On Photography as Flynn Falls on Sword

St Ives from the Old Bridge

Trying to shift my working day to start at 9am again, now that we are moving towards longer days since the Winter solstice. Day-length on the 21st of December last year was a mere 7h 49m 40s. Today we had 9h 57m 59s of mostly sunshine! The benefit of an axial tilt. Lovely little homemade Valentines card from Jane at the breakfast table.

I managed to get a good morning's work in before we were off for a lunch with Hugh Hales-Tooke, son of author Ann Hales-Tooke (writing as Ann Petre). Hugh is a photographer, videographer, painter and musician. I liked his early fashion photography, with a puckish, sometimes surreal visual humour, reflected again in his video for Laura Cantrell's 'All The Girls Are Complicated'. A couple of years ago, I shadowed him as he took portraits in St John's College using an old plate camera. A totally different experience of having to make sure subject and location are exactly right because you can only take one or two shots, contrasting with the ability to shoot hundreds of digital photos and pick out one or two.

He had an interesting question, whether it was important for me to have a selection of photographs printed. I do make a selection every year for my July Cambridge Open Studio, but I had to stop and think, rather than respond immediately.

For me, especially with photography through the microscope, the main challenge is in the subject and honing down your gaze to find a scene within a camera frame. It is followed by experimentation and decisions with different lighting and other settings. Then often the final image is a composite of focus stacks and stitched panoramas, involving up to several hundred images. It doesn't work all the time, and when it does, the final image gives a burst of pleasure before you move on to the next challenge.

Yet now, looking back this evening, there are images that stick in my mind and where there is a particular fond recognition when they are seen again, whether in print or on screen.

It was an enjoyable lunch for both Jane and me, and I hope Hugh too. We parted laughing as we went through the typical British multiple extended goodbyes - something I'd just read about in Kate Fox's 'Watching the English' last night.

I dropped Jane off back home and trundled up to St Ives, parking at the Dolphin. The winter sunshine brought out the picturesque nature of the town when seen from the Old Bridge. I spent an hour in M&Co choosing and trying on three sets of clothes for the charity fashion show on Friday and then managed to return home while it was still light, with some Thornton's chocolates.

Last night I had the Brexit shock of my life, when I found myself agreeing with Ryanair's Michael O'Leary, in an interview where he stated that there could be problems with flights between the UK and the remaining EU after Brexit.

Over the Pond, President Trumps security adviser, Michael Flynn fell on his sword after it became public that he had talked to a Russian envoy about the sanctions, before Trump had been elected as president. Interesting that this was not an issue for Trump, who knew about this weeks ago, according to the BBC. It was the leaking of the information and the fact that he had lied to the Vice President Mike Pence.

The news pushed other bad news for Trump into the background, such as the US Office of Government Ethics calling on the White House to investigate adviser Kellyanne Conway for plugging Ivanka Trump products, something I'm sure Trump will take very seriously.

But there was good news for him too. The British Government would not withdraw the invitation for a state visit with the opportunity to meet the Queen and be exposed to hostile crowds, despite the 1.8 million signature petition. A win for the 300,000 who voted for him to come.