pete mcgovern

Yesterday afternoon I cycled out into the countryside to visit a plant nursery reputedly at Eagle Barnsdale, a village about 7 miles away.  I never found it.  I think I missed the turn or it doesn't exist except on Google maps and on review sites (where they get all 5* reviews). Some of the fields on the way were unexpectedly colourfully pretty for the time of year and seemed to almost shine under the overcast sky. I reached to my pocket but had forgotten my camera so had to make do with the simple reality of looking - which is often more sensible, especially with important things like fields, or mountains or forests or seas, or people, which don't like being squashed up into a tiny digital sensor anyway. Just looking is okay. The recent need for more pot-shaped objects continued today (three more),  & that's a rattlesnake  plant in the background.

If I ever go in to TK Maxx I always seem to come back with some little pot thing.  They always seem slightly badly made, are always ridiculously heavy and have come from exotic locations halfway around the world. To make my kitchen more airy I'm just about to pull out some boxy kitchen units to replace with rough cut scaffold board shelving and fix with steel brackets. Once they are up - not that I know about these things - I think I might need a hot little splash of colour sat on the pale wood. Next, some more house plants.

The oven's on but a pause to look at an Edward Weston book, and specifically  Pepper No. 30 Weston was shooting on a camera producing 10" x 8" negatives from which he made contact prints. First saw how amazing these were when I skipped school aged 15 to attend opening of a show in the Curtois wing of the local Usher Gallery, Lincoln, UK. Forever grateful to the curator who decided to put on a serious photography show in our art gallery. (It would be decades before the Tate in London would think to do so.)

MACK website    submission deadline 25th Jan 2021   Jury:  Mariama Attah,  Polly Fleury,  Renée Mussai,  Eugenie Shinkle,  Clare Strand

Independent Photographer website  The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams - New Yorker interview:  It was the best time of my life, spending time with them. I had an excuse to regress a little. The first three years were just pure joy. I would just listen to them, film them—it was just completely free. I wanted their company; I had been sick a long time, I had been in Sweden, which can be dark and cold, and then when I went back to Argentina, there they were.