Connections

When looked in retrospect it seems like a series of connections or small incidents in which a seed is germinated, seemingly insignificant at the time, but becomes inextricably linked to the final destination.  Carl Jung covered this randomness and created a ‘phenomenon’ by giving it a proper ‘grown-up’ name. ( Then bloody Sting wrote a pop song about it and unwittingly discredited the concept). And so my  passage to fly casting was a case of ‘synchronicity’, according to Mr Jung. 

Kate was in every way like a big sister to me, only she was, in stature only, petite tiny. A comparative stranger, a mutual friend, a matchmaker. But, I instantly felt at home in her company, relaxed, off my guard and totally welcomed, in a big city of new people, that was so rare and a refuge I readily sought.

A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, half a dozen years older than me, and a ‘Scouser’, who lived thirty floors up in a tower block in Westbourne Grove near the interesting culturally diverse part of Notting Hill Gate. With a living room in which one entire wall was a window to the world outside and across the most magnificent views of London below, and way off to the distant countryside beyond the sprawling outskirts of this massive splodge of humanity. Whatever she said was vibrant and enthralling, and yet  the silences between us, were those of comfortable companionship that usually years of acquaintance is vitally required to achieve.

I think for Kate I came under the category of broke student ( she’d been there too), and a waif-and-stray in need of warmth, company and feeding up.

She had a habit every Sunday morning; I would gravitate there for a ritual along with her brother and whichever of her friends were in London. We would sit around the room surrounding a huge tea pot that was never allowed to go cold,or go empty, and was often joined with plates of buttered toast. And she’d have the three biggest Sunday papers along with all the supplements and magazines. Sat on the floor, back to a couch and facing the huge view, or lying on the rug  elbows down and chin propped up, we’d pass round and work through every bit of interest till way into the afternoon, while the weather transformed the London outside the amazing glasswall, and often, the winter darkness crept in . Occasionally the concentration broken by someone commenting on politics or football, with two Scousers at least in the room at a time, Liverpool football club and legendary names would be uttered in reverence, Dalgliesh; Rush; and Paisley. But  the word uttered most that cast a dark shadow briefly as it passed through that room, was Margaret Thatcher. I’d never delved into the Sunday papers before, and it became a habit, an indulgence.

One Sunday when I had layered up, braced against the elements to get over there, the window was showing the full misery of dreary dismal London below, its poor creatures rugged up and shivering. Up in our warm tower I was handed the colour supplement of the Sunday Times magazine, on the cover a young lady was walking in a bikini through some sandy hot paradise. It was a close crop from her knees up, and she filled the page. We the viewers were incidental, she was in a world of her own, fresh faced, natural and athletic, happy as a sand boy, unglamorous, like a pretty nieghbours kid.  

It was so refreshing for photography of the time, so spontaneous; inside where another 4 or 6 pages. Considering the view outside the room of London on this bleak day, these pictures of a glowing, happy confident young woman where like turning your face into the radiance of shimmering sunshine and I envied whoever, just off camera, was on the end of that smile and laughter. Oh to share it! A small mention of the model said that she was from Australia and the photos were on location in France. She then epitomized my view of Australian beauty.

It was a few months later when I saw that a neighbours teenage son had wrapped his school books in the same picture shoot, and proclaimed that she was F’ ing hot!

“Oh so someone else noticed her too, wasn’t just me, and it wasn’t just that natural smile evidently”?!

Scroll down the years and I’m embedded at the Australian Centre for Photography.

My other passion from child hood that I could never get kick started was black and white photography, I’d joined photography clubs and read the books on technique and rules of composition as a kid, but financially it was beyond my family. When my Australian partner in London deserted my sinking ship, and my finances were no longer shared with A.N.Other, I bought my first Nikon and never looked back. 

Now in Australia and working as a roadie, I finally had an opportunity to indulge an obsession, and I’m spending all my time shooting and learning in the darkrooms, sometimes getting locked in over night to try and perfect my printing. Across Oxford street  from the institute was a fabulous book shop with an even more fabulous café. Every Tuesday morning they would have a fresh copy of the Sunday Times delivered from England, and I’d sit there with my plunger of coffee and re orders of Hot Cheese and tomato Croissants, working my way through each section for hours. Sometimes a name would still manage to cast a dark shadow briefly, as it passed through that room: Margaret Thatcher. And I always checked on Liverpool football club. Occasionally distracted by the view, not out of the window this time, but of Debbie the waitress.

The small tables and chairs, were crammed into the floor space, and most of us sidled awkwardly through these tiny gaps, gasping a deep breath in. Debbie however, who was like a petite hour glass version of  Siouxsie Sioux, when carrying orders, just sashed through, with a waddle timed so that the sway of her hips was always on the right beat to miss the furniture, it was fascinating to watch, effortless and uninterrupted. Like the room had been laid out and choreographed for her amazing strut. But then, if she turned and caught my eye or spoke to me; disaster. Something in those dark eyes, the depth, just melted any remaining intelligence or coordination that I had left, I was totally lost in them and instantly became a complete and uncoordinated buffoon.

I rarely managed a coherent sentence in her company and became terribly embarrassed at my efforts at pronouncing the word ‘Croissant’. It became more affected and pretentious with each attempt. I could feel the word approaching distantly in the sentence, looming up like a steeple chase hurdle, and every time I tripped clumsily over it and went down flat on my face into the pond. Eventually learning my lesson; when she was on taking the orders I tended to go for the dignified Mushroom Soup option instead.

I did however somehow manage to ask her if I could take her picture.

This was amazing, I’d only to this point, been interested in trees, landscapes, and abstract. I admired great portrait photographers, but never felt compelled to try it and to deal with having  to converse with the subject. This was all about communicating to her though. In a form of exchange that I was literate, showing I could actually function better than that awkward buffoon in the tea rooms and say in a picture, what my eyes were observing, but had no vocabulary that I could use to portray!

I printed up the results on large 11 inch by 14 inch sheets and dropped them at the Tea Rooms and scarpered quick; she showed a friend them over the counter; a model saw them and asked who the photographer was; she needed shots like that for her portfolio; a meeting was set up; I wasn’t too happy or enthusiastic.

I wasn’t a big fan of the fashion industry, and knew nothing about how it worked; the few models I’d met had been young; aloof and quite cold; Nothing about them attracted my interest; almost reluctantly I turned up to meet her; and Debbie was there sat at the table waiting, this time as an intermediary. This was going to be awkward.

She turned up and entered the room. I wasn’t expecting anything, but she was older than I had assumed, which was refreshing. Late twenties early thirties, no makeup that I could see, faded jeans and a ‘T shirt, that had never looked so good, hair pulled back in a pony tail, obviously skinny but athletic frame under those clothes, a hint of freckles, tanned skin and sun bleached hair.

This beauty though, wasn’t skin deep, it was in the impact she had on a room, she lifted its spirit, while charmingly becoming the centre of it just with her presence, the way she transformed it, owned the space and then engaged you. Almond shaped eyes, cheek bones, wide lips, and a smile that when it flashed at someone else left you bereft and envious, but when aimed at you, dazzled, and left you feeing truly blessed. 

Tracy Zealand handed me her portfolio of shots to look at, that she wanted to add my photos to. It was the custom then, a model offers her book of shots for the photographer, or client, to view and then choose whether they wanted to do some work together, and then leaves a composite card of a few selected photos, behind for reference.

It can be a cold horrible process, and so dismissive. Throughout my career I always took time if the model was there, and carefully worked through these collections of pictures, even if I had no interest. The often poor soul sat opposite me, their hopes and huge efforts had been invested in those pages. Tracy’s was full of glossy colour shots from magazines, much of it lingerie and swimwear, some bridal stuff, staged; posed; precise; mostly flawless; and lacking spontaneity; visibly lacking the Tracy who had entered this Tea room. The silence was awkward, I didn’t know how to react.

I couldn’t imagine doing any of this stuff and was about to say, “Thank you for showing me, I love your photos, you look great. But I really have no idea of how to do any of this. I don’t see how I can contribute and I’d hate to waste your time”, when I flipped over a page, and there she was!

A young lady walking in a bikini in some sandy hot paradise, a close crop from her knees up and she filled the page. We the viewers were incidental, she was in a world of her own, fresh faced, natural and athletic, happy as a sand boy, unglamorous,like a pretty nieghbours kid.

“No shit!....oh Good grief your ‘That’ girl from the Sunday Times magazine!”. I don’t think she heard the first bit and I gained some composure before saying.  

“I remember seeing this on a cold wet day in London and feeling very envious of you Tracy”.

“I loved that shoot, I’d just arrived in London and the first job they flew me to the south of France to do that, it’s such a happy memory” As she was talking to Debbie about the shot, animated, and I was now studying her face in the light of the café as she listened, considered, and responded to Debbie. I could also see something in the stillness of that face, in those intent pauses, that no one had used.

“Tracy, I cant do anything like your fashion shots, I’ve no experience with any of it. What I can do is, if your ok with Black and white photos. There’s a building nearby that’s like a an Italian villa with great lights at night, it’s the  garden of a restaurant. if we could slick back that hair and go for something sophisticated, I think can make your face look like Audrey Hepburn, a sort of fresh lovely, Hollywood glamour. But I have no idea about make up and sets, and the teams of people, I’d be lost and out of my depth. It needs to be just you and me and maybe some one to help”.

Which was exactly what she wanted, and exactly what she got and it became her new card.

We did it , she loved it, other models saw it in her book as did her agent, other models came to me, and my weeks filled with these shoots, then the magazines rang to enquire who this photographer was and why they hadn’t seen him and his portfolio. Before very long I was shooting for the magazine supplements for Australian Sunday papers and smaller fashion magazines, still occasionally  meeting up for coffee and croissants with that girl from the Sunday times magazine in the place I would go weekly to read the Sunday times.

Roll forward the years again I am in London a week out from a photo shoot of a clothes collection for London fashion week. I am down staying with the designers, and we’ve been casting models, I’ve been getting to know the clothes collection and find a feel for the shoot, checking out locations. They want my toned grungy Black and white style that I am getting increasingly chosen for.

I have a stately home booked, some huge movie lights hired at great expense, never being happy with flash I’m on safer ground when I can see the light. And I booked out a dark room, away from London where no designer will dare think they can come and collaborate ideas with me. For the 72 hours I will need concentration to nurse these prints through. Once the shutters clicked, no one sees anything until I produce the final collection of finished images. That’s part of the deal I insist upon.

Problem is I’m not sure about who they’ve chosen for hair and makeup, I know of her but not happy with what I’ve seen or how she relates to models. That detail is so important for me. My favourite ever Marshall, his work was flawless, but crucially he was gay and spectacularly rude with the female models and got them talking really dirty to him.

They were in such a good mood when they arrived in front of the camera it made work so easy. Other make up artists would need to spend tedious hours over detail and bore the models rigid while eating up precious camera time. It took ages to wake up the models and shake off the experience and I’d often start without film in the camera as I knew the first few rolls were wasted, we were just going through motions until it clicked ..

So I didn’t know which I was getting, and, there was a ‘big hair’ concept of the detail, that I didn’t like the sound of, my control was coming away. Another thing eating me, I had two options of models I really liked, they had substance, and another one I wasn’t so keen on; they’d gone for her. “I’m out of my comfort zone here”.

Young, relatively new to the industry with a famous ultra-right wing, public school boy, pop star husband, my prejudice against her was in over-drive. The two most significant photographers at the time Peter Lindbergh my hero, she had just shot with, and then before us, she’s flying in from Milanafter a shoot with the world’s leading fashion photographer Steven Meisel. To then be shot by the unknown Chris Averyin a drafty old mansion in a dismal collection with ‘big hair’. 

I have a fall out strategy when I’m struggling for ideas or have awkward shoots; props. Give the model a prop for them to interact with and I don’t need to talk. Or, put them outside a cake shop window and photograph them through the glass.

We’re sat on a wet Sunday morning in the designers warehouse apartment in Wapping, swapping around pieces of the Sunday papers, drinking tea. My comfortable place. I’m at the back of the Sunday Times magazine and there’s an article about a journalist going to Syon Park to have a lesson in fly casting and a description of the process. How in an hour the person who previously had never fished was casting and catching Trout; and about the teacher Robin Elwes, he’s renown, and teaches and fishes all over the world.

At the end of the article is Robin’s contact details, I cut them out to keep them safe. “Probably expensive, but he sounds the best”, I think as I store the cutting away. “..and I deserve it”.

Later that week I’m in a junk shop in the east end of London looking for props and ideas, in an umbrella stand I see an old khaki canvas rod sleeve, it looks like one of my old coarse rods. Inside the first thing I notice is the reels seat is at the bottom of the handle and I pull out a three piece split cane fly rod, it looks straight and intact. I look around for reels and a basket, there’s none, but I buy the rod for £ 20, and hoped I’d find a reel. An old empty Rimfly reel turns up in another shop, this is coming together; not the fashion shoot, but my fledging fly fishing foray. I’m no longer thinking models and frocks, but Syon park lake and Trout.

Finally in my life, Fly fishing is a tangible option, apart from me living in a photographic studio warehouse in a rough part of south east London, still surrounded by scars of Margaret Thatcher’s dream; a living nightmare to so many, and also remnants of even older Luftwaffe landscaping.  With no water or even green fields anywhere close, just wasteland and carparks .

I called Robin up and explained I wanted to learn to cast, that I had bought an old cane rod in a junk shop, I had a budget for lessons and I needed some fly line for my rod and some flies. I think this was a novelty and interesting challenge, he didn’t try and talk me out of it and spend some money on a more modern rod. He said he could do three lessons and the fly line within my budget and we fixed a date for lesson one at Syon park.

After the concrete and tarmac Syon was a paradise, being virtually at the end of the Underground line and then requiring an extra bus, this journey was a minor epic odyssey into the great unknown. The greenery and trees though, for a gardener at heart, reminded you that you were still in a London park.The water a silted up, weedy, muddy ornamental lake, was never an ideal home for Trout, and the rule was if you caught one you had to kill it, otherwise it would, unable to recover, be quite likely to be found dead in the margins, never a good look in a fishery. Syon park fish tasted awful, there was no desire to eat them or to give them away, thankfully as a fish catching machine I was a failure, so my two fish ticket that came with the lesson was rarely used up. That fishing ticket was also a bad distraction from learning to cast well and my biggest regret.

For an hour Robin built the foundation of a cast on the casting platform, the old cane rod was heavy and slow, but I was oblivious to this shortcoming, with nothing to compare it too. It did the job and probably set my leaning towards the slower Winston feel and collection of green tubes I now have. I learned to get it to work and turn over some nice loops that then sent out a reasonably straight leader, timing the back cast was my Achilles heel, but with Robin next to me, that was kept in check.

Then Robin would leave, I’d move down the lake and start the free fishing I was allowed. I was the only split cane rod user I ever saw at Syon lake! Concentrating on the mechanics of fishing and forgetting the feel of the casting, soon the bad habits appeared. I could no longer get the ( pretty feeble) distance, that an hour ago I had been surpassing, and I started trying to muscle line out, which is counterproductive. I should have stayed at the casting platform and concentrated purely on the reason that I had spent the money and had made that journey out there.

Within 30 minutes my fine loops and distance had gone, as had half the benefits of the lesson. I rationalized it wasn’t the rod as I could do that with Robin stood next to me. What was wrong?!

I had a pretty good Golf swing, I have a brother whose a pro and I studied Ben Hogan books like they were sacred text, but more than that; that swing was a product of thousands of hours of repetitive practice focusing on key points and watching ball trajectories. ( I had no desire to ever play a round of golf, I just wanted to hit balls sweetly). I knew the key to my casting stroke was the same repetitive practice, backed with good instruction. My problem was that these bad habits I found when fishing were now in my stroke until I saw Robin again and I worried about ‘drilling’ them into my practice.

Back at home there was no distractions, no water, no fishing. That fashion shoot, had been a final straw for me. My tolerance of the fashion industry gone, my last published job was a fashion editorial for a Sunday supplement magazine, not the Sunday Times though, that would have been too neat, it was the Sunday Telegraph instead.

Longing for a nine to five, regular pay, even if it was less; and being back outdoors with plants. I went back to what I had been trained to be, a gardener. Working for a company all day, in the evenings I’d look for places to cast, I had a concrete yard by the warehouse which I knew would soon ruin my line so I avoided that when I could, apart from gentle accuracy targets. Funny looking back I never thought about just keeping the line up and throwing loops, everything, for some reason, had to land.

I did, after much searching and trial and error, find nearby in an industrial estate,  a street by some old warehouses that was virtually deserted late in the evening. Along the road was a mown strip of grass, a buffer strip from the pavement. Illuminated by high concrete street lights that flooded the road and the nearby goods yards with light. Here with the 6 feet high chain link fencing topped with barb wire, the dirty old warehouses, broken glass and urban decay, is where deep into the night, I spent my hours concentrating on loops and landing the line on discarded half bricks, flattened beer cans and fag packets, soggy crisp packets, or conveniently placed manhole covers.

My only company the occasional rumbling articulated truck trundling down to the Dover road and the ferries. The drivers probably wondering if I’d escaped from the nearby Bedlam. Apart from that, nightly, a forlorn sounding, confused Blackbird. Attracted here by the constant light, sat on a high concrete fence post, announcing the dawn to no one, seemingly all through the night.

On my final lesson with Robin I was on the casting platform, though my memory of distances now is not clear. Across from the platform was a tree with low branches 15m away ( according to google earth, which I just checked !) to get my fly to land under that tree I needed to clear a barb wired fence 12m behind on my back cast. A fifty foot cast that would turn over under the branches of a tree and keeping that back cast up high. And I repeated it over and over while Robin was there. The tree branches and the barb wire two focus points, constantly keeping that technique trimmed and neat.

Half an hour later my mentor has departed and I’m up the lake watching a cruising fat Rainbows 10m away and struggling to reach it as my casting fell to pieces again and those bad habits returned. But I now had a bench mark of what I could achieve, something that I knew that both I, and that rod, were capable of, and felt effortless to attain, but was being blocked .  

I went past the practice platform on the way home and retried it. I had completely lost the plot. It was so frustrating to know I was easily physically capable, everything I required was there, I was lacking nothing. But was in some way powerless to improve upon the result. I wasn’t even threatening to tangle on the barb wire fence.

In the golf swing I had read so much technique and could decipher and react to the behavior of the ball in the last shot. Here I was lost, I had aped a style , that when my impersonation was good, created a good efficient loop and carried an amount of line out. Without my model to reference I was soon losing the ability of my mimicry. What I couldn’t get, and what frustrated me, rightly or wrongly, was what it physically felt like for Robin to get those loops, he could cover my hand or grab part of the rod, and I could feel the timing or to some extent the stop… but not the effort used and the feed-back from the equipment. I thought his was the crucial Rosetta stone, I now know it wasn’t.

I really shouldn’t have gone fishing. Practice should be that, without distractions of rise forms and fish to confuse the issue. I still prefer the field, a local lake the same distance away from home should be ideal, but inevitably fish start to rise and my eye and aim is drawn to towards them and away from the mechanics.

I still occasionally fished Syon for a while, and learnt to catch its fat stinking Rainbows. I’d fish late when no one could see me slipping them back alive into the water, late, when the fox wandered along the bank looking for scraps and helped herself to the unwanted Trout you’d killed earlier, and I was grateful to share. Late, when the light was the twin beams of the jumbo jets flying low into nearby Heathrow, illuminated the water. Briefly, but long enough to aim a bushy sedge near a circle on the surface and wait for that tug  and smash in the dark as the plane passed over. There was still some fun to be had and lessons to learn there,  but my focus became finding places to practice and finding consistency.

Fishing was on hold until I found me a river.

(Chris Avery decided to take more direct control of his life and now avoids the Sunday Times magazine).