Today I got one of my photos onto Flickr’s explore page for the first time - currently the 34th most “interesting” photo on Flickr. Interestingness is, of course, very over-rated, more than 90% of the photos rated as “interesting” are quite the reverse, clichéd and dull as shit. Still, it’s nice to be in the running.
Something rather unusual happened to me this morning. I was attacked by a police dog.
I was walking my dog Gizmo in the park, as I do most mornings at about this time. Ahead of me, I could see a large alsatian snuffling around in the undergrowth and a man who was mostly hidden by the trees ahead of me. As we got closer, the alsatian turned, saw Gizmo, and set off after him. Now, Gizmo loves getting other dogs to chase him, because he knows that none of them will ever catch him, so I wasn’t too concerned.
By this stage the man had come into view and I could see that he was wearing full police uniform. He called his dog back, and ordered me to stand still, which I did. His dog turned back as soon as it was called, but instead of going back to the owner it lunged at my hand as it passed, and latched on with full force. I was completely shocked. It hurt. A lot.
The policeman ordered his dog off and thankfully it responded to his command. When I took my hand out, it was oozing thick blood. The sight of it made me feel weak. There was a large puncture on the middle finger of my right hand, a hole splayed open at the edges inside which I could see a big loose vein and other bits and pieces of gore. Up the side of my index finger was a raking cut, again fairly deep and with little bits of mincemeat hanging out. The policeman brushed it off as “not a very bad one”, and took me back to his van where he gave the cuts a quick wipe and put a dressing on my middle finger, while two plain-clothed detectives hovered in the background. He told me that they’d been searching for a purse which was stolen and probably dumped around there. Only a couple of months before I’d found a rucksack dumped in exactly the same spot, which I’d taken to the police station. Not long before that, I found a mobile nearby and got to hear a part the sad story of what happened to its owner. I’m starting to have my worries about walking home late at night in this area.
Subsequently I had to go to my GP’s for a tetanus jab, then to the hospital to have the wound checked over, sellotaped up (it needs stitches but they apparently don’t stitch animal bites in case they seal in any infection), and pick up some antibiotics. And now, I’m finding it very hard to type, and to take photographs.
S’funny, last time I had to have a tetanus jab it was also as the result of a rather bizarre incident, and I was also lucky to get away with my tendons more-or-less intact.
Here’s some photos Gill took for me:
This… there are no words for it. Just watch. Make sure you have sound turned on. And a box of man-sized tissues close at hand.
I made one further selection (with slightly larger images sizes) of my Peek-a-boo photos, here is the “crowd shot selection”. The idea behind this is that I am finally discovering a photographic direction which I enjoy working in and am finding some kind of a style of my own in, which is shooting arrangements of people in bars and parties. I hope to get together a collection of these which I can make a show and a book out of. It remains to be seen what they’ll look like when printed up, 3200ISO warts’n'all, but having initially been terrified of the idea I’m now starting to think that the many technical imperfections in these photos give them some sort of added character.
Anyway, my main reason for pulling together this set right now is so that I could post a thread on John Brownlow’s street photography forum looking for constructive comments. There are some photographers on there whose work I respect a lot, and they can be pretty merciless in their criticism, but I’ve mainly got positive feedback on these, which has made me very happy.
It’s been a busy weekend for photo-taking, and an even busier couple of days for photo editing. Saturday night, we went to a Peek a Boo burlesque night at Sheffield’s Sola bar: selected photos here (warning - contains partial nudity plus women wearing very little except for glitter) and a full set (190 pictures) of photos here. Then on Sunday we went to Colourscape in Clifton Park, Rotherham: photos here.
Comments very welcome.
A while ago, I posted a comment on the “Shake Your Fist” blog about the song Little Black Egg, as performed originally by the Nightcrawlers but subsequently (the version I’m familiar with) by Inner City Unit. I even put a link to an MP3 of the ICU version.
This morning I was surprised (and delighted) to receive an email from the daughter of one of the members of the Nightcrawlers. She is making a documentary about the Nightcrawlers and wondered if she could get a copy of my ICU video. Delighted to oblige!
Brian Eno at his most wilfully obscure: this is hilarious.
From what I have heard, it seems that yesterday the Matilda Centre was closed down due to alleged health and safety infringements. This is terrible news for Sheffield. Matilda was a real hub of activity, they put on some amazing gigs (like the Sunburned Hand of the Man gig which I photographed) and generated a real buzz around community activity in Sheffield. It will be sorely missed.
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
