Life Observed

Walk About

2012-03-08T08:17:00.001Z

We had a couple of nice days earlier this week, and timing my walk to miss the passing clouds, I managed a quick walk down the local farm lane..

Crows nests, as high as they come, add points of interest to this big sky wide angle picture.

Here's a forgotten corner of the barn. Aah, that smell of oil, diesel and hay all mixed together, captured in a nostalgia image.

No day is complete without an abstract picture if you can find one. There's a pile of discarded tiles in the hedgerow aligned like a modernist sundial.

This old tyre (on an Allen Scythe) must have been here for decades and has rotted away. Perfect for a texture picture.

And finally, the rusting barrow with it's Ivy passenger makes for a diagonal composition snap.

Layers

2012-03-07T08:21:00.002Z

There are layers of countryside on display here.

In the foreground is a ploughed field, not so common in these days of minimum tillage. Next we see commercial woodland and the green contour of Winter Wheat. Finally looking down on all this is Watership Down.

The countryside struggles to be all things to all people. It tries to be romantic or wild, but much of it is in fact an outdoor industry.

The Long View

2012-03-06T08:25:00.003Z

Why do horses have such long faces?

Answers on a postcard please...

Head in the clouds

2012-03-04T08:29:00.000Z

There's an Elephant in the room. There's a Monster in the Mist.

Standing foursquare it the far end of the field, the giant Transmission Tower (they are not called Pylons by the way) hums and buzzes to itself in the thick fog.

Usually I avoid these things like the plague, and remove them from my images if I have no choice, but today I think the monster has some metallic mystery about it...

Crow Flies

2012-03-03T09:33:00.001Z

It's much shorter as the Crow flies....

It there any evidence that Crows really fly in straight lines? The local Rooks don't fly in straight lines. They swoop aimlessly from tree to tree wheeling and calling in the sky, rather like kids on skatebords in the park. They are indulging in motion just for the sake of it.

A still day with fog from dawn to dusk, softening the lines of the landscape and muting all the colours.

Enclosure

2012-03-01T08:40:00.001Z

Up here the fields are open and the trees are enclosed. Strange, no?

Most of the land around the village is either small paddocks for horses or huge arable fields with no hedges. You don't need barbed wire to keep a crop where you planted it.

The trees, however, need protection from an invisible enemy. Deer range across these open acres in the dead of night unseen by all but the nocturnal Poacher and his dog.

A Tomb with a View

2012-02-28T08:40:00.003Z

Stoney Royd cemetery. This is the dead centre of town and they are dying to get in here.

No, but seriously, the Victorians have to be applauded for building a cemetery on a steep hill. I've not seen anything quite like this before...

I won't dwell on the gaudy fake flowers everywhere or the stone teddy bears and plastic windmills in the children's section. I gave it the monochrome treatment to spare your eyes, dear reader..

Still, you do get a Tomb with a View.

Boxed Past

2012-02-27T08:39:00.001Z

Curled up, away from the light, are the Family's memories. Those pictures we took in 1941 on the sea front at Blackpool of Aunt what's-her-name and Cousin thingy.

We didn't write their names on the back, why bother? We know who they are, it seems like stating the obvious.

Now we are older, a new generation and their children come along and look through the box of memories. They ask us who these people are, but it's so long ago and we no longer remember. We don't remember because we didn't write their names on the back of the picture.

The faces look at us across the years in silent disapproval. How could we have forgotten?

These images are forty to seventy years old now, and they are the only copies. No-one kept negatives.

These faces and places are preserved only as molecules of silver salts on a paper backing, yet they have survived all those years. What are the chances your digital images will still be there stored as precarious patterns of electrons in a memory stick, or a trail of dots on a DVD disk.

You Yew you

2012-02-24T07:47:00.001Z

Looking for all the world like some Mediterranean scene, this churchyard Yew frames the steeple and the lovely clear sky.

This tree was trimmed severely last year, just leaving the trunk and thick branches. Once it got over the shock, it has set about sprouting new growth from more or less everywhere.

I can't imagine what shape it will be in fifty years.

There's a thought.

Yews are slow growing and notoriously long lived. Does it look down at me each day and say to itself "You might have invented the wheel, war and the atomic bomb, but I'll see you out"

Wilting

2012-02-23T08:05:00.005Z

Are you having a bad day, a bad week? Or is the whole Winter thing getting you down?

Look on the bright side: At least you don't get grabbed by some huge pink monster and have your head dipped in mayonnaise.

What follows is too gruesome to describe, gentle reader, but be assured that the life of a vegetable is short and brutal.

You might, like this fellow, try playing dead in the hope that you are spared being eaten.

Listening

2012-02-20T20:31:00.003Z

Driving to work, I generally listen to favourite tracks on the MP3 player.

Driving home I often have the Third Progamme on, providing they are not broadcasting silence, as they often like to do. I also like the Home Service in the mornings, provided they don't start an argument with the interviewee.

No, nothing starts the day better than your favourite artist and your favourite album.

Who may they be? I hear you ask..

Well, I like "Liejacker" by Thea Gilmour, "After the Morning" and "Hill of Thieves" by the excellent Cara Dillon and "Annabella" by Libby Johnson. However the best of the bunch for me this month is the 2005 album "Fearless" by Yvonne Lyon. She has put so much work into the words, and projects the songs so well.

I bought it direct from her web site and got a post card with the CD signed by Yvonne herself. Wonderful :-)

So, what is the common thread amongst these singer songwriters? I came across them on the Bob Harris weekend show over the past years (it's on the Light Programme by the way).

Eventually I went out and bought the albums and have not been dissappointed, so thanks Bob, and thank you ladies...

Roll your own

2012-02-17T19:26:00.004Z

Left exactly where it was unhitched, the disk roller has rusted its way through the winter and is ready to sort out this year's fields.

Agricultural machinery is usually very ... agricultural. Heavy lumps of iron held together with great big bolts. This is why any farm worth it's salt will have several Stillsons pipe wrenches (for dealing with great big bolts) and an arc welder (for dealing with iron)...

Nailed it

2012-02-16T07:56:00.004Z

I'm quite glad I nailed this shot. Once again the unusual tapping sound that announces the mobile Farrier rings across the yard. I had an interesting chat with the guy and learnt more about horseshoes in five minutes than I had learnt the rest of my life.

I don't know which needs the greater courage: Dealing with the kicky parts of horses, or driving around with a gas powered forge in the back of the van...

The trick is to take several pictures at the right sort of shutter speed to catch the hammer in flight. Unfortunately I missed the exciting hot-shoe-and-smoke part of the procedure.

Typical

2012-02-15T08:03:00.000Z

There you are trying to get a half decent picture of a barn when someone pokes their head into the frame and ruins your shot...

M+S cafe

2012-02-14T08:39:00.000Z

This is not just a cafe, this is a Marks and Spencer cafe..

As part of the new local shopping centre development our M+S has been extended and, joy of joys, there is now a small but perfectly formed restaurant complete with a view of the shoppers below.

It is an excellent thing. In fact anywhere you can get a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake and not shop is an Excellent Thing.

Minimalist sundial

2012-02-13T07:58:00.000Z

Spotted in town this weekend, on the side of a shop: This Minimalist Sundial.

This is how it works: If the shadow points downwards then it's daytime, if the shadow points up, it is night.

Last Walk

2012-02-12T07:50:00.003Z

Last light of the day up on Watership Down and the temperature is already minus three. As the sun sets, the last dog walker of the day makes his rounds.

These moments were caught using my Olympus E-PL3. The first with the superwide 9-18mm lens, the second with the 40mm short tele. Both hand held in the freezing cold.

How we suffer for our art. The rest of the day was spent indoors in the warm...

White out

2012-02-11T09:27:00.000Z

It has been, frankly, just too cold to go outside in search of pictures for some time. As a result, my daily flow of blog based wisdom has dried up for a while.

So, here is a wimps picture, taken from the office window one morning. Up here on the hill it is always colder and bleaker than Newbury or Basingstoke.

Last night's Westerly has coated the sides of the trees in snow. No one is building nests yet.

The village isn't always the coldest part round here however. If the car tells me it is -1 degrees on the farm, by the time I have driven down into the valley, it is usually showing -4 degrees. The cold air must slide down the fields into the dip.

This probably explains things: The farms and houses are all up on the top of the hills, while no-one has ever built down in the valley.

Vanishing

2012-02-09T07:57:00.002Z

Freezing fog fills the valley, and the farm lane suddenly seems to lead nowhere.

Sometimes less is more when it comes to painting a picture or telling a story.

Dripscape 3

2012-02-07T08:44:00.003Z

Another day another drip.

I understand that it is legal to take a picture of someones house from a public highway. I certainly hope so.

In this case the house is out of focus anyway, to draw the viewers attention to the irregular regularity of the wire fence.

There is an innate spatial formalism here that has been completely subverted by the presence of water. It acts as a barrier and also as an enabler, keeping the viewer at a distance, yet refracting light willingly, inviting him in. The conflict that exists between the private and the public is resolved by Nature's neutral observer, the interloper, the invigilator:

The drip.

Dripscape 2

2012-02-06T21:42:00.000Z

Almost exactly a year later, a Winter anticyclone brings still air and fog:

Everything is covered in drips. The car park is empty and the children's swings remain unswung. The world holds it's breath.

Macro Sheep

2012-02-02T08:26:00.003Z

Once upon a time I was a Mad Scientist, complete with white coat.

Well, old habits die hard. As you see, my experiments to miniaturise the entire world are coming on nicely. There are drawbacks: These sheep are dead easy to catch but frankly they're not worth eating.

Wood burning staff

2012-02-01T08:22:00.002Z

I must have words with the Estate Staff clearing this woodland.

Don't get me wrong: I do appreciate the nice even spacing of these huge bonfires that have been burning steadily for a week now. I also like the way their smoke leads the eye towards the thinned trees.

No, I must tell them they need to place the fires just a little further from the trees to create the best composition. I can see what they are trying to say, but it's just a little crowded for my tastes.

Tsk! People can be so unartistic sometimes...

Actually I missed a fantastic photo opportunity here last week with dusk fires and smoke, but in photography there's always one that got away...

Springless

2012-01-30T08:35:00.003Z

I know it's still January, but it seems like a long Winter this year.

We finally had our first thin layer of snow today but the days are getting longer, and it is light at five most evenings. However there's a long mountain to climb until it's Spring.

So here as compensation are some bare twigs I false coloured earlier.

Wedding Speech

2012-01-28T18:00:00.003Z

Oh dear. It's that point in the procedings where the Wedding Speech is due.

Fortunately on this occasion the Bridegroom's speech was wonderfully short, being delivered in mere seconds.

Surely a lesson to us all.

Big Cloud

2012-01-27T08:40:00.003Z

A cold front passed over here yesterday and gave us this lovely dusk. A giant cloud hung over the horse exercise yard at the end of the day.

A cold front changes the weather in a magical fashion from dull and grey to bright, cold and showery. The cold over warm arrangement of the air makes for an unstable situation. Rising cumulus clouds propagate and expand, and can form a giant anvil that brings on a thunderstorm.

In this case the cloud ran out of energy at the end of the day and restricted itself to heavy showers.

Hard light

2012-01-26T07:58:00.000Z

It's a while since I indulged in a high contrast texture picture. Back in my film and developer days I was a slave to hard contrast paper and those rich blacks and dazzling whites.

Spotted this week in the barn: straw and canvas.

This is an example from the film years. Beach huts in Herne Bay

This begs a question. When you print an image, you know how it looks. When you show one on the web, the image will only look as good as the viewer's monitor. Are the blacks really black?

This is why I put the monitor test strip on my blog :-)

In Depth

2012-01-25T08:32:00.002Z

Visual cues are everything. The out of focus background, the sharp foreground. These cues hint at depth in a picture.

Artists know that hills and trees gradually fade towards the colour of the distant sky as they march towards the horizon. In this case, the mist between the viewer and the trees contributes the shades of grey and blue that give us the cues of depth

Lichen it

2012-01-24T08:29:00.002Z

Another macro image from the Pen E-PL3 and ZD50 lens combination. The depth of field can be so shallow that nailing the focus manually is a real challenge. Fortunately digital film is cheap, so you can take several attempts.

This might be a subject where focus stacking would help. I must try that one day.

Study in Brown

2012-01-23T08:16:00.001Z

This is part of a short sequence using the Olympus Pen with the Zuiko 50mm macro. This combination is capable of producing very sharp images, and was well suited to the sharp low lighting at the weekend.

Last year's leaf trapped in the greenhouse.

Solid data

2012-01-22T07:53:00.000Z

Yesterday's post dealt with nanoseconds. Here is a picture of a solid state data log that measures in centuries:

This huge but healthy tree was blown over in the gales recently and was sawn up to recover the paddock where it fell.

Careful ring counting shows that this monster was about one hundred and twenty years old. It remembers Queen Victoria, the first motor car, the invention of the flying machine, Penicillin and the Atom Bomb and more wars than you can shake a stick at.

It is only fitting that such a heritage be presented in sepia tint.

Light-foot

2012-01-21T09:11:00.002Z

I've been busy this week, down amongst the nanoseconds* measuring signal timings with a new oscilloscope.

I've seen so much change in my working lifetime since I first wielded a soldering iron for money in 1968. In those days half the measuring equipment used valves (or tubes if you prefer) and everything needed half an hour to "warm up" before it could be used. Transistors and chips were the new wave, no-one designed with valves any more. The smallest transistor was the TO18 tin can package and the smallest resistor was 1/8th watt. The digital revolution was just around the corner, and the fastest signals I encountered were measured in microseconds.

Now everything is a thousand times faster (nS not uS), uses a thousandth of the power (mW not Watts), an hundred times smaller and a million times cleverer.

But after forty years I am still designing, soldering and measuring, it's just that everything around me has got smaller, even the signal timings.

*A Nanosecond is roughly a Light-Foot

Grey Wave

2012-01-18T07:47:00.004Z

Something odd, almost abstract for you all today. This strange grey wave breaking on a black sea.

It's the delicate remains of burnt straw on the farm bonfire. The first rainfall or breath of wind will flatten this transient sculpture.

Winter Widescreen

2012-01-17T09:48:00.000Z

Water, Ice, Air

Fence post and frost

Two experiments with 16x9 aspect ratio crop

Chapel

2012-01-16T08:27:00.001Z

There's a Victorian chapel next to the road near us, an unassuming and humble thing. It is now used by a local amateur dramatic company.

Approaching it from an unexpected direction yesterday I caught its tiny bell tower between the trees in this shot.

It contrasts starkly with the white modernist church next door complete with solar panels...

Patriotic Parking

2012-01-15T08:44:00.005Z

Well, if you are going to park on the Village Green, it's best to park patriotically...

The Bonfire

2012-01-14T09:52:00.003Z

Down the end of the lane is the Farm Bonfire. When the pile of hedge cuttings and tree stumps is large enough, it gets burned.

When I see this I reach for the camera for the backlit smoke brings the ivy covered tree into sharp relief.

I really want a farm worker leaning on a rake in the shot as well, but that will have to be another day...

Thatch

2012-01-13T08:57:00.002Z

A lull in the weather, and the Thatchers are in the village working on a cottage.

Did you know that thatch is not often fully replaced? If possible, the rotten thatch is removed, but the layer underneath is retained and new thatch is added. In this way the roof can slowly grow over decades.

It's good to see that old crafts still survive.

First Light

2012-01-11T08:32:00.002Z

First movement, first breeze,

Silent sky: Empty trees

The first bird, the first flight

First cloud, first light.

Fallen

2012-01-09T08:45:00.004Z

The Winter gales proved too much for this monster. Fortunately it fell in the paddock and missed the resident horse.

It seems to me that tree roots are clearly not big enough. When they fall over like this, they reveal just how puny the root system is compered to the height of the tree. Someone should explain basic mechanics to them.

Fractal Tree

2012-01-08T12:47:00.001Z

I know that trees can look great in Autumn, but I think you only get to see trees properly in the depth of Winter. It is only then, stripped of foliage, that they reveal their true shapes.

How do they manage to look so random yet so regular? Each tree seems similar but they are all individual.

This example has clearly been experimenting with fractal mathematics...

I shall call it Julia.

Looking back

2012-01-07T17:29:00.001Z

Well: 2012. Who would have thought it. Another year over and what have I acheived? I remember thinking this a whole year ago, and the year before that. Time marches on, the seasons come by so fast, it fair makes you dizzy.

Oh dear, look at me now. Overweight, starting to turn grey and full of regrets about all those things I'lll never manage now.

I do what I'm told, I try to be useful, but I still reckon that horse gets more attention than me.

Maybe things will be different next year.

Hoarse

2012-01-06T08:41:00.003Z

One of the stable residents, caught in contemplative mood at lunchtime yesterday.

I am told you tame a horse by convincing it of one big lie: That humans are stronger than horses.

If only they knew.

Here's a different treatment of the same subject. Contre Jour lighting. Monochrome conversion with hard contrast. Narrow depth of field. All the usual tricks....

Dimensional

2012-01-05T08:21:00.000Z

Looking rather like some stainless steel nightmare, this weird portal into another dimension is in fact completely flat.

It's also rather small.

MoonRook

2012-01-04T08:28:00.001Z

Winchester Cathedral rises triumphant into the January afternoon sunlight, freshly scrubbed and cleaned*

I needed to wander around like a nutcase until I managed to juxtapose the Moon, the Rook and the West Face correctly. Wandering around like a nutcase should come naturally to a photographer.

*The Cathedral, not the sunlight...

American Acre

2012-01-03T08:27:00.003Z

We gave an acre of England away to America in the sixties.

It's here at Runnymede near the M25 and is home to the John F Kennedy memorial, so when you walk up the hill, you are in fact on American soil.

Strange, yes?

Free Pew

2012-01-02T09:13:00.001Z

Not an unoccupied pew, but one you don't have to pay for.

Right at the back of our 16th century church with it's Victorian woodwork are a pair of free pews. These date from the time that the local worthies would subscribe to the renovation of the church, and pews were set aside for them as a result. The churchwardens arranged for some pews to be available for the poor of the parish as an act of charity.

The pews are, however, right at the back of the church, in a corner. Not quite so charitable after all?

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T08:44:00.000Z

Twenty Twelve already! It only seems a moment ago we were all agonising about the new millenium.

How time flies.

Will this year be different to all the others? Only you can say.

The Golden Hours

2011-12-31T09:21:00.004Z

"The Golden Hours are slipping away" Thus spake my ONC Electrical Engineering lecturer in the last weeks before the summer exams, way back in 1970.

Thanks mate. No pressure then....

So, the final day of 2011 is slipping away. Your last chance to make your mark on the year.

Dusk: Not so much a golden hour, more like a golden fifteen minutes. Once it's gone, it's gone

So, to get your excellent dusk image (or your amazing sunrise shot) you need to think, plan and act fast...

Mixed Message

2011-12-30T08:31:00.000Z

I wonder what this picture says to you? A Garden of Remembrance somewhere. A much missed friend or partner?

It all depends on the context.

No, this isn't in the corner of a cemetery. It's just a small plaque at the entrance to the village car park. If people find lost items on the ground round here, they leave them where you might see it, next time you are passing.

That's something to remember...

Balancing Act

2011-12-29T07:59:00.001Z

Here's a balancing act: It's an example of balancing light.

Usually we speak of balancing the photo flash power with the ambient of background light, so that the picture looks natural.

However, here we have a different task. We are balancing the artificial lighting with the dusk colours in the sky.

Fortunately this is a simpler task, it doesn't involve Guide Numbers or wireless triggers, it is judged by eye and adjusted by time. Simply wait until the fading dusk matches the floodlights perfectly, then take the shot...

The cresent moon is a nice bonus BTW.

Huf and Puff

2011-12-28T08:48:00.002Z

Depressingly stylish, efficient and well made: The German Huf Haus. Pah! Germans! Do they do everything well?

On second thoughts, don't answer that...

Recovering

2011-12-27T09:15:00.002Z

The road to normality beckons, Christmas is over for another year, and I am back at work tomorrow. So, here's a parting shot or two at the festivities.

and...

My newly acquired electronic viewfinder has transformed the Olympus Pen camera, and makes it a great deal more useable.

In fact the Pen conspires with my fabulous Zuiko 50mm macro to get astonishingly sharp shots. The ZD 50 lens was never fast at autofocus, and on the Pen it is terribly slow, so the answer is to treat it as a manual focus lens and it works just fine...

Honesty

2011-12-26T00:13:00.000Z

Continuing my Presteigne theme today, here is the Kings Head Book Shop. This is an object lesson in trust. there's on-one there. The door is open, the lights are on. It's full of old books.

It's an Honesty Shop, you see. They trust you to take your money to the shop down the road and pay them. Houghton Lodge also operated an Honesty Parking and shop policy when we last visited the place.

Honesty and trust. Perhaps that's a lesson for us all this Christmas.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-25T01:13:00.004Z

I wish all my readers a happy and peaceful Christmas, and offer my humble apologies for all the rubbish you have read on these pages this last year...

Perhaps next year will be better.

Presteigne Condition

2011-12-24T08:52:00.000Z

Here is Presteigne, mid Wales. A splendid small border town stuck in the 1960s, and it is still just how country towns used to be. We've been here before and I am much impressed with the place.

Here's the narrow High Street on a rainy day. Here you find Anne's Fruit and Veg shop, a mini supermarket, a Butcher, the Tourist Information shop and much more. It all on a human scale, the pace of life is slower. Free Parking for 20 minutes, no return within the hour.

Many of the houses are wood and stone construction, and there's lots of little corners to investigate. Even on a rainy day it has a charm of its own.

Worn out by the Christmas Shopping? Escape from the rain and have a leisurely late breakfast in The Coffee House right next to Albert Square while the world goes slowly by...

Shortest Day

2011-12-22T09:14:00.003Z

At last, the days are getting longer (at least in theory). For the first time in years, I was too busy to take a picture on the Shortest Day, so here are some from previous 21st Decembers: Click for larger version.

Ooh, roll on lovely Summer.

Night shift

2011-12-20T08:24:00.004Z

I work in a village that is on top of a hill. As a result we tend to get weather that is different (generally worse) than the surroundings. Yesterday was a case in point: It was dull, foggy and raining most of the day, and so it was no surprise to find the outside world dark, cold, damp and foggy in the evening after work.

Out in the stable yard they were busy on the last jobs of the day, and the single outside light gave the place an atmospheric look.

Keeping horses is a high maintenance pastime. So, if you have a reasonable income and time on your hands*, forget Golf, get a horse. You will find your days are suddenly filled with activity.

*A retired Civil Servant for example...

Victoriana

2011-12-19T08:26:00.000Z

The Victorians have a lot to answer for, especially at Christmas. Take this picture: Many of the elements in this traditional scene, at the back of our church, is Victorian.

The idea of the Christmas tree, and the little tableau below it are Victorian. The romanticised Christmas figures look suspiciously Anglo Saxon, rather than Middle Eastern. This is another Victorian feature.

In the background you can see the floor tiles and the pews they installed, items we will have great trouble removing.

Even our splendid stained glass tells it's stories with a romantic Victorian slant, think Holman Hunt Anglo Saxon look.

This church must have looked like some modernist experiment when all this new stuff was put in, and I suspect it was seen as a great improvement at the time.

Improving your church is a difficult task these days. Removing the Victorian tiles, pews and pipe organ is now close to impossible due to various interested parties.

Veg serenade

2011-12-18T08:36:00.000Z

Is we walked through the Borough Market in Halifax I heard the sound of singing, not something you normally hear there. Usually there is that quiet but determined buzz of trading.

We quickly found the source: Not some canned music event, but real singers (including the Mayor..) apparently serenading the vegetable stand. I regret I didn't have my wide angle lens with me, so this will have to do.

Serenading vegetables, now that's the spirit of Christmas

PS. Mangos, 99p if you are interested ..

Big Sky

2011-12-15T08:40:00.002Z

A biting cold westerly wind greeted me yesterday on by short walk round the village. Westerlies are not generally cold, so there must be something odd going on up there.

Here's a big sky picture aided by my new ultrawide* lens. If you place the horizon at the bottom of the frame, then the view at the top of the frame is almost directly overhead.

I rather like the range of colours in this one. Even at this time of year the Sun can still show the promise of warmth for the months to come.

*If this lens were any wider, there would be a danger of getting your ears in every shot :-)

Tis the season

2011-12-14T08:28:00.003Z

You know Christmas is near when the pub menus have tinsel on them.

Is this really what Christmas is about, I ask myself...

Ominous

2011-12-13T08:47:00.001Z

Low sun and ominous shadows transform the village green well covering into something more akin to an extra terrestrial visitor. Well, that's how it seems to this human being.

Careful use of exposure can bring out powerful silhouette effects in everyday scenes.

End of season

2011-12-12T08:32:00.003Z

At the top of the hill, there's the local cricket club. In the summer you can see folks watching the evening practice sessions as the Sun sinks behind the distant trees with pint in hand. (The people, that is, not the Sun)

The ugly clubhouse has transformed itself into a passable pub and even features live music on occasional evenings.

Come the winter and all outdoor activities cease. The drinkers move indoors to watch the crows on the pitch with pint in hand.

Blank look

2011-12-11T08:22:00.001Z

Have you noticed how shop mannequins are evolving? Darwin would be proud of them. They've clearly discovered they don't need eyes, or even faces any more. All that is required is the ability to stand perfectly still all week long.

Yet no matter how abstract they become we still manage to regard them as human in some way.

We were out shopping. Sitting in the Old Man's chair in the ladies department at Debenhams I was aware of a blank faced presence nearby. I turned and there was this alarming figure scrutinising me.

Speedy sunrise

2011-12-10T08:58:00.001Z

Aaah, the P+S camera. The Point and Shoot camera, that is. Much derided and scorned by real photographers. I keep one in the car. It's an early Olympus fixed lens item, three megapixels, from 2004. It was £120 new but you get them on ebay for ten pounds or less.

However it still takes great pictures, in it's own way. So, driving to a job first thing yesterday I was much impressed by the clear blue sky and the sunrise, so I grabbed a sequence of shots out of the car window. Aperture: f2.8 to f6. Speed, about seventy miles an hour.

P+S. Pick it up. Point it and Shoot.

Simples.

Worm's eye view

2011-12-08T08:34:00.001Z

Out for a walk in the winter sunshine in the village. I came across this rather seemly patch of fungi next to an equally seemly thatched cottage.

Using a combination of ultra wide angle lens, ungainly squatting and holding the camera in the grass, I managed to obtain this worms eye view.

Of course you could also see the world this way if you fell over on the way home from the pub...

Red and Blue

2011-12-07T09:52:00.001Z

Another low sun opportunity: The tiled village church roof contrasts well with bare trees and blue sky.

The pitch of the roof indicates it was probably thatched in years gone by. I doubt the Church of England has many thatched churches these days.

(Thanks to metal prices the C of E has fewer and fewer leaded roofs these days... )

Point of view

2011-12-06T08:36:00.001Z

December, and the sun is as low as it will get. This brings new lighting opportunities, and is the only time of year that the Altar at the old village church has sun.

I tried two attempts at this view, and here's the first, taken through the less than perfect Victorian glass, with the focus on the Altar

I'm not certain all that out of focus lead work is a good thing, so I repeated the shot this way round.

Now the focus shows the imperfections in the class, and seems to shut us out of the church. I suppose with a tripod and the right lens I could have both elements in focus, but life, as always, is a compromise..

Lo Fi Photo

2011-12-05T08:27:00.001Z

Lomo and Holga have a lot to answer for. The low fidelity movement using these two cameras has glamourised bad optics and weird colours in the past few years. I suppose it is a backlash against the digital camera pixel race and the search for the perfect image.

While it's fun to see a blurred and distorted image from time to time, I wouldn't like my camera to produce this sort of result all the time.

So - we can compromise. Here's a modern technology camera (a Pen E-PL3) making nasty pictures. Simply grab an old lens, any sort of lens, and hold it in front of the camera body. Cup your hand to keep stray light out and fiddle about tilting and moving the lens until you see some sort of image.

Well, maybe it does have some sort of arty attraction ...

Click. Instant Lomo!

Uncool coffee

2011-12-04T09:17:00.001Z

A new retail estate has slowly taken shape on our edge of town. You know the sort of thing: A large car park and lots of rectangular industrial units dressed up to look like shops. To start with it was under subscribed and generally poor, bit in recent years it has filled out and become quite popular.

A sure sign of popularity is the arrival of a small Marks and Spencers store and joy of joys, this brought with it a small M+S restaurant. This is a wonderful thing, a place for a cup of tea and a sit down in amongst all the retail madness.

So what is so special about this modern tea shop?

Well. Unlike the Costa coffee place across the car park, this place is deeply uncool. No-one under 35 would dare be seen in there. As a result the service is quick, the queue is short and the list of coffees is not infinite. Just perfect for an old codger. What's betting it goes broke...

String

2011-12-03T09:48:00.001Z

As you all know, Snaar is the Dutch word for string, and so it is only fitting that I pay tribute to this excellent if hairy product. Just think how much of the world is held together with string...

As a lad on the farm I learnt that much of British agriculture is held together with six inch nails and baling twine. Nails are much more effective than screws, they are faster and can be tapped home with a basic hammer or a Stillsons if you have no hammer.

Actually, I grew up believing that the Stillsons pipe wrench was in fact an adjustable spanner, and the eighteen inch Stillsons plus a two pound hammer were the approved tools for removing bolts.

Mr Nasty

2011-12-02T11:15:00.001Z

I don't like this guy.

He claims to be a doorstop, but I have suspicions he roams the house at night looking for trouble.

In his defence, he does live in the conservatory, and he may have been driven mad by the bells...

Last legs

2011-11-30T11:15:00.001Z

Confused by the late and mild Autumn, our giant daisy produced a new flower recently.

What is happening to the seasons? Autumn is the new Spring. Summer is the new monsoon season, and Winter is the New Ice Age.

Just keep hold of this fact, fellow Winter haters: The shortest day is only about 3 weeks away. Excellent!

Shiny thing

2011-11-27T08:57:00.001Z

Here's a rather voluptuous chrome tap, and an exercise in lighting. How do you photograph a shiny thing then? Every surface reflects and, in a way, it has no colour of its own. First we clean the tap and remove every fingerprint. Then we get out the big sheets of white card, and the white shoot through photo umbrella, flash and radio trigger.

After all that effort you might think the result would be perfect, but no. Now I understand why people make their own softboxes for taking pictures of jewellery.

Rather like photographing glass, photographing shiny things seems to be a specialised art. Try again Pete...

Modern Icon

2011-11-26T08:32:00.001Z

It seems to me if you want to illustrate some technology story on television, then you present a tracking shot along the surface of a computer board with some voice over introducing the subject. The viewer gets to see a parade of complicated chip like things with silver legs and some other technical looking items in the background. Everyone is impressed.

The problem with designing electronics is these modern icons fall down immediately. They are showing you some ancient printed circuit board they found lying around. It's very rare I see some pcb on TV that presents brand new technology, because the world of electronics moves on so quickly.

What about this then eh? This is one of my own designs...

Shiny, technical and impressive?

No, I don't think so. This is a design from ten years ago and as such it is hopelessly out of date. Show this to any design engineer and they would be overcome with indifference. The chips are too big, the tracks are too big and those via holes are definitely too big. Where's the dense packaging you see inside any mobile phone?

So let's have some sympathy for the frantic world of this old electronics designer where Everything you know is Wrong...*

*Speaking of which, watch this excellent Youtube thing :-)

Old Icon

2011-11-25T08:18:00.001Z

Now here's a question for you.

Imagine you just wrote a novel about phone tapping and you wanted an image for the cover to illustrate the theme. What might you use? I suggest you might end up with a picture of good old reel to reel tape.

I suppose an image of an audio cassette might work, but old fashioned tape seems to have entered the public consciousness as the tool of choice for evil back room boffins.

The truth is that audio is recorded direct to computer disk or memory chip these days. I imagine a picture of a memory stick hardly says Watergate to the public imagination. This is strange since more and more people have never actually seen an old style recorder.

I have a big box of old reel to reel tapes in the loft together with a 1970s unrepairable Tandberg recorder. All those years ago I would record a new LP directly to tape and then save the LP and play the tape. It was a long and imperfect process.

How times change.

Up to Date

2011-11-24T08:36:00.001Z

Here's an old friend, a design unchanged for centuries. This was from my Father's toolbox, I've had it for almost forty years and I'm sure it was just as old and beaten up when he had it, so it could be sixty or seventy years old.

There is no way you could improve the design. It still does the job it was designed for. There is no reason to upgrade it for a newer model. I can keep it and use it and it will always be there and always work.

Compare this humble tool to Adobe Photoshop. It seems Adobe have run out of essential additions that would tempt you to pay out for a new version. They seem to be moving towards a cloud computing model, where you pay them a subscription for the use of the software. I assume if you stop paying, then the software vanishes, because it was never in your computer really anyway.

How would it be if your woodworking brace vanished because you let your subscription lapse?

About time 2

2011-11-22T08:28:00.001Z

As I've observed before, time is weird. Some things go painfully slowly, each second dragging by at a snail's pace (the dentist's waiting room is one example) while whole decades vanish in a blink (the eighties in my case). How is this possible?

Furthermore, we are not at liberty to travel in time. We are borne along with it as reluctant passangers. The future is completely unknown, the past is a foggy memory and the only time that exists in full reality is the current moment.

I call this the Tyranny of Now. Or is that the name of my new band? Let's wait and see.

About time

2011-11-21T10:17:00.001Z

I'm going slightly stir crazy here, having been stuck indoors for three days after a previously mentioned operation. Quite apart from the limited mobility, the weather has been dismal: Here's the proof: Typical Autumn anticyclonic gloom weather.

These flat featureless skies have a function however. If you really are stuck for something to do, you can use the matt grey sky to test and calibrate your lenses for vignetting :-)

However: Let's consider this. In one month's time it will be the twenty first of December, and after that... the days will be getting longer up here in the nothern hemisphere.

About time too.

Untitled Abstract

2011-11-20T12:22:00.001Z

What could be less appealing than an untitled picture, and an abstract one at that. No, it's a bad idea. My advice is this: Never call your picture Untitled.

You would be better served calling it Albert.

So: Here is Albert, an enigmatic study in contrast and form.

Bleak

2011-11-19T08:46:00.001Z

Here's a bleak and cold view of the world. I took this one lunchtime last week, the day before I went into hospital for an operation. Black humour? Maybe.

However, speaking as an engineer, there is something rather frighting about general anaesthetic. The idea is that you shut a person down to the point they can't feel pain or be aware of their surroundings. They can still breathe, but otherwise they are out of it. Yet you can bring them back with all their faculties and memories intact. Scary or what...

So let's hear it for the medical profession. I thought designing computers was scary, but doing a power down restart on a person is serious stuff.

Alarming

2011-11-18T11:09:00.001Z

There isn't much I can add to this rather alarming stained glass window except the basic facts:

The artist is Mark Angus and you find this in St John the Baptist, Frome.

This certainly deserves a Weird tag, I think :-)

Lovely

2011-11-17T08:15:00.001Z

Today I return to the Tea Shop. Actually, returning to Tea Shops is a favourite pastime for me. I'm certain we could cure all of the world's ills if only there were enough tea shops.

Here we are in Bath, quite near Bath Abbey.

And this image has the full treatment to give a nostalgic look. It was converted to monochrome, with selective focus and vignetting applied, then sepia tinting. Lovely.

Lunch box

2011-11-16T08:40:00.001Z

Not available at Subway, lunch for the average stable horse. A nice exercise in browns and blacks delivered by the venerable E-1 camera.

PS. Beware the unstable horse.

Mist or Fog

2011-11-15T08:28:00.001Z

Artists will tell you that when the leaves drop, you are left with the true shape of the trees. Artists may also mention that it's a right pain trying to paint hundreds of twigs. It takes a real craftsman to paint a convincing winter tree. This is when you wish you had taken the impressionist route in your artistic career..

Anyway, it's a lot easier for us photographers, we just have to choose the right moment to portray the tree. Mist is your friend with trees, it adds depth to the view and places all those twigs against a plain background. In this case the misty start seemed to last all day.

By the way: My definition is this: If it is still misty at lunchtime (as below) then it isn't mist, its fog...

Ginkgo

2011-11-14T07:55:00.001Z

I spotted this Ginkgo tree during our wanderings aroung the Bishop's Palace on a recent visit to Wells recently.

The Ginkgo is an odd ball, unlike any other tree and regarded as a living fossil. As you see, the leaf shape is quite unusual and rather distinctive.

Keep an eye out for them: Strike up a conversation, ask them what the old days were like..

Culture clash

2011-11-13T08:22:00.001Z

Here we are at the Saturday market in Wells, Somerset. Stealing the limelight are a pair of American indians, with their feather head dresses and ethnic clothing. East meets west, except in this case, Britain is East.

What is odd is they are playing these Andean pan pipes over a synth and drum backing track and they are selling CDs in the usual manner. They sound quite a lot your usual high street Peruvian pan pipe band, and I thought they were of Inca origin.

So are they North or South American? Answers on a postcard please.

Time's Vortex

2011-11-09T08:21:00.002Z

Another Autumn, with Winter fast approaching. Funny, it only seems ten minutes ago that it was Spring. Who knows where the time goes, to quote the song.

In fact I clearly remember the year 1970 arriving, heralding the end of the sixties. Aah. Little did we realise we were commencing the Decade that Style Forgot.

So. Time is of the essence. Make yourself useful. Go out and pick up some leaves.

Old Roll

2011-11-08T08:31:00.004Z

The village football pitch and play ground is unused. It's not because it's Winter. It remains unused almost all year round.

I have walked past it a couple of times a week through the past two years and almost never seen anyone there.

Meanwhile it gets mowed and cared for continuously. It must be the most mowed and least used patch of grass in the kingdom.

Pointed Out

2011-11-07T08:25:00.000Z

If it hadn't been pointed out like this, I would never have seen this forbidden brass. Now I want to rub it...

Woodpile

2011-11-06T08:30:00.004Z

A mean moody monochrome for you this morning. In fact it's a mean and moody morning anyway, very November.

Is the monochrome conversion and the sepia tint an admission that the picture wasn't good enough in it's original colours? Quite probably.

This does bring to light the way things have changed. Years ago you would have to decide in advance that today was a monochrome day, and loaded the camera with black and white film.

Perhaps you had two cameras, one of colour, one for monochrome.

These days we take all pictures in colour and change them in the computer if we wish. If there is any monochrome commitment, then it is the decision to fill your inkjet with a selection of black inks to get that ultimate monochrome print.

Late shift

2011-11-05T08:29:00.003Z

It is the end of another day. A horse observes the two geese and the gathering gloom. Meanwhile a stable is cleaned out once again, the door to the Tack Room is open. All of this is reflected in the huge puddle that today's rain left in the stable yard.

There. One picture is worth fifty words. If a picture should be worth a thousand words, then I clearly need to take more complex pictures.

Long shadows

2011-11-04T08:35:00.003Z

I feel there is very little to recommend the Winter months. O, dark dull dreary dismal depressing December... However, the low angle of the Sun, when it appears, produces these lovely long shadows and gives shape to the landscape.

Here are some Long Shadows enhanced by a fresh fall of leaves and a wide angle lens.

Photographers trick:

If you are going to shoot straight into the sun, then place it behind a branch or tree trunk. This helps sort out the light metering, and gives the lens an easier time. Although Zuiko zooms are quite good at resisting flare, there's more glass in there than a public bar, and we shouldn't push our luck, eh?

New Glass

2011-11-03T08:30:00.002Z

Here's to the new lens. It is an ultra wide 9-18mm zoom: Great for building interiors, wide skies, landscapes and... macros?

OK. It isn't the right lens for this but that mad ultrawide perspective combined with a close focus distance of an inch or two means you can create pictures like this one...

Not mushroom for a game of football with a fungi like this.

HB2U

2011-11-02T07:37:00.001Z

Happy Birthday dear Blog.....

Imagine! A whole year of contributions, some 348 in total. One whole year of inane and inaccurate information to illuminate the illiterate. A year's worth of interlinked weird and wonderful work, but most of all a year's worth of pictures.

Aah, Pictures. It turns out there are in excess of 850 pictures in the blog so far, taken over a period of forty years.

My thanks to all my readers, I hope it's been a fun ride so far :-)

And the story continues...

Wider

2011-11-01T07:52:00.000Z

Goodbye old friend.

I sold my 11-22mm wide zoom yesterday, which has been providing my big perspective pictures for three years. Here's a parting shot: The leaves on the footpath past the churchyard.

Fear not. There is now the madder, wider 9-18mm ultrawide zoom in the camera bag. Let's see what that lens can encompass...

Falling

2011-10-31T07:51:00.000Z

Sometimes the subject dictates the technique, and here's an example. I spotted a single leaf caught in a web across the greenhouse door, and I immediately saw an unusual photo opportunity.

I need to get in close to isolate the leaf from the background so it is the sole item of interest in the frame, so this requires my trusty Zuiko 50mm macro lens. Next I need to light it properly as the daylight is fading and the leaf is spinning to and fro in the wind. I press my old Sunpak off camera flash into service with the cheap ebay wireless trigger, and opt for manual flash mode at 1/16th power. The flash will have a consistent output despite the confusing dark background and the short flash duration will freeze the leaf's motion.

The scale on the flash says I need f11 for 3 feet, so I decide on a shutter speed of 1/160th which will mute the background but still retain some detail.

Now it is just a matter of repeating the shot until I have the leaf in a good position and in focus.

Finally I did some post processing in Photoshop to remove the hints of cobweb so the leaf appears to hang in mid air.

More Stuff

2011-10-30T11:37:00.002Z

Our local town just opened a new shopping centre. This has been planned, re-planned, resisted and modified since 1961. Well, finally it is open.

There's lots of lovely shops full of lots of lovely stuff that we have to go and buy. We must buy stuff or else jobs will be lost. It doesn't matter if the old stuff hasn't worn out yet. What you need is new stuff.

In fact we need to buy more stuff this year than we did last year so that the economy can grow.

Without growth the financial system falls apart, apparently. Your pitiful pension is caused by low share values and that, my friend, is your own fault because you didn't buy lots of stuff.

Ever wondered what the point of all this is?

Colour contrast

2011-10-29T10:15:00.002+01:00

Sometimes you can give a picture impact by placing a light subject against a dark background. In fact, using contrasting brightness is a typical artist's trick.

Here however I am using contrasting colours to draw the eye.

By comparison, let's try that same image in monochrome:

These splendid Autumnal leaves seemed to stand out agains the rare but welcome blue sky, and careful positioning means the picture contains just enough and no more.