Theme: Your Bookshelf

[Richard Mullard]

Long time no post, sorry all.

Here's just one of my shelves dedicated to all things steam and model engineering.


My Bookshelf par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

Right at the top is 1 of my r/c subs, next is some of my clock, movie, sailing and beer making books, sadly no longer able to partake of the falling down juice on account of the tablets for high blood pressure has a problem with alcohol.

Next shelf, steam engine related. Same for the next shelf, the oldest book in my possession is the 1856 1st edition of the 'Memorials to James Watt' and a couple of originals by Samuel Smiles. One thing I have noticed is I need to have a damn good clean up, as the cobwebs show up when you use the on-camera flash.

TTFN

Rich

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Good one, Rich. Some heavy books there. They'd all be lost on me, that's for sure. Don't clean up the cobwebs - it takes years to grow them back again, and they add character. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

 

[Pete Askew]

Now I was just thinking, "What a clean and tidy shelf", then I read your comment! Them's nothing!

Great shelf and I am very intrigued by the RC sub. Tell us more please. With pictures! And, welcome back!

 

[Glenn Clabo]

Cool shelf Rich. Interesting combination of books...but the sub really interests me. I'm full of questions like...does it dive...how deep...did you build it...??? I got to play with the real ones for a career.

 

[Richard Mullard]

Thanks guys, the 8 legged freaks give me the heeby geebies, when I worked for an alarm company I had a late night call-out to a system in Oxford with an unknown activation, the occupant was a blind lady and when I'd done a walk round of the premises her bedroom ceiling was covered wall to wall with cobwebs needless to say her cleaner had a stiff talking to the following day.

I've created a separate thread here https://realphotographersforum.com/threads/the-silent-service-my-r-c-subs.15058/
rather than go off topic in this thread.

 

[Pete Askew]

At last I have caught up with all of the posts I hadn’t read. In doing so I needed to find (but failed to do so) a book of the poems of John Betjeman and that reminded me of this thread. My bookshelves employ the chaos school of organisation, and I keep meaning to sort them out. Of course that will never happen and I quite enjoy the serendipity of stumbling upon something I wasn’t looking for!

So, feel free to add something of your own to this little collection!

 

[Gianluca Drago]

At last I have caught up with all of the posts I hadn’t read

This is an incredible achievement, Pete. I've been watching you frantically at work all day.

 

[T B]

The main message I take from this is that I have too many photobooks (this is only one of my stashes of them), and that I'm far beyond the point of being able to organise them in any particular order. Like the best libraries, they're organised by what will fit on the shelves. I'm not sure what it says about what sorts of photography I like.

I couldn't pick a favourite book, but Manhattan Sunday and Seacoal, both on the bottom shelf, would be in the top few. The first is a collection of street photographs of people coming home from clubs early on Sunday morning in, well, Manhattan: they're great pictures and the fact that they were made with a 10x8 camera makes them even more amazing. Seacoal is a book by Chris Killip about people scavenging coal on the coast north of Newcastle in the 1980s. Manhattan Sunday made me want to do street portraits (so, with permission) with a large format camera and I have a long-term project taking photographs (again, with permission) of GRT people: it's interesting that I didn't know until long after I bought the book (although I should have been able to tell) that the people in Seacoal were travellers and Chris Killip also worked with a large format camera in what seems to be fairly insane circumstances. He gained acceptance from them by living there, in a caravan, for a year or so.

Seacoal contains what is probably my favourite ever picture: the last one in the book (I suppose he knew how wonderful it was as well), of a girl playing with a hula hoop. Everything is technically wrong with it: the horizon is not even slightly level, there is motion blur, it is probably not really sharp. But it's brilliant: I can't look at it without wanting to cry.

The print at the top left is perhaps interesting: it's a picture of Alberto Korda in later life, with behind him a print of his famous picture of Che Guevara. Somewhere I have a photograph I took of the person who took this photograph holding it: three levels of metaness.

(I didn't realise how old a thread this is!)

 

[Pete Askew]

An excellent addition to the series, Tim. Depressingly tidy mind!

I know that picture by Keith Cardwell, but I’m not sure where from: it’ll bug me now!

I have a copy of Seacoal somewhere. Glorious.

Right, now I’ll dash up and take a snap of one of the shelves in the study while I’m inspired!

 

[Pete Askew]

Well here are a couple of shelves I haven’t photographed before! Not sure why one has a lean to it. Can’t be the weight surely! I’d better check. If anyone spots a copy of a copy of “High and Low” by John Betjeman in there anywhere please let me know. It’s in that room somewhere. Mind there are quite a few more shelves, equally crammed!

 

[Pete Askew]

I’m wrong, I have photographer it before (back at the beginning of this thread). It seems to have more books (and stuff) on now though! That might explain the lean!

 

[Peter Roberts]

Well here are a couple of shelves I haven’t photographed before! Not sure why one has a lean to it. Can’t be the weight surely! I’d better check. If anyone spots a copy of a copy of “High and Low” by John Betjeman in there anywhere please let me know. It’s in that room somewhere. Mind there are quite a few more shelves, equally crammed!

View attachment 20591

View attachment 20592

Encouragingly similar to mine, Pete. And I can't find anything either, which explains why I've got two copies of some!
PS Love the Corgi Transporter , I've got a display cabinet with quite a few in it Corgis myself.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

zzzzz

Before I went back upstairs I took a few shots of the bookcase in the living room. I wasn't so keen on them though and so I posted the one above. But looking at the one I posted while writing the description was quite an interesting experience. Although I had at one time or another put all those things there I have become used to them. Seeing them in a photograph was like seeing them anew. As a result I went back to the others and this detail caught my eye.

The snails were a gift for Xmas from a friend and migrated to the shelf from under the tree. The little ceramic 'vase' was bought a few years ago at Wisley - it is wonderfully tactile. And I guess the books represent a good cross-section of my interests; photography, archeology, biology and cinema. As for Freshwater Fish...

Sony RX100. PP in LR/Nik ColorFX 4.

Great thread!

I have a matter for Pete. Your edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is incredibly thin. What font-size did they use to print it?
Mine edition is the nicotine yellowed one you see below. It is yellowed because I used to smoke. I still do, but I used to, too

 

[Pete Askew]

Ah, now that is because this an abridged version with additional notes, research and illustrations that either clarify Darwin’s work or ‘correct’ it where scientific research has added mechanisms that he knew nothing of (such as much of modern genetics). Somewhere amongst the chaos is a proper copy of the original text. The abridged version is by Richard Leakey.

The objects on your shelf are interesting too. One looks to be ceramic. And the other?

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Ah, now that is because this an abridged version with additional notes, research and illustrations that either clarify Darwin’s work or ‘correct’ it where scientific research has added mechanisms that he knew nothing of (such as much of modern genetics). Somewhere amongst the chaos is a proper copy of the original text. The abridged version is by Richard Leakey.

The objects on your shelf are interesting too. One looks to be ceramic. And the other?

Ah! I see. Now it makes more sense.

The two objects on the shelf? That ‘ceramic piece’ is, in fact, a wasp’s nest, crafted from local clay. The other is a fish vertebra from a meal I cooked long ago, now somehow part of my story—though I can't quite recall if I even liked it.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

A few lower shelves with reference material... A few volumes of philosophy, a number of generic and specific camera references (in case you ever have the urge to invest in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO THE PHOTOGRAPH don't bother - this tome may have been of limited interest to a bricks and mortar library in the days prior to the internet but nobody needs this pile of paper now - not at all what I expected). A number of references from my watch repair period. A replacement for my copy of the MACHINERY HANDBOOK that was stolen years ago. This one doesn't fall open to the good pages like my original did. Also, can't recommend any of the MAGNUM volumes.

 

[Pete Askew]

Ah, now that’s what I call a bookshelf! I too have several books that failed to live up to expectations, and they are still tking up valuable shelf space!

Pocket watches or wrist watches, Gary?

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Pocket watches or wrist watches, Gary?

It didn't really matter Pete, I wasn't any good no matter how large or small they were. I worked on several Elgin pocket watch movements as well as some wristwatch movements. It was certainly educational.

 

[Paul Taylor]

I have a few little nooks of books stashed around the house. Here is one.

Contax RX w/ Contax-Zeiss 50mmf1.4 on Ilford HP5+

 

[Rob MacKillop]

So, Paul, it's not just camera shooting you do?