Beowulf "Wulfie" Mayfield's Website

Welcome to the home page of Beowulf "Wulfie" Mayfield, creative photographer, podcaster, editor and great cook. Hello world and all that...

Latest updates

A Long Road Back

Lockdown was hard and recovering it has been even harder - having spent the best part of year on the sofa reading, learning to teach through Zoom calls and writing lecture notes, I'm finding it very hard to leap up and get outside unless I have to go somewhere. It's really sapped my energy levels and I'm going to have to walk a long, hard road to get back to pre-lockdown energy and enthusiasm. Getting out to photograph bluebells for the first time in three years or so was a good excuse to get myself out and revisit pinhole photography... Read the blog post.

Quick Snaps on a Sunny Day

Blog post: It's May 2020 and the UK remains in lockdown against the vile Covid-19 pandemic. The general rule of thumb is travel as little as necessary so I'm still restricted to photographing stuff in the immediate neighbourhood. It's a bit of challenge finding fresh things in streets you've walked down thousands of times but that doesn't mean you should stop looking... Read post.

New nonsense from old wisdom

Blog post: It's the middle of May 2020 and the UK remains in lockdown against the cruelty of Covid-19. Social media and comment forums seem to be awash with danger denial and political division which is not good for the mind. It's better to do something creative. It should come as no surprise to see me returning to cut-up poetry that makes very little sense - it reflects the confusion of these strange times... Read post.

Words going wild

Blog post: It is the beginning of May 2020, the UK lockdown against the Coronavirus is entering its sixth week and the free time has allowed my mind to explore fresh corners of curious creativity. The latest things to come into fruition are a short, but very strange, piece for theatre based on Antonin Artaud and a small collection of cut-up poetry... What will the lockdown bring next? Read post

An e-zine bonanza

Blog post: During the April 2020 UK lockdown I've become intrigued by zine making - I've helped to keep myself sane by making three ezines for anyone who would like to download them and lift the lockdown blues... Read post

Once Round the Park

Blog post: Social media friends have been encouraging me to keep taking photographs while the UK is in lockdown. So I took may camera around my nearby park and shot some of the things I noticed while walking. When I got home I put the 12 best into an ebook to share with the world... Read post

A Zine for Lockdown

Blog post: With the UK in lockdown against coronavirus I've had a lot of time on my hands and a lot of that time has been spent absorbing digital media. However, too much screen time can lead to want to scream time so it's good to step away from the digital world and produce something physical. What did I do? I made up a silly poem, devised an even sillier design and printed it out to make myself a zine. Best of all, I'm sharing it - you too can download a copy to print out and fold into your own little mini booklet... Read post

Toy soldiers in news gallery

In the news: My series of toy soldier pictures to mark the centenary of the November 1918 Armistice has been mentioned in dispatches by the south east London News Shopper... Read the article

Another box set binge...

Podcast update: The third series of the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast with adventures in time travel, a near death experience, a double helping of drummers, the blues at their bluest and judgement in the Court of Serious is boxed up for your binge-listening pleasure...Look and listen

Toy Soldiers Salute Real Heroes

Blog post: I wanted to create something to honour the centenary of the Armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Western Front on November 11, 1918...Read post

In Defence Of Music...

Podcast episode: Being a creative musician can lead to trouble. Disgruntled concert-goers demand their money back, critics frostily dismiss performances and recordings that fail to conform to their expert definitions of "Jazz", others may complain that the music isn't being treated with the gravitas that the "serious" listener is surely entitled to expect. Some sort of apology might be in order, wouldn't you think? Listen.

Navigating a sea of turmoil...

Podcast episode: Billy Jenkins' 2005 album When The Crowds Have Gone was described by music critic John Bungey, writing for The Times, as the guitarist's "darkest record yet...". Set against a backdrop of change in domestic circumstances and alterations to the UK licensing laws on musical performance, life for the musician - and life as a musician - was passing through turbulent times... Listen.

A stick in the wheel...

Podcast episode: One technique that is a constant in the music of Billy Jenkins is the "stick in the wheel". One method might be use a skilled musician playing an unfamiliar instrument, another approach is to have two drummers using stick and drum kits... Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast.

Pants in the name of protest

Blog post: Some of the greatest works of art have been inspired by real events and a protest over washing lines in the town of Colyton, Devon, has inspired me to produce some artwork... Read post

Going Back To Hell...

Podcast episode: It's the first episode of Series Three and we're travelling back through the years to Bromley at the time when the 1950s were rolling over into the 1960s... It was then that a young Billy Jenkins was taken from his happy world in the back garden to the church hall and cast into the hell that was nursery school. It's all recalled for the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast.

Featured in south London news blog

In the news: I recently met the legendary Mercury Man of 853 blog fame who was curious to hear about my activities with pinhole photography. He suggested I should write him an article on the subject to feature into his regular spot... Read the article

Playing along with the world

Blog post: Since 2001, the last Sunday in April has been Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. The idea is that pinhole photographers across the world take a photograph on the day and upload it to a huge online gallery... Read post

A Ghostly Challenge

Blog post: What's the dream of a photographer who loves music? Apart from producing an expensive book that sells millions of copies and rakes in obscene wads of cash? Simple: a commission to take an album cover photo... Read post

Shout-out in south London news blog

In the news: After a lifetime of writing or editing news stories it's a rare treat to get a mention in someone else's news story - and before you say anything, no it's not as one of the accused. It's a feature about the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast on the 853 blog... Read the article

Music for Christmas Past

Blog post: Every year I think I should get myself organised to create a festive photograph and print out a few cards. Usually I don't think of it early enough but this year a chance find gave me an idea... Read post

A fight to the bell

Podcast episode: Of all forms of jazz, free improvisation is possibly the most challenging for the listening audience. Billy recognises this and to make things a little easier for listeners he devised his musical Big Fights... Beowulf Mayfield cornered record producer Tony Messenger to describe the challenges of recording a musical fight for the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast.

Too much pressure

Podcast episode: There's too much going on in the world - too much information, too much noise, too much social pressure and too much of everything! In this episode Billy describes how the irritations of suburban life inspired one of his most stamping, stomping and comical blues songs... Hear him talking with Beowulf Mayfield for the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast.

Practice Makes Perfect...

Project update: I've been working on a series of photographs of the unseen side of music making - the process of music practice - a routine, often horribly repetitive process that can shape a student into a world-class musician, or reduce them to a blubbering wreck who never wants to look at an instrument ever again. As someone who never did enough practice, I'm turning my lens on some of the people who did... Read all about it

The Podcast Box-set Binge

Podcast update: The Billy Jenkins Listening Club webcast is now boxed up for your binge listening pleasure. Listen to all six episodes from series one - and the bonus preview episode... Watch the promotional video and listen to the whole series.

The seaside staple

Blog post: For some reason, just about every time I go to the seaside on a sunny day I buy a toy windmill, the more colourful the better, and take a set of blurred motion pictures. Once I've finished I give it away - usually to a family with a young kid in tow... Read post.

A life-changing collaboration

Podcast episode: Record producer Tony Messenger jumped into his amazing psychadelic-wrapped car for the trip to leafy Brockley to talk about his long association with Billy Jenkins and the challenges of capturing the essence of his musical ideas on record... Hear him talking with Beowulf Mayfield for the Billy Jenkins Listening Club podcast.

The pain of smooth jazz

Podcast episode: Musician Billy Jenkins explains his philosophy of "aural cartoons" and describes how an overdose of so-called "smooth" jazz can really grate on the nerves. It might be exploring a form of torture but there's no connection with the Marquis de Sade - really... Listen

Beautiful to see and hear

Blog post: When I encounter musicians playing in the street, the former musician in me starts judging the quality of their musical performance - or lack of it. However, these days I also find myself considering how I might like to photograph them... Read post

'Anything could happen'

Podcast episode: Multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and record producer Charlie Hart describes meeting Billy Jenkins through Wood Wharf studios performing with the Voice of God Collective in the late 1980s... Listen

It's pinhole derby day

Blog post: Toys are excellent for pinhole photography subjects - they don't mind sitting still for hours on end and they don't complain that you've made them look fat. Pinhole photography lets you get really close up on the miniature world...Read post

Marching with stop animation

Blog post: Stop animation has always interested me and I had the idea of creating an animation using toy military bandsmen to illustrate a track by the great guitarist and composer Billy Jenkins. I set about photographing a mixed bunch of toys and pieced them together to produce a minute of animated musical anarchy using simple iMovie software. It took a bit of patience but it was fun...Read post

Elsewhere on the web: Check out my You Tube channel.