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I recently wrote a general e-mail to my mates to let them know that I was now posting a blog and the reasons behind it. The following is a quote from that, the comments in brackets were not included, they know all that:

“Not asking for any sympathy here so don’t offer it, the job is the job (looking after my parents in their old age), but obviously in terms of going out and getting intellectual stimulus, things for me at this time are rather restricted so my world has to be the web. And strangely as I keep my technical “skill set” current (my working background being IT), odd coincidences can happen and the results, can be beneficial even under restricted circumstances.”

Having written those words, a little later, they gave me pause for thought and took me back in my life to a time over 40 years earlier when as a 17 year old at Art School aiming to do a Fine Arts course in painting. In charge of us were a couple of young Tutors both of whom were good chaps and had a series of “loosening up exercises” for us to do. Looking back I can see that their objective was to break down any preconceptions that we might have had concerning both what fine art was and, our role within it.

Although I can remember pretty much all of these “gambits” most of which with some modifications, I have used in management situations over the years, my personal favourite was always, “white egg, white paper”. The exercise was to paint a white egg sitting on a white piece of paper, what you might call a “highly restrictive” exercise, why not just paint the whole canvas white with a roller ? In fact it isn’t quite that simple.

The paper may be white but it has a texture, the egg also is white but three dimensional and therefore catches the light across its surface as well as casting shadows from the ambient lighting conditions. I cannot remember there being any pure white left on my canvas by the time I finished, shades of grey and ochre maybe, very little white but what there was – was a 2 dimensional description of a 3 dimensional object with a highly restricted colour palette. And what is the relevance of that one may ask across the decades ?

Every morning I go for a bike ride and the complete “circuit” is probably about 5 miles. I go along the sea front until I reach the mouth of the River Brue and then along the dyke which is part of the flood defences until I reach Highbridge when I turn around and come back again often, stopping to pick up fresh bread for breakfast on my way home. The purpose of this is to take some exercise but it is also connected with my interest in photography because it mixes well with cycling.

Below the dyke along the Brue is a small flood plain which contains 4 crab ponds that fill up once in a while when there is a very high tide and where Egrets, Herons and Terns fish plus there are some reed beds. This is not a big area, at most a quarter of a mile deep and less than a mile in length but it is currently my most favourite place to take photographs. Between the light, the state of the tides and winds, the place is in constant motion and although I am photographing the same thing from the same angle, it is never quite the same.

There is also another advantage, you get to know your “studio” very well and where the best shots are to be had under different conditions. Yes it is a limited palette, a white egg on white paper and yet perhaps, it encourages you to explore both it and your own perceptions as well as questioning your skills. In this it is more like a “marriage” as opposed to the novelty inherent in any “affair”.