Alan Craigie
It was only supposed to be the blogging equivalent of a gap year but somehow, once out of the habit, it became inexplicably impossible for me to get back into the habit again. So three years have passed and I have made a new year’s resolution to gently begin flexing my blogging muscles again.
I am moved to write again because of the loss of a very special friend, Alan Craigie. I think it will be difficult for me to truly do him justice in this post however, but having a written record of this superbly creative, witty, and intelligent man seems somehow vital and I wanted you, unknown people in cyberspace, to know him a little better.
Alan passed away in September and in the four months since, we have begun to miss him more acutely than ever. He was a truly unique individual; softly spoken but devastatingly witty, generous but anarchic, his intelligence surpassed us all by far. The breadth of the things he knew about and the depth of what he could remember was truly astounding – 20 years after reading a book or seeing a film when all that was left in my hazy memory was that ‘I liked it’ or alternatively, that ‘I didn’t like it’, Alan could recall all the plot intricacies and describe the characters in the most minute detail.
He was always our barometer of good taste; quirky and stylish in all things whether it was interior design, taste in film, music, books or food. I discovered so many new things through Alan – King Creosote, Modest Mouse, Murakami, Powell and Pressburger films, Eames, Fos, soft shell crab, Pedro Ximenez to name but a small handful …
Having both studied English Literature at Glasgow Uni we both decided, over a post-tennis match pint, to do a post-graduate course in technology and media. Alan immediately saw the design potential in Flash and whereas the rest of us spent our time learning how to make a circle bounce crudely across a computer screen, Alan went off and in a week had created a beautiful, pulsating jelly fish that hypnotically followed your cursor around the screen. He never worked for anyone but himself after finishing that course, such was the demand for his unique mix of design flair and technical expertise.
He was creative in so many ways. Our house, as with so many of his friends’, is full of his exquisite art and photographs, gifts from him over the years. In my own pursuit of photography, Alan was my litmus test; if he thought the image was good, then I knew it had merit. I remember being high on a mountainside in the Himalayas, thinking how best to do justice to the breathless landscape around me and saying very explicitly to myself ‘How would Alan take this photo? What would he do now?’ Many of my own images, I feel, are shamelessly influenced by some of his images.
He received the devastating diagnosis of an aggressive, inoperable brain tumour in June 2014. We tried to meet up as much as possible in the months that followed; for Portuguese custard tarts or churros or a craft beer – all the things he loved. All dependent upon the rounds of treatment, the fatigue, his declining health. The last time I saw him, H, F, Alan and I all shared a chilled beer and a delicious Ninja bun in the Hospice, with a warm breeze blowing outside, as if life was continuing as normal. Looking back now, I think we spent much of last year in a wilful state of denial; that he would beat this terrible thing and we’d get our clever, witty, gentle friend back – but that was not to be.
This blog is predominantly about photography so I’m sharing some of the pictures I took in the immediate aftermath of Alan’s diagnosis, when we realised how few pictures we actually had of him, and suddenly felt strongly that we needed images of the artist as well as the art.
But these photos are, of course, indistinguishable from the time and context in which they were taken; wrapped around the shock and fear of what this diagnosis meant, the anticipation of the treatment that was to come, the awkwardness in my reason for taking the photos in the first place, Alan’s discomfort in being the subject of the photos, and now, of course, the profound sadness at his loss.
You can see some of his best work on his Flickr site – craigie3000 – the most recent images he uploaded, taken during Neue Reekie in June 2015, indicative of how the tumour was affecting his sight but the ones that go back for years before that are so beautifully composed, perfectly capture moments; of Portobello, of the Highlands, of his beautiful boys and of Orkney – his spiritual home. They have a silence and a timelessness that I can only humbly aspire to in my own photography.
Alan’s father-in-law wrote the following poem, inspired by a painting Alan had given him about 25 years previously. It was read at the funeral and I have re-read many times since – I find it very moving and think it strikes a perfect note of farewell.
Shore Leave
by Bill Fulford
We watched them go
From the boat
Heads held high
Walking along the quay
Their footsteps echoing
As they went on up
Into the town
We called out to them
They heard us
Though none looked back
So we called again
This time subdued
Then said good bye
And let them go
Alan Craigie
31st Dec 1969 – 10th Sep 2015
Poem for the New Year
“I awoke this morning
With the clarity of perfect sight
Then realised
I’d left my contact lenses in all night”
Happy 2013 to you all
Endings…
Last night was the end of the world, according to the Mayan calendar, I went to an End of the World party at Summerhall which was an intriguing journey through various tales of the apocalypse, meditations on endings that were unsettling, mournful and beautiful in equal parts.
This morning I went into town early and outside the church at the end of Princes Street, a hearse was waiting for the end of a service. I thought how sad it is for people to lose someone close to them at this time of year. How difficult it must be to fight your way through all the flashing lights and tinsel and the torture of Cliff Richard singing shit Christmas songs when the time of year reminds you of what you have lost, and the sadness associated with it, making this enforced glee all the more difficult to deal with.
Half an hour later, my mum called me to tell me that my aunt had died suddenly in the night. She was still reeling from the news. I was in a café having breakfast. I was then reeling from the news. They gave me a brandy. I drank it. It was 10.30 am.
This is the same aunt who was the star of the Great Easter Egg Robbery, I wrote of in my last post. She wrote to me only a handful of weeks ago to say how strange it had been to re-watch these old films and look so far back into her own past.
She was always healthy and active; hill walking in the Yorkshire Dales or doing long distance hikes like the Santiago de Compostella. She was also the most ardent all-weather swimmer on our family holidays in Wales.
My aunt was bright, she was intelligent and she was creative. She was often mistaken for Helen Mirren, both being stylish and elegant women of a certain age. She always had strong political opinions and was even known to smoke the occasional cigar in the past! I was full of awe and admiration. Still am.
Whether or not she chose to live and leave us according to the Mayan calendar is uncertain, but what is certain is that the world is a little emptier and this time of year a lot sadder without her.
The Great Easter Egg Robbery
I’ve been attempting to digitise my grandfathers Super 8 film. This one is an all-time family classic. The Great Easter Egg Robbery. If you can see past my very amateurish attempt at filming it (complete with split screens and a rogue torch) this little film involves my uncle as the policeman, my gran as the victim of stolen Easter eggs, my aunts as the robbers (watch out for my auntie Liz’s spectacular head first fall over a country gate in the car chase scene), various other neighbours and family members roped in as extras.
I’ve added the music, which I think you’ll agree, goes splendidly with the action.
Enjoy!
Five days, fifteen films and fat like fatty fat fat full of filo pastries…
This interesting little journey started, unknowingly, last summer at the Edinburgh International Film Festival when, after a Q&A with the fascinating film director, Eyal Sivan, I hesitantly, politely, nervously asked, in an ever-so British way, if he would mind awfully if I took his photo. He was chatting with some folks in the Filmhouse Bar and he was more than happy for me to take his picture. The bar was buzzy with festival go-ers, there wasn’t much time or space in which to think or compose a photo but I asked him to ignore me and carry on his conversation, which he did, and while he was talking I took a couple of pictures. I wanted to capture something of his mesmerizing intensity and I hope that with this resulting image I managed to do that.
It was a momentary encounter. Of no significance really. But a pretty decent image to come from it (apart from the annoying lights on his forehead but this was a busy cafe so you have to take what you can get!). I posted the picture on this blog, as is my habit from time to time, and thought no more about it.
Then earlier this year, while browsing the internet for photos of Eyal Sivan, I came across this picture below. I took a double take at first. Much as this might prove to be the pinnacle of my career as a photographer so far, to have a photo I took on the front cover of a magazine, since I had no idea that it was going to be used, I wasn’t sure that this photo could be mine.
However, yep, there again were those annoying little light flashes on his forehead which confirmed that this was indeed one and the same photo.
I sought some advice about what to do because this was completely foreign territory for me, copyright, image rights, blah, blah, blah… but crucially, for me, as a non-professional, I have to say that ultimately I was very flattered that another Film Festival chose my image to put on the front of their brochure.
We came to a very satisfactory compromise. As well as profound apologies for the oversight in failing to credit the image to me, I got the fantastic bonus of free passes to the Thessaloniki Film Festival earlier in November and spent a totally brilliant 5 days, watching 3 films a day, escaping the cold and wet of the UK for the glorious sunshine, fine food and great films that Thessaloniki had to offer.
The highlights, for me, were the Aki Kaurismaki series, Constantina Voulagis’ ‘A.C.A.B. All Cats are brilliant’, and Lore by Cate Shortland. The programme was excellent and female film directors featured quite prominently which was great and having gone to the Festival with my lovely friend Esther, who is herself a very talented director, it was all in all a perfect few days.
(c) Esther Richardson
(and in keeping with the spirit of the post, I just stole this photo off Esther’s Flickr stream :-))
Battlefields
(c) Jo Spiller, All Rights Reserved
Albania is unique in that it is the only country in the world to have declared itself an Atheist state, ‘The Religion of Albania is Albanian-ism!’ was the slogan. All churches, mosques, were closed, turned into sports halls or storage warehouses, all religious worship declared illegal. In the 1960s, there was a concerted campaign to destroy ALL religious buildings and it was largely successful.
The buildings that survived (this picture being one of 8 churches that survived from the original 40 plus in Berat) did so as they were deemed to have historical and cultural significance rather than religious importance.
(c) Jo Spiller, All Rights Reserved
This picture is of the badly damaged interior walls of a Bektashi temple (Bektashism being a form of Sufi-ism), the exterior of this tiny temple bearing very few indications of being a place of worship and was indeed a store house for 40 years until the ban on religion ended in the early 90s.
(c) Jo Spiller, All Rights Reserved
So what fills a void, when you ban the worship of an unfathomable metaphysical presence? The oversized ego of equally unfathomable but rather more physically present Communist leader, in Albania’s case, Enver Hoxha. Apparently, on the death of Stalin, Hoxha gathered his citizens in Tirana’s central square, made them all kneel in respect and reverence and swear an oath of ‘eternal fidelity’ to their ‘beloved father’ Stalin. Presumably, the irony wasn’t lost on him…
As far as monuments of vanity go, this building, Hoxha’s Pyramid as it is called, is fairly modest. If you’ve ever had to scoop your jaw off the pavement as you take in the size and scale of Ceausescu’s Palace in Bucharest, you’ll know what I mean. Although, having said that, Enver Hoxha did have his name scrawled into a mountain range so wasn’t so modest after all.
I found the words of Shelley’s poem ‘Ozymandias’ (one of the few that I know off by heart) going round in my head as I stood in front of this building.
‘”My name is Ozymandias,King of Kings, Look on my works, ye might and despair”
Nothing besides remains, around the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away’
(c) Jo Spiller, All Rights Reserved
Instead of lone and level sands, it’s ripped up paving stones and graffitied walls, Hoxha’s Pyramid left in ruins – physically and symbolically.
In the National History Museum, the wing which housed Albanian post-war Communist era exhibits has been closed, with no foreseeable plans to reopen.
It seems to me that you can no more eradicate a country’s religious and cultural heritage as you can its ideological past, however uncomfortable either might be in the current zeitgeist. You’re simply replacing one ruinous and bloody battlefield with another.
These pictures were my thoughts on this topic.
