Jack100 ~ To Celebrate a Centenary

Jack – born 13.3.1922.
Became my 40-year-old Dad in June 1962.
Moved On Through, 18.2.2006, when he was 83+more-than-three-quarters.
Wouldabin 100th: 13.3 2022.

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“Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin”

I remember reading of a Life being the “~” on a gravestone, between the two dates.
I remember Jack called the Newspaper announcements: “Hatches, Matches + Dispatches”.
He had many phrases, which continue to appear, emerge, flash into awareness, + surprise me, all these years after his passing.

This is not going to be a whole-Life review. “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That”.

One of my nutshell-descriptions of his Life-span is that it started when there were no rules of the road, here in UK, because there weren’t enough cars to merit them. (The rules began in 1931, I believe. Driving tests – 1935!)
And in his eighties, curiosity and determination intact, he pushed on through, went to classes, + learned how to email, + to research online.

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This project is really about celebrating Jack + his artistry,
+ sharing some glimpses of his Beauty-Full photography,
+ some story of how that has become this.

He loved to go roaming round the Scottish Highlands and Islands, taking copious pics as he went. He’d done it since his youth.

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I made a previous gallery site, “Made by Jack”, in the late 2000’s, but Apple shut the platform down, + that was the end of that project.

I also posted several of his pics, way back on my still existing LiveJournal page.
If you want just one of those posts, I’d send you to this one.
Then scroll backwards, for more, if you are in the mood for rummaging.
There were a few posts about him, + Father’s day art I made.

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What is not lost, now, is the Enormous quantity of slides which Jack took, + which landed with me not long ago. Long story as to why they didn’t arrive with me sooner.
It’s an impossible task, Herculean, to bring all of his pics to the screen.
Even ‘just’ the highlights, which I am yet to discover.
A serious challenge, even simply to look though the complete collection.
(This pic resonates !!!)
Likely there are many more gems awaiting discovery. I will share them, as they emerge.

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There are some commercially printed colour photos too – mostly faded and discoloured, now.
The B+W physical prints I have, all curled now, but nonetheless lovely, are treasures – splendid things he created, mostly in the 1940’s + 50’s.
Thick paper, lit in darkness, then swirled in baths of chemicals, after long explorations of exquisite Land, in all weathers. Beauties.
I wrote a bit about that in the LJ post, and would like to make another gallery for them, in time.
(Jack is holding one of those prints, reminiscing with me, with it, in one pic, above.)

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I settled for doing what I comfortably can, for this post / these posts, and to make this a first, an introduction, rather than a completion.

No documentation came along with slide-mountain. Some notes – maybe place-names, maybe dates, on some boxes – no obvious system or continuity – a few clues – but mostly just a great big muddled up trail of Mysterious Beauty.

I like the Mystery. It makes more sense to me than a tightly-organised collection would have done.

With the free-flow chaos, I get to be an artist, not an archivist, in re-presenting his work. I go where the loveliness is loudest, + I’ll figure the how’s of it as I go, as, often, did he.

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It’s a collaboration, one he would have enjoyed so much, to see the results of his work rendered so easily viewable.
The slide format was such a ‘performance’ – one of his phrases – to share, really.

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My initial explorations into how to do this have brought some sweet results.
As well as not being an archivist, I am not being a technician.

Some of the images may not be super-sharp. I am hand-photographing, with iphone, from my fine new light-box. In time I may explore a tripod setup, but for now I like the by-hand approach, and I really like the resulting pics.
I’m exploring some details in the original images, too – this is exciting for me, way more interesting than simply churning through scanning the mountain of work.

I get to see through my Daddy’s eyes as I do all this – to see where he went, what he noticed, what he valued. To feel that moment, of ‘getting it just right’, as he often explained, when he showed me a pic.

This was the man who had young me sit quiet at the evening Beach, to see, hear and feel the Turning of The Tide.

I get, through his pics, to be proud of, and grateful for, a Dad who Loved Nature, and Beauty.
I get to appreciate him, and what he brought, anew, as I roam through the vast terrain of the images he made, as he went on his way.

My hope, in bringing these to visibility on screen, is that you, + many others, may enjoy exploring the vast terrain, too.
There is so much Peace in many of the images. We all need more of this, now.

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I will draw towards the end of this post with this pic, below,
which was made in 1985.
President Zelenskiy would then have been seven years old, according to Wikipedia dates – a couple of years younger than his own son is, now.
Jack was simply taking the picture, getting the Beauty he was seeing + feeling, into a photo. Shooting, with his camera. Marking the Moment.

Now, in March 2022, it was, astonishingly, among the first boxes of images I chose, from the hundreds of possibilities, at random, to work with.
Divine Choreography. It made me gasp.
That particular box, at this particular time, and suddenly there is a new relevance to an image made nearly 40 years ago.
(In case anyone is wondering – these are the colours of the Ukranian flag, said to represent ‘golden fields of grain under a clear blue Sky’.)

Through Time: Vibrant Resilient Blessings from Tayside, Scotland, seen in 1985, to all of Ukraine, now.
May Peace Prevail on Earth. May War End.
May the Russian Invasion of Ukraine cease.
May your Beauty-Full Country Bloom Again.

May all our Beauty-Full Countries Bloom Again.

With Love from Jack, + Jaihn.

X X X

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You can view a lovely slideshow of all these pics, by clicking on any of them, after the first one.
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And if you didn’t realise already – this post needs to be seen on a larger screen, if that’s an option for you.

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As I said: I’ll make more of Jack’s wonder-full photography visible here in the TrulySpaciousZone, ongoingly, as I explore + mediate it. It could take a while…

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“But A Youth”, compared with these two:

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Thank you.

Keep Well, Dears. x x x