SELF AWARENESS

I love taking photos. Sometimes of glass or myself on various travels. In 2004 my late wife Maureen gave me a camera. Actually, she gave me a SD card and then a camera. Typical of me I opened the “cart before the horse”! Hence this camera became incredibly sentimental when my wife died in 2005. It was more than a camera. It was a magic box that captured memories. My memories and part of this was to record every special glass sculpture I had made. I soon build a great portfolio. Only it wasn’t that great as some photos didn’t reproduce well but I didn’t care. I didn’t have a clue about sizes of images and pixels gave me the shudders. All I cared about is that when I took photographs I could save them on a computer then email them to others. These others included the editor of newspapers and magazines who happily published them. Once someone asked about high resolution but I just shrugged and sent them pictures of glassware wearing hi-vis!

I am an editor of Britain’s bestselling magazine for scientific glassblowers and often email myself photos that I have taken with me trusted camera. I think it’s a Nikon Coolpix 3200 which sounds impressive although I have no idea what the name or title means. I am sure there are better cameras even though I don’t appreciate what the term “better” means.

I love taking photographs of myself when I am manipulating hot glass in the flame. When I can’t get anyone to take photos of me then I use the self-timer. This is a fantastic feature which allows one to run from the camera into position before the shutter clicks or whatever the digital meaning of such techniques is called. Oh how I laughed when in desperate urge to get in focus I end up putting my hand in the flame or other body parts. Such action poses may be very creative but blooming painful!

When out and about then I mostly hand over my camera to someone passing by who happily snaps for me and at me. I always feel the need to explain that its an old camera and the button at the top is the one to press to capture that very special moment. Once this is done then we all have to wait for about eleven seconds as the screen goes black and has to recover, a bit like me after running for a bus. Once at Edinburgh Castle I asked some to take a picture of me with the Castle in the background and the person run away. Not with the camera I am pleased to report but he was screaming that I might have put germs on the surfaces on the camera to poison him. OK, OK it was during the Covid lockdown, and I wasn’t a Russian secret agent but still annoyed me. It was then that I tried to hold the camera and guess where my head was in relation to the Castle and take a photo of me as it was, sort of blind. I have many photos of my nostrils and a few with one eye.

A couple of years ago on entering Liberty’s in London I was speechless with wonder at the fantastic Christmas display so asked the doorman to take a picture of my wife Janice and I with the Santa balloon behind. He explained that he wasn’t just a door man but head of security and was not allowed to use other peoples cameras due to National security. Whilst this did annoy me it also gave me, please in pretending to be a James Bond look alike.

The I bought a mobile phone that allegedly could be a camera. I say allegedly as I owned the phone for about three years before I took a photo. The problem was, what do I do with the photos on the phone that appeared in something called a gallery but didn’t contain art just weird things I had seen and pressed the appropriate button. Can’t really call it a button. I mean it’s like a circle on a screen which one has to aim a finger at whilst also holding the phone with a hand. My old camera was very happy at being used with one hand whereas I need two hands to take photos with my mobile phone. The transition period of phone, camera, phone camera was a bit of a nightmare like having an affair with the enemy.

For me, the best method of getting a good photograph of a clear glass item is to use one hand to hold the glass object high against the sky and with the other hand holding the camera its dead easy to get quick results. I take my SD card out of the camera, plug it into my computer, open up save to a file and email or post on social media. I really thought I knew what I was doing and nothing was any better.

Another big leap forward in busting or bursting my technology virginity was “Google photos”. For those that don’t know, I jest of course as you all do. Well with this clever little thingie which a friend kindly place on my computer then the photos taken on my phone appear on my computer and I can do all sorts of things with the images. My oh my I wish glassblowing was just as easy! But…but…but Its not quick as I get messages about updating accompanied by a blue line moving across my screen. I have tried to speed things up by switching everything off and on and off and on and off and on until the blue line moves form the screen to my face. Nothing beats the simplicity of use of my Nikon camera which I still use and will continue to use as I know in the real World every picture tells a story and my story is just being developed!