Tom Burke’s Blog

Just a quick blog entry to say that I visited The Lowry today, in Salford Quays, to visit the exhibition “A Long Exposure – Pictures from 100 years of Guardian Photography in Manchester”. The Guardian newspaper (formerly The Manchester Guardian before it went national in 1959) has had just 7 in-house photographers in the 100 years since they appointed their first in 1908. This exhibition displays a selection of work by each of them. Each image is both news-worthy but also exhibits great artistry and technical expertise. I was familiar with the work of the more recent photographers (Denis Thorpe and Don McPhee especially) but not with the earlier ones, and it was good to see earlier examples of excellent press work. It also put those later photographers’ work in context, and you can see that they were continuing a tradition.

It’s an excellent exhibition, and I thoroughly recommend it. Here are some links:

First, The Lowry itself; next, a Guardian column about this exhibition; third, a similar page about Don McPhee; and finally, one for Denis Thorpe.

Denis Thorpe’s book ‘On Home Ground’ is very strongly recommended.

(Personal confession: if I could take *one picture* as good as some of Denis Thorpe’s or Don McPhee’s I’d be happy. The other thing I realise when looking at these images is that it isn’t about the equipment, it’s about the photographer. Any problems I encounter in my photography are to do with me, not the equipment I’ve got.)

Globes

There are a few pages in this blog about my photography. The most recent told the story of my move back towards film-based photography. In February (2008) I bought a second-hand Leica M6TTL camera together with one lens, a new 50mm f2.5 Summarit. Just before Christmas I took a further step by buying a second lens, a 35mm f2.5 Summarit. I like these Summarit lenses a lot: they’re very small, very solid and not too heavy (all that brass and other metal metal in their construction means that they are inevitably quite heavy), and reviews of their performance praise them greatly. I’d been wondering if I’d done the right thing in buying a 50mm lens for my first/only lens for this system: during the year I had felt that it was too long.

Cube Houses: close-in

Cube houses: from a distance

Obviously I needed something wider and as my Leica has .85 viewfinder magnification, and therefore doesn’t have frame lines for 28mm, the obvious choice was a 35mm lens. But which one? For a long time I was looking for a s/hand f2 Summicron v4, the pre-ASPH one, but my local dealers never had one (and I feel uncomfortable buying something as expensive as a Leica lens unseen via mail order of the net). I was also attracted to one of the Voigtlander lenses: they’re small and much cheaper – the f1.4 is around £400, and the f2.5 can be had for around £250 or less. But they weren’t Leica lenses. As this year went on so I began to hear more good reports about the 35mm Summarit, and so I decided to get one of them. Then I learned that Leica UK were running a ‘15% cashback’ promotion on their lenses; and next I learned from my favourite photographic retailer that there would be very large price rises in the new year from all the photo manufacturers, mainly as a result of the fall in the value of the pound against – well, against pretty much everything. So I bought the 35mm Summarit.

My impressions from the first film I’ve put through it are very favourable. The focal length feels right, I have a lot more options when taking pictures in confined spaces. I took a number on a dull Saturday afternoon in Sheffield just before Christmas, and I’ve put three of them up here. They were all taken around the Peace Gardens in the centre of the city. The globes are stainless-steel globes, of varying sizes, with water gently pouring down them; the water sculpture is inside the Winter Gardens, and is a water-powered mobile art work; and the third picture is from within the Winter Gardens, looking through the roof at the (unfinished) St Paul’s Tower apartment development (which may or may not get finished).

Water sculpture

Inside the Winter Gardens

I’ve found another couple of links to pictures and information about Celebrity Solstice.

First, Bart de Boer’s excellent ‘Ship Parade‘ site has an entry in its ‘Ship Alphabet‘ for Solstice. Select ‘C’ from the alphabet at the top, then ‘Celebrity Solstice’. Make sure you click on ‘More Photos’ and (especially) ‘Interior Photos’ on the left. There’s also a stunning picture of Solstice leaving Fort Lauderdale in the ‘Picture of the Week’ series, which you can find from the  Ship Parade home page.

Secondly, ‘Ernie’ (ekroller) has posted these pictures in his ‘MobileMe’ gallery. There should be a review from him soon; I’ll post a link when it’s available.

(Not that I’m interested in Solstice, you understand….)

It has been a long time since I posted anything in the blog; it’s hard to find much to say in winter other than “I wish I was on a cruise!”

However, one significant event that has happened since I last posted is that Celebrity Solstice has entered service. She’s Celebrity’s biggest ship, and is obviously the first ship of a new design, and we have already booked a cruise on her for next September. 

I’ll admit that during her first week or so in service as the initial reports came back, we were wondering if we had done the right thing. The problem is with the lifeboats and tenders. Thanks to their position they block the view from the promenade; indeed, Solstice doesn’t have a real promenade, it’s basically an outdoor passage-way to give access to the lifeboats, which are down at deck level. We already knew that she didn’t have a traditional ‘wrap-round’ promenade, but we had been expecting that we would at least be able to walk along each side, enjoying the views and getting the fresh air, but it turns out we won’t. That is, we’ll be able to walk, but as all we’ll see is the lifeboats on one side and the superstructure on the other, it won’t be worth it.

Then it also turned out that three of the lifeboats on each side are actually ship’s tenders. These have a greater height than the standard lifeboats; in fact they’re so much higher that they obstruct the view from the cabin balconies on the deck above. Celebrity has very recently changed the categorisation of those cabins – they are now officially ‘Obstructed View’ cabins. Fortunately we aren’t in one of those, but we are in a balcony cabin just one deck higher. So we’ll have no promenade, and lifeboats immediately below our cabin balcony: should we switch to a different cruise? we wondered.

We decided not to, and now we’re glad we didn’t. Shortly after the first written reports came in, the photographs started appearing on various websites, and the truth is that Solstice is simply stunning. There seem to be a lot of really impressive design points all over the ship, and everyone refers to the quality of the interiors. The best set of images that I’ve seen are by David Pierce, and he posted them here. The picture at the top of this entry is a sample of his work, and he has kindly agreed to let me use it here (the copyright remains with David, of course).

It will be a different cruise from the one we enjoyed on Ventura, but I think it’s one we will enjoy. Even without a Promenade Deck to walk around.