The route to the lagoon is rough enough to make you question the sanity of anyone who drives it in an ordinary passenger car. For the most part, it’s bumpy as hell, but the fast sandy bits make up for it. Time to go watch some whales…

Edit: just been told it’s the worst road in Baja. Marvellous.

Over the mountains, it’s five degrees warmer and clouds are thin, remote and interesting features. I slept through most of the last stretch, woke up to Bowie at a petrol stop, and reached to redirect some air vents my way: hello sunshine.

The sun can make things look flat in its own way, mostly during the middle of the way, when its power overrides and evens everything out: uniform shadows, straight light, and no depth.

We’re never happy, photographers. Too hot, too cold, too dark, too bright…

Rain is always a mild surprise, except in England, but the weather here is pretty unstable. From hot and sunny to cool and rainy. Obviously, that’s the nature of the climate, more so these days as we pump more energy into the system.
Rain and clouds are useful in light control, though. Water vapour disperses light and softens it up, lowering the constrast and making it easier to see overall. You can replace the missing constrast, if you think of it that way, later on. Back in the days of b+w processing, I (and many others) would underexpose and underdevelop film – give it a lower speed rating. This gave lower constrast, and a flatter negative, but it could increase the dynamic range substantially. The late Barry Thornton argued that many films had been overrated by their manufacturer, one example being the classic Tri-X, nominally rated at 400, but when tested by Thornton to find its ‘true’ speed, came back at 160. He was in good company: Ansel Adams apparently came to the same conclusion.
One other trick for controlling dynamic range was to pre-flash the film or paper. This was to sensitize the material to just before an image would appear, enabling the printer to hold the highlights much better. Essentially, you’d double-expose the film through a translucent filter at about three stops under – I think – to sensitize the film before the main exposure a stop under. I’d have to check the figures.

Anyway, it’s still raining on this twisty road up through the hills of Baja.

I clocked Sergio a few days ago, carrying this wicked-ass Polaroid, so I definitely wanted one of his pictures.

A short drive. All sorts of consumer goods meeting a sticky end down these slopes and gullies…

The marvellous Richard Sintchak drops off a bag of lenses for me to play with. Time for a wander around Presidio and then across the Golden Gate bridge and up to overlook the Bay.

Sometimes, the best spots are right under your nose, if you’d just look. Or have a little local knowledge. Step forward Richard Sintchak.

These days, I spend too much time behind a camera hunting for pretty pictures, and too little simply documenting what I see around me. The latter is very satisfying, very amateur (in a good way) and largely what I did for ten years before getting slightly more serious about it all.

The upcoming project documentary is going to take more observation than perhaps I’m used to these days, but the more observational work I do meets a positive response – The Council Estate and just yesterday, The House – and it’s all good practice for the big project.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Pondicherry since I was a baby, and there’s a familiarity which prevents me wandering around as I might in a new town or city. So much of this place is tied to my family and its history, that I’m looking at my own family more closely, even as I’m stared at in the street…

Christina found a splendid internet cafe last time she was here, and where I sit right now, and of course the people here know my family, don’t they? Pretty much everyone and anyone in the ashram knows Atma, my eldest cousin, and ashramites all know each other anyway. So I’m being observed too, as it happens, and noting that, I’m off to photograph the derelict patch of land that my father and his two brothers have owned since the 1960s.

And that’s it for the first project from our new collective – “Little Girls” – coming to a screen near you soon. A bit of art meets fashion, something to get everyone involved and seeing how well we worked together. Pretty good going all round, a little cold down on set, but great work from our six make-up and hair artists, three models and sturdy assistant.

Full project launch later in the summer…

Sugar and spice...