Harry Smart
@munross.bsky.social
@Munross@mastodon.scot no X, no FB Poetry (Faber, Drunk Muse) Fiction (Dedalus). Social theory (Routledge) #Istanbul, Photos. Drums. Greens, Kirk, #LUFC.
created December 12, 2024
989 followers 3,073 following 405 posts
view profile on Bluesky Posts
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I don't understand why you can't take the logical next step and become a Leeds fan. Post-Revie we have come to understand that crushing disappointment, the perennial heartbreak that is hope, is our true destiny.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
Love this
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
is that an İnsta account, or bsky .. can't seem to find it
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower with Erwin Blumenfeld in May 1939. The reckless joy and the huge skirt billowing in the sunlight. Life and optimism and knowing what was about to break across Europe in a few months. Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Melissa #nude #fineartnude
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
one last one for tonight from the 2018 shoot with Ariel
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
#Newsnight .. bit of a pointless squabble tonight
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
another from that 2018 shoot with @arielanderssen.bsky.social
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
looking through old cards .. 2018 with @arielanderssen.bsky.social
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
+1 for plain grey walls and confident women. Wonderful image.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
top right of image is bottom right of film gate / camera body (apologies if that's already obvious).
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
looking at your photos, from that white streak top left of frame, my first guess would be back closure, but it might also be consistent with the winder.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
just to encourage you further, I don't think I managed to fix it, given the thing has to be free to turn. A simpler one was the back closure. I did play with the Bessa once, and my issue there was the lens wouldn't stay properly locked out into the shooting position so focus would be off.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I once spent a while running 120 across old 3A format folders. I recall having a leak hunt very like yours. I tracked mine down to where the winder or take up spool (think it was winder, can't remember exactly) came through the casing. FWIW, they're always somewhere you'd think was impossible!
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I doubt if any of them are as old as Sandwich in Kent, which has been around since at least 851. No, that number is not missing a 1 at the start.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
have mercy on those of us with vivid imaginations
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
half of these are barely on anyone's radar in the US and Europe. disclaimer: figures via ChatGPT, all unavoidably imprecise. Most casualties of war literally don't count.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
as a survivor of CSA, it never ceases to amaze me that so many people commenting on sexual violence fail to mention children as victims. Careful analysis, data, passionate political commitment and yet, literally, children don't count. Thank you for that "should've". It's rare.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
questions being asked about Everton's new boot sponsor #LUFC
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
how are the ads on #LUTV so consistently shit? there's not much else to whinge about, so that's a plus #LUFC
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
is he on bluesky? didn't see him when I looked
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
thanks for the repost
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
if we assume population of Israel = 10 million. Chenoweth et. al. suggest 3.5% of population on streets in protest is sufficient to bring regime change. 300,000 = 3% www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSe...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
applies to UK churches too
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
The thing that haunts me is Moltke's description of the late-stage Reich with 'guillotines working round the clock' in cities across Germany. Or Harald Poelchau in Berlin, prison chaplain, who went with over 1000 people, including many friends, to their execution.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
Ireland isn't much of a parallel here. Rwanda, I'm afraid .. except AR15s are colossally more lethal than machetes and kitchen knives. Germany is probably the closest parallel. But the tens of thousands of German resisters and dissidents killed by the Reich are a largely untold story.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
hi .. I'd be interested to know your travel plans within the UK. I'm in Scotland. I'm on Purpleport, if you use that, as Gairm.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Going a bit Rembrandt with Valentina #portrait
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
When fascism's become the winning ticket ..
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
we do increasingly in the UK. There are places I've shot nudes in the past where I wouldn't chance it now, having seen what's happened to models / photographers I know.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I can confirm that this is not a US-only problem.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
one of the reasons I like this is that it has something of the bodyscape genre, which I really enjoy and obviously it's part of the great tradition of photographing the figure .. but there's also a sense of Valentina as a person .. it keeps an element of portrait. that's quite enough ones for today.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Valentina #fineartnude one proceeds very slowly through the editing process. one wishes one could go quicker.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
they're grown in traditional English watercress beds and exported around the globe
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I agree. Someone once asked what's the most important thing for a model. I think it's simple .. someone who's comfortable in their own skin. I like this shot because it shows that Valentina is.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
please, please, bluesky, don't compress photos QUIte as much as you do. It's grievous to upload a clean photo and then see it spattered with compression artefacts. I get you have to reduce the file size but .. can't you find better algorithms?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Valentina again #fineartnude #portrait puts me in mind of a brief exchange a couple of weeks ago with @mariesgallery.bsky.social about smiling / laughing photos and why we sometimes instinctively pass them over when picking what to edit as 'art'.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
another of Valentina last year
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
beautiful .. not least because of that rare thing in fine art nude, the sense of encountering a real person.
News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) reposted
🧵NEW: This is an unprecedented intervention. Almost every single living, former head of the IDF, Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence), Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) & Police Commissioner urges an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. “This is an extremist government. It has taken us all hostage.” 1/
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
with Valentina last year .. these are late edits .. I get phobic about editing sometimes. A bit like writer's block.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Today is my first Sunday deliberately not going to church (as opposed to missing services for health reasons or whatever). #ChurchofScotland .. 40 years an elder, several as Session Clerk. Gone. I love the #CofS but it has broken me. This by @johnpavlovitz.bsky.social: bsky.app/profile/john...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
For me it turned from a short period of solace among friends to a burdensome thing. I had a mounting sense of dread through Saturday which it took me a while to recognise as such. Today is my first Sunday deliberately not at church and it feels very weird. And sad. But right for my health's sake.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
another with @arielanderssen.bsky.social a few years ago
John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz.bsky.social) reposted
At this point, the only reason left to support a man like this is that he reflects your hateful heart: he shares your contempt of people of color, your hostility toward outsiders, your toxic misogyny, your ignorant bigotry, and your feelings of supremacy. johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/no-good-pe...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
overview of Windrush scandal www.praxis.org.uk/learn/explai...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
This is going to be like the UK Windrush scandal but on a colossal scale. Same key issue, loads of people had been here for decades, had working careers, paid taxes, raised families, but no papers to prove citizenship. Denied right to work, to receive medical care, deportations ..
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I hadn't come across this writer before. Do you know which of her books this poem is published in?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
will it have its own mausoleum?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
thanks. I can never do it simply with a bw layer; the conversion is always a group of layers, bw, curves, often also levels. And always a recolour to warm it, which can have a surprising impact on perceived tonality.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
I'm prone to #misprision, misreadings and mishearings. It can be fun, like when I found owl fat yoghurt in the fridge. But this headline almost gave me a conniption. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
it absolutely is, though I'm increasingly drawn to bw .. but always shooting in colour so I retain as much info as possible for the conversion. I'm an inveterate tweaker of bw conversion, which has its own pathology.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
'but we didn't have to pay' .. a Monty Python sketch has Dinsdale Piranha as a mob boss. Here's one appreciative regular victim on having his head nailed to the floor: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_kR...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
"As part of the deal, Brown has agreed to not discriminate racially in its admissions practices or University programming" Not often you see 'not' doing so much work. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
not knowing and not remembering are core leadership skills in most institutions. Although 'leadership' is doing some heavy lifting there.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
this is an absolute masterclass of pose, composition and lighting .. just beautiful. This doesn't happen by accident .. so much patient working at the craft by both the model and the photographer has gone into this.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@theradr.bsky.social) reposted
Zichro L'MAAPACHA May his memory be for the revolution ❤️🔥 The activist & writer Awdah Hathaleen-- who worked on the film NO OTHER LAND, & brought so many Jews, Israelis & others to Umm Al-Khair to teach abt the realities of settler violence, was murdered by a West Bank settler w/terrorist record. +
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
There's a follow up, putting some of the Aberdeen story against the 2020 election. Looks like the full follow-up film is on YT www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Rw...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
let's not forget the pioneering work of the much-missed Janey Godley, with her solo protest at one of his Scottish courses in 2016.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
Balancing freedom and control is half the battle, for composition and posing. I used to over-direct terribly, and still sometimes fall into it. The other half is lighting and camera control. The other half is making the model feel safe. Other other halves are available. Humour helps.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I'm with you on shooting 3/4 or closer, but I do like to let models move their arms. It means often having to give feedback about how much space they have, but it can be expressive. If they have control. I love models who, when you say, Move half an inch to the right, can move exactly half an inch,
Kim Lane Scheppele (@kimlanelaw.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
"I cannot, of course, deny that these men are surprised that this is the law; they really are surprised that there is any such thing as law. These defendants did not rely on any law at all. Their program ignored and defied all law. That this is so will appear from many acts and statements. . ." /2
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
carefully painted in with black? not an attempt to hide it. Loss of light will be infinitesimal.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
with @arielanderssen.bsky.social channeling Horst P Horst and Lisa Fonssagrives. Ariel, obviously, is Lisa, and I'm Horst. Just to be clear. #portrait
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
#Gaza and #Biafra: parallels: 1960s, oil-rich Biafra (largely Igbo) tried to secede from Nigeria; the national govt starved the region. #Genocide? recognised as such by neutrals - not the UK, which armed the Nigerian govt. theendofhistory.net/biafra-genoc...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
with Scarlot Rose a few years ago #portrait #fineartnude .. well, nude enough
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
thanks. sounds like a good reason to visit Berlin again
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
Where is it? A museum specifically for Newton's work?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I half-expected Greece or Turkey .. it has a Byzantine feel.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
sometimes you don't need to tell people everything great image .. I'm curious to know where the location is
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
these are something special .. such a strong sense of connecting with a real person
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
hate it when photographers can't decide which is the best version, colour or bw. More Victoriah #fineartnude #nude #portrait
Dr. Mar 💙 (@boldnewme.bsky.social) reposted
Aviva Dautch reminds us: genocide doesn’t begin with one moment, it escalates through deniable, gradual steps. This isn’t “how it starts.” It’s already underway. The task now isn’t prevention, it’s intervention.👇
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
the great thing about shooting like that is when you just can't get the shot, you only have to fall over sideways and you're in the foetal position ready to weep.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I was shooting with a model who was doing a fine art degree. My elegant shot of her beside a window is countered by her shot of me squeezing myself under a wash hand basin to get the angle I wanted.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
thanks .. that makes more sense than a phone! The shots are great. I'm going to pinch the idea.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
look at post-Thatcher UK. Thames water a prime example. Take over infrastructure. Don't maintain it, don't invest in it. Massively increase charges to public. Take massive profits for shareholders. Inflate CEO salary. As system fails, pump shit into rivers. Get bailed out by govt / taxpayers.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
curious to know .. were you wide open at f1.2? What ISO? It looks like a phone light and I'd have thought you'd be pushing it to get a good exposure.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
It's a lovely image .. I often wonder why shots of a model laughing tend not to be thought of as art. They're often the moments that most catch the person, which is surely what #portrait is all about.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Victoriah #nude #fineartnude
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
Gleichshaltung
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
definitely up for this secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/...
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
nay to the mesh thingy for me .. it might be a striking image when you use it but it ceases to be a portrait. But then that isn't everyone's priority.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
This is Gleichshaltung, the process whereby institutions and agencies not originally tasked with implementing racial politics 'synchronised' their policies to mesh with the authoritarian and racist priorities of the regime's core constituency.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
born in 50s UK, I grew up frequently hearing 'It [Holocaust] could never happen here.' I know it took folk in the UK a long time to realise what was happening in 1930s Germany, still .. Unsettling now to hear 'it could never happen here' again. From white people, inevitably. #Windrush
LOLGOP (@thefarce.org) reposted reply parent
This episode features one of my favorite Pitzer lines ever, and I'm going to steal it to be the first sentence of my Russian novel.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
will it be livestreamed?
This Is NOT Business As Usual (@jemartisby.bsky.social) reposted
There’s a difference between appreciating your country and idolizing it. Patriotism invites accountability. Nationalism shuts it down.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Trying one of these AI language-learning apps. You get to converse with historical characters, such as Osiris, for example. Had a chat with him tonight. Told him I'd seen him in the supermarket in Istanbul. He denied it, of course. But he's unmistakable.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
stepwise acquiescence to dictatorship generally involves a lot of violence: the dictator's war against his own people means a steady increase in disappearances and executions. German resistance leader Helmuth James von Moltke wrote of guillotines 'working round the clock' in cities across Germany.
Satan’s Niece (@krissychula.bsky.social) reposted
This is high art
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
that, and mass surveillance technology like nothing National Socialism could draw on .. CCTV, face recognition, phone tracking, web use trackers, homes full of smart devices, data-scraping companies with colossal processing power, companies like Palantir already embedded in the state.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
the most sobering thing is that by the 30s .. Jan 1933 for the Enabling Act .. the decisive shift had already happened. The process started in early 1919 and by the 30s National Socialism was already an established force, electorally and in thuggery. If you're 1930s Germany, it's already too late.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
The word isn't 'shafted', it's 'culled'. Behind Trump stand eugenicists.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
I agree. But on the other hand, it does kind of reveal what he's been aiming for all along.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
did someone say Time Lord?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)
Seen this @arielanderssen.bsky.social?
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
part of which is not assuming because we heard a particular word that we know exactly what the speaker meant by it; we listen carefully, as we read texts carefully, with context.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
watch any German football programme and you'll hear both kaempfen and siegen, with not the faintest hint of National Socialist connotation.
Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent
a better analogy might be Kampf .. which is the ordinary German word for fight / struggle. You can't take it out of the German language because of the title of one book. 'Mein Kampf', the phrase, is different, just as 'Sieg Heil' the phrase is different.