Keep Left

Date: 1982
Place: Lexington Avenue, New York City
Modus operandi: Wandering around the streets aimlessly
Weather: Gorgeous
Time: 10:00 am
Gear: Leicaflex SL, 21mm Auper-Angulon R
Medium: Kodachrome 64
Me: Enjoying this little bit of whimsy
My age: 31

Until modern Western quality control techniques were imposed, you could pretty much bet that anything from China was going to be schlocky when it came to execution. And that didn’t just go for their consumer goods. The Chinese applied the same low standards to their businesses and buildings, as this snap attests.

All of this is made so much the funnier when I relate that, at the time I took this, the newly opened representative office of the Bank of China in New York was a client of mine. I was advising them on installation of financial management systems which was sort of tricky when their default approach was to stuff the branch full of Chinese workers who spoke no English and showed remarkable facility with the abacus. Who needs IBM mainframes?

Anyway, after struggling with this insanely frustrating client for months (these people redefined, in 1982, resistance to change, and just hated to pay their bills) I felt I owed them one, and here it is. The missing letter in their cheap signage had been like that for ages, though I constantly pointed it out to the manager of the office. As you can see, the Chinese’ sense of style and decorum leaves a lot to be desired.

Only a very wide angle lens could capture all of this scene’s elements, and the 21mm Super Angulon R, for all its ridiculous bulk, was as good as they got in those days. The Leicaflex SL remains at the zenith of mechanical SLR design, with easily the best manual exposure meter I have used. It remains a fine and affordable user for those who like film, and comes with the best viewfinder you will find on any SLR, film or digital.

Hewitt’s

Date: January 1, 2005
Place: Main Street, Templeton, CA
Modus operandi: Tripod, warm coat, hat, gloves, scarf, the whole megillah
Weather: Freezing cold at a time when the streets are deserted
Time: 7:00 am
Gear: Rollei 6003, 40mm Distagon
Medium: Kodak Portra NC160, scanned on a Nikon Coolscan 8000 and processed in Aperture
Me: A pleasant memory of a great place
My age: 53

There’s a class of apologists in the US which thinks that freedom brings with it entitlements. They would have it that great American corporations like WalMart and Home Depot are driving the “….poor small local businessman out of business”. How many times have you heard that tripe? The reality is that you can choose lowest price with useless service, or service at a decent, if not the lowest, price. The latter attributes are found in the local hardware store.

In my case the store is Hewitts, and it’s on the Main Street of the small town of Templeton where I live, in central California. Hewitts employs half a dozen people and has premises some 10,000 square feet in size. WalMart is 2 miles distant to the north, Home Depot three to the south. Hewitts has been around since 1899 and remains vital and prosperous to this day. Far from glitzy inside, Hewitts boasts no superannuated greeters who failed to save for their retirement, no asinine ‘Hi! I’m Joe’ lapel badges. Yet there’s nothing there that you cannot find to fix problems in the home or garden. Why? Because the best thing that Hewitts has to sell is the knowledge base in the heads of the three owners, all in late middle age.

Hewitts, and thousands of businesses like it, make no apologies or excuses for the WalMarts and Home Depots of the world. Rather, they thrive because of them. Why? Simple. It’s called an informed sales force that just happens to own the store. No contest.

Case in point. The other day I was stumped by a plumbing issue – a dripping tap. The clearance to remove the body of the tap was so narrow that even a thin-walled plumber’s socket would not work. So I did the natural thing. I dropped in on Rory at Hewitts and described the issue. “Why not bring in a 5/8 inch hex socket and let me turn the wall thickness down on my lathe?”, Rory suggested. “That should get you in there.” I dropped off the socket and a few hours later got a call asking for the exact machining dimensions I thought might work. A day later, I had the socket and the tap was dismantled for replacement of the faulty O ring which was the cause of the leak.

The fruits of Rory’s labor. Price? My return business.

While at Hewitt’s I bumped into another of the owners, Leonard, and had a nice chat about Churchill and William Manchester’s splendid biographies. (Winston Leonard Spencer Chuchill – his folks liked WSC as much as I do). Leonard graduated as a chemical engineer, is an authority on military history and, like his colleagues, has superb analytical skills he can bring to bear on any home hardware problem. Now let me assure you, you will not find the likes of Leonard or Rory at the big stores. So you make your choice – price or brains.

This snap, taken in brutal cold early on New Year’s Day (that’s 28F/-2C in California-speak for those of you in the mid-west), with no traffic (my tripod was in the middle of the road and I needed the ultrawide lens to make the background recede), is a tribute to small retail businesses everywhere. Long may you prosper.

And yes, a big print of this snap is hanging in Hewitt’s for all to see.

St. James’s Park

Date: August, 1973
Place: St. James’s Park, near Pall Mall, London
Modus operandi: Still awestruck with the sheer felicity of my Leica M3
Weather: One of those London summer days that says ‘Perfect’
Time: 11:00 am
Gear: Leica M3, 50mm Elmar
Medium: Kodak TriX
Me: Crikey!
My age: 21

When it comes to the great parks of the world, the list is not long.

Criteria? Mystery. Charm. Style. Class. Like a Rolls Royce. A pleasure to visit time and again.

On my short list, most are pretty old, and I suspect that’s no coincidence.

The first must, of course, be Central Park in New York. No finer tribute exists to the successful integration of city and country. A very special place. No New Yorker has to go far to go to the ‘country’.

Second is Parc Monceau in Paris. Statues. Perfect design. Gorgeous finish. Paris at its very best.

And a very close third, and easily the safest of all, is magnificent St. James’s Park in London. At its North East corner the tourism and grandeur of Trafalgar Square. Yes, the one with the National Gallery with Botticelli’s ‘Portrait of a Young Man’ which I have always wanted to pinch. To the East, Horse Guards Parade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (what?) and the Treasury. Well, if you are going to count other people’s money, you might as well do it with a nice view. And at the South West corner, Buckingham Palace. In other words, the locale is not too shabby.

As a young lad in London, just graduated from University College, London with an engineering degree (though, in truth, I spent most of my time in the British Museum and at the Courtauld Collection), and about to embark on a career in finance (have you checked English engineers’ salaries?), all seemed well with the world. Still enjoying my taxpayer subsidized Underground Pass, many a happy afternoon would find me in Mayfair and St. James’s Park. After all, I reasoned, if you want to get rich, it cannot hurt to hang out where the rich do.

And it was one of those idyllic days that caught me rambling through St. James’s Park attracted, like a bee to pollen, by the sound of the Guards’ marching band making its way down Pall Mall to Buckingham Palace.

Yet even my poor peripheral sight caught the Ladies on the Park Bench. And Old Jock, of course. Clearly I wasn’t really fast with that Leica yet, as three of the four spotted me.

Anyway, I hope you like this gentle appreciation of all that is good and great about England – its people, their eccentricity and this fabulous meeting place.

Terns at Oceano Dunes.

Date: July 10, 2006
Place: Grover Beach, CA at Oceano Dunes
Modus operandi: Thinking about Edward Weston
Weather: California gorgeous
Time: 9:03 am
Gear: Canon 5D, 24-105mm at 105mm, ISO 400, 1/2000, f/8
Medium: RAW original processed in Aperture
Me: Thrilled at this bit of serendipity
My age: 54

It is impossible for any photographer to visit Oceano Dunes, here in central coastal California, without thinking about Edward Weston and the generation of early American photographers who did such land breaking work here. So I was walking on the beach with the intention of clambering up the dunes to absorb some of Weston’s spirit. Parking by that little restaurant, I was walking down the path to the beach when this blast of noise and commotion caught my eye. It was literally a second’s work to crank the lens to its longest setting followed by a stab at the button. Thank God for automation! The image reports 1/2000 at f/8, but I can assure you I had nothing to do with that!

And if you wonder about that broad aspect ratio, well, I can seldom go to any beach without Boudin’s paintings dancing in my head.

I never thought there were decisive moments to be had on the beach …. and you can still smell the sea in this one.

The Painter.

Date: 1982
Place: Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Modus operandi: More intent on grocery shoppng than photography.
Weather: Outdoors overcast.
Time: 3pm
Gear: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron
Medium: Kodachrome 64.
Me: Looking forward to the smell of all those cheeses at Zabar’s.
My age: 31

The Story: Few who are familiar with New York City’s west side would deny that amongst the greatest cultural attractions to be found there are the Julliard, Carnegie Hall, and the Carnegie Deli. And let’s not forget the greatest deli grocery store in the world, Zabar’s, up the road a few blocks on Broadway.

Now Broadway holds many precious memories, not least of them being this snap.

Once, lazily catching a Broadway bus rather than walk the few blocks home from 80th Street to 56th and Eighth, I sat transfixed opposite none other than the gorgeous Lauren Hutton, and found myself getting out on the opposite side of town, having missed my stop. On that same Broadway I lost my seemingly nuclear war-proof doorman’s umbrella, double struts and all, in a blast of wind when coming out of the Met with my mum in 1986. The umbrella died magnificently, sacrificing itself under a massive Checker cab. Every Thanksgiving you would have found me during the years 1980-86, cheering the Macy’s Parade on Broadway. And every winter, there I was on Broadway at Columbus Circle, watching the marathoners come home.

Now Zabar’s is far more than a European grocery store. It’s a place to meet, to argue, to debate. Art, politics, food, music, ballet, it makes no matter. A place where I sometimes went to gaze at the arcane cooking instruments, trying to work out their uses. A sure cure for depression. Add a pumpernickel bread my Polish forbears would have died for and a selection of coffees unparalleled in the Western hemisphere, and you have a special place.

So intent was I that Autumn day to get my provisions that I shot right by this amusing scene. Nothing gets between a hungry polack and his food. My mind’s eye caught this little piece of drama, however, and a few seconds later, disregarding the urgent messages from my tummy, I was retracing my steps. The tableau was still to be had!

After that, I was on autopilot.