Life Observed

Hidden from view. Hidden under this old snow, itself dusted with mud, there is one little hint of grass. It bides its time waiting for sunlight to reappear when the snow has been reclaimed by the land.

Nature rolls out the white carpet of snowdrops each year at Welford Park, West Berkshire. The grounds are opened for a week or two and you can snap away to your heart's content. Lovely.. PS. This picture was taken using one of my micro four thirds cameras: A format that cannot, as we see, create narrow depth of field effects...

Yes, here is an Offa you can't refuse. Up on Offa's dyke in the teeth of a gale in February. Brrr.

Go out in search of the unexpected. Keep your eyes open. Who knows what you might find.

Plastic sheet, barbed wire and a windswept hill. Oh, and a comment.  "Why are you photographing that thing ?"

Ever wondered why rocks are all different sizes? The just seem to lie there stationary and unchanging. Actually they wait until no-one is watching and spontaneously crack into two rocks. Here is the proof. Similarly, why are rock in rivers all rounded? They also lie there and do nothing.  Well, late at night when no one is around the rub against each other in a self destructive frenzy.

You may not remember these.  They are called books .  How can I describe them? They are a serial access semi permanent data storage medium with a versatile information format. They are a bit like a Kindle , except the batteries last even longer, and you can adjust the font size by moving your head closer to the print.

What sort are you? A Loner? Or one of the crowd? Just wondering, that's all.

Here we are on a cold walk along Offa's Dyke in mid wales. The sheepfold is empty but snow remains up here long after it has melted in the rest of the country.  It's a shame you can't capture the icy wind and the crisp clean smell in a photograph.  Maybe experiencography will be the next big thing. It will make photography suddenly seem so out of date. We will set aside those billions of JPEG image files we took and eventually there will be no software left to show them.  This will have been a digital dark age.

This thing fascinates me. It rises out of the nearby woodland floor like some giant modernist mushroom, towering over the tall pine trees. Over the years it has sprouted more and more aerials: A sort of technical dermatitis. You can't miss it in the daytime, the white shape is visible over the canopy of leaves. It is an unsettling thought that it is still there in the dead of night when everyone is asleep, looking down on the houses below, biding its time, waiting its opportunity.

Don't be afraid of the dark. Here's a low key picture. The subtext is: "What is through that door?"  It is the job of the photographer to pose these questions without answering them. The task is to surprise the viewer, to present the unexplained, to draw the viewer in and involve them. So put that flash away and don't be afraid of the dark.

Oh, the Haberdashery department again. What a lovely thing: So many colours, all that Wool, and Cotton. All those needles and pins. And look. If you are not careful, you can get felt.

Always have a camera nearby and always keep your eyes open. Take this amazing abstract.... what do you see in there?

The kids didn't leave much for the adults to eat. That's OK. I will spend all their inheritance.

Isn't there always something slightly Philip Marlowe about blinds up at a window.  You feel that you should poke your finger in and squint through the gap an the street below, blow smoke at the fan on the desk and come out with some pithy comment about low lifes. Not so easy with wooden blinds, mind you...

Open Fire? Phew. For a moment there I thought I had declared war on the French again. Yes it is an old fashioned open fire in a Cotswold pub. Lovely. It doesn't get any better than that. I dream of being snowed in to a Cotswold pub with open fires, real ale and an eccentric millionaire. Well, you never know...

Here's a moody church interior deliberately exposed low key. I do like some black in my pictures if I can arrange it. Lots of black and no people. Hmm. Worrying. Perhaps I should report myself to the authorities.