Stag

My house is in the reliable care of Firstborn and I am taking a weekend off for the first time in ages. I have allowed myself lots of time with my camera and I have packed a book (I haven't been able to read for three years). It's time for my factory reset.

I got off the train at Liverpool Lime Street and walked five minutes to the Walker Gallery, which I've never been to before, to see the Rembrandts. I hadn't done my homework - they are all in storage. Instead I went to their exhibition of Tom Wood's photographs, entitled 'Photie Man', as he is known in the parts of Liverpool where he and his cameras are recognised. He's my vintage and he's taken masses and masses of photos of what to me as I was growing up was utterly ordinary and unremarkable but which is now fascinating for having gone. Extraordinary pictures. He clearly got to know some of his subjects quite well and talked with them about his portraits of them but at the same time he took brazen pictures of people that I would never dare to take. The man groping two women's tits at the same time! How did either man get away with that? There are blurry pictures and lopsided pictures that I would have thrown away just for that reason if they'd been mine and what a mistake that would have been. Not that I ever took anything that good. He remarked towards the end of the exhibition that he'd never be able to take equivalent pictures now because people are all stuck in their phones. He's right, of course, but if ever there's a place to accept that challenge it's Liverpool where so many more people than elsewhere seem to live their lives in the open. So in homage to Tom Wood here are some unremarkable pictures that might one day shout 2023.

I loved being out on the street in the sun and taking pictures of people but I know that I self-censor. Would the people in the picture be hurt if they saw it? Have I taken this only because one person is wearing a turban (extra)? Might this person be hiding from an abuser and how would I know? Today I decided to ignore my inner-censor, only to find it coming out much more strongly at the weeding stage. Realisation: if I'm going to be true to my values I don't think I'm capable of taking photos that really show my time and place.
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The next place I'd never been to was the Anglican cathedral. I had no idea that it was possible for a building to be both grandiose and banal at the same time. It seems to sell itself on lots of 'ests' (longest cathedral in the world, fourth largest volume in Europe, highest/widest gothic arches in somewhere or other...). I tried but I felt no awe.
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At a friend's suggestion I went for a very late lunch at Baltic Market. No. I preferred going hungry.

I'm now ensconced in my room ready for day two of the reset.