All Droste to the mill

I learnt a new signifier today, "Droste effect", from Ray Girvan at JSBlog (Last visible Droste). The signified is familiar enough (an image containing a copy of itself, to several levels), but I didn't know the name.

By coincidence, however, today's Today image (copied here, left – from another visit to Crimes of passion) contained an example of the effect.

---

[Addendum, : Ray points out to me that he has blogged the topic twice before (Escher image analysed and Droste effect revisited) by name. After a brief hope that I might have just missed those posts, I had to admit to myselof that I'd simply let them leak though the holes in my memory...]

The unbearable lightness of banana

This is another supermarket story.

No, it doesn't involve fruit loaf. Nor pirates. Nor vodka, geraniums or language. There have been supermarket stories with fruit loaves and pirates, but this isn't one of them. This is a banana story ... though there are, curiously, no bananas either.

I mooched around the store, today, doing a periodic shop. With a full trolley, I orbited in to land in the checkout queue.

I would usually go for one of the self-scan checkouts, but the queue at this staffed checkout was shorter so I sideslipped into it.

The young woman on the till slid a tub of houmous across the scanner, which beeped and clocked up the price. Glancing up, I saw "houmous" appear on the display – followed by "bananas, 7.138kg".

"Excuse me", I said, pointing at the display, "I haven't bought any bananas".

She apologised, and cancelled the 7.138kg of bananas.

Seven kilos is an awful lot of bananas at one go, even if I was buying them.

She slid the next item across the scanner. It clocked up ... followed by 7.138kg of bananas.

After the third item, she decided not to cancel the bananas every time, individually, but to do the lot at the end in one go.

There were another sixty two items in my trolley, accompanied by almost 443 kg of phantom bananas.

It then emerged, after several experiments, that multiple items could not be cancelled en masse. The till operator started cancelling the banana purchases, seven kilos at a time.

After the first thirty five kilos, however, the till asserted itself and refused to cancel any more bananas without supervisor approval. So a button was pushed, a bell rang, a sign was illuminated, and we waited – as did the queue behind me.

After a decent interval, the supervisor arrived. He had never seen so many items in need of cancellation before, so he disappeared again to consult his shift manager. The shift manager, when he arrived, decided in turn that he needed to consult the store manager

The store manager arrived and searched though my shopping with great thoroughness, as if she suspected that I might actually have nearly half a tonne of bananas artfully concealed amongst my mango juice and poppy seed crackers. Eventually, very reluctantly, she entered a code to allow their cancellation.

I left the store with a very long till receipt, seven eighths of which showing bananas either entering or leaving a shadowy nonexistence.

Crimes of passion

An excellent exhibition at The RWA (of all places!) by fifty "street artists".

Crimes of passion is not only graffiti, though that form is well represented. Three dimensional work, photographed installation, comix derivation ... as contributor AcerOne comments, "what a loose term [street artist] has come to be!" – but in the very best sense.

I hope to add more photos taken in the show (and more comment) when I have some free time but, for now, here is one (hijacked from my Today series) showing pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell enjoying one of the exhibits with four year old companion.

I hope to take a nine year old artist of my own with me to be inspired next week; it'll make a change from the city art gallery, I'm sure he'll love it.

Saving the world ... one box at a time

Despite rumours to the contrary, I have not shuffled off this mortal coil or abandoned The Growlery. I've just been too busy doing things to write about them.

I spent most of today with a remarkable group who meet fortnightly business development advice, guidance and training. Adèle, their session leader, is one of those people who fizz with determination to live life – and inspire others to do the same.

It was an energising day, and every single person I met was extraordinary.

One example: Darren, creating art works from discarded corrugated cardboard packaging and other recycled materials ("nothing new - people offer me materials but I'm quite strict: they must be something you were going to throw away"). He is passionate about environmental values, but also anxious not to be seen as soft centred. "Saving the world on a wall – one box at a time" he half jokes, then adds "Saving my world, making a contribution by example. Showing what can be done."

Brownie diary (3)

I'm aware that this is in danger of getting very nerdy.

So ... if you'd like to see the first roll of "proper" photographs from my Brownie, click here for an album or a slide show.

If not, feel free to surf onward to somewhere else.

If you venture below the line, be warned that you will sink up to your waist in minutiae of interest only to people who want to use obsolete childhood artefacts in making pictures the hard way...

---

I am still keen to find a 620 spool, but have discovered ways to get around its absence.

First, it's possible to make a spool, using very thin wood dowel as the spindle and disks cut from thin plastic as the ends.

Second, if you have the patience you can grind down an empty 120 spool by working it against glass paper on a flat surface. A bit of dowel once again aligns the centre.

Finally, you can do without the feed spool altogether if you work entirely in the dark. Unroll the 120 film from its spool, carefully rewind it again, place the result in the Brownie's feed chamber and thread it round to the take up spool (you do need that one) and close the camera. Now you can turn the light on, and the whole thing works.

Whichever method you use, the rewinding of the film after removing it from the 120 spool is the difficult bit. The loose end of the film has to be held exactly in position against the backing paper until rewound, or you will get wrinkles which cause nightmarish problems.

In my batch of 120 film, at least, the necessary eight numbers, aligned with the red window for accurately winding on film between frames, are missing. Since it seems better to wind on too much than too little, I only got six frames on the roll.

Brownie diary (2)

Here we go. First result from the Brownie.

Not exactly inspiring, as an image, I have to confess. But then, nor were my first pictures taken with it ... of course, I was only eight years old the first time round and I can't claim the same excuse now.

Only one aperture (measures at f/12) and one shutter speed (seems to be around 1/50 second, at a guess) unless you go for the "B" setting (shutter stays open as long as you hold the button down). The rest is down to exposure latitude.

Lots of sploshing around of chemicals in the dark. Since I'm working with hand trimmed sheet, a spiral is out of the question; the tank would make a perfectly serviceable drum processor if rolled around on its side, but I prefer to start with happy memories of the dish processing basement days before I had even a makeshift proper darkroom.

Still and all ... it's an image, and I'm absurdly pleased with it.

I've had an email from Martin Edwards, who pointed me to a potential source of 620 film and may possibly have a spool for me.

Isn't it exciting?

Brownie diary (1)

In a recent post (and in another, further back, to which it referred) I mentioned my first camera: a Kodak Six-20 Brownie C.

That Brownie is responsible for the whole shape of my whole life. No, I don't mean a box shape ... a wonderfully, endlessly fractal, complex shape.

For many years, the Brownie was only a memory but, as chance would have it, the global tides of history and family movement have just cast it up again on my shores. There it is, on the left.

The 620 film format is lost in the mists of time, but the actual film stock is identical to 120 and 220 which are still available. I only have one 620 spool, which is a stumbling block. One spool is supposed to be in the camera, the film used to arrive wrapped on another. I have the one in the camera, but 120/220 film come on their own, differently designed core. It's not an insurmountable problem, and I shall have a roll of film in there one way or another ... but if you have a spare 620 spool (or even complete roll of film?) about your person, well, you know what to do!

In the mean time, I've chopped down some 5"×4" sheet film to the appropriate size, and painted home made emulsion onto some scraps of celluloid sheet. With black insulating tape over the film window, and a dark bag in tow, I shall sally forth to try my luck in single shot mode.

Watch this space for results.

Tell me where is a photo bred?

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.^*

Unreal Nature, introducing a larger and thought provoking piece on the definition (or otherwise) of action, asks where in the chain of intentionality a photograph is made. I'm going to blatantly chicken out on the larger question (I couldn't possibly do more than frill around the edges of Ms Heywood's own thorough treatment) and pick, instead, on that smaller part.

My first reaction was that, for me though not for everyone, the photograph is made at the moment when I previsualise ... whether I actually release the shutter or not. But, while true, that's not the whole truth.

For a start, I vary. Sometimes I do need to see the print ... and while I don't need to see the photograph through the viewfinder, I do very much want to.

More than that, though, I only learned previsualisation through seeing prints and peering though viewfinders. The arrival of a Brownie's bright prism finders changed the way I see the world; and so did the arrival of the resulting prints. Without them, years of them, there would be no previsualised moment to now identify as the genesis of the photograph. For me, at least, Lange is right: the camera taught me to see without a camera.

By the time I was sixteen, I no longer needed the print; but I still revelled in the viewfinder ... and it was still the print which I was previsualising. And, to be honest, I do (deep down) feel my previsualisation to be provisional, fragile and fugitive until I hear the click of the shutter...

---

* William Shakespeare, The comical history of the merchant of Venice, Act III, Sc.2

The disappointment of Professor S.

I have just received an email from a somewhat gloomy and depressed Professor S, whose name I withhold because I don't have his permission to quote it ... and, while he would probably give that permission if asked (he is the kindliest and most generous of men), I'm sure he would prefer that I didn't.

At some time in the past twelve days, Professor S has read Unreal Nature's "Admiration" post, which notes that "We are, none of us, trained philosophers; it's done in good fun, and should not be taken too seriously" (a summary with which I wholeheartedly agree).

Why is Professor S gloomy and depressed? Because he was under the misapprehension that he had spent several valuable years of his life in training me to be a philosopher.

And so he did. Alas, it didn't stick. I'm sorry, Professor: I was too tempted by hands on hurly burly of the world, and I fell by the wayside. Yes, you are right: I do still teach philosophy, from time to time, to unsuspecting young minds; but I am not, in all honesty, a philosopher myself.

I am astonished (though undeniably flattered) to discover that Professor S reads The Growlery, three and a bit decades on. I am sorry to have disappointed him; but I am also happy that he is also reading Unreal Nature whose philosophy, trained or not, is so much better than mine. Philosophy is, ultimately, within the philosopher and not the training.

DIY social networking kits

From TTMF, a recommendation to a website called The gathering for justice.

The gathering is concerned with imprisonment, and particularly with imprisonment of children. It's well worth visiting in its own right, and I wish it well; it is national, focused on the USA, but its model is one which should be actively considered elsewhere.

It is also well worth visiting for a demonstration of how the social networking concept can be applied to specifics by committed groups. The usual options seem to be competing in the clamour of Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, or trying to use the more focussed (but also, thereby, more trammelled) structures of LinkedIn, 2collab, etc. I'm not knocking any of those options, they are all useful and even, in the right case, excellent, but they are not addressing the needs of specific groups like Gathering.

It also sent me back to review, in one go, all that Unreal nature has said on the subject of prisons, which was a valuable result in itself.

From Gathering I went on and explored their host platform, Ning. This is a framework virtual environment of the type that is becoming common across the web for a number of purposes, specifically designed to provide interest groups with scaffolding. Type a word, any word which matters to you, into the front page (hunger, for example) and find a range of communities. Looking through them, it's obvious that the same Darwinian pressures are at work here as in any other endeavour; some are thriving, some are not, some are still finding out; but all have the same leg up onto a global stage.

The dark bagel thoughts of Darius Sayle

They're at it again. Dr C, JSBlog, Dr C, Unreal Nature, Dr C, Unreal Nature, all that lot. Playing silly games I don't understand. Sniggering at me. Hmph.

I never loved Vanessa Bell
Who fed me with her pumpkin pie:
Her 2B pencil, sharpened well,
Was poked too often in my hide!

I've prepared a poisoned bagel
Buttered well on both its sides.
Never mind a kung fu sandal:
Leave that to David Carradine!

I never sang a sweet gazal
To gently soothe the savage breast
But I held a pointy pencil
To poke an unsuspecting guest!

Heh heh heh ... they'll be soon be laughing on the other side of their toast ...

Of Bath and bagels

As I've mentioned once or twice before, I have no illusion that coincidences mean anything ... but I am attracted to them anyway.

A couple of days ago, I happened across a charity book stall. All of the books were crime fiction, and none of them appealed at first glance; but, keen to support the vcharity to some extent, I looked diligently. Eventually I found one which seemed a little different: Upon a dark night, by Peter Lovesey; I bought it, dropped it in my bag, and thought no more about it.

I later discovered that Unreal Nature had, that same day, amusingly satirised Dr C, myself, and Dylan Thomas in one swipe. Included was a reference to "4 Upper Borough Walls". I was puzzled by that. There are no doubt other Upper Borough Walls in the world, but the best known one by far is in the city of Bath – not somewhere I go often or regularly, but...

Today, by chance, between other stops in London and Plymouth, I had to make one of my infrequent visits to Bath. I would be walking within five minutes detour of Upper Borough Walls. As I left, I had just finished a very powerful and compelling novel and was in the mood for a light, easy read so I picked up Upon a dark night to take with me.

On the train, before starting some work, I briefly flipped open the book and read the first few pages. I was surprised to discover that it was based in Bath.

Having finished what I came to Bath to do, I went to Upper Borough Walls where the reason for the reference was immediately clear: number 4 is a bagel shop. Fairy Nuff, as my late friend Mac used to say. I did ask Dr C where I could buy his microbagel...

Having solved that mystery, and having some time to enjoy, and it being a mild day, I stopped off in the abbey courtyard to sit awhile, read, and watch people go by. Parking myself on a bench I flipped open Upon a dark night and found the amnesiac character Rose ... sitting on a bench in the abbey courtyard, watching people go by.

Upon a dark night is as I've described it: a light, easy, undemanding read, a police detective fiction which just happened to hit the spot for the moment (though the lovingly drawn secondary character, serial shoplifter Ada Shaftsbury, will dwell in my memory for some time). But the following fragment seemed to say something more enduringly insightful:

People steadily crossed the yard carrying things that gave them a reason for being there - shopping, briefcases, musical instruments, library books, city maps or rucksacks...

---

Peter Lovesey, Upon a dark night. 1997, London: Little, Brown. 0316639710

Gerontion

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear my vestigial trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair bald patch behind?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the Unreal Mermaid singing, "Felix is wrinklier".

---

• [With apologies to] T S Eliot, "The love song of J Alfred Prufrock" in Prufrock and other observations. 1917, London.

Beauty in a kitchen sink

I just walked into the kitchen with a used coffee cup, on my way back here to the study to do some work. The washing up bowl, still containing the breakfast dishes, was full to the brim with water which reflected the silvery grey window light.

As I came in through the door, a single drop of water fell from the tap into the still bowl, setting up a single set of racing outward ripples.

It was a peculiarly beautiful moment. The concentric rings of racing ripples, in the fraction of a moment before reflection confused them, were both a deceptively simple sculpture of forces and an atavistic call across millennia to a time of lake dwelling.

I became a scientist (if that's what I am) from love of beauty. I became a photographer (if that's what I am) for the same reason. Both happened in my seventh year. Five decades on, a drop of water into a washing up bowl still draws a bow tight string from my heart in the here and now to that younger self.

What a wonderful world this is in which to be curious and open eyed.