Ailsa McWhinnie Breaks Away

 

My friend and former boss Ailsa McWhinnie, Founding Editor Emeritus of the English Black & White Photography magazine, recently found herself in that unfortunately familiar condition, the dreaded shooting slump. So she headed to  France's Belgian frontier for the "Hell of the North"—the classic Paris-Roubaix bicycling race—with her Mamiya, meaning to face up to her reticence about shooting strangers.

Ailsa in action (frame grab from filmwasters.com)

Filmwasters.com included the story of her day in a recent video podcast (Ailsa's star turn starts at 1:20 and goes until 7:55 or so).

If you've ever been in such a slump yourself, you might sympathize.

Both black-and-white photos above by Ailsa McWhinnie.

...And speaking of friends and former bosses, Ed Buziak, the Founding Editor of the U.K.'s Darkroom User magazine (renamed Camera & Darkroom prior to its unfortunate demise) is selling off some treasures from his print collection. Ed's wife Trish, always a fine free spirit, has long been an invalid, and can now move only her hands, arms, and mouth. Ed has cared for her selflessly for many years—I have honestly never heard even the shadow of a complaint from the man—but they get not a penny of help from anywhere, and Ed needs to raise some funds for Trish's continued care.

Ted Orland, The Zone System Shooting Range, a one-of-a-kind print
offered for sale by Ed

He's currently got 25 or 26 prints listed and there will be 15 or 18 more posted in the next 24 hours, including a lovely Ted Orland portrait of photographer Sally Mann and some pictures by the photo writer Tony McLean, as well as some of Ed's own. All the prints are very reasonably, even cheaply, priced. Bought one myself, this morning (Ted Orland's "Even Ansel Adams has to Earn a Living").

Ed and Trish are an ever-optimistic, high-spirited, loving older couple who live their life together to the fullest. Let's see if we can help sell out this lot, in support of a better holiday for both of them!

Here's that link again. Pass it along.

Mike

P.S. Yours truly wrote many articles for both Ailsa and Ed, once upon a time.

UPDATE from Ed: "Mike—just briefly to say 'a very big thanks' to you and everyone who has visited my site and bought prints (15 so far). Also, remarkably, visitors have also been reading my many pages of photo techniques, darkroom dodges and nature notes...with over 15,000 page impressions recorded in the past 15 hours! That's certainly up from my normal 650 or so impressions in a normal 24-hour period. So thanks to everyone again...and I hoped you also enjoyed what I have written. P.S. My wife Trish was awake most of the night—I kept saying quietly to her, 'Another print has been purchased' and she was so excited she finally said before snoozing, 'Will you put the Christmas tree up in the morning.' All the best to you, Ed.

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Robert Roaldi]

Love that zone system shooting range.

Bicycle races are great places to get over a slump.

[Don Riemenschneider]

Its easy to enter into the "slump" mindset when you live in northern Wisconsin in late November when the light is minus 5 or 6 as it is right now and you can sleep in, have time for coffee,and still be present for that imagined sunrise you would have seen had the overcast just moved to Michigan like its supposed to. So, I will load up my FP4, pack my tripod, trudge out to the woods, now devoid of deer hunters, and see what's possible at those seriously slow November shutter speeds. Its OK, I tell myself. This is just practice, and will keep my shutters exercised until February when I leave for my annual excursion to Utah and Nevada where the sky is blue beyond belief and the land is anything but that unsaturated, dull green. If only I had a bicyle race to photograph. But, the ice and snow....

[Steven Ralser]

just curious - which one did you buy?

Steve

[Clayton Ravsten]

I loved the English "Black and White Photography" magazine. I would make a pigramage to Barnes and Noble every month to buy a copy. I thought it was the best photo magazine you could buy. Sadly...Barnes and Noble stopped carrying it, or it is no long published. Either way, I wish I could still sit down for afternoon and enjoy it. Enjoyed the video...and now I want a Mamiya 6X6.

[Rod S]

Two enjoyable items, Mike.

That Sally Mann portrait really was lovely. Did you buy it?

Ailsa's B&W bloke-on-a-motorbike shot has nice tones.

There was even some Wista-stroking going on near the end of the video, too. Good fun, heh?

[Richard S]

Thanks for showing us this Mike! I bought the Zone System Shooting Range and the Chrystler Building prints. Wish I saw the Young Dancer one before it was purchased! Many nice prints there and the prices are great. Got some nice follow up emails from Ed after too. Nice guy.

[James]

It's quite spooky to me how my interests - photography, cycling, travel and shooting - seem to coincide rather than diverge. I thought they were all distinctly separate, but time and again common elements creep in and knowledge crosses over. I chose the magnification and angle of view of my hunting 'scope, for example, based on what I know of optics from photography, and my Gitzo tripod does double duty to hold still my Nikon and as a shooting rest. My touring bike is often equipped with a Manfrotto Superclamp and a small ball head on the crossbar. These interests are to me enduring, but often one is to the fore and the others take a back seat. They are almost seasonal - photography and cycling with the fairer weather, travel and shooting as winter pursuits.

This year, I combined some of them to travel to France to watch the Paris-Roubaix road race with a bit of cycling, and some photography (not of the race, but rather of some of the landscape in the area: my grandfather and his brother between them spent 6 years in the trenches just a few miles away in the First World War).

The prime motivation for my trip was mostly to do with family history, but there is no doubt that the planning of the trip juiced my photographic bug through last winters' colder and darker nights.

I'm hoping to go back in 2012 to do the amateur Paris-Roubaix race. It's held a couple of months after the professional race and follows the same route. I need to do some serious training though, and to lose a bit more weight.

[Peter Cameron]

It's great to see Ailsa still using the Mamiya. I enjoyed her editorials on getting the camera. I still read Black and White Photography, but it's not the same magazine without Mike and Ailsa.
I find that, for me, a change of gear is often the best route out of a slump. Taking a different body or lens out of the photography tickle trunk can often get me shooting again.

[Brad]

As a cycling fan and photographer I enjoyed the Ailsa McWhinnie video, is there an online gallery of these photos anywhere? Also enjoyed The Saints track playing during this segment.

If you ever get a chance to watch Paris-Roubaix on TV I would highly recommend it, it's quite the spectacle.

[Steven House]

"dreaded shooting slump" "recently"? The Paris-Roubaix race is in April!

Also "Hell of the North" described the devastated landscape when the race was first run just after the Great War of 1914-18 ...

Just saying ... (what is this sign off for?)

[Pak-Ming Wan]

Zone system shooting range ... I wonder which version of Photoshop he did that with...? *grin* Great link to Ed's site he's got some great articles to some lesson known equipment which was great to read about (like the 400mm Visoflex, with shoulder stock!).

Pak

[iñaki]

Got to say that the very first shot is just plain lovely, isn´t it?

I guess is that sort of shots, were normality gets twisted, is much preferable to what mr. Lagerfeld has presented to Pirelli [which I do not particularly like, and don´t see anything but a good strobe technique].

In my personal book of "like and dislike", I guess that the first shot will come quite high, although I don´t quite like B+W photography.

[MarcW]

Happily, my wife is a belly dancer and a fan of images like "Veil and Whorls," so I got a chance to buy her a nice Christmas present and help out a very deserving artist. Thanks!

(It's all mine, suckers: http://www.edbuziak.workzsites.com/catalog/item/4448082/4449907.htm )

[MarcW]

Incidentally, I got a very nice little email note from Mr. Buziak when I bought the print. People who are interested should be aware that there is a large snowstorm in his area and he may be delayed in mailing out purchases for a day or so.

Also, he is still adding prints to the list, so if you didn't see anything you wanted the first time, go back and look again tomorrow!

[Simon Conner, Norfolk UK]

Miss the halcyon days when Ailsa held the reins so wonderfully well at BW Photography with Mike a regular contributor. So it was a treat to see Ailsa in action and still toting film. Enjoyed the article and video very much, thank you.