Officially...
Andy Green was, until his retirement, a Senior Research Associate with Kodak Limited. A photographic chemist, he also developed great expertise in computer programming—and as a result was one of the first photographers to switch from conventional photography to digital. For many years he wrote prototype software to go with every digital camera Kodak produced. A talented photographer, he was a member of the Royal Photographic Society and, there, was among the few who published many scientific papers while at the same time having photographs accepted for the Annual Exhibition and, during the same period, dozens of his photographs were displayed in exhibitions all over the world. With the typical misplaced confidence of youth he refused an FRPS for his scientific work in case it should be confused with his photography. He was also involved in radiography, and worked even after his retirement as consultant for some of the best medical facilities in the UK His specialty was in the area of mammography – and he has pointed out that in his latter years he had to look at the inside of that which in his youth he had only concentrated on the outside.. His work took him to Rochester, New York, to Bologna, Italy, to Paris France and to Stuttgart, Germany, where he stayed for extended periods of time. He also had a role in quality control, and in that capacity made frequent visits to photographic processors in Holland, Denmark, Eire, Sweden and Switzerland. As holder of 23 scientific patents he is included in the Kodak Distinguished Inventors’ Gallery.
...but - life after Kodak - a lesson for us all...
Let me say at the start that this is difficult, I have always tried to keep a low profile. But since I must fill this space, I have to reveal (almost) all.
This was me fifteen years ago, based on my Kodak business card!:
My eldest daughter saw me in a different guise...
Last year, though, I had become this...
I had intended to retire early, live off my pension, read, write, play the guitar, and watch cricket. Well, it didn't work out - so here is what really happened...
I threw away everything, retired and settled in a little town on the river Clyde - Gourock:
There was a reason for that, of course. I had worked with the hospital there, and had intended to develop a system for transferring images of radiographs from the far side to the main hospital in Gourock - using the (then new, and untrusted) internet. The alternative was to use a helicopter, by the way.
Kodak showed little interest, but when some of the new "digital" people saw the system...well, the rest is history. I was invited to join a new team that was dedicated to move Kodak into the digital consumer age.
Anyway, I retired to Gourock. So let's zoom in...
This is the main street - Kempock Street:
And here was the local electrical, and general rubbish, shop run by the now late John McMorland.
John's grandfather had made metal cans and drinking vessels for the old sailing ships which traded out of Gourock, which was once a major port - being the only deep water harbour on the Clyde, hence the assembly point for second world war convoys...
Anyway, he figured out that he could also make batteries, so he did, and he got into the electrical business. They sold the first radio sets, and then the first televisions, and when John retired their firm had been running for 98 years.
When I arrived John said his ambition was to keep the business running for 100 years - so I said - Ok, let's see what we can do...
John had a collection of old photographs of the area, and so I suggested that we should restore them, and see if we could sell them. So we did, and almost broke even.
In the end we set up a new company - Kempock Digital - and I changed the shop a little...
This was our first Christmas window, and we made money!
You'll notice that our logo owed more than a little to Kodak, and the locals thought we were Kodak. Well, it was so obvious. When George Eastman went for a unique two syllable word with a "k" at each end, he didn't know about "Kempock". So I took advantage.
Back then I was using a Kodak DC4800 (which I paid for), an Epson Stylus Pro 7000 printer with Lyson papers and inks, and an Epson 1640SU scanner that would do 5x4 trannies. For the first time we were able to be 100% digital.
We sold my photographs...
We restored people's old photos...
And we began to make prints of paintings by local artists (this one by Norman Edgar, and we still print them and must have done about 100 by now)...
We did better than just breaking even, so I put my profit into more equipment and John McMorland put his into developing the premises. It turned out that he owned an enormous basement overlooking the river Clyde and the best view in the world (well I think so anyway).
So over the course of a year or so, and with more artists on board, we turned the whole place into an art gallery.
The summer of 2003, and for the record we now had an Epson 9600 printer and a Minolta Dimage7 (the canine testicles at the time).
And here's where the story really starts...
You see, all of this time, even when I was still with Kodak, I had been running an internet discussion group. Originally it was called "The Virtual Academy", and later "The Invisible College". Membership was by invitation only, and there were never more than twelve members. Each had to be a recognized world authority in their field. The subject, I guess, was neo-Platonism. And the reason, for me, was to discover what made the renaissance and lute music tick.
Naturally, when we opened our new gallery, I invited all the members of the Invisible College. Well these people were from all over the world, and I didn't expect anyone to turn up, even from England. It was just a matter of courtesy.
So I was wrong. Professor Karen-Claire Voss decided to attend, and she was coming from Istanbul. (It turned out that she had a visa problem and needed to exit from Turkey and then re-enter - and she had to go somewhere). I knew her through the discussion group, of course. She wanted to have her own website, so I had lent her a copy of Dreamweaver. She couldn't figure out what to do, and asked so many questions by email that I said - just send me all the stuff and I'll do it.
Here was the brief biography from her website, which was all I knew...
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Karen-Claire
Voss is presently Assistant Professor of American Culture &
Literature at Fatih University in Istanbul. She is former Adjunct
Professor of Religious Studies at San Jose State University where
she taught for five years. After doing doctoral research in France
for two years, she came to Istanbul in 1994. She is a sometime speaker
at academic conferences in Europe and author of numerous articles
on topics ranging from imagination, mysticism and methodology in esotericism
to philosophy of education. Translator of Basarab Nicolescu's Manifesto
of Transdisciplinarity (State University of New York Press, 2001)
and his Poetical Theorems (forthcoming), this year she is
working on a book about spiritual alchemy and another on the topic
of ‘feminine’ gnosis.
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Somewhat
to her surprise, Karen-Claire has fallen completely under the spell
of Turkey. Now, passionately interested in traditional Turkish culture,
especially music and dance, she is working on a collection of short
stories partly inspired by her experience here that she plans to bring
out in a volume called Istanbul? Yes, Istanbul. Articles 1-16 were all written for the now defunct Istanbull… magazine. |
Anyway, Gourock was agog at the prospect of her arrival. Me too, by the way. We had no idea of what was about to hit us... Conventional wisdom, however, had taught me that there was bound to be trouble. So I warned everyone that this was the kind of woman that men love, and women worry about.
Conventional wisdom turned out to be pretty accurate.
