Blog Post #71

Tish

If you are not familiar with the work of documentary photographer Tish Murtha then I thoroughly recommend you take a look. Tish is a similar age to me so we grew up during very difficult and challenging times here in the UK, particularly in the 1970s and 80s. We both started taking photos around the same time but whilst I pursued a career in engineering, Tish was on the streets of the north east of England with her camera and trying her hand at getting some photography qualifications and getting her work recognised. Her work is raw documentary photography and shows what life was like under successive governments but in particular Thatcher’s Britain. What she recorded is shocking, sad and invokes in me an anger, but at the same time it is beautiful and shows the strength of community and human spirit. Please make sure you take some time to enjoy her work here.

Tish sadly died on March 13th 2013, the day before what would have been her 57th birthday, after suffering a brain aneurysm. As an organ donor she went on to save the lives of four women and eyesight of four men.

Following her untimely death her daughter, Ella, has made it her goal in life to ensure that her mother’s work gets the recognition it deserves. Ella has organised the publication of three books that showcase a lot of her mother’s work. The titles of the books are “Elswick Kids”, “Youth Unemployment” and “Juvenile Jazz Bands”.

Last week I went along to the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham to see the film that Ella has made of her mam’s life. I think it is a brilliant documentary of a remarkable woman who showed us how bad things can get if we, as a country, get things wrong. As mentioned before it is a sad but beautiful story though from a political point of view it left me very angry and it took me a few days to get over that. Tish’s work is so powerful and Ella deserves a lot of recognition for bringing her mam’s work to us all. The film still has some venues to visit into 2024 so check out upcoming showings at Modern Films.

My pick of 2023

With the year coming to a close, I have decided that rather than post up my favourite work from the past year on Facebook, I would make a YouTube video instead. I made some YouTube videos of our family many years ago but its been a reasonable learning curve getting back into using iMovie again. If I am honest I am rather enjoying it even although I haven’t (yet) included any pieces “to camera”. I am undecided as to whether I should make the switch to the other side of the lens and say a few words of introduction. It has often been said I have a great face for radio or doing a blog! Watch this space.

I need a lottery win

I have been a iMac user for many years now and love using it. My current Mac was purchased in 2019 and still works well. When I bought it I specified what I wanted in it memory wise etc., and at that time couldn’t conceive me every needing more memory. Needless to say I now need more memory! Ideally a new 2024 specification Mac would be more desirable and would be more than capable of coping with my workflow when post processing images or indeed making movies. I took a look at the Apple store and started to build up the Mac that I need from the add-on options the way I did the last time. They don’t make powerful Macs the way the used to as a fully integrated unit, the monitor and computer section are now separate. The 27” monitor is £1,499 on its own, which is more than I paid for my complete 2019 model! In the meantime I have taken advantage of Black Friday deals and got an additional Solid State portable drive onto which I will off-load files etc from my Mac to free-up memory. It will have to do until my six numbers come up. Fingers crossed.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.

Pete