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Toby Miller
@tobytram.bsky.social
Freelance video editor. American/East Anglian. Once hosted a radio show about cinema, but now mainly take photos using prisms or pinholes. Imagine a lazy Tom Swift.
399 followers329 following460 posts
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My father, going through old paper work, has found a poster he made to put up in the Nebraska office he was working in - early 1970’s; I would been about 1 or 2 years old. Risk of tornado summers and long bitter winters.

Hand drawn advert to sell a car. Three quarters of the poster is dominated by marker pen text reading:

Snow 
Tires
$900

while in tiny text at the bottom it reads:

INCLUDES FREE 1972 CHARGER
NO KIDDING, FRIENDS, THESE STUDDED BEAUTIES COME MOUNTED ON A REAL CAR! AND WHAT A CAR! THEY DON'T MAKE CARS LIKE THIS ONE ANYMORE. ASTOUND YOUR FRIENDS. RUN YOUR ENEMIES OFF THE ROAD! WHAT ABOUT FUEL CHEAPSKATE. THIS SAR HAS EVERYTHING 'AND SOME OF IT STILL WORKS! POLER BRAKES, POWER STEERING, AIR CONDITIONING, A DOOR SEATS A SDE, RADAY CAULE OF RED LATER.
OWN THE CAR OF YOUR DREAMS BEFORE IT'S AGAINST THE LAW: PHONE BOB MILLER, 383.
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Yes, I got the dates utterly wrong. That’ll teach me to stray away from posts about apples.

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Look at the rascal! Lucia knows well I’m in the garden behind her as I just said hello, but apparently that doesn’t preclude the possibility there’s another me still in the house who may feed her treats. (and this is how I find out there is another me in the house. Wearing holes in my socks)

A grey mottled storm cloud of a Catalonian cat sits outside my back door, looking up in hope.
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I think what bugged me here - and these strangers were perfectly nice - is that all summer I’d seen this orchard as an in-between (liminal) place (I kept thinking of small grove that opens The Spirit of the Beehive), and they, of course, saw it as a functional place: apples for juicing.

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End of a summer story. Back in June I cycled by this small public orchard: broken gate, uncut grass, down a lonely lane - had it been forgotten? I visited often, partly to take photos, partly to say hello, and a little to scrump for crumbles. Today I met the owners; they had just been busy.

The family let me take photos as they filled their tubs with apples (for pressing and some cider). The young grandson climbed into the tree to shake the high apples loose, and I liked how his arms and legs would come out at odd angles through the branches. This photo shows him as he climbs down, all pyjama legs and yellow shoes. 

In the foreground here is the grandfather, leading the charge on the trees. He helps look after three small nature reserves, and this orchard was seen the least this year
One of the tubs, filled to the brim with 5 varieties of apples, being picked up to be taken to the car. I do like the colours of the apples in the plastic black of the tub. Like a star field in a black hole.
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In a public orchard, setting up a pinhole photo when the orchard owner arrives to pick apples. “Why don’t you just use a normal camera” he asks, after I explain what the box among the branches is. “Why don’t you just buy apple juice from the store?” ….was on the tip of my tongue.

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Rula on my lap as a reward for putting on a Natalia Beylis record instead.

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Have had to turn off the improv jazz because the cat has joined me.

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My paperback copy of @raynewman.bsky.social Intervals of Darkness has arrived. It landed in the room over my head with the thud of a body being dropped, and now is just watching me from the top of the stairs. Contained many gubbins; I very much appreciate the photo of the curve of cinema signage.

I’ve propped the paperback copy of Ray Newman’s Intervals of Darkness at the top of my house stairs, lit the cover with a (hidden) bike torch but kept the rest of the scene in shadow. The book looms.
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TMtobytram.bsky.social

there is a strangeness in how their clothes match the curtains and wall paper. I wondered if he noticed that and then ushered everybody into the corner?

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Toby Miller
@tobytram.bsky.social
Freelance video editor. American/East Anglian. Once hosted a radio show about cinema, but now mainly take photos using prisms or pinholes. Imagine a lazy Tom Swift.
399 followers329 following460 posts