Snowmography

Growing up in Devon, snow was something of a rarity. We were a spit away from the so-called English Riviera, famous for its palm-loving maritime climate of mild, mild, endlessly mild weather. I remember watching the news footage from elsewhere with envy: closed schools, snowmen, and sledging. Bah. Not fair.

Then on New Year's eve 1981 it snowed good and proper. We raced home from my grandmother's and just in time. We were cut off by seven foot drifts. Clear skies and a freeze followed, turning our our local sledging hill into a terrifying bobsleigh run. The sun shone and I was mesmerised by the ultraviolet beauty of a familiar world made strange. We went for long walks and sunk to our knees through soft ice.

Perhaps that's why despite the warnings of doom and danger I still get a childish thrill when it starts to snow. We went out several times during this latest freeze, and I had fun with our new Diana Mini lomography camera. (I now have my own lomohome where you can check out photos as I upload them.) I love the dreaminess of the pictures it takes.

It allows you to make multiple exposures, always unpredictable.

And at night you can do long exposures, holding the shutter open as long as you dare.

I guess this is just my adult way of making snowmen. They last longer too. Last night it rained and today all the snow is gone.

Shipwrecked

We seem to be watching a lot of DVDs lately, most recently The Thief of Bagdad, Alexander Korda's Technicolor fantasy epic. I remember it fondly from childhood and once you leave behind modern notions of film-making, narrative structure and political correctness it remains thoroughly enjoyable.

It's hard to believe that the movie was released in 1940 - the special-effects are well ahead of their time - and it's worth checking out the biography of its charismatic Indian actor, Sabu, whose extraordinary but tragic life is worthy of a film in its own right.

Anyway, halfway through the film the evil wizard Jaffar calls down a storm and shipwrecks our heroes, Ahmad and Abu, somewhere between Basra and Bagdad (yes, those names give the film an added poignancy).

Except that it's not Iraq but Kynance Cove on the Lizard in Cornwall. Poor Sabu must have been freezing.

We went and sat on Kynance only a week or so ago. I can attest that it's an excellent place when you're feeling shipwrecked.

(thanks to Rob McLeod for the photo)

Bleak beauty

Nomi gave me a camera for Christmas. Not just any camera and most definitely not a digital camera. No, it was a Diana Mini, one of the many forgotten treasures being revived by the burgeoning lomography movement. It takes 35mm film. Remember that?

Though the relentless cool can grate after a while, I like the lomography manifesto. It's all about experimentation: take your camera with you everywhere; don't think; shoot from the hip; ignore the rules. And I suppose by making these cameras cool again, lomography may just have saved film from extinction. I think this is a good thing because as anyone who's ever spent time in a darkroom will testify, analogue photography is just a little bit magic.

The Diana Mini is a seriously lo-fi bit of kit (more realistically, it's a toy camera, but don't tell the fashionistas). Focussing is rudimentary and requires a bit of guesswork. There are two apertures, sunny and cloudy. There's no way to adjust for film speed. It has a plastic lens. It's nigh on impossible to frame a shot. But I find all of this liberating. Sod all the menus and adjustments and endless fiddling that the digital world encourages. Forget any idea of control. Just point and shoot and wait and see. I'd forgotten the thrill of having to wait for your photos to be processed, the disappointment when the ones you hoped for turn out to be rubbish and the little moment of joy when others unexpectedly work.

So here are my favourites from my very first roll of film, all taken in Cornwall over the twelve days of Christmas. The only editing I've done is to crop off the blank edges (the Diana takes photos in square or half-frame format). I think they capture some of the bleak beauty of the British seaside in winter but, whatever, they certainly reflect my mood.

Stop all the clocks

2013 has begun in the worst possible way imaginable with the loss of our unborn baby at 19 weeks. She was beautiful and perfect and we were to have named her Lyra May Letcher. For some mysterious reason she died in the womb, one of life's terrible little tragedies. I wasn't prepared for the grief. It is unbearable.

I wouldn't normally blur the distinction between my public and private lives as I detest the contemporary, confessional 'misery industry', veering as it does between mawkishness on the one hand and prurience or even schadenfreude on the other. But I'm blogging about this for a number of reasons.

First, in olden days men wore black armbands to show that even though they were pretending to go on as normal, in reality nothing could be normal again. It's a shame we lost this. This blog is my armband.

Second, I want to thank family and friends who have been magnificent in their support. We've had a flood of texts, calls and emails. Flowers and flapjack have appeared on the doorstep. We've had offers of food and hugs. Yesterday while we were in hospital having the baby induced (God, was it only yesterday?), many lit candles for us, at home, in the woods, and even in a Spanish church. It truly made the difference. And we've been humbled to learn just how many have been through similar experiences. You just never know, do you?

Third, I tend to move in countercultural circles where modern medicine is, sometimes rightly but too often mistakenly, viewed with suspicion (that we have the luxury of suspicion is, of course, a product of its very success). But the NHS has been simply amazing. It's humbling to remember that if we'd been in the wild, as it were, Nomi would probably have died. Everyone who dealt with us, from the doctors who broke the tragic news to the midwifes who took us through the birthing process, treated us with care, compassion, honesty but above all, kindness. How they manage to deal such grief on a daily basis I have no idea. Danny Boyle was so right to champion the NHS in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. It is our greatest institution and its workers our unsung heroes. Thank you all.

And finally, though the last few days have been the most painful we have endured, they have not been without tenderness, love, spiritual clarity or even humour (NHS sick bowls make a fine comedy hat). Nomi was extraordinary throughout. And as we were getting ready to go into hospital we heard a young song thrush singing through the half-light, an early intimation of spring. We opened the window to let the sound in. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.