#359 ASSIGNMENT: NEALE JAMES #2
With 2022 drawing to a close, and ‘The Assignment’ taking up residence within the Friday Photowalk show for the next and new season, I thought I should like to set a challenge as the penultimate one in the Monday series. Today, I’m setting a challenge that doesn’t actually require you to make a new picture, moreover a request for you to look back at your work from the last year. The full assignment is within the show and I'll be fascinated to see what you come up with, so email what you make to the show via the contact page remembering that today, I also need some words to go alongside your photograph/s.
My thanks to MPB.com who sponsor this show; the number one company in the UK, the US and Europe when it comes to buying, selling, and trading quality used camera kit online – it’s a safe place to do business, with guarantees upon what you buy and a sustainable way to trade in the circular economy.
Also my sincere thanks to our wonderful patrons, our ‘Extra Milers’ who help to support this show.
The photograph referenced in the show today that represents part of a 2022 that introduced freedom.
BY DENNIS LEE
I do most of the assignments in some way or another ya know or have done some version of them in the recent past. At least I enjoy thinking about them and am often inspired to try something new because of them. This one though felt like a challenge I needed to respond to. If not publicly at least personally. It was interesting to go through the year’s work, well, I only went through the personal stuff, but I wasn’t surprised when I saw it was all fairly weak this past year.
A bunch of oddball landscapes, my son at college, some walks and a lot of testing are what I found…
When I started cancer treatment last fall (2021) I shot quite a bit documenting the ‘event.’ I still find those pictures hard to look at. Not that they are gory or anything, hell, most of them are vistas out of hospital windows. They just bring back memories of stressful times. Point is, I only shot a few of these ‘ documents' during 2022. I can look at these, and they say something to me. An evolution of thought probably. Accepting the inevitable. I think that’s what 2022 was for me. Wrapping my head around things that aren’t within our control and accepting that at some point I’ll be doing that… then doing it. I’m at a new stage of that process right now as the year comes to a close, so I guess it’s not a surprise that these few images rose to the top of what 2022 meant for me.
Here’s a triptych I put together on the subject. I’ve been sitting on this for a couple days now as I debate whether it’s worthy or even appropriate to share publicly. I’ll let you decide. I’m tempted to bury it, lol.
[Note from Neale. I’m pleased you have shared and appreciate the emotions of making, finding, and ruminating. As a photographer I appreciate the honesty of such pictures knowing how they can’t have been easy to make.]
BY TIM BINDNER
[Note from Neale, read the full blog piece for the story below at Tim’s link above. Tim, I am so thankful for your mail and my best wishes as you recover. I am all the richer for knowing you.]
In a nutshell, I had a heart attack on America's Thanksgiving Day after which I have become well, more appreciative of life in general and small moments. The photograph attached could have been my very last picture I took. It is now a symbol of life for me and what might have been. A daily reminder that I am alive.
I have not been very productive this year, but for assignment #359 I had an immediate idea about my photo of the year, which is representative in so many ways for my year. I have created this picture for the final assignment from a photographic
training I did at a Swiss training institute. I hesitated a long time to send in this picture, but the story in #362 about Tim reminded me to be grateful for the people who support us, so I finally decided to send it in. My own year has been marked by medical issues and hospitals, both for myself and my father. My father had undergone serious surgery with some life-threatening complications both before and after surgery. I had myself been subject to severe heart failure with an ICU stay of
more than a week, and thanks to the highly competent care I received I have recovered well.
Meanwhile, I have become a lot more aware of the fragility of our life. We should be a lot more aware of the high pressure that weighs on each of the healthcare workers that take care of us whenever we are in a life-threatening situation. So, as an homage to all healthcare workers wherever they are, this is my picture of the year.
BY PAUL MORGAN
In March, whilst on one of my usual Sunday morning runs, I jarred my hip. I thought nothing of it for a week or two then decided to consult a physio. Three sessions of painful manipulation generated no improvement, so I decided to get an x-ray referral to rule out anything mechanical. Unfortunately, it ruled in the mechanical and I should have got the hint when the radiographer asked which hip was the worst. Then the GP rang and matter of factly told me that my right hip was, frankly, ‘knackered’ with bone-on-bone contact and the left wasn’t far behind. Until that run (a good ten miler at least) I had no symptoms and at 52 I thought I was a good 20 years too young for something so radical.
On the 7th July (the day Boris Johnson resigned) I got nervously undressed in a south Manchester hospital room, donned a gown, lay on trolley, took the general anaesthetic and promptly had both hips removed and replaced… by robot! So please find attached my image of 2022 – an unusual portrait of the new me. As I suspect you wouldn’t want your gallery to resemble something else I have censored the (somewhat flattering) x-ray as it showed more than just the boney parts of that region. You can see the titanium ball joints extending down into my femur, the ceramic cups joints and I have a lining of plastic between the two. I wince when I consider what must have happened during the three and half hours I was in the operating theatre but I’m sure it would have been noisy. Now though, I am hopeful those hips will see me through to when I need wheels.
With a lot of operations you get sympathy and rest – not hip replacements. Up and about asap is the order of the day so six months on I am now walking well but still with a slight waddle. I can now just about bend to put my own socks on, tie laces and clean up after the dog! My walking distances are limited but getting longer and I am about to start pilates and need to go to the gym to strengthen my buttock muscles. The good thing about a double hip replacement is you can add some height – I am now 3mm taller although my wife misheard the consultant and thought it was centimetres. She was disappointed when the truth dawned.
My stamina will return as will my ability to look through the viewfinder on a low level tripod. Throughout 2022 and my recovery the Photowalk was a weekly highlight – something to get me through the constant cycle of exercises and broken sleep patterns.
BY WALEED ALZUHAIR
Being pessimistic isn’t in my nature, but *slaps* started in 2021 and continued throughout 2022. I was driving on a new desert route (to me), trying to locate a good location to photograph a cliff from a different angle. This is when I came across this sign, and I had to stop and sigh.
BY MIKE MILLER
With regards to something that marks 2022, for me it is the "discovery" of multiple exposure photography. It came onto my radar late in the year, and when I checked my nine-year-old DSLR camera, it indeed had the capability to produce, in-camera, multiple exposure image RAW files. This opens things up a bit for me when I am out imaging, and I feel like I'm not having much success. It's another tool I can pull out from the toolbox, other than Intentional Camera Movement.
BY MICHAEL MIXON
This photo (of my father and his three grandsons) was taken in early summer when we visited Germany together with my parents, sister and her two boys, all of whom live in California and whom we hadn’t seen in person since late 2019. Before the pandemic, we would usually get together with them once or twice a year, so it meant a lot to all of us to be able to finally reconvene after almost 3 years apart.
This is the picture that for me sums up 2022. This summer was particularly hard, with a heatwave blasting across Europe. Living in an apartment with no AC, we resorted to an inflatable kiddie pool on the balcony. Obviously, my daughter was not happy to share it with the grown-ups. At the rate things are going, I guess she'll have to get used to it.
BY NEIL FORD
For me, my year photographically was summed up by the return of public events after having not been possible for a couple of years. Making images of events seems to be my happy place (my first published pictures were of an event in 1986, a story for another time), so not being able to attend and photograph events has been hard. I present three images, one each from Bath Carnival, Bath Boules and Trowbridge Carnival Soapbox Derby. These are definite highlights of the year. For those interested, the complete sets for each event can be found on my website.
Technical bit: Made with either the Fujifilm X-T4 or X-H2S and 16-80mm f4 lens.
BY KEV BEACHAM
I thought that with all the images I'd taken this year I would have had an easier time with this challenge, but it really was a challenge. All the images I have taken have been of family and friends both old and new on a selection of cameras that I still own and some I have said goodbye to. Photographically it has been a journey where I have found myself often conflicted but realise now as we draw nearer to the end of the year, I have become happier and feel resolved. The image I have attached is a family portrait of my family and partners relaxing on a beach in Cornwall-land watching the sun go down. Not what I would consider my best image from the year but one taken in my favourite place with my favourite people.
BY GRAHAM GODWIN
This photo sums up 2022 for me (and possibly others).
I’m just finishing up my 2022 photo archival and coincidentally listening to assignment #359. Here are the pictures that sum up 2022 for me. It wasn’t so much freedom for me as much as it was relief. The ability to travel. The ability to see family. The ability to commune with friends. Top left: from a trip my wife and I took to Austin, Texasland in the spring. Top right: is my mum, who I had not seen in four years because of you know what, and my sister, who I had not seen in probably twice that, in Burnley, UK, during my visit from Colorado. Mum’s about to turn 80 in a couple of weeks. Lower left: is my old motorcycle chums on our trip to the south of France late in the summer eating dinner after a day of riding. All of these were taken with my trust X100V which is perfect for travel. Also, lower right, a quick snap of one of the ‘Little Free Libraries’ that Darin Hayton mentioned in Extra Mile #16. I haven’t found any of his pamphlets yet 😉.
As a part of my annual archive, I pick out 12 pictures and no, not one per month, that I print and put on the wall of my office. Here’s a link to the 12 from 2022 that will grace my wall when they get back from the printer.
I just came off a company event in Dallas photographing headshots and event candids. Not the most glamorous work but everyone is very appreciative of the work I do. Take note of the attached image. The one in her left hand is for me; a wrap beverage as appreciation for me and my "magic camera". Good to be wanted.
