RESILIENCE
Why does a photo of my camera on a tripod in a canoe symbolise resilience? This image isn’t just about the camera, but about the resilience it represents and what it means to me… in other words my ‘why?’
Photography has been my lifelong passion, inherited from generations of keen photographers in my family. I’ve been photographing for over 57 years, starting with a Boots Instapac 126 at age seven. I cherish the vast collection of cameras and images passed down through my family, ranging from daguerreotypes of the 1840s to modern digital images.
My journey has seen me transition from film to digital, with each camera, from the Zenith ‘Photo-sniper’ kit to my trusty Nikon FE2 and onto digital models like the Kodak Digital Camera and Nikon D, playing a pivotal role in capturing life’s moments and my professional growth. My current tool of choice, the Canon EOS 1DX Mark II, represents a new chapter in my journey, enabling me to continue my passion despite occasional vision challenges.
Photography is more than a hobby; it’s a means of resilience. It has seen me through various stages of life, including a challenging phase of intermittent vision loss, which led to my early retirement from academia. This adversity redirected my focus back to photography, allowing me to embark on a project to digitise and archive my vast collection of family photographs.
I’ve found solace and strength in capturing the beauty of the Australian wilderness from my canoe, proving that despite life’s challenges, my passion for photography remains a constant source of joy and resilience. This journey of resilience, from my first camera to the latest, is not just about the equipment I’ve used but about my enduring love for capturing moments, overcoming challenges, and continuing the legacy of my ancestors.
The Story Behind the Why?
So why have I submitted a photo of my camera on a tripod in a canoe in the wilderness as a symbol of resilience? Well, of course, there is a back story… there is always a back story, which is the ‘why’ behind the image.
It’s just a photo of a camera on a canoe in the wilderness - what does that have to do with resilience? It is in part about ‘the’ camera (more on that in a moment) and what the camera in that location on a canoe represents. It is more about what it proves (and means) to me.
There is a long, long, back story. And then there is a shorter (albeit decade-long) back story. Let’s start with the long, long, back story.
I have been making photographs for over 57 years, as I received my first camera (a Boots Instapac 126) for my 7th birthday. A tripod (to minimise my shaky images) followed the next year, and a slide projector (so we could see our Kodachrome images) came a year later as I progressed to sharing my father’s 35mm Petri camera.
My father was a keen photographer, as was his father. My great-grandfathers on both sides had been early adopters of the genre (or tech) and as wealthy Lancashire mill owners had the funds to indulge both in ‘professional’ sittings for their family as well as buying ‘all the gear’. I still have much of that vintage gear (the glass plate and subsequent cameras and the magic lantern glass plate slide projector), given that it was cherished and valued and ultimately passed down to me. I also have the cameras they all used in the intervening years, as well as most of the ones I purchased.
Along with the tech, I also have the images - the slides, prints, albums and photo collections - dating from daguerreotypes from the 1840s and 1850s through platinum palladium and selenium prints from the 1860s onwards as well as a number of photogravure’s. When I cleared my parent’s home in Cheshire, I brought 35kg of prints and slides back to Australia, which I have been slowly archiving. My brother still has all the glass plate archives in his attic in the UK as I was concerned they may be damaged in transit, given their fragility.
Many people have a ‘scan your entire life’ project, but my project - like many projects I decide to attempt - is a tad larger and over-complicated, as it encompasses many lives and many generations given my privilege of being the ‘keeper’ of these treasured (to me) archives. The background to how I archive them on an Epson Perfection V800 Photo scanner and an early Nikon Cool Scan IV ED slide scanner, using the amazing VueScan software, then post-processing in Photoshop, Lightroom Classic and Topaz Photo AI is perhaps a story for another day.
Photography has always been a passion for me, perhaps a passion that goes beyond a mere hobby. For as long as I remember I have been making pictures. My father and I spent time in a darkroom together. Initially we used the combination of the Magic Lantern lens and the bellows from the Zeiss glass plate camera to craft an enlarger. I think a subsequent early teenage birthday present of a bespoke enlarger was as much for my father as me, but we would spend hours mixing chemicals, preventing light leaks and sharing the amazement as we saw our respective images emerge in the developing trays under the red darkroom light. We also ‘rolled our own’ film, buying our Ilford 35mm black and white film stock in bulk and filling 35mm cassettes as needed.
For my 18th birthday my parents offered me £100 towards an ‘old banger’ of a car, or an upgraded camera. I went for the camera and with other savings opted for a Russian made Zenith ‘Photo-sniper’ kit, which comprised a 35mm full-frame camera, a 50mm lens and a 300mm lens with 2x converter with shoulder support (hence the ‘sniper’ analogy in the name) all within a very heavy steel case.
Amazing as this kit was, and achieved some of my earliest commercial sales from it (to the Telegraph newspaper no less, of the queues sleeping - or trying to - in snow-covered Liverpool streets in the hope of securing a ticket for a Paul McCartney and Wings concert in 1979) it lacked the technical advancements I saw from all my research. I was, of course, learning and teaching myself photography in the pre-internet era, decades before YouTube was a point of reference for such things. I poured over compendiums and manuals of photography and had recourse to magazines where ideas, gear and imagery were shared. Alongside my undergraduate degree, I enrolled in a course with the British Freelance Photographers (BFP) Association and regularly submitted my 10 x 8 inch prints for critique and review for every assignment. Whilst at college in Liverpool, I spent hours each week in the Whitechapel Gallery listening to talks from photographers, collaborating and locking myself away in their well-stocked darkrooms. Indeed, I long toyed with pursuing photojournalism (rather than the estate management of my undergraduate training - albeit this route prevailed).
A lucrative milk-round holiday job in rural Cheshire funded my next upgrade. I aspired for a Contax, which at the time was the Rolls Royce of pro-cameras… but beyond even my milk-round earnings. However, much of the same tech (light meter and electronic shutter release) as well as lens mount/choice was available in the more affordable subsidiary, the Yashica FR. This was cutting-edge technology and a significant quality upgrade from the Zenith, which was used in part-exchange.
So in my early 20s, the Yashica FR Single Lens Reflex was always in my hand and had the lens definition/resolution and light meter accuracy to maximise Kodachrome 64, AGFA colour and higher ISO Ektachrome slide stock. I have so many archives of these to still work through. To the amazing 50mm stock lens I added a Tamron Zoom/Macro and 35mm lenses with interchangeable mounts, and an ‘oh so powerful’ Vivitar 285 zoom flashgun, and a selection of Cokin filters. Amazing kit, and still amazing images that are testament to it.
Around this time, for black and white work, I picked up a Lubitel Twin Lens Reflex that shot 120 film stock. This was a Russian rip-off of the Rolleiflex and Yashica TLRs of the time. I have some amazing square format images from it, but the details remain sketchy as I an uncertain what became of the Lubitel - perhaps I used it in part-exchange for a second hand Minolta half frame quasi-spy camera that I carried for years given how small it was and how high quality the images - but for the unfortunate light leaks caused by the fold out lens.
The Yashica FR has a sad demise during the 1984 Liverpool International Garden Festival on a day that my (now) wife and I were escorting my aged step-grandmother around the displays. In assisting her, the camera fell and landed on the frame winder/ electronic release which broke off and proved to be an unserviceable part despite investing in several attempts.
There seemed to be three high-end prosumer SLR options to replace it, the Canon AE1, the original Olympus OM1 or the Nikon FE2. After much research, the Nikon FE2 became my very robust and trusty go-to replacement, with the adaptors for the Tamron lenses being easily changed from Contax/Yashica to Nikkor mount.
The trusty Nikon FE2 travelled the world with me - to Australia, Pacific, India, the US, Scandinavia, Africa and the Middle East. I still have it, and all the lenses, albeit the time in the Pacific has caused some superficial corrosion. This is the camera that also recorded my children’s early years. There was a time after taking it on a largely spiritual quest to India in 1994 that I put it to one side, as I found making pictures was ‘taking’ and I had nothing to offer in return… and the haunting images I (many self-portraits) had taken on that particular journey still impact me.
In the pre-digital era there was not the same commoditisation and commercialisation of ‘stuff’ that saw us change cameras with advancements of tech. If you bought quality, you expected it to last (unless you unfortunately happened to drop it on the frame advance winder/shutter release). My Father’s Petri 35mm rangefinder still takes amazing film images, as does the Nikon FE2. I was around during the evolution from rangefinder to single (or twin) lens reflex cameras, with the SLR evolution enabling access to a range of swappable focal lengths. I can still drop a roll of film in the Petri or Nikon and produce very worthy images, despite the environmental challenges on the Nikon of using it whilst living in Fiji for 8 years. The Nikon was my daily go-to for 18 years, until the digital era.
It is worth flagging that during this time I also indulged in early video, with a Panasonic handheld camcorder that included stabilisation and a digital zoom. It recorded on to Mini VHS magnetic cassette tapes that you took out and fitted into a bespoke full-size VHS housing to view via VHS tape player on the TV. This was a massive investment at the time, in advance of migrating to Australia in 1993 to be able to share everyday images of our children with their grandparents back in the old country. Curiously, I must have disposed of this when we returned to Australia from the Pacific sometime after 2006, as it was corroded and malfunctioning from its uncomfortable time in the tropics. I do have all the tapes and digitised many of these a decade ago… with more to complete if the fungus hasn’t overtaken them by now. An amazing piece of kit with amazing moving memories. In terms of moving pictures, my paternal grandfather had also pursued 16mm video, but for reasons that are beyond my comprehension my father chose to consign the camera, projector and all the processed film to the council tip when he cleared the house after my step-grandmother passed. I can only assume they contained imagery of the cross-dressing that my grandfather and his first wife (my paternal grandmother) had a penchant for, as evidenced by a collection of still images that I still have! Families hey?
The digital era of consumer cameras dawned in the late 1990s with the launch of the Sony Digital Mavica, that used a 3.5” HD floppy disk rather than 35mm film. In 1999 I acquired an early one of these for my academic department as soon as they arrived in Fiji. We used it for field trips and to develop the very early iteration of the department website. The tech seemed amazing… and things evolved fast.
In late 2001 I was on sabbatical at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome. One of my privileges was access to the Commissary, a complete treasure trove of luxury products for staff (and visiting scholars like me). Here I spent yet another small fortune on a first generation Kodak Digital Camera. Oh my goodness, the startling rich quality of those early digital images from Kodak must have been due to an amazing sensor and lens combination. They are amazing images which I am still very proud of being privileged enough to capture.
Sadly the Kodak camera was not long lived when we continued to use it in the humidity of Fiji. By the time we returned to Australia in 2006, corrosion had taken its toll and I assume it was disposed off at the same time as the Panasonic video camera. But my daughter was commencing her International Baccalaureate and needed access to a digital camera for her art projects. This saw the purchase of my first digital single lens reflex DSLR, a Nikon D with Nikkor zoom lens. Again, a great piece of kit that produced some amazing images until… my wife was photographing me in our favourite natural ocean pool south of Sydney with waves crashing in the background behind me. One of those very occasional freak waves subsequently crashed not just over me, but also over her! That particular Nikon lacked as much weather sealing as might be hoped. I did have it professionally cleaned after it dried out, and it still worked, but the evidence only became apparent on a trip to visit our son a year later when he was living in Vietnam and it became evident that there was some residual water damage to the sensor.
By the time we took our second trip to Vietnam, I had been one of the first to proudly own a Fujifilm X100 (the first 2011 iteration) in Australia. This was very much a poor man’s Leica, but a splendid every day carry. I had owned it for a week before I headed to work with the Bismarck Ramu Group I the wilds of Papua New Guinea whilst on sabbatical. It was my early exploration into making both RAW and JPEG images simultaneously, and making the most of the Adobe suite I had access to as an academic. The subsequent images from Vietnam were a treat.
Then in 2012 there was a glitch - and I guess we momentarily step away from my history with cameras… I had a neurological episode presumably catalysed by long-term stress that resulted in my vision being compromised, fortunately only intermittently. For a long time I lost my ability to converge and accommodate my eyes. It also rendered me inconveniently blind for days at a time (and, equally inconveniently, continues to do so periodically). Critically, reading more than a few lines of the printed word, continued to send me in a migrainal spiral with associated vertigo. Somewhat suboptimal for a research professor at the top of his game… and as it transpired, despite my best attempts with assistive technologies, somewhat career limiting. After attempting and failing to keep the show on the road, I prematurely retired in 2016 without a plan.
Stepping away from academe and ill-prepared for early retirement was a challenge. Hitherto, all my role models were octogenarian academics and I assumed I would just continue indefinitely on a similar path. Not so with that plan abruptly upended. It took a while to come to terms with it all. There were upsides, such as being able to spend time with my mother back in the UK in the weeks before she passed in 2017. My brother and I thought that we were spending time to support her transition into the next life. In reality, she was teaching us on how to best live in this one. During those days at her bedside, she spoke of many of the characters in the photos in the archive. Her passing, and my/our new found orphan status, made me look deeply at how I wanted to spend my unexpected unfettered time and what I wanted to achieve. I commenced my scan your entire life (and ones ancestors lives, in my case) project. Meanwhile, my recurrent desire was to re-engage with my lifelong passion for photography whilst also exploring my burgeoning fascination for videography and cinematography.
On days when the eyes were wocky, or I was blind, it all seemed too unrealistic. But I did not want my vision challenges to define me. I knew I had a robust technical background in photography, but I needed a tool that could guarantee focus in both photos and video, and that could let me achieve whatever I aspired. So when probate was resolved, I passed all but the cost of my dream kit on to my two children so they could break into the property market. There was, at the time - early 2018 - just one hybrid professional camera on the market that seemed to fit the bill for high end photography and video with amazing auto-focus. Yes, it is the camera in the photo, the Canon EOS 1DX Mark II. I walked into a camera store and spent a small fortune… in fact I spent so much they threw in a Mavic 2 Air drone!
And so my new journey of resilience began. I had the kit that would enable me to craft amazing imagery, despite my visual challenges. No excuses. And I love it as much today as when I purchased it six years ago. It never fails to deliver. I have produced some fabulous photographs, and manage well enough in Lightroom Classic (mainly on an iPad Pro), Photoshop and more recently Topaz Photo AI (when the light is too low, I crop too much, or I fail to anchor the 100-400 lens).
My journey into video has been more challenging, despite some success in stock video production. I had more to learn. The experience with the Panasonic in the early 1990s was way more point and shoot, and sharing was limited to challenging edits to share with family afar. In the 2020s we have to find the story, entertain and engage in different ways in terms of socialisation. My first ‘big’ passion project was a year after my mother passed. I returned to the UK in 2018 just a couple of months after buying the 1DX2 to join my brother on the ‘Ashes Tour’ which ultimately saw us driving through the Cotswolds in his own passion project - a 1939 Morgan Le Mans 4x4 - before heading to Criccieth in North Wales to broadcast the parental ashes from a boat in Harlech Bay in the lee of Criccieth Castle opposite the beachfront home we grew up in during our early years.
Frankly, I found crafting proxies of the crazy high bitrate 4K footage from the 1DX2 in Premiere Pro to be a huge challenge on my late-2014 Mac mini. I was an early adopter, then beta-tester, of LumaFusion in iOS on my iPad Pro as that plays 6 streams of high-bitrate 4K footage without a glithch - and without the need for proxies. Now in 2024 I am slowly teaching myself DaVinci Resolve on an M2 Ultra MacBook Pro - a little at a time, as and when my eyes permit. And as I can never make projects simple, I spread my endeavour between several YouTube channels and BlackBox Global stock agency.
Just as you go on your Photo Walks Neale, I go on my Photo Paddles in the Australian wilderness. I added a secret weapon to my photo and video outings: a 16’6” Wenonah Solo Plus Kevlar Ultralight Canoe. Nothing brings more pleasure, more solace, more solitude, more serenity, than slowly paddling in the wilderness surrounded by bird and wildlife and maybe, just maybe, managing to make a few nice photos or video stories along the way. The photo that symbolises my resilience, is of my hybrid setup from a recent sojourn off-grid in remote Kangaroo Valley, where I was fortunate to find Azure Kingfishers, Australian Grebe’s and Water Dragons in the viewfinder. Happy days indeed.
Life always throws us curved balls.
Resilience is ultimately about how we deal with them, or come to terms with them. For me, despite some inconvenient blindness episodes, I now have time to pursue my lifelong passion for photography and emergent aspirations for videography with gladness and resilience. On those days when the eyes function as they should, life is amazing. On those days I am inconveniently blind, perhaps somewhat less so. But assuming sight comes back (as fortunately it has, eventually, so far), l hold onto the knowledge that life will hopefully be amazing again in a week or two and I will be able to make more pictures along the way.
Now I have it all down in this form, I see another project, using these words with images of the cameras I have used, and the images they enabled, to craft a video, or perhaps a series of videos, where I put words to the images I made during my particular journey. And guess what, it is something that I would never have had the privilege to progress until that curve ball came out of nowhere in 2012 and threw my life more than a little upside down… watch this space.
