I have not blogged much over the last two weeks as I have been on enforced jury service. I used to be exempt from sitting owing to previous employment but now anything goes.
It was a real eye-opener on many levels. The first is the sheer amount of money and time wasted by poorly prepared prosecutions brought by the CPS. I am staggered at the poor presentation of evidence and the rather flaky evidence supporting what should have been serious charges had they been handled correctly.
I did not see or hear any other jurors other than white English speaking selected at random from the Electoral Register. Can this really happen? I was amazed that I sat with an administrator from UCS in the first week and then with the parent of a second year photography student at UCS. Now that is random.
The people I sat with were all interesting, each with their own doubts and concerns being parachuted into alien territory. One thing that I lost over the two weeks was ability to live a normal life. I felt controlled whilst in the court house and lethargic and prone to inertia outside of it and completely unable to focus on my life and tasks of a daily nature. Quite a few of us felt that way.
On the plus side this week I went to Aldeburgh with my wife to a Private View of Bill Jackson’s new exhibition. It was an eye-opener and I met up with Eamonn McCabe and Peter Smith a fellow RPS Contemporary Group photographer. David Baldry showed and gave me a good lead for a local printer and binder. I have a meeting organised for Monday. It will be interesting to see how a Kodak digital printer works with my Kodak images. Fish and chips on the sea wall in the dark was good. We normally do that in daylight.
Today would have been ideal large format conditions but this morning was tad dreary and I made the mistake of starting on a re-silicone job in the bathroom. These jobs always take longer than they look but at least I won’t be mopping up leaks every morning.
The postman knocked twice today. He had my Taylor Wessing 2014 exhibition catalogue. It is a limited edition copy of a run of 400 so I feel lucky having received one. I ordered a copy when I submitted my (now rejected) entries but there is a huge section by Eamonn McCabe in it telling stories of making portraits he has told me of previously at UCS. Of all our visiting lecturers, Eamonn always told it as it is. I value that and his portraits are very good but I enjoy the stories that go with them. I suppose that was one jury, TW14, that threw my case out of court just as we chucked two out this week. I’ll be thinking twice before entering again. It was interesting to read Bettina von Zwehl’d comments as a judge. She was turned off by celebrity portraits. The final list is not without any. Pity my portrait of Maggi Hambling did not get through but now I have at least one juror’s thinking. I enjoyed taking Bettina’s portrait albeit an unplanned one when she visited UCS as a guest lecturer.
I feel un-fettered now I have completed my tour as a juror. Onwards and upwards.
