In response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge Half-Light
I recently remembered just how good Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot is. What I’d not realised fully was how much it was helped by David Bowie. There was a great program on BBC Radio 4 just after he died featuring many interviews with Bowie and he talked about his time in Berlin, hoping to kick his drug habit by spending time in the “smack capital of the world” (his words) with Iggy Pop. What came across well was the incredible creativity in the city at that time. Bowie made three albums there – Low, Heroes and Lodger – which became classics. I know all three well, I’ve almost worn the grooves out of them. I haven’t played The Idiot nearly as much but I did recently and it was a revelation. You can hear Bowie’s influence on every track, as well as his long-time guitarist Carlos Alomar. It’s hardly been off the turntable for the past few weeks.
The picture below, one of a set I published a few weeks ago, was taken in the Lake District and processed to the soundtrack of Iggy and Bowie. It struck me while working on these shots that the feeling I want to get across from my mountain photography is the feeling I get from Bowie’s and Iggy’s Berlin work. This may now start to sound a little pompous (what do you mean, “may” ?), comparing myself with them. I’m not in the same league. The only comparison is that I like dark moodiness, rot and decay, richness, complexity, some of the things I hear in that music. If I could make my pictures look like Dum Dum Boys sounds I’d be a happy man.
Part of the Fairfield horseshow