Gypsy Grove

I have perhaps six to ten walks that I repeat three or four times each month; I return to these places, exposing myself to the possibility that something will happen there. There's something I'm searching for and trying to discover. If I organise my life around these walks, there is a possibility I might find this. My ideas and thinking are illuminated by the thoughts of other people, conversations, things I read or listen to. I feel I am walking with these ideas, yet also retaining a mind open enough to allow the unexpected to occur.
Gary Fabian Miller, Adore, p.204

I bought a copy of the attractive little book accompanying Gary Fabian Miller's exhibition "Adore" at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol when we visited it back in May last year (see the post Miller Light), but have only just finished reading the text, which is where I found the passage quoted above. In some ways it's a statement of the bleedin' obvious, but it does nicely encapsulate the way I feel about my own regular, if rather more urban walks.

One of these walks – the roughly 2.5 miles down into the town centre (followed by the 2.5 mile slog back uphill) – takes me past a mysterious alleyway between two buildings in a little run of suburban shops. I had always wondered where that alleyway went, but never bothered to find out. Partly because it was only halfway along my intended walk, and partly because it seemed to breathe that mix of possibility and danger that unlit, unpaved, unfrequented urban byways do: going down there would be a little adventure into the unknown.

But a few weeks ago I had reason to visit the pharmacy in that run of shops. It was a pleasant sunny day, I had nothing better to do, so thought: maybe now's the time to see where that alleyway goes? So I did.

To my surprise it ran in a straight line for about one third of a mile between walled back gardens on either side, eventually emerging onto the noise and bustle of Shirley Road, one of the grittier thoroughfares through the city, and another of my walking routes. The entire length of the walls on either side of the uneven and muddy path were like a linear gallery of colourful and competent sprayed graffiti, not at all your casual tagging, much of it old enough to have been partially covered by ivy and other climbing plants, like the remains of some vanished civilisation in the jungle. At various spots chairs and old car seats had been placed, whether by those graffiti artists, the homeless, or by the inhabitants of the houses with garden gates that opened onto the alleyway it was impossible to say: I didn't meet a single person along the way.

Like any little urban adventure, the sense of discovery – that exciting mix of fun and apprehension – probably outweighed its actual significance, but I enjoyed myself, exploring and photographing somewhere entirely new. Looking at Google Maps later on, I discovered the path actually has a name: Gypsy Grove.

I should say, these days the "camera" that accompanies me on most walks is my iPhone 12 mini, but on this occasion I was using a sweet and petite Panasonic GM5 that has lately usurped most other cameras in my shoulder bag. I love its compactness – it has the size and build quality of the best "small black compact cameras" like the Sony RX100 series – and am impressed by its image quality and flexibility: despite its diminutive size, it's a fully-capable micro 4/3rds interchangeable lens camera. It even has an electronic viewfinder.

I'd recommend the GM5 to you, except for the fact that you'd probably never be able to find one: they're very rare beasts indeed. Launched in late 2014 as a follow-up to the even tinier GM1, Panasonic hasn't seen fit to produce an even better successor. We can hope, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Actual single-purpose cameras are no longer where it's at, sales-wise, now that most of us can get perfectly satisfactory results from a decent phone. In fact, with a bit of care and working within its limitations, you'll probably get better results from your phone than from a "proper" camera, especially if you only occasionally use one. I just wish Apple hadn't abandoned the "mini" format for its iPhones... I really don't want a phone the size of a small tablet! Some of us are not plus-sized Californian giants...