On Show At: The Tourist Information Centre, Faringdon

During November I am the 'featured artist' in the local tourist information centre. If you're in the area please pay a visit and take a look at some of my work. As well as mounted prints I've included some 'desk pictures' (stand supported acrylic prints) and for the first time some pictures printed on metal. The metal images are quite striking (if I may say so!) and are all black and white this time around. I really like these first few I've had made so will undoubtedly order some more. Perhaps in colour next time! They are extremely robust, useable in kitchens and bathrooms, and even in gardens if not in full sunlight, and they are very contemporary. They're also surprisingly lightweight and easy to hang. I may order one for my own bathroom... The four on display are all local scenes.

If you need further incentives to visit, the TIC now has a full range of charity christmas cards available, along with 2011 calendars, and all the usual local information. You will undoubtedly also get, free of charge, a warm welcome from the friendly staff there!

Tornado Watch. Or: What a Difference a Day Makes

This week has been about work and weather. I've been in Grand Rapids, Michigan, attending a conference. I come regularly and enjoy meeting up with my US colleagues. Because I'm carrying work kit, there's rarely room for much camera gear, so on this trip I had just my Panasonic DMC-TZ6. And even that pocket camera ended up not being with me when I could have used it!

At the start of the week the news was full of severe weather warnings. The worst storm for 70 years was forecast to be coming through on Tuesday - the day of the conference. Boy, did it arrive! The rain became heavier and heavier and increasingly audible even in our windowless conference room, and you could hear the wind roaring.

Halfway through Tuesday morning's sales presentation, the tornado warning sirens went off..

Now as a Brit, this is something I've never experienced before and it did spike my adrenaline a bit as we were all evacuated to the conference centre's basement. Unfortunately as it has always been drilled into me to evacuate without taking anything with you, I left my camera upstairs in my case. Which was a pity as there were some rather good photo opportunities as people tried to work on in the basement.

Still, photographers (like fishermen) frequently refer to 'the ones that got away'... and I was there to work rather than photograph. Work on we did - the sales conference schedule was not going to be flattened by a tornado warning! So we all 'kept calm and carried on', with a great on-the-fly-and-who-needs-modern-technology-anyway presentation of the next set of books with visuals of the book covers shown by using the new catalogue. A bit smaller than the powerpoint presentation upstairs, but it got the information across.

Forty minutes later we all trooped back upstairs. (I must admit that I did look to see if all the cars parked out front were still there!) Ten minutes after that we went through the whole process a second time when the sirens went off again. Despite all the disruption, the conference ran to time, which I thought was pretty impressive.

By the time we finished the rain had eased, though the wind was still incredible. From the shelter of my (rocking) car, I took a grab shot of the amazing threatening sky. You can just about see the outline of the cars at the bottom of the picture. I missed my SLR's manual settings at this point - the general light level wasn't quite this dark - but I think the picture I've got does represent the atmosphere of the day rather well, even if it's not as good as it could be. (Bearing in mind too that this is the picture 'straight out of the camera' with no tweaking or tinkering whatsoever.)

I heard the following day that a funnel cloud was seen at Grand Rapids airport, which is only a few miles away from the conference centre, but most local damage seemed to be to power lines and small things like signs.

By Wednesday morning the worst of the weather had gone through, leaving very strong winds following. The power went out (again) at the offices I was visiting, but not for too long. Though the traffic lights going out for most of the day on one of the major intersections meant some very lengthy traffic queues which I accidentally ended up in! It was quite literally hard work to walk into the wind, and my car door was snatched out of my hand and slammed. But the black clouds of the previous day had been utterly blown away. This picture was taken about 18 hours after the last. Apart from the storm force winds, it was hard to imagine the tornado warnings and torrential rains of the previous day.

These photographs are not among the best I've taken. I didn't take very many, and they were taken on a camera which perhaps isn't best suited for extremes. Nonetheless, there are times when the pictures you are taking are about personal memories, not pictorial perfection. In photography, as in many other things, there is infinite diversity. And that's one of the things which keeps it so interesting.

A Spitfire, Some Grapes and a Folly

Today I decided to take my camera and walk a route I frequently run. It took me at least ten times longer to walk one stretch of path than it normally takes me to run it, owing to periods of 'stopping and staring' as well as stopping to take photos.

As I was strolling along contentedly, I suddenly heard an engine. An aircraft engine. Not just any old engine though - this was a Merlin engine. A Merlin has a completely distinctive sound. A Merlin means that something special is in the vicinity. So I rushed out from the hedges to where I could get a clear view and saw - a spitfire! It streaked across the sky in the distance while I struggled to get near it with the medium zoom on my camera, all the while thinking 'please come this way!' (as if you can somehow send a telepathic message to an aeroplane).

Telepathy or no, it shot across the valley right in front of me, made a wide turn and came roaring back, before doing a roll which caught the sun on it's wings, and then disappearing out of sight. The sound of that fabulous engine faded away and I was left peering at the screen on the back on my camera, trying to see if I'd managed to get a single reasonable shot. The pictures I got certainly aren't great technically, but they will remind me of the moment when an ordinary Sunday walk turned into something exciting.

I would've been just as thrilled to see a spitfire even if I'd left my camera at home. If I had been running as I usually would have been at that time on a Sunday, I would have stopped to watch it. Some things are just worth taking time to enjoy - even without a camera!

Feeling very cheerful, ok to be truthful feeling rather 'hyped up' and restraining the urge to jump about and yell in a rather childish manner, I continued on my walk. After taking several of the sorts of pictures I'd set out to take (such as the one shown left of the local Folly) I walked back along a road I must have run along hundreds of times. At the edge of this unexciting country lane came the second surprise of my walk.

I've often noticed the shrubs growing up and over the stone wall which runs alongside the lane. Today I noticed the fruit. Grapes? Really? Yes, grapes! It really is the case that less than half a mile from my house is a vine, with ripening grapes growing just above the pavement.

I would have said that photography has made me look at things more closely, but perhaps that isn't always the case... Note to self: 'Could do better'! It just goes to show that you may come back with some photos you didn't expect the next time you set off for a walk with your camera!

I nearly didn't do this morning's walk at all. Just one decision made differently, and I would have missed so much more than a few photographs.

Book Review: Choosing to SEE

There are some books I talk about because it's my job. There are some I talk about because they are wonderful books. This is one of the latter. (Though in fact it is also one of the former!)

In Choosing to SEE Mary Beth Chapman talks very frankly and openly about her life's path, and the ways in which things didn't go to plan, despite the way everything looked on the outside. Her family has had to walk through a Grand Canyon sized valley of the shadow of death. Yet this book is not depressing. Sad, yes, but often joyous too. Sometimes I laughed and cried reading the same page. I found the chapter covering the meeting with their first adopted daughter deeply moving, and the love which is shown there clearly binds the family together during the dark days following Maria's death.

Their faith is inspirational - not least because Mary Beth is very honest about asking the hard questions which many of us run up against. Hers is not a 'champagne lifestyle' faith, but one which has been shaped by hard work and hard knocks. All in all I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's the best biography I've read in ages and ages.

Read it. You won't regret it.

More information, including sample chapters and an author video can be found here.

Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Published by: Revell (Distributed by Lion Hudson)
Available through any good bookshop or online

Book Review: They Almost Always Come Home

When Libby's husband Greg doesn't return from a canoe trip to the Canadian wilderness, the authorities initially suspect that an unhappy husband has made his escape. Greg and Libby have been growing increasingly distant since the death of their daughter. An event for which Libby blames Greg.

His plans for his latest trip were not for fishing though, although he couldn't bring himself to tell his wife of his real plans. When he doesn't come home, Libby sets out to look for him, together with her best friend and her father-in-law. Along the way, she discovers all sorts of things about herself, her friends, her husband and her fragmented faith.

I sometimes find that I run out of steam (or interest) with Christian fiction stories, but this one kept me gripped all the way through. And as a photographer I really connected with Greg's dream! I did find the sudden shift to Greg's perspective such a long way in was a bit jarring, but at the same time it was good to 'hear' his viewpoint too.

Well-written and suspenseful (in a low-key sort of way), this is an involving story. I was reluctant to put it down. Recommended.

Price: £8.99
ISBN: 9781426702389
Published by: Abingdon Press (Distributed by Alban Books)
Available through any good bookshop or online

Is There a Letter You Wish You'd Written?

Today I paid a visit to my local library. I've not been for so long - working for a publisher means I'm rarely short of reading matter - that when I presented my card in order to borrow a book it was no longer recognised. However, I digress.

After browsing the shelves and selecting my book I noticed a table on which was a pile of local interest newspapers and magazines, and a slender book called 'The Letter I Wish I'd Written'. As I had some time, I sat down to read the opening letter in the book, and then read the second (which you can find on-line here: 'I wasn't really much of a dad..." It's well worth reading). And the third. And most of the others. They were fascinating, and thought provoking.

These letters were all written by people over 60, as if they were their younger selves. They started me wondering. Is there a letter I wish I'd written before it was too late? Am I in a situation now where I may think later on 'I wish I'd written a letter'? Are you? If so, maybe it's time to do some writing.

'Sensitively revised' or unnecessarily messed about with?

I've been collecting children's books from the 40s & 50s for years and am a big fan of storytelling for children both old and new. So when I hear that a good story written in the '40s, '50s or 60s is being re-published I think 'Hurrah'!

Then I read the dreaded words 'sensitively and carefully revised' and my heart sinks. This time it is Enid Blyton's The Famous Five series books which are being afflicted with this treatment, supposed to 'make them timeless and appealing to a generation of new readers... lifelong fans will be captivated'. (Hachette Children's Book 'Hachette Gazette'.) I hope they are right, but I think that 'lifelong fans' and 'new readers' are two very different groups when it comes to 'classic' books.

The main reason I don't believe revising old books works is that a book is written of its period. So a book set in the 40s or 50s is immersed in the feel of that time, not just the money and the types of vehicles used and so on. The way the characters act and interact and the 'tone' of their voices is all affected by the era in which their story is set. Therefore I believe it is almost impossible to update the 'old book' without having to materially affect the entire feel of the story too.

The charm of many well-loved classic books is precisely this period feel. It's the sense of place and time of a book. Which is more than simply its setting.

I fell over this business of 'updating' when I was still at school. At the time I was reading a series of books, and one of them had been 'updated'. I was well into the story when suddenly the characters were talking about modern money in a way which jarred substantially with the rest of the series. Furthermore, I discovered that a section of the book had been removed altogether for the 'new edition'! I remember feeling cheated, and going to hunt down a 'proper' copy which contained the whole story in a way which flowed.

The trouble with 'sensitive revisions' is that they often aren't. Changes are not merely minor alterations to the occasional word which might have changed its meaning over time, but often stretch to altering characters' names, place names, phrases and remarks. Nowadays I especially dislike books being updated in order to accommodate 'political correctness', one of the worst reasons I can think of to mess about with a book written and set in a different political and social era.

It's interesting that some well loved period books are now being re-issued in their original editions - even books which had previously been 'updated'.

For example a number of Monica Edwards' books have been re-issued, with the stories in their original unabridged and unadapted form, complete with the original illustrations, and with introductory information in a separate section, including a publishing history of the book. The covers are the original illustrations from the first edition hardbacks. These have become collector's editions in their own right. (See http://www.ggbp.co.uk/ for more information.) The main reason people buy them though, is because they love the stories, and they want to read them as they were originally published.

So I hope that this latest round of revisions are being done for good reasons. Not because children are considered too stupid to work out that things were different in different times. It would be good to pick up one of the new 'Famous Five' editions and be able to enjoy reading it without once thinking 'why on earth did they make that change?'. Perhaps I'll have a go. The test will be whether the stories remain the primary focus and are as enjoyable as the original editions.

So, do you prefer original versions? Or do you believe there's a place for updating well-loved stories?