Heroin, Beards, and robbing Tickle-me-Elmo dolls.

Couple of recent films I've just had processed. Have to say I'm finding Rollei 400 pushed to 1600 a pretty good combo for getting the results that I sought after with Tmax 3200 - although in recent months I have been considering 'going digital', simply because it suits my method of working better - allows me to be more liberal with what I photograph - and most importantly, with the ridiculously expensive, but so incredibly awesome  camera I have in mind, will enable me to carry it pretty much anywhere. It's just a matter of obtaining 6 thousand pounds.

All the below photographs were taken in Reading throughout March.

Portrait of Evan -
This is pretty unfortunate as under normal circumstances Evan would win the joint Biggest Health Freak and Nicest Bloke Ever awards. I just happened to capture him pissed up, burger-in-hand with the provocative frown of a boozed-up wide boy.

Khaleesi looking lovely as is standard procedure. Sitting in the one solitary patch of sunlight that ever graces my entire house.

Portrait of Roddy

Danny staring my camera down about three pints in to our commemorative spend-all-day-in-the-Turtle Day.  

Danny and Friend Emma about six pints in to our commemorative spend-all-day-in-the-Turtle Day.

This is Evan's face when he's thinking about motorbikes, which i'm going to miss since he's moved away to start designing them for Triumph. Purple Turtle, Reading.

Evan and Mollers

My brother Dutty partway through a story about how he pulled up beside his friend and proceeded to spray him in the face with a fire extinguisher through the guy's car window...

...then hijacked his little sisters Tickle me Elmo doll and strapped it to the bottom of his van where it remains forever more. 

WHO NEEDS HEROIN WHEN YOU'VE GOT A BEARD...

...Oh yeah, David.

Roddy and David drinking tea in my garden.

As I sit here finishing this blog post Ben has just arrived home and burst into my room demanding to know why I wasn't in the Purple Turtle this evening. He's shitfaced and adamant that, although he managed to wrangle himself a blowjob from some drunken patron, myself and Danny should have been there, like last week, to rekindle the tradition of Turtle Day on Friday's. It wasn't worth, he says, freezing his nuts off leaning against that tree, if his friends weren't sat in the bar to brag about it afterwards...

This, though somewhat disturbing if not totally uncharacteristic conduct, fills me with a certain nostalgia for the days when no phone calls were required and it was just a given that most of those who I've photographed in this blog over the years would be in the Turtle by 3pm on a Friday afternoon. If you know the Turtle you'll understand this was probably quite a terrible time to be alive, but yet it was also, in hindsight, a very special interlude between the 'high school years' and the veritable oblivion that befell my friends in the form of heroin, marriage and all the other boring things mankind pushes, in these several years hence.