With time and without

I went up to Glasgow and Edinburgh for the weekend and a seminar yesterday on advertising law in the UK (which sounds dry but there were some great examples of ad campaigns gone terribly awry).
It was good to meet with friends and catch up on the latest; it was also good to go shopping for vegetables (I have a bog standard Somerfield here and am not especially enamoured of their selection). I must admit—I miss the city. I grew up in the country and feel at home here; however, with this new-found aversion to car ownership, country life is going to be rather cumbersome. Scotland has excellent public transportation links—in the Central Belt and to and from the Central Belt. I am down in the Borders. It took me seven hours to get the 105 miles from Edinburgh to Newton Stewart (3.5 hours of that were just sitting around waiting for the next form of transportation). The last bit, a bus from Dumfries to Newton Stewart, is timed to depart from the Dumfries train station four minutes before the train I was on arrives. So I had to wait two hours for the next one. I had to take two days of travel to go to an afternoon seminar in the City; not especially effective use of time.

But where is time? My watch battery died so I popped into a watchmaker’s shop on an Edinburgh back street to have it replaced. There was a man with a loupe in his eye sitting at a worn wooden table; as he worked on my watch and spoke of the various eras of watchmaking and the downfall of American ingenuity (regarding watches from the early and mid 20th Century), I looked about the shop. I realised, after fourteen and a half minutes, the time of the shop was stopped. I did not see anything in the place that looked like it had been made or altered after the early 1970’s. Also, since many of the machines and bits in the shop were unfamiliar to me, they could have been from any time. It was surreal. I was suddenly standing in a place all about the measurement of time—surrounded by clocks and watches—and could not make a reference to the present.

The watchmaker wore two beautiful old Omega watches; for some reason, the Greek Omega symbol on the watches also unnerved me. The whole experience was seriously bizarre. The watchmaker was pleasant enough and engaged in interesting conversation—but I was creeped out!

Flows

I walked out to the river this afternoon just as the tide was turning. The water flowed swiftly then began to slow till it seemed to stop altogether. Then, quickly, it began to flow in the opposite direction and cover the rocks and embankment. This symbolises something today; I’m not sure what, but it seems to mirror my thoughts and emotions.

Life from boxes

I have now been in Dumfries and Galloway for several weeks and am just today moving into my new digs (after a bit of looking and debating). My office is out in the middle of a forest…and I don’t have a car. So I need to be somewhere along the lines of a car-pool route (most people at work ride share); however, I also need to live somewhere near or in a town for all the necessary services of life and etc. I think I’ve found a good balance of all that right outside Newton Stewart; I’m staying what was once a stable but are now holiday lets and a restaurant. So I am in this cozy little two bedroom flat with wonderful views of surrounding hills and the river. Oh, and I now have ready access to the internet (this was the reason for my absence over the past few weeks). I’ve been staying in a farmhouse about 25 minutes from here with a co-worker, Isobel and her husband Robert; I’ll miss them and their sheepdog Tess who has to be the most gentle-eyed dog I’ve ever encountered.
I was thinking today, whilst loading the truck with my belongings, how many times I’ve moved since going away to university. Including the to and fro each year from school, it’s something like 25 times!

The job at Natural Power is brilliant; the people and place are most welcoming and I have a very positive outlook on what this job will become. I’m still getting my bearings as far as my role and contribution; but I think, after a couple months of clicking along, this is going to be a fine place to work.

My digital camera is deceased; however, I’ll try to get some pictures of my surroundings together somehow.

What happens

I’m back in Glasgow for a few days to pack up my things and prepare for the move to Dumfries and Galloway where I will start work at The Green House, the main offices of Natural Power (See more on The Green House itself at this link.) My title there will be marketing assistant though my role will focus a good deal on internal communications (the company is rapidly expanding and we need to keep track of what everyone is doing in the several offices worldwide). I’ll also produce design and layout work (something I’ve been wanting to do more of) as well as put those cinema and video production skills back into play.
We mostly consult on the design and construction of on and offshore windfarms (the company is well respected and has a 100% success rate for planning acceptance; this is from a combination of careful sighting and a good ethos for working with communities where farms are proposed). They do everything from small sites of a couple turbines to very large offshore installations (such as a 1100 MW site in Ireland that will provide 10% of the country’s electricity).

This will be a big change for me after ten years sporadic freelance work; however, If I’m to take a “proper job”, I’m glad it’s at a place such as this. I think energy is the topic of the moment (how it’s produced, used and abused). I’m looking forward into getting into the thick of it with a group of people who are at the forefront of renewable energy (that’s not an attempt at marketing spin, they really do good stuff). The friend who originally told me about Natural Power said this is one of the best working environments she has encountered (she was working as a headhunter for the renewables sector). These are the “bright green” people who are changing the face of “corporate society”.

Much much more to follow.

New Job

Sorry for the long absence here; between finishing up my dissertation, having visitors afterward and starting a new job, I’ve not had much time to compose weblog entries.
I’ve started a job at Natural Power (see: www.naturalpower.com) in Dumfries and Galloway in southern Scotland. Right now I’m in Malvern in England at our office here for about two weeks of training and rope learning (this morning I had a technical orientation to ZephIR, our laser wind measurement device; it’s really keen but involves the measurement of particles and something about the Doppler Effect).

I’ll write much more on all this later!

Seems logical

I’ve just had a new visa issued from the Home Office. My previous visa was issued in Prague; the passport itself was issued in Miami. This visa is from—Vulcan. Place of Issue: Vulcan 2. That would seem to considerably extend the boundaries of my residential options!
For everyone wondering what I’m doing; I’m in the final stages of finishing my dissertation—trying to plough right on through and get a complete draft finished in the next few days so it can sit for a bit and I can revise before submitting it on 8 September. I’m slightly miffed with my supervisor as he is off in France somewhere and apparently won’t be able to read and comment on a draft before I turn in the final copy. Update: he returned and made comments; I’m now much less miffed.

As a complete aside; I just walked from town back in to the West End of Glasgow. On the way two fellows passed me, turned, looked about, and crossed the street. I noted how—Glaswegian they looked. There was a haggard leanness to them; both looked ill-nourished and pale. Their bodies had the look of men overwrought by too much drink and smoke and I could see the tension in their shoulders. They moved with a permanent stoop as if they are constantly crouched down waiting for a blow. Though, in many ways, this is a great city at ease with itself; there is a whole “segment of society” that desperately needs healing.

Scotch around the world

I went to a community ceilidh on Saturday evening in the Highlands (to celebrate the opening of the new community hall in Arnisdale). It was good fun, food, and music (there was plenty of fast whirling dancing which I was not adventurous enough to get in on).
To raise funds for the community there was a raffle. I bought a ticket and won (of all things) a little bottle of scotch whisky and a flask. It’s packaged in a cardboard and plastic box; the back label states, “Whisky product of Scotland, Hip flask and funnel product of China, Bottled in the UK, Packed in China.” So…this little bottle of whisky was made in Scotland, then shipped to China and packaged, then shipped back to Scotland to be given to me in a village one-hundred miles from its origin. It was shipped around the world and back to go 100 miles! That is seriously screwed up.

Choices Choices

I’m looking for a new camera; it’s not for myself but for a new job I’m starting next month (will give more details on that when I sign on the dotted line). Despite the fact that I’ve worked professionally as a photographer and know the ins and outs of most of the different camera systems, I’m finding this a very difficult endeavour.
Photographers are notorious for “equipment obsession”; until the advent of digital cameras the discussions centred around lens specifications, film emulsions, and all the little bits and bobs that made up the chain from subject to print. Now we have the added complexity of digital; I spent a good amount of time yesterday in the camera store looking at various cameras (I’ve been given a bit of free reign on which system I choose since we are starting from a blank slate…which makes it even more difficult because that multiplies the choices exponentially). The good news is that most of the cameras on offer have higher specifications than the $30,000 digital cameras I was working with 10 years ago for 1/20 the price; the bad news is that those will be obsolete in a year. (Of course the thing with digital, with any volume of shooting, the camera quickly pays for itself…that’s why purchasing a $30,000 camera back makes perfect business sense if one is using $20,000 of film and processing a year anyway.)

I’ve not been equipment shopping for some time; my initial thought upon picking up most of the cameras yesterday was wunderplastik. Most of my professional work with with Hasselblad and Leica systems (imagine a group of Swiss watchmakers decided to build a precision brick oven and you’ll get something of the design ethos); everything else now seems rather flimsy. When one has a camera that’s been out in the pouring sea salt rain, freezing cold, blazing heat, dropped on the pavement, and still kept happily clicking away, it gives a bit of pause when handling what is basically a complex computer crammed into a plastic body. One camera I’m particularly keen on is brimming over with controls and has a huge screen that displays every conceivable bit of information concerning its status and exposure information. This is useful, as is the ability to immediately view the image one has just captured; however, how many times on my little digital camera have I stopped to look at the image I’ve just shot and missed the next one because I was gazing at the screen? The temptation is too great.

My Leica has exactly three controls: aperture, shutter speed and shutter release; there are two red arrows in the viewfinder that say give a bit more exposure or give a bit less exposure. Some of the greatest photos of the 20th century were made with a camera just like this (most of which did not have the helpful little arrows). For the majority of my work (on any system), I use only one or two focal lengths. The camera is way way over-engineered and, provided there is still film then, will outlast me. It is a very simple, well built instrument—which I have not yet learned to use.

Obviously, I know what it does; I spent several years in film school studying all the mechanics of photography (I was probably in the last generation of students that went through the laborious study of all the film and chemistry; it was just on the cusp of the digital era). I understand implicitly what the camera’s function is and how to operate it. But, as an instrument in the sense that a violin is an instrument, I’m still a novice at its operation. So I feel torn standing there in the camera store looking at all the new electronic instruments; it’s as if I’m starting up the oboe before really grasping the bassoon.

Cameras have become another mass-produced digital item that are obsolete as soon as they leave the store—and something galls me about that. Maybe it’s that I spent all this time learning about film and how it works and that’s no longer necessary. Or maybe it’s just the sense that I’m not really into disposable equipment (when one goes out to photograph with a solid block of metal, there is a certain mindset that comes into play). Mainly I’m thinking that, if Henri Carter Bresson could go his entire career with basically just one camera and a lens, why the heck do I need all this complexity?

I’m tempted to ask for a light kit and just use my camera for the time being; there is a digital Leica (though I don’t think they’ll drop £3000 to purchase one for me right at the start). But that’s probably not what I’ll do; I’ll put together a solid and flexible kit to cover the stuff I’ll need to cover. Of course, that will be thousands of pounds anyway…

I am aiming for simplicity and economy in everything; how can I bring that into this situation?