Friday 13 August 2010

Delays - but something interesting in the EDP

My OCA work has taken another delay. We all know that when this happens we become anxious and how discontinuity in our work is not good. My day job is planning for major construction projects and delay is a word I hate. It starts a process of having to take measures to mitigate the delay and find methods to accelerate the work methods to get back on programme. These can include working longer hours, employing more resource and spending money. Well luckily the OCA will not require the later but I feel under pressure to do something about the problem. The problem is that the construction planning work has taken over my life with a very large project on Guernsey and to quote a recent BP employee "I want my life back". Having to work 11-12hrs a day allows no time for photography. The work even has the ability to be nasty towards me, by asking me to travel at 0600 in the morning and see light that I would die for. No good setting aside a day to get up and be out at 0600 with the camera, because the light on those days is rubbish. So, while in this temporary wilderness of all work and no play I am delivered my daily copy of "The Eastern Daily Press" with a superb article about  monochrome king Edwin Smith (1912-1971). Smith was a prolific photographer of the English landscape and published books of architectural significance illustrating over 40 volumes from 1944 to 1975. His work (over 60,000) pictures are held by The Royal Institute of British Architects. Smith loved tone, pattern and texture and I have often used his work as an inspiration for my own. His work can be seen at http://www.ribapix.com/ (type Edwin Smith in the search box) where there are over 4,500 photographs and also for a short while at http://www.chrisbeetles.com/