Anyway, after finishing up I decided to go to the public gallery at the House of Commons, something which I have never done before, and thoroughly recommend that you do if you get the chance. I then went to the UK premier screening of Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission in Soho, before heading back to my office to set up for a shoot first thing in the morning. Not having a subject to check the lights on, I grabbed a rather old and grubby vacuum cleaner and put it in position, and fired one test shot. Reviewing the image I was struck by how good almost anything can look when it is well lit! Which reminded my of a conversation I had this afternoon about the end of the world being built in Lego, a concept that had me thinking that my sons’ bedroom looks pretty much like the end of the world in Lego. Boys, I have some advice: if you light your room well, it will definitely look better!

Vacuum cleaner - tested for lighting. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

That should do it. Let’s have a little stillness and fog to celebrate:

Foggy dawn. Forest Row, East Sussex. September 2011. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

Had a whole load of big commissions book in over the last couple of days too, with my printer working over time, and good news from one of my best clients about use of one of my images – watch this space.

Today I found myself scurrying around under the tracks of the Southend Cliff Railway working for a different client. As I returned to my car I was presented with one of those wonderful moments that nature gives you from time to time. A sunset behind low cloud that was just thick enough to allow you to look straight at it, and just thin enough that you could still see the disc of the sun as it slipped beneath the horizon. And in it were at least a thousand shades of orange.

Sunset, Southend-on-sea, Essex. November 25, 2011. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

My interest in this is of course photographic. When in early 2008 Northern Rock was having all its problems, Branson was heavily involved in another of his ventures – Virgin Galactic. On the 24 of January he held a press conference at the Museum of Natural History in New York to unveil White Knight Two and Space Ship Two. That evening, Virgin Galactic hosted a reception for the “astronauts” and other interested parties. It was at that event that Branson met a London based financier who knew of his interest in Northern Rock. Said financier advised Branson that he acted on behalf of two of the biggest shareholders in Northern Rock at the time and might be in a position to help. I took this photograph at that moment. A second later Branson turned to his aide de camp and told him to set up a meeting with the financier back in London for the end of the week.

Richard Branson at the Virgin Galactic reception in New York City discussed matters pertaining to Northern Rock. January 23, 2008. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2008

Of course, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. I had originally hoped that the initial Virgin deal might go through in 2008, at least then I would have had a picture that might have been pivotal to that story. Instead what I have is evidence that when things do not initially go quite the way he might hope, Branson is not put off. I suspect that he is the kind of man who takes the view that all things happen for a reason, and all outcomes pose opportunities rather than problems. Indeed it is precisely that frame of mind that has allowed him to build the Virgin brand into the hugely successful organisation that it is.

Vince Cable, now Business Secretary in the Coalition Government, might find that its harder to come to conclusions when he has to act on them. July 6, 2010. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2010

So here we are nearly four years later, and Branson has got Northern Rock. Has it worked out better for him? Has the tax payer taken a hit? I’ll leave you to consider that for yourself by reading this rather enlightening article published in the Daily Mail just a few days after the photo above was taken. It was written by one Vince Cable, at the time in the enviable position of being the Treasury Spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, and apparently never likely to have make important decisions to affect the economy… like I said, a lot of water under the bridge since then! Do I have a photo of Vince for you? Of course I do. Happy ruminating.

Then it was back to the main action.

The scene to my left as I was on the set of a TV advert. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

Dessert. © Michael Cockerham 2011

Bit of cheese to follow?

Cheese and figs. © Michael Cockerham 2011

I cannot for the life of me remember who it was, but whoever it was was an adult, and I was about 13. Nevertheless they admonished me sternly for walking everywhere staring intently at the ground. I have a feeling it might have been Victor Whyatt, a man who had previously smacked me on the head with his umbrella for my having the temerity to remark that he looked like Captain Birdseye when we had been trapped together in a doorway. If so, you might think that he would have learned not to draw my attention to things worth looking at. A rather brilliant man with a fondness for first edition books, he later became my A Level maths teacher, and his influence on my character and outlook has been huge. But that admonishment was to be particularly pivotal.

As we enter our teens there is a natural tendency for introspection which manifests itself in a form of paranoia (no one understands me), a desire to be at once an individual and yet not to stand out (I do not want to wear what my parents suggest, but see no irony in determining that I must wear the same things as my peers, and the palette from which I choose is grey, dark blue and black), and a tendency to walk everywhere listening to music and looking at the floor.

From FINDS 2011. © Harry Watts

Hopefully at some point we each have our own moment of enlightenment. For me, it was that admonishment. I realised the world was large and interesting, and I was small and inconsequential. This epiphany did not help me with girls, but it did set me on the path I have followed since: my head held high I have soaked up the world with vigour and enthusiasm, and nary a glance at the ground since, excepting to keep an eye out for piles of dog shit – although I appear not to have been too successful with that either, my nadir coming on a tour of Europe in the early 90s in which I famously trod in steaming piles of crap in every major capital.

From FINDS 2011. © Harry Watts

Harry Watts’ body of work, FINDS has this morning bookended that period in my life. Forthwith I shall be turning my attention back to the ground. Not because of a renewed desire to avoid processed Pedigree Chum (although I hope that might be a happy side effect), but rather because Harry has singularly demonstrated that there is much to be derived about the world we live in by looking down.

Aside from his own work, Watts oscillates between the studios of Martin Parr and Simon Roberts as studio assistant and studio manager respectively. Yet despite the constant exposure to the output of these luminaries he has managed the signally mature feat of keeping his own eye. To be fair Parr’s presence hovers a little ghost-like in this work, but it is less confrontational and more sympathetic than it could have been. Where Parr might be brutal with the irony, Harry has chosen a more subtle approach which requires the reader to question and consider the meaning of the images – but the irony is there in spades.

From FINDS 2011. © Harry Watts

FINDS is a series of 23 colour images printed on newsprint in a tabloid format. The newsprint approach has gained traction in recent years, Alec Soth’s The Last Days of W and Roberts’ own The Election Project being notable examples. More recently Blurb’s PDN Awards for 2011 was won by Valerio Spada with Gomorrah Girl. As more photographers turn to the notion that the artist’s approach is the best model for the future (an irony if ever there was given how violently some photographers used to react to being labelled “artists” only a few years ago), the choice of newsprint has considerable appeal. It is relatively inexpensive, somewhat ephemeral, and harks back to the possibilities of a bygone era when the whole raison d’être of the photographer was to get their pictures in the papers.

Aside from the title and the admission that it is “by Harry Watts” on the front, and details of designers (Birch), publishers (Black Box Press), and the logo of the Brighton Photo Fringe on the rear, there is no text at all. Depending on your point of view this could be construed as a huge oversight or a touch of brilliance; my own preference is for the latter. In fact so much so that when I asked Harry for permission to reproduce a few of the images for this review and he asked if I wanted a statement from him, I quietly demurred. The beauty of this body of work is in its ability to force – and no, that is not too strong a word – the reader to question the things that they find. These finds are things that Watts has found, and in so finding them he has found himself finding his findings somewhat out of kilter. I believe that having found them he wants others to find them too. Indeed, unless I am wrong his preferred method of distribution for this “book” was to dump copies in various places and leave people to find them for themselves.

From FINDS 2011. © Harry Watts

Assuming they were found, what might readers find? Pointlessness, futility, and humankind’s bizarre capacity to expend energy for no apparent reason. For example, why bother to use a ballast bag that has burst? Why sweep up rubble but then just leave it in a pile? Where is the warning for the broken warning lamp? Every one of Watt’s pictures asks these kinds of questions. They are not critical or accusatory, rather they offer a reflection of our own folly. We all do these things without a second thought. Harry Watts has found them and represents them to us so that we can find them too.

In a sense what Watts does so effectively is hold a mirror up to the irrationality of much of what we do. What is recorded in these pictures might be the flotsam and jetsam of modern urban living, but the subjects are metaphors for the more grandiose lunacies that society perpetrates with worrying regularity. As such FINDS is that rare beast: a body of work by a young artist that is clearly about a social issue and not about the artist. FINDS does not so much scream “look at me”, but whispers, conspiratorially, “look at us”.

So with Victor and Harry both giving conflicting advice on where I should be looking, I think I have reached an age where I need to start ignoring such advice. Now, who was it who told me to stop staring at my navel…?

*   *   *

With thanks to Wayne Ford for sending me FINDS, and apologies to Harry for calling him an artist if he hates that epithet.

Anyway, as the sun set and the tide ebbed away, I turned from the carcass of my cod and chips to see the beautiful colours of the evening on the sand. Something said grab your camera, so I did, dropping to one knee for the angle. I tripped the shutter. I had not even seen the girl walking across the sands, but she chose that instant to leap. I have no idea who she is, or why she jumped, but it sums up a fabulous weekend of unexpectedly good weather nonetheless.

Sunset at Minnis Bay, Kent. Fuji X100. October 2, 2011. Photo: © Michael Cockerham 2011

So what has all this to do with photography? Well, not a lot. But it does have to do with this site and my main site. At the moment the internet uses something called the IPv4 protocol. Designed in the 1970s, it was built to accommodate about 4 billion devices connecting to the network. That seemed like a lot at the time, but the explosive growth of the internet means we’re closing in on that number. In order to allow the internet to continue to grow, a new protocol has been created: IPv6.

Unfortunately, the IPv4 and IPv6 networks are incompatible. Unless you have a gateway of some kind if you’re on one you can’t visit websites on the other. And, even more unfortunately, the gateway solutions typically are hardware-based and cost tens of thousands of dollars per website to deploy. This means that most of the world’s websites are unavailable for the 1% of the internet that is already using IPv6, and the percentage of users on IPv6-only networks is only going to grow.

Without putting too fine a point on it, I will be buggered if I intend to sit idly by while my web presence becomes less and less visible, but equally I do not have the tens of thousands of dollars to invest in beating the problem. As a result I have recently begun using CloudFlare, a free online based resource that improves user experience of my website, and as of today allows me to make my sites IPv6 ready. If you have a website, it might be worth your looking into this too.

With thanks to CloudFlare for the info and the solution.