Tom Langlands Photography Blog

Poetry of Entanglement Poetry of Entanglement is a book and 2022 calendar created with the sole purpose of raising funds for mental health charities in Scotland and Canada. The beautiful, hardcover, forty-six page, landscape-orientated book features stunning images by award-winning Canadian photographer and graphic designer Marianna Armata with accompanying, evocative poetry by award-winning Scottish photographer and writer Tom Langlands. Turning the pages of this wonderful book will take you on a seasonally inspired journey guaranteed to stir memories and make you contemplate your relationship with nature and the world. It is a book that you can pick up again and again and still find your mind transported to new places through the thought-provoking imagery and words.  The calendar is spiral-bound, double-page for wall hanging with twelve, monthly images and associated poems from the book. This transatlantic project was conceived during the Covid 19 lockdowns and was borne out of c...

I opened the door and walked pensively toward the single bed. There I laid down my holdall and surveyed the room. The wallpaper was different but the furniture was more or less as I recalled. It seemed dark but then it lacked the toys strewn around the floor that coloured my memory. I crossed the threadbare carpet to the window dodging the ghosts of model planes hanging from the ceiling with fishing nylon. Leaning my forehead against the wooden frame across the middle of the old sash and case window I peered through the drops of rain to the garden below. It seemed smaller than I remembered.  The wind blew the tulips that she had planted last autumn and their bright red heads bowed in a gesture of sadness at her passing. It was cold but not unseasonably so. I could feel the draught on my face as the wind searched out every gap around the window. It had four panes of glass - two in the top sash and two in the bottom. The glass was old and imperfect giving a distorted view of the worl...

Todd Lamprun knew that he was one of the lucky ones. Three weeks ago and for four weeks before that he had been lying in a hospital bed wired to a myriad of life-support machines and monitors in the Covid-19 intensive care unit of Feelgood Hospital. For a while it had been touch and go but now he found himself in a room on a side-ward regaining his strength and coming to terms with his close encounter of the Covid kind. He felt physically weak, encountered spells of confusion and was prone to moments of forgetfulness. Periodic mood swings enveloped him. These ranged from anger at not knowing how he had contracted the disease in the first place, a deep sadness at not having had any visitors since his admission to hospital and moments of joy at the realisation that he was still alive against all the odds. His daily routine revolved around a morning visit from the consultant occasionally accompanied by a student doctor, the duty-nurse who would take his blood pressure and temperature and ...

It wasn’t until I got a Saturday job in a camera shop at the age of sixteen that I truly discovered photography. It was rather like being a child in a sweet shop and without doubt it was my first appreciation of the phrase ‘toys for the  boys’ (although that should definitely include girls now too). As a member of staff I was allowed to borrow second-hand cameras and of course I got first-hand experience of all the new equipment that arrived. I have no idea how many different cameras I experimented with but over the course of that first year it was well into double figures. That was almost fifty years ago and without doubt that was where I learned the basics of photography and all of the technical skills that I have carried with me through life.  A few years later I went to Art College to study architecture but I still worked during holiday periods in photography shops. Looking back I now realise that my interest in photography combined with learning about b...

We all boarded the bus in the early morning sunshine: mums, dads, children and grandparents. The teenagers clambered to get upstairs first - freedom away from the prying eyes of their elders. The excitement was palpable, “Where do you think we will be going?” “I reckon the seaside,” said one mother, “It’s such a glorious day and the temperature is rising.” “Oh, I hope not,” exclaimed an older grandmother whose dry wrinkles reminded me of the ripples on the beach long after the tide had ebbed. “All that sand gets everywhere.” It seemed that although the bus was now full not everyone was embracing the concept of a mystery tour. “I’m only here because you thought it would be good if the whole family came along.” “That’s right,” replied the dad with the short-sleeved shirt, arms bristling with tattoos, “Stop your moanin’. It’ll be great for the kids. It’s not all about you, you know.”  The grandmother cast a disapproving glance and sat down, muttering, “I just like to k...

When I was a student of architecture I came upon a book that would change my academic life and open my eyes to what architecture is truly all about. It was a catalogue of work by five emerging architects who practiced in and around New York. Opening that catalogue took me to New York and into some famous - and quite different - examples of domestic architecture and enabled me to meet some very interesting people. It sparked an interest as to how we interpret and understand architecture and it led me into the world of linguistics and semiotics - fields that still enthral me to this day. This poem is about that journey. The Unspoken Word there never was a New York Five only a catalogue architecture beyond the ramparts  of planners who never heard  Corbusier’s trumpet  or saw freedom when the walls of Maison Dom-ino fell black lines  on white paper that rose from the pages  of a closed book there is a clarity that emerges with the...

These five poems were written during self isolation brought about by the global pandemic of novel coronavirus. They reflect my emotions at different stages over the last few weeks - from anger to contemplation to hope. I would like to think that each offers a degree of hope in different ways in the midst of these long weeks. Self isolation will end but these last few weeks also afford us the opportunity to re-evaluate what is important in life.  Follow me at:-   www.tomlanglandsphotography.com Follow me at:-   www.facebook.com/TomLanglandsPhotography Follow me at:-   www.tomlphotography.blogspot.com Follow me at:-   www.twitter.com/tomlphotography Follow me at:-   www.flickr.com/photos/tom_langlands_photography Poetry and photography copyright of Tom Langlands