There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air

This will have to be a two-part post, because one post alone isn't big enough to hold my ego sometimes. Yes, indeed; ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages: I bring you Jay, the artist.

Last night, driving home, I was a bit distracted and managed to take a wrong turn. Twice. Luckily, so long as I am still heading in the right direction I can't go too far wrong so I didn't feel the need to turn around. Okay, I admit, I almost never turn around, call it stubbornness, call it blind optimist, but I usually think if I keep going in the same direction it will somehow work out. Last night, I found this water tower. It wasn't exactly a surprise, I've known about this water tower for something like ten years -- and I once took pictures of it for a photography course I was doing.

Those pictures are lost now, but with my recent inspiration I wanted to go back. Every day, driving home from work I'll see it in the distance somewhere and try and work out where it is. Then last night I found it by accident.

I'm not entirely happy with this picture, as yet. For a start, I had to take it using my camera phone (I must start keeping my camera in the glove compartment of my car), and then there was the damn fence. Plus, I was going home so didn't have a lot of time. However, I like this picture and I have deliberately left the fence in it -- I think it frames the shot and gives it a militarised feel to the picture.

I might make this picture and the last one part of a "random places in Essex" series. On the way out of town is an old abandoned petrol station -- the station itself is all long gone, all that remains is the concrete forecourt and a couple of old disused pumps like this. I've been looking at it for ages and thinking how it would make a good post-apocalypse scene, a kind of nod to Mad Max or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The unfortunate thing has been that every time I go past, there is always a bunch of cars and other vehicles parked around -- since there is a business operating just behind the forecourt.

Once I got it in my head that I had to take pictures of the place, I have been going out of my way to drive past and different times of the day to see how busy it looked. Thursday was my first attempt at capturing it -- but someone had parked a blue van right behind one of the pumps, meaning I couldn't get any pictures of a whole scene, and only pictures of one pump. The pictures I got were good, but I wasn't quite satisfied.

In this one, I like the detail of the corrosion on the pump and I liked the colours -- however, I have edited the hue and the saturation for a kind of washed-out feeling to it, like it's not really there. I wasn't happy that I couldn't get both pumps in the same picture.

So Saturday early evening I go back, and I'm shouting excitedly in my car as I pull up and see the whole place is deserted. I can kneel in the dirt, I can take pictures this way, that way, of a whole scene or one pump alone. Passing chavs would beep their horns or shout at me, but who cares what chavs think. So long as my car was nearby for a quick getaway if it came to that -- chavs are prone to inexplicable and unpredictable violent behaviour.



Here I've managed to more or less get the shot I was after, but it's not as good as I wanted. It needs to be taken with quite a wide angle to get both pumps in one picture, and I feel the building behind does spoil the atmosphere a little. However, I was pleased with the lighting -- not that it matters in monochrome, but it does for the next picture.

This was the partner of the pump in the first picture -- I like this one better, since it's more complete. Also the evening sun I think has added a richness to the colour. Again, not entirely comfortable with the background, but it will do.

Satisfied with my gas station pictures and aware that I was losing the light, I set off back to find my water tower -- with determination not to let a fence get in the way of my picture. I found my way back, parked up by the gate -- and noticed a footpath in the neighbouring field. A couple of paces further up the footpath, I found that merely pushing through the hedge and not minding some tree branches to the face, I could be past the first gate entirely.

The shot isn't so very different to the first -- but there's no fence, and I think the light and resolution is better, giving it a crisper black and white edge. I'm not entirely sure if I think it is better with or without the fence, and I'm not a great fan of the phone masts on the tower -- but I can't do a whole lot about them.