Simon's Blog

One of the strange things about life is that from time to time things come together to produce a strange and wonderful experience. This happened to me yesterday when I visited the Middlesborough Institute for Modern Art (MIMA). This is one of the Blarite palaces of culture planted around the country with the intention of bringing a bit of culture to the great unwashed. (Totally cynical view BTW and doesn’t do the MIMA justice which is a wonderful place to visit). The whole building was given over to a major exhibition of the work of William Tillyer, which perhaps wasn’t strong enough to hold the attention and certainly not strong enough for a whole art gallery to be given over to it.

However, the gods of fortune had decided to give far more than they normally do. The weather was wonderful, a cold crisp late autumn day with an open blue sky. A perfect opportunity to take my new iPhone 5s for a good test and I have to say I am really, really impressed with the camera. I started this whole iPhoneography journey some 4 years ago now and I think we are reaching the point where the camera on the iPhone is a real serious piece of photographic equipment, rather than a bit of a novelty camera that can make quirky images with the latest funky app. The one function that proved this to me is the panorama option on the standard camera. Not only is it very simple to use but the processing takes account of the wildly varying lighting conditions to knit together a wonderful image.

This panorama function came into its own when we moved a few miles east to the beach at Redcar. To get there you pass through one of those now almost lost worlds in Britain, a heavy industrial landscape. Mile after mile of chemical and steel works did wonders for my asthma but they also reminded me of my youth when this was far more the norm than the exception. I have to say standing amongst this triumph of the human imagination I suddenly realised just how remote and removed our lords and masters are in far off London – especially as most of them represent comfortable southern constituencies with no real connection to places like Redcar or Wilton – the only exception being Nick Clegg but that is a whole different story.

So we got to the beach at Redcar which provided a strange mixture of the old and new worlds. To the east was the massive Redcar steel works, to the North across the bay at the mouth of the River Tees was the Hartlepool Nuclear power station and standing proud in the bay itself was the ultimate symbol of the the post industrial modernity a large wind farm, the individual windmills slowly rotating in the bracing wind blowing down from the arctic. The light was wonderful so it was a great test for the panorama function and I have to say it didn’t let me down.

After a while on the beach we were frozen so took took refuge at the local beach cafe, which thankfully was still open even on this unimportant day in mid November. The staff were wonderful and you could sit there enjoying the bracing views whilst warming yourself with a nice pot of tea. Heaven.

When we left the cafe the sun was really setting and we were in the wonderful golden hour time of early evening. Most of the the images I made then were with my G1x but I did manage to make a few more images with the iPhone and they were really impressive.

So thanks to the gods/god for bringing all these different elements together to make a wonderful experience. Also thanks to the geniuses at Apple who have really produced a first rate camera on their latest iPhone. This just leaves me to try and produce something exceptional to go with the exceptional day. No pressure then.

PS …. As I write this the rain is gently beating against my hotel window so a guess today may not be quite as inspiring as yesterday…however we all live in hope.

Simon Marchini
www.simonmarchini.co.uk