The snow had begun to fall a couple of days earlier, tiny specks of icy wonder tentatively introducing the coming winter to the people of Copenhagen. Our nesting down for the cold season was ahead of schedule, choral chants humming through the house as we brought out fairy lights for the balcony and lit seasonal candles on the sideboard.
Come the weekend we sought to connect with the newly frozen landscape. Dyrehaven, just 10 minutes train ride north of the city of Copenhagen, is a perfect winter excursion. The cooler air outside of the city had preserved the glistening white frost; warm Nordic light casting the forest in an amber glow through the naked branches of manifold trees.
A recent cold snap coincided with a morning away from my screen looking after my 9-month old son. He slept as I happily strolled around our neighbourhood enjoying testing the camera on my new iPhone. The results are a big step up from the iPhone 13 mini I was previously using, and the proRAW files in particular were must easier to work with in Lightroom.
The preset is named Tama and I developed it as a lofi, filmic look specifically for iPhone snaps.
My great uncle Peter, the husband of my grandfather’s sister Thelma, was a large figure in my life. I rarely saw him out of his armchair at home due to the partial paralysis caused by polio from his time in the army, but he had a quiet intensity and passion which drew me in and sparked my curiosity as a child. He was a man of many hobbies, which he pursued with an openness and humility which belied his obvious talent for learning. He is one of the people in my life to whom I attribute my own inclination to try and try again to master new skills.
Towards the end of his life, Peter spent some time with a group of aspiring writers. Together they published several collections of writing, one of which I was recently given by my mother. I’m taking the time to digitise his writing here as a form of memorial, and as a reminder to myself of the way he inspired me to try new things with openness and passion.
My Life in the Army by Peter Foakes
I left school when I was fifteen, in 1949, and worked for a year as an office boy and junior auditor in Central London. However, I had always had an inclination to join the Army and see something of the world. So, I enlisted as a Boy Soldier when I was sixteen.
On a Saturday in November 1950, I made my way to Euston Station and thence by rail to Lichfield in Staffordshire, to the Regimental Depot. There were about a dozen of us Boy Soldiers, who mostly came from London and the Midlands. Discipline was strict and after a couple of weeks of Basic Training I was told I was to become a drummer. I was given a book called Elements of Music and was tested every few weeks on how much I had learned. I was also put under the tutelage of the senior percussionist of the Regimental Band.
In February 1951, the battalion was posted to Trieste, in what is now northern Italy. The important port of Trieste was occupied by the Germans until 1945, but was then claimed by both Yugoslavia and Italy. Our purpose, together with the Americans, was to act as a military buffer between the two countries until ownership was sorted out.
I was excited about the prospect of going abroad. After all, this was what I had joined the Army for, and the furthest I had travelled before enlisting was to Southend-on-Sea in Essex! Even though I was crammed in with hundreds of other soldiers, I enjoyed the journey abroad. First there was the troopship from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. Then the overnight train journey across Holland, Germany, Austria, and Northern Italy to Trieste. Finally, we were taken by lorry up to our positions on the Yugoslav border, by the Adriatic Sea.
I still remember the flat green Dutch landscape, split with dykes stretching away to the horizon. I vividly remember the black, ruined outlines of Cologne Cathedral, against the dark blue evening sky, and the toy-like castles on the banks of the Rhine. In Austria I remember the pristine countryside with immaculately painted houses. I also remember my first particular and exciting smell of Italy when we disembarked from the train.
Hong Kong, 1956
We were stationed in Trieste for nearly two years. Soon after our arrival, I was able to begin playing with the Regimental Band. We played for all sorts of parades and concerts within the area. The Trieste Police Force also had a very good band and we used to take turns with them, playing concerts which were sometimes broadcast from the main Trieste Concert Hall. We were also able to supply two dance bands from within our ranks, which played for both civilian and military functions. The first time we played in the Trieste Officers’ Club, I was surprised to see the walls painted with German eagles and badges. Apparently, this used to be Gestapo HQ.
Sometimes we had to travel north through the mountains into Austria. To me, this was always an exciting journey. Great masses of rock, coloured blue-black, grey and ochre rose steeply from the side of the road, with occasional sights of bright green meadows. The mountain road could be quite dangerous in winter when it was covered in snow, ice or slush, and there might be a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on one side. But I also remember the sight of frozen waterfalls and large untouched areas of snow on the mountains. Summers were very pleasant in northern Italy and Austria. Sometimes we went swimming in the Adriatic.
Korea, 1953
There were occasional civil disturbances in Trieste because the population were mainly Italian and they wanted to ensure they became part of Italy. Apart from this, I enjoyed my time there. Finally our tour of duty came to an end and we returned to the UK to prepare to go to Korea.
We arrived at Pusan in South Korea in early 1953, after a five week sea journey by troopship from Southampton. We had sailed via the Bay of Biscay, and passed the lights of Gibraltar at night; then through the Mediterranean to Port Said, and down the Suez Canal and Red Sea to Aden. After this, we sailed via Colombo and Singapore before finally arriving at our destination.
We were allowed ashore for a few hours at Aden, which was very hot, dusty and barren outside the Port. Colombo was also very hot but busy and interesting, with friendly people. Singapore seemed to me to be very colonial with its Raffles Hotel, architecture and vegetation.
You could smell Korea from a mile off shore. This was because Korean farmers spread human excrement on their fields for fertiliser! Pusan is on the south coast and was crowded with refugees driven there by the war. They existed in ramshackle shelters around the outskirts of the Port.
Unfortunately, a couple of nights after we arrived, there was a bad fire in this area which resulted in numbers of refugees having nowhere to live at all. There were also many orphaned children who used to search rubbish dumps for anything to sell or eat. We all did what we could to feed them when we had the opportunity.
Japan, 1954
Our first duty was for two trumpeters and myself to play the ‘Last Post’ at a ceremony in the United Nations Cemetery in Pusan. This was to pay last respects to the dead from the battalion we were to relieve. At this time the Cemetery was simply a large area of yellow mud with a few tufts of grass here and there and large numbers of white painted wooden crosses. A group of Turkish soldiers were also present, doing the same thing for their dead.
Soon the battalion was ready to move up to the front-line. We, the bandsmen, stored away our musical instruments. We were to be on general duties and to act as stretcher bearers for the duration of hostilities.
We were moved by train from Pusan to Seoul. The city was full of United Nations troops – American, British, Canadian, Australian. Seoul had been captured by the North Koreans and Chinese and then recaptured by UN Forces more than once, and it showed. Parts of the city had been reduced to rubble by shell-fire. Our next move was made in lorries at night. We went up to the forward positions near the Imjin River and settled in.
At this late stage in the war, we were in static positions in bunkers and trenches, with tents further back. There was lots of patrolling by both sides and attempts by the North Koreans to gain ground with shelling and assaults on some parts of the Front. This went on until July 1953 when a truce was signed.
From then on, we were involved in peace-keeping duties. The band was re-formed and we were kept very busy performing all over South Korea and Japan, for UN functions and at civilian and military hospitals and camps. Our Bandmaster was eventually awarded the MBE for our efforts.
In September 1954, three of us young Bandsmen were sent back to the UK to receive a year’s course of instruction at the Royal Military School of Music, at Kneller Hall.
I very much enjoyed my time at Kneller Hall. The course commenced in October 1954 and from the start there was intensive training on our instruments and on music in general. In those days there were about 100 military musicians on the course from the UK and other parts of the world. During the summer months we gave weekly evening concerts on the bandstand which were well attended by the public.
Our main instructors were all working musicians. For example, the Senior Percussionist with the BBC Concert Orchestra was my instructor. He came once a week to teach and check on our progress.
Peter and Thelma
Early in 1955, I was lucky enough to meet Thelma, my future wife, at a ballroom dancing class in Richmond. I also got to know her family and was well looked after in my off-duty time. Thelma used to come to the weekly concerts as often as possible. The course at Kneller Hall came to an end in October 1955 so we had to report back to our Regimental Depot ready for our next posting, which was to Hong Kong.
Once again, we sailed to the Far East from Southampton and this time it took four weeks to get to Hong Kong. Our battalion was stationed in the so called “New Territories” near the Chinese border. We were brigaded with the Gurkhas and another British battalion to guard the border area. In those days, numbers of Chinese people from the Canton area tried to get over to Hong Kong to escape the Communist regime. Unfortunately, some were shot by the Chinese border guards in the attempt, but many others escaped and made a living in Hong Kong.
Kowloon and Hong Kong were quite exciting places to visit when we were off duty. There were plenty of interesting shops, cinemas and bars and the whole area was packed with people. In fact it was so crowded that some poor refugees were actually living between large buildings where there was suitable space. As a band, we were kept busy with parades, concerts and guard duties.
On a Saturday morning in early September 1956, the whole battalion had to go on a five mile cross-country run as part of normal training routine. I had been having flu-like symptoms for a couple of days previously but did not feel ill enough to report sick and miss the run.
After the run, the band had to go for a drill parade on the barrack square. After drilling for about an hour in the blazing sun, I collapsed and was taken to see the Medical Officer.
Then, I understand, all hell was let loose. The whole band was put in quarantine and I was taken to the Military Hospital in Kowloon. Polio was suspected and confirmed at the hospital. Polio is highly infectious for the first three weeks and I was immediately placed in isolation.
Two of my friends were also isolated with suspected symptoms. Luckily my friends were able to return to normal duties after the three week incubation period. However, I ended up paralysed from the chest down except for my left arm. After the first three weeks the hospital staff started me on a strict daily exercise routine. This continued until I was shipped home in January 1957. Even on the troopship the routine continued. In the UK I was in three different military hospitals and was finally sent to the RAF Combined Services Rehabilitation Unit in Chessington, for six months, after which I was discharged from the Army.
By this time, I was able to walk with sticks or crutches so I am extremely grateful to the medical staff who made me exercise so hard.
Continuing my month of street photog inspiration, I’ve become a little obsessed with Daido Moriyama and his utterly compelling body of work, with its very consistent low fidelity aesthetic and dynamic composition.
The following are a selection of photos from recent travels to Greece, specifically Athens, inspired by Moriyama’s work.
I’ve been inspired to begin sharing my street photography again this month, in particular due to two “walkietalkie” videos produced and hosted by Paulie B, a New York based street photographer.
The first, and perhaps more conventional “street photographer” is Matt Weber, whose work I was previously aware of but hadn’t really explored. What inspired me about Matt, beyond the quality of his body of work, was the consistency he has demonstrated over such a long period of time. He has played the long game, adopting a stoic attitude to the probability of success on any given day, and this has yielded some phenomenal results.
The dust sleeve from Matt Weber’s book “The Urban Prisoner”
The second, and most inspiring (for me), of the photographers recently profiled by Paulie B is Daniel Emuna. The quality of his given name aside, Daniel’s work speaks for itself. He’s heavily focused on portraits, often of a group, and his body of work tells you almost eveything you need to know about his approach to photography.
Daniel comes across as deeply humanistic and community oriented. His “walkie talkie” episode reveals a confident, social approach to compassionate documentary photography, with a focus on consent and interaction – a stark contrast to the more candid approach adopted by many street photographers.
Whilst I do love this approach, the video and a review of some of Daniel’s work did get me reflecting on what is lost in the interaction with one’s subjects. Daniel’s work is authentic and his photography conveys a very strong sense of the characters and relationships at play between his subjects, but there is a tendency towards posed street portraiture which lacks the spontaneity and range of interactions which are often the most compelling aspect of street photography for me. The compositions are also very consistent, which is no bad thing, but I miss the happy accidents of composition which can come from rushing to capture the frame in an instant.
Reflections on subject interaction aside, Daniel’s sincerity and awareness were utterly inspiring. In one segment of the video, he talked to the challenge of walking the fine line between documenting and appropriating. His perspective on this was so on point that it ended up feeling obvious – perhaps we simply share similar views on this as well as a first name.
A final point is how niether photographer were talking about kit. Nor were they shooting with an Leica… Most of my street photography is done with an Olympus, and so I was pleased to see Matt with something very similar around his neck. I’ve wondered for years why micro four-thirds cameras are not more popular with street photographers. They are compact, light and generally very ergonomic. They are discreet. They focus quickly and accurately. The small sensor means greater depth of field at larger apertures – great for increasing hit rate with zone focusing. And on the subject of zone focusing, Olympus lenses like the 17mm f1.8 have a clutch mechanism which make it so easy to set and maintain a focus distance at a glance. Matt Weber knows…
I have been involved in leading several agile transformations at this stage in my career. In every case many of those around me held firm to a core belief that they had already been working in an agile way, and that the cultural transformation was for the others, not for them. In particular three groups of people stand out:
Engineers who believed that their involvement in SCRUM-like ceremonies for planning was evidence that they were working in an agile way.
Product owners or project managers, who also felt that planning on a regular cadence was the key facet of agility in the context of product delivery.
Senior managers who believed agile ways of working were for their teams, not for them, and continued to operate using deadlines and traditional milestones as their key tools for creating accountability.
Some time back I wrote about the digital contact tracing efforts being made by a variety of public and private institutions. The endeavour, fraught with privacy considerations, has yet to truly prove its potential – little evidence of the efficacy of the approach has been gathered. In an effort to change this, the UK government has recently attempted to release an update to their app, built upon the Apple/Google framework, in lockstep with a change in the nation’s COVID policy. The app would begin to gather and store geographic tracking data to enable authorities to better respond to outbreaks as citizens break free of a long lockdown to socialise in outdoor eateries and pubs. This move however has met resistance from both Apple and Google, who are thankfully taking users’ privacy very seriously.
As the public sector and the private sector collaborate to respond to the need for quick and reliable testing in the face of the Covid pandemic, it is interesting to see armies of young people, relatively invulnerable to the most severe effects of the virus, working in a coordinated and orderly fashion to provide the testing facilities that we depend upon in order to maintain some degree of normalcy in society.
I was inspired to get out and take some photos in the crisp evening air of Copenhagen in December. Just days away from the winter solstice, it is dark by 3.30pm, and by 10pm when I took to the streets, it is pitch black. Small groups of locals gathered on benches and corners holding tins of beer, the bars closed as COVID cases shoot up across Denmark. The blanket of grey cloud which has covered the city for the past week reflected the lights of the city creating a ghostly halo across the sky, and Christmas lights sparkled from balconies and windows.
In the realm of technology and software development, the phrase “shift left” has gained significant traction. At its core, the “shift left” approach emphasizes the importance of addressing issues and tasks earlier in the development process. This proactive strategy can lead to more efficient, effective, and successful technology implementation projects. Let’s delve deeper into this concept and understand its parallels with the heuristic breadth-first search.
“Shift Left”?
“Shift left” is a philosophy that encourages developers and teams to tackle potential challenges and issues at the earliest stages of a project. Instead of waiting for problems to arise during the testing or deployment phases, the idea is to anticipate and address them during the planning and development stages. This can lead to fewer surprises, reduced costs, and a smoother implementation process.
Analysing the Existing Codebase and Desired Outcomes
Before diving into a new project or adding features to an existing one, it’s crucial to analyze the current codebase. This involves understanding its strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas of improvement. By doing so, teams can identify existing technical debt and areas that might become bottlenecks or pain points in the future.
Once the current landscape is clear, the next step is to define the desired outcomes. What is the end goal? What business value is the project aiming to deliver? By having a clear vision, teams can align their efforts and ensure that every step taken is in the right direction.
Defining Slices of Work
After understanding the starting point and the destination, the journey can be broken down into manageable slices of work. Each slice should:
Deliver Business Value: Every slice should have a tangible benefit, whether it’s a new feature, an optimization, or a bug fix.
Incrementally Increase Solution Maturity: As each slice is completed, the overall solution should evolve and mature, getting closer to the desired outcome.
Reduce Technical Debt: With each slice, any existing technical debt should be addressed, ensuring that the codebase remains clean, efficient, and maintainable.
The Heuristic Breadth First Search Analogy
The process described above can be likened to a heuristic breadth-first search (BFS). In BFS, we explore all the neighbouring nodes at the present depth before moving on to nodes at the next level of depth. Similarly, in the “shift left” approach, instead of diving deep into one aspect of the project, teams tackle a broad range of tasks that deliver immediate value. This ensures that the most pressing issues and valuable features are addressed first, providing quick wins and immediate benefits to the business.
The heuristic aspect comes into play when we prioritize these slices of work based on their potential impact and value. Just as heuristics guide search algorithms to find the most promising paths, our understanding of the business needs and technical challenges guides us in choosing which slices to tackle first.
Conclusion
The “shift left” approach, when combined with the principles of analysing the existing landscape, defining clear outcomes, and breaking the journey into valuable slices, can transform the way projects are executed. By drawing inspiration from heuristic breadth-first search, teams can ensure that they are always moving in the right direction, delivering value at every step, and building solutions that increase the overall maturity of the codebase.
