My “Face of Spring” modelling competition was a huge success with hundreds of entries. Winner was a 9 year-old local lad. See his photograph here.

The weather may mislead us but summer begins in just over a month and I am once again looking for a fresh face that will be the face of Wolf Kettler Photographer for the summer 2012 season.

The winning photograph will be published on the home page of my website, www.wolfkettler.co.uk, and featured on my blog. This is another fab opportunity for aspiring and experienced models to work with me and my makeup artist. The shoot will take place around the middle of June at my studio near Devizes, Wiltshire.

This modelling opportunity is open to males and females of all age groups – this includes children and older individuals. There is no upper age limit. No previous modelling experience is required.

Your reward (apart from the fame of being seen by around 90,000 people over a three months period):
- Either payment at my standard modelling rates, or
- A collection of six digital images that you can use on your own website, social networking site or on modelling sites, or
- A large, framed print.

How to apply
Go to the contact page on my website and supply the following information:

Adults: Full name, age, where you live, height and weight.
Children: Parent’s or legal guardian’s full name, age and where you live, together with the child’s name, age, height and weight.

All: Please mention Face of Summer in your message. You may also include any other information that you feel is relevant and that could persuade me that you have got what it takes to be my face of summer.

I will then request a couple of recent photographs – snapshots are fine – by e-mail.

Please feel free to share this exciting opportunity with your friends.

As announced on Fantasy Radio

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Or rather, I like the idea of a national postal service. I hate what the government is doing to it, all in the name of preparing Royal Mail for a sell-off to a potential buyer, who will be expecting to make immoral profits.

The strategy of raising prices and cutting services is what they call making Royal Mail efficient and competitive, dragging its unique advantages to the level of the lowest common denominator. This is costly for the consumer and for businesses, especially small businesses that do not have the volume to bargain on price. Privatising Royal Mail means that its services will become very poor value for money, that services will be cut and that their staff will likely have to work even harder for even less money.

Then there are the self-inflicted problems: I send my Christmas cards around the middle of December every year. A few days ago one of my cards to a client came back as undeliverable – five months (!) after it was posted.

The Christmas card that went AWOL for five months.

The answer to the problems is the same for every state run service: Put in the proper funding, appreciate employees and embrace the fact that these services are not there to make profits but to serve the country.

The premise that taxpayer-owned services cannot be run well is as much a fallacy as the current fashion of putting profits before service is hideously absurd.

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Some days I wish that I could pack a few things and turn into a hermit. Click on the photograph to see it bigger.

Responding to the question “how is business?” is a delicate affair. If you sound too cheerful, people assume that you are more successful and richer than they are, which makes them hate you instantly. Sound too downbeat and they think that you are pathetic.

It is easy when I am asked this question in Austria because there are rules. When I say rules I mean one rule: You moan, and soon your opposite will join in. When you walk your separate ways minutes later, everybody feels good because they have established that life is even worse for the other person. Apart from the niggling suspicion, that is, that the other person could have been lying.

In Britain there are no standing rules. When Christina, the owner of a local health food shop, asked this most difficult of questions I was non-committal.

“Good”, I said and dampened my cheerfulness by adding “of course, we are in the middle of a recession”.

I was going to garnish my response with a comment about the tide changing all across Europe and anti-austerity taking hold in many countries whilst here, in Britain, the government was still convinced that strangulation was a better approach than the kiss of life.

Alas, I was in no mood for a political discussion. I had errands to run that day. I count myself lucky when I get a moment to hold a camera. I also have the administrative side of my business to run and four cats, one wife and a home to look after, not to mention the garden and its wildlife. Some days I wish that I could pack a few things and turn into a hermit.

My approach worked. Christina put on her sombre face and nodded. I could tell that she was unsure at which end of the spectrum I was dwelling.

“Where is the aniseed?” I asked Christina, who was now busy stacking a shelf in her delightful, little shop.

“Aniseed? We don’t do that anymore”.

The situation is evidently worsening. First the spaghetti crisis – for years I have been unable to source long spaghetti from any of my local shops and supermarkets – and now the aniseed shortage.

I was sure that a common herb such as Marjoram would not have such an awkward attitude, only I could not find it in the alphabetically organised miniature chest of drawers that is hung on a wall.

“Oh no. No, no.”, said Christina and explained that she found substituting marjoram with basil a very satisfying tactic.

I did not want a substitute and made my way, all eight steps of it, to the cash till. A lady in her sixties was telling Christina’s colleague, whose eyes were already crying out for help, tales from her life. From what I could hear, she was starting at the beginning of her life. Then she discovered that she had forgotten an item. Unfortunately for me, there were two options for said item.

“Show me both”, the elderly lady demanded as if time and other people did not exist within the walls of Christina’s shop.

A shopper goes about her business in early 1980s Austria. Click on the photograph to see it bigger.

I put my shopping basket on the counter and announced that I would be back later to collect my bounty.

“Entschuldigen Sie bitte”, said the elderly lady. In German! German? She was not German or any such nationality. Her false teeth bounced with pleasure as she grinned at me.

I shuddered and glared at her. I am good at glaring. I learned it from our cats. A better person would have replied “saublöde Kuh” with the most charming of smiles.

The telephone call that I had been waiting for came whilst I was in the supermarket minutes later.

“You enquired about the DG-200”, said the man from a company called Expansys. He was talking about the GPS data logger (never mind) that I crave.

The rest of the conversation went from “can you hear me?” to “loud and clear” and “I cannot hear you”.

I called back as soon as I had escaped the confines of Sainsbury’s nuclear bunker and got lumbered with one of these annoying people with cheerful voices, who are utterly incompetent, always sound keen, have no regard for their customers and cannot get on with anything. Beats me why people with her personality profile always get the telephone jobs.

Had I spoken to someone from corporate sales, Ms Telephone wanted to know. She was dark-haired, about 5 ft 3 and slim. I can always tell what people look like from their voices.

“How should I know?”, I replied and added, to be helpful, “it was a man and he sounded as if I had woken him from a deep sleep. Perfectly alright because it was early when I first called. Dark-brown, short hair, a little overweight and I am sure that he was unshaven.”

“I’ll put you through to corporate sales”, Ms Telephone promised after a few moments of silence but stopped herself and asked my name for the third time.

‘How sweet’, I thought. She is trying to delay letting me go.

“What’s yours?”, I asked.

Ms Telephone did not tell me her name but was eager to consume more information from me: My company name, telephone number, the seventh digit of the first line of my address and whether I kept pet sheep, which I thought was a rather personal question.

“Please don’t be offended but I really do not want to marry you”, I clarified. If I was honest at this stage then perhaps her fall from the heights of an imaginary love would not result in too harsh a landing.

“I only want to know whether the DG-200 works under Windows 7”, I pleaded but Ms Telephone showed no mercy.

We were halfway through my medical history when something told me that we were not making any headway.

“Oh, please”, I said, “just get on with it!”

“Sir”, shouted Ms Telephone in a voice that betrayed her little body, “have a little patience”, and put down the phone on me. I hate it when people call me Sir.

Later, back at base, I was in one of my benevolent moods and decided to give Expansys one last chance. I e-mailed my question. The answer came promptly: “Unfortunately, we’re not technical and wouldn’t want to induce you in error”.

My quest continues for aniseed, long spaghetti and a data logger.

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A short while ago I posted a photograph of Avebury on my blog and mentioned that I had had an encounter with a ghost some time earlier in the exact spot. Promptly, I received many requests for more details. I am not sure that I want to talk about it but I will oblige reluctantly.

My account is set in the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, England. Avebury is famous for its Neolithic stone circle and also for a ghost that is said to reside in the Red Lion pub. To this day I have not seen this ghost, which is not surprising because there are no ghosts. Apart perhaps from Kaspar, the cat, who moves at supersonic speeds like a ghost and Holly, the cat, who is more stealthy than a ghost before any background. Holly can be invisible before a mirror.

It all happened on a cold Winter’s afternoon not many years ago. Christmas had just passed and I was on a walk with the best of all wives. After a lie-in and a lazy breakfast we had set out late and the sun was already beginning to fade when we left the village by a small road, which turns into a footpath that leads across a stream and past a rather lovely house, which is set on its own little island, surrounded by a now dry moat. I have always thought that this house, you might as well call it a mansion, would suit my requirements perfectly but the best of all wives dampens my spirits with the expertise of a long suffering companion by pointing out that I am probably not the long-lost heir to a big fortune. She backs up her analysis with the insignificant fact that I am not an orphan. Pity.

The footpath connects to a strictly no-through road with a handful of more rather lovely houses and cottages, horses in a field and a pond. We continued onto a farm track at a junction with the old-fashioned black and white street signs that look as if they had been brought out for the filming of a movie, onto a track, turned right at a farm and headed towards a copse on the top of a gentle hill. It is a pleasant walk that we had done many times before.

Just after we crossed a small bridge, the temperature dropped a few degrees and I thought that I could hear footsteps behind us. I turned around but there was no one and I could no longer hear the footsteps.

We walked on and the footsteps resumed. Perhaps I should say that the footsteps followed me rather than us because my wife could not hear them. I tried to alter the speed and the rhythm of my walk but the footsteps kept following us and they seemed to mimic my own walk.

The track, along which I had an encounter with a ghost.

After a few minutes the footsteps suddenly disappeared. Instead I felt a presence hovering next to me, almost unnoticeable and as light as the gentlest of breezes. There was no doubting my senses; it was there. What made it feel so strange was the fact that I did not merely think that there was something. I knew.

Whatever it was that had joined us on our walk was now touching me. First it was pulling my trouser leg gently, then it perched on my right shoulder and after a while – and this is the only way, in which I can describe it – it put its hand into mine. I was holding a tiny hand. The hand of a ghost. Either that or I was on the verge of some unpleasant illness.

I am a very liberal person and if something or somebody wanted to join us for a walk, that was fine by me and I would not question or refuse. We walked hand in hand, the three of us, to the top of the hill and back. The presence went and returned like a playful child that is collecting pebbles or looking at plants before returning to its parents all excitedly. Nothing else happened but I felt that there was a zest for life emanating from the presence.

Naturally I tried to talk to our new companion – you want to be social – but received no answers. I became convinced, though, that I was holding the hand of a girl of about eight or nine years of age. Who she was and what she expected from me I will never know.

The apparition faded away in the same spot where it had first joined us. I felt empty and exhausted.

I have been back to this place several times since but have never sensed a presence again. I think about her from time to time and when I do, I always experience a connection and I feel protected.

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I have repeatedly written about my recently found, mild obsession with the moon. The full moon in May is called Flower Moon and it was going to be a so-called supermoon, when the moon is closest to the earth and hence appears brighter and bigger.

A thick cloud cover is a major disappointment to the photographer, who wants to photograph the moon. The day before this month’s full moon I did not expect to be able to see the moon and wrote on Facebook:

“Tomorrow is this year’s biggest full moon. Shame I won’t be able to photograph it because we have been stuck under thick, grey clouds for … forever, it seems.“

A friend replied by saying “Goodness and I thought I was the prophet of doom and gloom”, to which I answered “the secret is that I can read a weather forecast”.

It turns out that I was wrong. I cannot read a weather forecast or perhaps the weather forecast was wrong. In the afternoon before the full moon the clouds began to lift and there was a beautiful, clear sky for moon rise before the clouds returned. The gods must have been with me that evening.

The photograph shows the full moon at 21:48 rising over Rowde and Devizes, photographed from my window. Click on the photograph to see it bigger and feel free to share this post.

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A footpath near Avebury in Wiltshire, England, where I had an encounter with a ghost some time ago – not the one in the Red Lion pub.

Click on the photograph to see it bigger.

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The moment that I saw the pair of swans with their six cygnets that I had come to photograph I realised that all was not well. They were drifting joyfully around the basin that widens the canal in this spot and seemed unaware of the narrowboat that steamed towards them. I watched the holidaymaking family on the boat to find out whether they had noticed the swans and concluded that they knew. The fact that they were taking pictures of the swans was an undeniable clue. Yet the boat continued towards the them.

The day, May Day, had started like a perfect November day with dark skies, heavy rain and unpleasant temperatures. I was sitting at my desk working on a series of photographs for a client when I heard the jingling of an ice cream van, whose driver had synchronised his arrival perfectly with the sun’s sudden appearance before a textbook blue sky. I had lost track of time and grabbed my camera hurriedly, attached a long and, according to my wrists, heavy tele lens and stormed out to the car. Caen Hill, my destination, is only about ten minutes by car from where I live and I would have cycled had it not been for the inconvenience that the roads were still covered in deep water and mud from the earlier torrent.

Located at Caen Hill is an impressive series of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal, which allows boats to climb and descend a height of around 70 metres.

Caen Hill is the location of an impressive series of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal, which allows boats to climb and descend a height of around 70 metres. The engineering masterpiece took the first half of the 19^th century to build and was an important means of transport for cargo until it became outdated by the arrival of the railway not much later. In the last decade or two of the 20^th century it was rebuilt and is now an asset to wildlife and tourism, two areas, which agree with each other as much as cyclists with motorists in a hurry.

The boat chugged along, unimpressed by the male swan, who turned to measure it up with his eyes. I thought it unlikely that he was unaware of the imminent disaster that was sure to at least maim the adults and kill the chicks. At a stretch, the parents could swim for their lives but the chicks had no hope of escape.

The stone clad bank was too steep and too tall for the tiny, one-week-old cygnets to climb to safety.

One of the swans, I think it was Mum, tried to get the tiny cygnets out of the water but the stone clad bank was too steep and too tall for them.

Images of swans being squeezed between the boat’s hull and the walls of the canal or dragged under the boat and mutilated by the propeller tumbled through my mind as if I were having a bad dream. But this was not a bad dream. This was real and it was now. My pulse accelerated, my body was shaking and my mind raced to find a way to stop the boat.

“They won’t go away”, said the man in the bright high-visibility jacket and the worn, woolly hat, who had taken his position next to me. He was late middle-age with long, glossy hair and leathery skin, the outdoor type. His was a good face. A dependable face. In an instant I sensed that he knew what he was talking about.

“They think they’ll get fed”, he elaborated in the thick Wiltshire accent of this region before climbing down the bank to attract the swans with a plant that he had pulled up. Swans are vegetarians. It might have worked, but it did not. The swans looked at the curious, brightly coloured figure with a plant sticking out from his right arm briefly but they were not interested in what they could have easily harvested themselves.

The little café barely twenty steps behind where I was standing was closed and there was nowhere else to source bread quickly. I could hear the small engine pushing the boat along at a steady speed.

Ten metres before impact. Only ten more metres of life.

The narrowboat people seemed a little agitated but their faces bore no clue as to their next actions. I wanted them to know that they were being photographed.

I raised my camera to my eye and began to photograph the people on the boat. A young family, mother and father in their early thirties with two boys, one of around twelve years of age and his brother perhaps two years older. I moved as if I were miming in a provincial theatre production because I wanted them to see that they were being photographed. If they knew that they might be in trouble afterwards, perhaps it would persuade them to stop the boat. I ran from the top of the lock, where I had been standing, down onto the towpath, past the elderly couple and the gentleman with the little dog, positioned myself close to the boat and focused my lens on the family of four. They seemed a little agitated but their faces bore no clue as to their next actions.

Seven metres.

The small crowd of walkers, which was by now gathering along the towpath, emitted little gasps. Everyone was expecting the boat to slow down, to stop. I hoped that the crowd of anxious onlookers, who could turn nasty, teamed with a photographer documenting everything, would persuade the holidaymakers to stop the boat.

The boat’s bow cut into the water ever closer to the swans without mercy.

“Some people plough straight through them”, said high-vis man, who – I think – may have been the lock keeper and who had abandoned his futile efforts, climbed back up the bank and followed me. The disbelief in his eyes told me that he, too, was convinced that the boat would not stop.

Five metres. Three. Time was running out for the swans. The crowd fell silent.

‘Do something’, my brain shouted at my body, who obeyed and prepared my voice for action. I filled my lungs with a ton of air, ready to shout ‘stop the boat’. Had I left it too late? Two of the cygnets were already rocking on the bow wave of the boat.

Its engine roared and the gears groaned with an oily undertone as it was suddenly thrown into reverse. The boat shuddered, swayed and stopped. Silence filled the air.

My heart was still pounding and the adrenaline was reluctant to subside but the swans were safe. The adult swans, meanwhile, looked very pleased with themselves, particularly the male.

“Told you”, he said to his family and grinned. ‘Highwayman’ was written all over his wings. His wife could not hide her admiration for his bravery.

The two boys had sourced a loaf of sliced white bread from the boat’s galley, which they threw in little pieces into the water.

The two boys had sourced a loaf of sliced white bread from the boat’s galley, which they threw in little pieces into the water, as far away from the boat as their arms could manage. It took only moments for the swans to follow the bread trail and the narrowboat continued its journey into the next lock.

I swear that I heard an ethereal, collective sigh of relief perched over the canal.

What made the people stop the boat? Was it the pressure of the camera, the on-looking crowd or did they never intend to harm the swans? You probably have to drive straight at them in the hope that they budge or you never go anywhere.

The last I heard of the narrowboat people was alarmed shouting and something that sounded like wood pounding against concrete from inside the next lock. Manoeuvring problems, I expect.

The swans seemed unperturbed by the event and enjoyed an intimate moment together. When I say together, have you tried to keep track of six cygnets?

The swans seemed unperturbed by the event and enjoyed an intimate moment together.

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Read part 1 of this blog post

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I met a pair of swans one afternoon at the end of April when I was out cycling, who were on eggs in a somewhat messy looking nest along the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal. A few days later I returned with my camera and asked if I could create some casual portrait shots. The female was happy to pose for me in her nest.

“No bother”, she nodded and continued to re-arrange assorted materials. I am still not sure whether her comment was an agreement or an instruction. If I am honest, I do not think that she had a game plan or, in this case, a building plan.

“Aaargh”, said the male and gave himself a stretch that could make a freshly woken cat green with envy. He was not interested in such nonsense. He has busy with urgent maintenance work on his feathers, which is understandable, considering that he was about to become a father. Just a few portraits of madam, then.

The next time that I was cycling along the same route I noticed that the eggs had hatched. I counted six beautiful, grey, fluffy cygnets but, rather thoughtlessly, I was without my camera.

May Day had started with dark skies and heavy rain. In the early afternoon the sky cleared suddenly, the sun came through and gave an authentic impression of a perfect May Day, which was greatly helped by the opportunistic and perfectly timed passing-by of an ice cream van. I hurried to visit the swans again, this time equipped with my camera and a heavy (according to my wrists), long tele lens – but all was not well.

When I arrived, the swan family were joyfully drifting around the canal, unaware of the narrowboat that steamed towards them. At a stretch, the parents could swim for their lives but the chicks had no hope of escape. My imagination already served images of swans squeezed between the boat’s hull and the walls of the canal, and squashed to a bag of feathers. My pulse accelerated and my body was shaking as my mind was racing to find a way to stop the boat.

“Some people plough straight through them”, said the workman in the bright high visibility jacket, who had taken his position next to me. His glare assured me that he was as eager to prevent the inevitable from happening as I was.

‘Do something’, my brain shouted at my body, who obeyed and prepared my voice for action.

Come back to this blog soon to find out whether the family of swans can avert near certain catastrophe.

In the meantime, why not take a look at some other stories from the glamorous life of a photographer.

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[update] Part two of this post has been published. Read it now.

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Somebody on Facebook mentioned Bob’s Gym the other day – the same Bob’s Gym in Bristol, where I photographed two bodybuilders and the owner some twelve years ago. I have not been back since and do not know whether the setup is still the same.

Over the years, I have photographed many bodybuilders, including the inspiring Ben Agboke, the then natural bodybuilding world champion. The photographs in this blog post were still conceived on film. The techniques have changed since and my style has evolved. Visit my website to see see more bodybuilder photographs in my portfolio.

If you want to show off your muscles in a photo session, please contact me. You can also buy a photo session gift voucher for the bodybuilder in your life.

Click on a photograph to see it bigger.

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I put on three layers of clothing, a Barbour jacket, waxed hat and wellies when I went out this morning to feed the birds and arrived back in barely fifteen minutes later wet and cold.

It is a miserable April that reminds me of the year 1980, when I was made to play soldier for nearly a year – they call it national service – and we had a miserable April. Conversely, people, who were children in 1938 in Austria, remember April of that year for its exceptionally summery temperatures, spoiled by the arrival of a troll.

Every spring, our garden is host to countless generations of rabbits, who live under the garden shed for a while before moving on. The event has been repeating itself for many years. I suspect that their parents kick them out of the family home, and “under our garden shed” is their starter home. It may lack electricity and running hot water but it is cosy, dry, safe from most predators and there are no mortgage repayments.

There is nothing magical about new generations of rabbits stumbling upon our garden year after year. There is no permanent settlement but I reckon that “under Wolf’s garden shed” is by now ingrained in rabbit folklore. It is the done thing when you leave home for the first time.

At the moment we have three baby rabbits in the garden and they are adorable. One of them is very bold, the other two are shy. I am not sure whether the bold one has not yet learned to run from dangers or the shy ones have not yet learned that not every little sound or movement is dangerous.

They will move onto new pastures in a few weeks’ time and a group of new baby rabbits will arrive. By the beginning of summer, they are all gone. Sometimes we see rabbits returning to the garden in the autumn, who are making brief, nostalgic visits to the haunts of their childhood. They check if their old home is still there so that they can recommend it to the next generation in the coming spring.

Some people are horrified at the mere thought of having rabbits in the garden. A few years ago I visited a very charming and rather well off client at his rather impressive estate. In the middle of our photo session, he jumped up, commanded his wife to fetch his gun and shot a rabbit from the first floor window of his mansion. As if to prove my theory that people, who are nasty to animals are nasty people in everyday life, however charming and charitable they may appear, he caused endless problems over the payment of my bill.

Granted, rabbits dig the odd hole in the lawn and eat a few flowers – and they are very welcome to do so in my garden. By law, we may own the land, on which our houses are built, but morally we only borrow the land from nature. Wildlife has infinitely more rights than we do. I look forward to seeing new generations every spring and count myself lucky that I have wildlife visiting my garden.

Every now and then I see a larger but still not fully grown rabbit in the garden. I suspect that this is a case of teenage pregnancy, for which Britain is famous, and that it is Mum, who looks in on the little ones to check whether they feed themselves properly and are on top of the ironing.

If we find the April weather unbearable, just imagine how much harder it must be for the wildlife.

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