pete mcgovern

Obituary/accolade here

profile here  

I got a new camera today. I haven't bothered opening the box yet, as it's just a dSLR and looks pretty much like my last one, a lump of magnesium with electronics in it covered in black rubber.  I get nervous buying cameras, it's like starting a new relationship.  It's all that 'getting to know you' and starting from the beginning again.  And you always think this is going to be the last one. I think the last new camera I had was a red Hanimex 35mm film camera, which I got in a closing down sale in a hardware shop for £2.99 (might have been £3.99) about 15 years ago.  As you can see it had a lever to allow for various lighting conditions - that was it, settings wise, but it was plenty.  I so loved that camera.  It was the first time in maybe ten years since having given up photography and having sold my 'proper' cameras years earlier that it was suddenly uncomplicated and fun, and with no expectations.  Maybe all relationships should start like that....

The title of this series refers to the distance Divola could run having set his camera's ten second self-timer and pressed the shutter button.

In the Tyler Green interview with landscape photographer Robert Adams (part 2 of the show) it was interesting to hear his reply to a question on working alone. Tyler had heard from a friend of a friend that Adams wouldn't take a photograph if anyone he knew was hanging around observing him.  Adams explained his wife was the exception, and then went on to talk about one other occasion when he broke this rule, during his night photography project in the 1970s.  He was getting scared out there on his own so hired an art teacher he knew to accompany him - a guy who he knew had been trained as a sniper in the army, (I presume this meant he actually carried a gun) - and it still took them a week to calm down from the jitteriness they both felt.  That anxiety wasn't totally misplaced.  Adams later heard about a triple homicide occuring shortly after at one of the locations they had been working, and around the time of the night they'd been there. I don't feel so bad no...

Thanks for sharing, Stephen    :  )