced in size, whereas the 4GS image was reduced in size, for this comparison.

iPhone 3GS camera image - cropped to show sensor noise

iPhone 3GS camera image - cropped to show sensor noise

iPhone 4GS camera image - cropped to show sensor noise

iPhone 4GS camera image - cropped to show sensor noise

If you can look past the noise and the JPG artefacts, it’s also possible to see that the image has a greater clarity of edges and increased detail in the blacks. Compare the cat’s eyes and nose; on the 3GS version they are blacker and with less detail.

As well as this revised sensor, the iPhone 4S has a completely redesigned lens setup, with a wider aperture (f/2.4, as opposed to the iPhone 4’s lens aperture of f/2.8). This wider aperture allows more light in, and as you can see from the below test images, it reduces the depth of field; this is something many photographers will enjoy about the new lens, as it can slightly improve the feel of portraits.

Note that the aperture of f/2.4 is not equivalent to that of the photographer’s standard measurement based on the 35mm film. The equivalent aperture would be much higher, in the order of f/18-22, as is appropriate for a fixed-aperture and fixed-focal-length lens.

Of course, the focal length of the iPhone 4S has also changed, and it’s now 4.3mm as opposed to the iPhone 4 focal length of 3.85. Whilst it may seem at first the image should appear zoomed-in in comparison to the iPhone 4, remember that the crop factor may be slightly different if the sensor has been redesigned. Very little detail has been released on the dimensions of the sensor itself.

The below two images show the effect of DoF (depth of field) of the iPhone 4S as compared with the iPhone 3GS. The images are shown here uncropped; the iPhone 3GS image is taken at a slightly higher elevation to compensate for the different focal length. These images are not intended as technically accurate comparisons of DoF.

Observe the bottom horizontal stick (a thin bamboo skewer) in both photographs. The focal point of both images was the middle stick. The iPhone 4S version shows the bottom stick to be much more out of focus.

Depth of Field test - iPhone 3GS

Depth of Field - iPhone 3GS - More of the image is in focus - Less 'artsy'

Mat Smith Photography - Depth of Field test - iPhone 4S

Depth of Field test - iPhone 4S - Less of the image is in focus - More 'artsy'

The reduction in DoF is not severe, however it will have a noticeable effect on portrait shots, where backgrounds will appear that little bit more blurry and out of focus, thus accentuating the subject. A lesser proportion of the iPhone 4S image is in focus, which results in a more artsy photo. Great in most cases.

For example, here’s a picture of an avocado in the foreground, with me in the background…

iPhone 4S Depth of Field - Mat

iPhone 4S Depth of Field - Mat

And Apple has proven the DoF point with a slightly less attractive model, and a pretty flower…

iPhone 4S Depth of Field - Apple

iPhone 4S Depth of Field - Apple

The new lens consists of 5 elements, one of which Apple has stated is a ‘hybrid infrared filter’. This is presumably due to the increased sensitivity of the sensor to incident infrared light.

Summary

Please do see the summary of improvements listed near the top of this review.

Hopefully I have covered the main improvements to the iPhone 4S camera. As always, I’d love to hear your comments. Thanks for reading!

Review and photos of Commonwealth Kitchen Published

The photography and writings of Mat Smith Photography are featured on a double page spread in this month’s edition (September 2011) of the Royal Commonwealth Society magazine.

Click here to see the original review (this might make your mouth water!)

Click here (see pages 18-19) to see the online copy of the magazine to read the publication in full.

mat-smith-photography-blog-royal-commonwealth-society-magazine-september-kitchen-food

Exclusive Preview Dinner at the Commonwealth Kitchen

In the heart of the Westminster Bubble, a stone’s throw from Downing Street (and trust me, I threw stones*) and Trafalgar Square, and on the slightly undesirable pink Monopoly board square of Northumberland Ave (£160 to buy the whole road**), lies a historic monument to the Commonwealth history of our nation. Actually, they lie all around, but the one I’m talking is the Commonwealth Club. This private members’ club has recently thrown the doors of its kitchen wide open to the general public. They even let women in now too!

* metaphorical stones

** in real life, it’s an extremely desirable place. In fact, I hazard it’s one of the loveliest walks around the block you could take of an evening in central London, and certainly one of the most romantic, save for the omnipresent nature of the police clustering on every corner.

I rarely blog about non-photo things, but sometimes life and food are so good that they deserve a little space on here (hence the ‘life’ part of my blog title ‘photolife’).

Last night I was kindly invited by Qype (my favourite foodie reviewing site) to sample the tasting menu at Searcys at the Commonwealth Club – or the Commonwealth Kitchen. And what a find this place is.

At 6.30pm we checked in for a Champagne reception. I say checked in – they took our coats and we techie types hit a button on our iPhones to signify our arrivals… (it’s all the rage – honest):

You would be forgiven for walking past the Commonwealth Kitchen without even noticing its existence. It has none of the street presence you’d expect from a London restaurant (e.g. Prezzo next door has a big blue neon sign…) and such hidden gems are often the best.

The tasting menu consisted of four courses plus a perfect picking of palate cleansers and matching wines.

I absolutely love a tasting menu as it’s the chef’s chance to take the diner on a journey that he has thought about in great detail, and it’s his chance to show-off. In my perfect utopian world, people wouldn’t be allowed to choose dishes in restaurants at all. I have this sneaking suspicion that choice is the nemesis of genuine food diversity in the world of good dining.

I digress – here’s what we were given to start the evening’s food journey: scallops!

LJ had the non-fish option of a broccoli velouté:

Smoked Wild Duck with Curried Lentil Soup and a Pomegranate Salad. Duck and pomegranate is a clever combination.

Onto my favourite savoury course of the evening, a superb North Scotland Monkfish with Mussels and Orzo Pasta.

Monkfish is one of those foods that can be very bland indeed, and can be forced to rely on its surrounding ingredients, but the plus side is that it has an amazing buttery (excuse the cliché) melt-in-the-mouth texture.

The Commonwealth Kitchen really got it right here. Great variation of textures within the plate, perfect sidekick of shellfish, some zesty greens, and a creamy pasta.

It looks so innocent and beautiful here, but I photographed monkfish a week ago at Selfridge’s Food Counter and can confirm it is the ugliest beast imaginable. Google Images it.

And here’s the monkfish with baby gem purée, the alternative dish to the above for those selfish shellfish spurners:

Onto the more serious stuff of venison.

Ever since a fatal high speed encounter between my car and a deer on an unlit stretch of the M11 last year (fatal for the deer, thankfully nobody human was hurt), I have approached venison dinners with more glee than usual. It’s a shame, I’m sure not all deer are stupid as hell, but I was most pleased this one was cooked in more than one way; roasted and braised.

Chard Farm Venison ‘roast and braise’, Confit Celeriac, Red Cabbage and Bitter Chocolate Jus.

Or as I like to call it, “Take that, Bambi

This next dish was another alternative to the one I ate.

So jealous. (of the bark. I wanted bark.)

Butternut Squash Risotto with Iron Bark Pumpkin Purée.

There’s a fine line between minimalism and vacuousness when it comes to this kind of food. I have especially found that wedding catering companies working to please a sophisticated palate often try way too hard, and end up producing mere fashion food (“H2O jus served on a bed of essence of lark’s vomit with an accent of deep sea fish shoulder” etc.)

Well, this gorgeous side dish of Romanesco Broccoli was exactly the right side of that line. It’s little details like this, when I bite into them, that make me understand why I am not a real cook, nor should I ever try to be one. This mathematically interesting vegetable (an example of fractals in food) was probably the tiniest most sumptuous thing I have eaten this year so far.

Perfection.

How to follow that? Here’s how. A pre-dessert dessert. Sorry, palate cleanser. (But we all know it’s a pre-dessert dessert.)

Blood orange sorbet with candied ginger. Two perfectly-formed bullet shapes of sorbet: tangy, but not sour and no strong aftertaste.

Despite the exceptionally well-controlled portion sizes (I mean: small), I am by this point happy.

Of course, we all know humans have a different, special stomach, though. A stomach that has actually remained completely empty throughout a filling meal. A reserve stomach, if you will.

Thank god.

Next up, a delicious Spiced Apple Cake with Blackberry Variations specially designed for the reserve stomach.

The photo speaks for itself; this dish was brilliant. The chef is a guy after my own heart. A dish that tells a little story.

I should like to recommend a new name for the menu (I don’t like the way the dish’s title fades away into the word “variations”. Rubbish!) It should be named: A Boat of Blackberry Sets Sail from Spiced Apple Island upon the Shores of Jus, Past the Rocks of Crouton, Guided by the Scent of a Blackberry Sugar, Alas, the Crunchy Sharks Are Biting at the Hull of the Ship! What to Do!

There’s so much going on visually here. The little rocks of tornaway Spiced Apple Island near the bottom of the plate. The delicious crunchy sharks surrounding the ice cream.

Virtuosic presentation, I think you will agree.

Wine Tasting Conversation

Who needs a dessert wine for afters when you have Ice Cider? The Leduc-Piedimonte Ice Cider is a Canadian treat, aged for 24 months and fermented, and was a huge hit with fellow diners.

It had a strange sweetness profile; a strong apple nose which was very dry in the mouth, but similarly there were medium-sweet vanilla notes and pleasing spice oak. As such it makes for a wonderful replacement of a dessert wine. You could almost imagine you are drinking a sweet wine if it weren’t for the overpowering apple.

As a huge fan of artisan apple juice, this hit the spot for me.

It tasted of real-real apples, I don’t mean your bottled-fresh-real-apple-juice-from-the-store, I mean your sourced-locally-and-found-in-farmers-market taste. If my knowledge of apples were better, I could doubtless have distinguished what varietal we were drinking, I don’t think it was a blend.

I met some lovely fellow London foodies. Here’s Chris, Qype’s resident London Guru. I fully understood the significance of this Guru status had when I indicated I liked cigars, and he began to reel-off his favourite twenty or so cigar lounges and terraces in London. (Maybe I exaggerate with twenty, but Chris is certainly the London food and drink equivalent of a London Cabbie; he has The Knowledge.)

Here’s a link to his blog.

I must admit I’m not a fan of New World wines. I know people who swear by them, but maybe my tastes haven’t matured enough for them yet. (I’m trying to be diplomatic.) There is no question the wines here were of a good standard, great clarity and depth, and they will leave drinkers with a happy organic glow as opposed to a slight headache. It’s just the flavours, they are a little unsubtle. Actually the Chardonnay was good, and I really enjoyed the superb Champagne (Champagne equivalent?) presented to us on arrival.

Either way, great line-up, and of course well-matched with the various courses of food.

And the aftermath of my tasting…

Aftermath of the Wine Tasting

The service and hospitality we received as a large-ish group was wonderful, waiting staff and restaurant manager took time to chat with us about the origin of the foods and the restaurant’s values. Looking at the menu prices I will definitely be paying the restaurant another visit, and I cannot recommend Searcys at The Commonwealth Club highly enough.

Thanks Qype for an evening of great food and wine, and it is lovely as always to meet new lovers of fine dining in London. To the Commonwealth Kitchen, thank you for your hospitality.

We Cannot Develop A Memory

“Les photographes s’occupent des choses qui disparaissent continuellement et quand ils ont disparu là n’est aucune adaptation sur terre qui peut les faire revenir encore.”

“We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory

— Henri Cartier-Bresson

The reason I love Cartier-Bresson? It is neither with a love of his photo-journalistic style nor a historic appreciation of the visual world he inhabited that I approach his work, but with a strong feeling of sadness that this world can never be recreated. I don’t mean just the bowler hats and the berets. The interesting things we see in major world cities nowadays are most likely to be an emulation of something interesting than something interesting itself. The girl with a fabulous outfit and outrageous hair would be stared-at in the 50s, now we would assume she was on her way to a 50s fancy dress party (mobile ‘phone in pocket, Oyster card at the ready, probably organised on Facebook).

I don’t think my sadness is some nostalgic sop at the nebulous idea of ‘vintage’; but I will admit here that it is driven by nostalgia. A more detached nostalgia, a sadness that I will never be able to capture that amazing view of Waterloo bridge with a single pedestrian walking, without someone else standing in the way with a tripod (yes, even at 5am Sunday morning); that the inhabitants and visitors to cities are no longer living and working there, going about their daily business and wearing the attire that reflects their social status and work, but instead they are a homogenised form of resident tourist; that cars are built not as shining emblems of a post industrial world but as fuel-efficient, safety-regulated clones whose parts are invariably made anywhere else but here. Indeed my nostalgia really is detached: the only connection linking me with this past is the humble Routemaster buses I was able to hop-on and hop-off in my teens. They are long gone now, save the relics brought back for two popular tourist routes.

In short it is a nostalgia for the fact city life doesn’t make people smile any more.

By inference, photographs of cities don’t make people smile any more.

Various forms of urban photography have stepped-in to take the place of real photojournalism: the ultra-realist style of HDR photography which yields an often over saturated form of photography for amateurs (pros can of course use it to good effect in the same way that photographers pushed and pulled in the darkroom); the contrived but clever form of photography that makes a witty comment on life in an environment (this is the polar opposite of traditional photojournalism, of course), photography that involves lots of pre-planning and design to make sure it looks like it was completely unplanned, and a more interactive style such as the “global faces” concept of street portraiture whereby tight crops of droves of different faces and races with different back-stories are shown. This would be photo documentary as opposed to photojournalism. It vaguely interests me, but it does not hit the spot.

Knowing what we know about Cartier-Bresson and his views on the essence of the simultaneous opportunity and impossibility of capturing a moment, I think we can assert that he wouldn’t have been interested in any of the above. Coming back to my opener, I never really answered the question as to why I love Cartier-Bresson. The direct answer is of course that he did something which photographers today cannot do, and he did it very well.

But the more interesting answer is that, in the same way I feel modern composers do not operate as independent artists within the context of a cohesive social movement – because there isn’t one (another blog for another day), it can be argued that modern photographers are precluded from kind of work (genuine photojournalism worth looking at) for the same underlying reasons.

Meaningful social or artistic revolutions in the modern age are rare. (Probably because we never had it so good with income distribution, corporate quality of life, and welfare state.) But I wonder what it would take to bring about such an event, and whether we will see this in the next few decades? I wouldn’t wish any non-peaceful event to bring this about, but I would relish this kind of social artistic revolution.

There is no way to peacefully undo the good progress of society in regards to equality, democracy, trade and consumer law, especially as championed by the EU; I have no doubt that cars will be as un-photogenic in 30 year’s time as they are now. But perhaps people will be different. Perhaps the world will somehow be worth smiling at in a way that it currently really isn’t.

For my next post on this subject I will be focusing on Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics in specific relation to 21st Century photography. (I’m joking. Maybe.)