Yesterday Felicity came for a weekend visit, and this morning borrowed my camera and took a series (60) of photographs of the bicycle components. Making these close-ups seemed to require nothing more than a sheet of white paper; it's always nice to see a professional at work, whether they're a photographer or a piano technician or a carpenter — no fuss, no anxious demands, no complex set-ups: simple tools, simply used.
As for the photos here, it's not hard to see where the "unconscious" is leading: it's all about the gears. This evening I brought some lengths of bicycle chain up to the house (left over from the Port Townsend Kinetic Sculpture Race a few years ago), and looped them speculatively around the large and small sprockets, imagining axles and bearings, and calculating reduction ratios, before balking at the design problems of concentric shafts.
When in doubt, call a friend, so I hope that Ian will answer my note. He knows about these things.
Photographs by Felicity Perryman, photography & graphic design: www.felicityperryman.ca