It's definitely autumn.....

Dodging the showers this afternoon I got my tripod and took some long exposures (up to two seconds) of moving leaves in the squally winds.
For a short while I became lost in what I was doing and forgot my aching feet and knees.
The colours are particularly startling this autumn - I think that is something to do with the recent warm spell which allows trees to convert and reabsorb a lot of the green pigment (leaving behind the reds and yellows) in their leaves before they fall off. Whatever the biochemistry - the results are an extraordinary range of warm hues that lift my spirits.

Calanais

From some fathomless place in a yawning sky
the lark falls soft, loft on salty breath
(its song-of-place a sharp decline)
to be an unkempt bundle,
post-bound & mundane.

Purpose runs deep
in the bird
in the land
in the standing stones,
old as any named for their place.

here on an edge,
the stones’ cipher, cracked by birdsong,
unbroken remains.

portrait

to embiggen the photo click here

the WI

we went to Leek Show on Saturday and visited the Women's Institute tent, mainly to see if there were any cake samples - sadly, all that was left were a few crumbs. However we arrived in time to see the prize-giving, and this group of women, who were from Bradnop (where?), seemed well pleased to get a good many prizes. Most of the prizes were for curiously obscure achievements, one category of which looked like an oversized dolls house packed with vegetables, cakes, savouries and oddments from someones loft, all colour co-ordinated.

I'm strangely fascinated by the WI - someone I respect greatly is a member and I love to hear her talk about her branch and its doings. I'm not alone in this - there are endless TV programmes at the moment about the institute, and the press regularly runs stories about it and then of course there was that calender and a consequent film.

What do you think? Are you a member? If you want to join (and you are a woman) go here... - how helpful is that?

atypical rides again...

Pen and I have sorted out, spruced-up and re-launched our photoblog atypical...

We've chucked a load of pictures in the skip, changed the layout and chosen a new colour scheme - but most important, we've added a load of new pictures... and we will add a lot more over the next few days... and then we will keep the site up-to-date with regular new posts.

You can copy pics from the site for personal use - but please ask before you use any image commercially, or to promote a product or an idea - see details of our Creative Commons license on the site.
<<< pan people puzzle - Stoke PAN is a purchasing co-op committed to sustainability of food supplies and the environment. They had an event for members in spring 2007 and used an innovative consultation tool based on a jigsaw to put across their views...this picture won the Higher Education Academy SWAP photo competition.
click pic to see a larger version

always change...

I'm delighted to say that the brown-outs (see below) have retreated. They were replaced for a few days by inflammation, stiffness and pain, and then blessing of blessings, three days of near normality which coincided with a trip to Suffolk to see my Mum. And whilst I was there, the enjoyable, nerve-rack of a joint radio interview with ace mind-bloggler Klahanie**.

It would be good to be able to say that it was wonderful to see my Mum - but we are not close, and time has widened rather than narrowed the gap between us. She is now 86, and I'd like to think that something could happen that would bring us closer again - but that kind of thing only happens in novels.
When I was young she seemed warm and affectionate, but when she met a new partner following the death of my Dad, she became increasingly detached from my sister and I.
I sometimes get the feeling that she resents me moving so far away from the east coast, but there were always very good reasons to be elsewhere - to be further north and west where both the people and the countryside are more friendly and comfortable.

For lots of reasons (mostly to do with being brought-up there) I have never much liked East Anglia - it's flat, and the light is cold and glaring - well, to my eyes. But Pen and I had a great day out in Orford and Aldeburgh - a boat trip, ice-cream, cake, fantastic fish and chips, a paddle and a walk - since the onset of RA, a proper walk has become a rare treat.
We took hundreds of photos - including a couple that I think are amongst my best yet. Pen made a wonderful video starring that perennial heart-throb, the sea.
I'll do a gallery of Suffolk coast images very soon - but left is a taster - taken in Aldeburgh, at the origin of the remarkable spit of shingle that is Orford Ness. (click to see a bigger pic).





We had a nasty journey back - long, tiring, queue-ridden and hassled by faster vehicles. But when we got home - a really good surprise - a letter telling me I have won first prize in a photo competition organised by the Higher Education Academy. And then, while looking in a magazine published by English Heritage, Pen noticed another two of my pictures - they'd asked ages ago if they could use them - I thought they'd forgotten.
Less good was opening my payslip - sick pay has stopped this month - from this point on I'm unwaged and effectively jobless. If I could cross my fingers, I would that work's sickness insurance will pay-up - it's not a lot of money but it would really help.
Perhaps you'd be good enough to cross your fingers for me?


It was four years ago today that Sara died - in part a victim of ill-funded and ill-founded mental health services, her last few years were troubled and anxious. Those who knew her, will remember her caring ways, a clever mind and an uproarious sense of humour. She is most greatly missed by our sons Phil and Rich who lost the best Mum either of them could have had.






** - you can hear the interview about mind-bloggling, along with a chunk of Radioman's podcast about Sanity Fair, on Radio 5 live on Tuesday 31st July at around 2-o-clock in the morning or on the BBC's listen-again facility


BTW - If you have been - you can un-cross your fingers now - Thanks

apologies...

...no posts recently, but more importantly, no time to look at other people's blogs and leave comments - sorry.

Life has been so busy - either busy re-organising for life after retirement, or busy being ill (thanks Klahanie for recognising that - it was good to see you today).

In all of this I'm remarkably cheerful - in the past I would have been very anxious about the future - and all but paralysed by that anxiety. But these days I seem to be able to be more philosophical.

I'm very occupied at the mo' with developing ideas for work around photography and mental health - in particular working with people who have enduring mental health problems. And I'm trying to link this with a programme of study/research at Staffs University - I'm doing a short course about community arts there at the moment and really enjoying it - I'd forgotten how much I enjoy academic work. It feels odd to be a student again, but not unpleasant...

Anyway - I will be looking at other people's blogs very soon...

pj and peggy...

PJ Wright sliding on a resonator, with Dave Pegg, in Leek, on Wednesday night.
PJ is a fine guitarist, vocalist and writer - his latest solo album "Hedge of Sound" is rattling the cones in my house a lot at the mo' - you could do worse than get yourself a copy.
I managed to get a few shots - including this one (left) which I like a lot - about half the audience seemed to be taking pictures.
Sadly I had to leave at half time because of a minor-ish family crisis, and didn't get to chat to PJ and thank him for using one of my images on PJ & Peggy's latest CD - so - Thanks PJ, long may you prosper, and may the licks always come nice and easy...


click the pic to embiggen it - snapped with a D80/Nikkor 70-300 @ 300mm, ISO3200, handheld.

Tuesday was a good day ...

- new opportunities, friends, laughs, discussion, great pictures, useful work, and partnership


image by tone using a nikon D80, sigma 50mm macro, ring flash and a little post-processing with photoshop
click for a larger pic

going west...

... it was rather windy in Wales last Monday (that's why I'm squinting)

another beard sculpture by blueshawk beardology, picture by Pen

I give you.......

the HandleBar Beard.


You've seen the handlebar moustache and the ZZ Top beard.

Marvel now at the wonders of the HandleBar beard - a true marvellous wonder, and a veritable wonderful marvel.
I give you the future of beardology.





#3 in a series of beard sculptures

let them eat cake...

...on Saturday we went to that most civilised of events, a cake party.
It was in honour of Janet's birthday, and there were some friendly and interesting people there and a little alcohol for people for whom cake is not enough. There was tea. And there was CAKE, prodigious quantities of it, the vast majority of which was prepared and baked by Janet's own talented hands.
I ate quite a lot of cake, but (and I say this with a tear in my eye and sadness in my heart) I didn't have the capacity to try all the varieties - in particular I didn't try a reportedly very fine Victoria sponge. A younger me would have done better - it is one of the sadder truths of ageing, that one's capacity for cake consumption is greatly diminished - ho-hum.



If you are thinking of holding a cake party, please don't forget to invite me - I like cake, honest...



PS we brought some home with us - I've just had a piece of brownie - mmm-mmm

click the pic to see bigger cakes

found sculpture - beard 2

I had such a positive response to the last picture of my facial quiff that I thought I would, on an occasional basis, share with you what I see when look in the mirror first thing. I will not visit the rest of my face upon you - it is simply too disarranged first thing in the morning.
This morning's effort is a particularly fine example of the genre, which has form reminiscent of early Henry Moore or even Babara Hepworth. I did consider posting the picture the other way up - that's the problem with modern art, you can never tell which way up it is supposed to be.

list of the month...birds

better late than later...
- this month its "birdies seen around your house in the last month"

1. herring gull
2. blackbird (male and female)
3. blackcap (overwintering female)
4. goldfinch
5. blue tit
6. coal tit
7. great tit
8. long-tailed tit
9. greenfinch
10. wren
11. starling
12. songthrush
13. robin (who was bob-bob-bobbin' along)
14. magpie
15. rook
16. wood pigeon
17. feral pigeon
18. house (possibly tree) sparrow
19. collared dove
20. mottled chickadiddle

...not bad for a suburb eh? When we first moved here ten years ago the estate was 18 months old and we didn't see a bird from one day to the next - now you can hardly move for avians.
I got some new binoculars the other day - I don't suppose they'll help me see more birds, but I will be able to see them better - did you know for instance that goldfinches have a pillar-box red head?
What have you seen recently around your house?

the picture shows snow falling around a feeding starling in our garden - click pic to enlarge

Note - the mottled chickadiddle doesn't really exist - I just wanted 20 birds in the list

photographic revival...

update 23:35 - since writing this post I've heard that I have won three of the ten prizes in urbanvisions brilliant buildings photo competition and Pen has won one as well! We had no expectation of winning, particularly on that scale. You can see the winning pictures here...and there is an exhibition of all the entries, including of course the other winners (to whom my congratulations), at Ceramica in Burslem. Sentinel story here...

original post
...over the last few months I've started to take more photographs - I pretty much stopped last autumn when I became really ill - I didn't have the energy, flexibility or enthusiasm - fortunately enthusiasm has returned, although flexibilty and energy are sometimes still in short supply.

This weekend we went away for a couple of days to a campsite on the banks of the Dee, looking across to the coast of north Wales - the location was truly stunning.

Both Pen and I became entirely lost in photography several times over the weekend - I love that state of "involvement", when I become perfectly focussed (excuse the pun) on getting good pictures - all troubles evaporate.


On Sunday we went into Liverpool and we took more images - the city was very quiet, it being one of the very few days in the year when the shops were closed - and this image was one of the results >>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Along with the revival in image-making we have revived our main photoblog http://blueshawk.info/texasflood/ and we aim to post a new image there every few days - I hope you will visit regularly...

summat fer nowt?

Pictured to the right is everything you need to set up a darkroom - and in this case, what makes those items remarkable is that they were all given to us recently through a web-based movement called Freecycle.
Freecycle matches up people who want to get rid of something, with people who want that thing. In this case we asked if anyone had a developing tank, as we had a hankering to develop our own black and white film - b and w processing has become expensive difficult to come by over the last few years.
Well - we got our developing tank but we also got everything else needed to develop film and make black and white prints - kit worth well over a hundred pounds if bought new, and most of it was either new or nearly new! Thank you Sophie.

Strangely we had been encouraged to start taking 35mm film photos as a result of taking digital pics - Sophie had stopped using film because she had made the change to digital photography.

And lest you think this is all a bit one sided and unfair - we offered three bikes a couple of months ago (one of them a posh Swinnerton 531 framed racer which I made some years back) - they all needed a bit of attention, but they suited a practical chap, who was delighted to have them.
Give it a go it - you may well get your hearts desire, you will be able to give unwanted things to good homes, and you will help preserve our poor creaking planet....

christmas revisited...

What with opening so many exciting little parcels - it's been a bit like Christmas just recently.
First there was my own replacement camera (see below). And then, I went into MAGMH on Friday there were three digi-cams there - along with a load of accessories. I've brought the new MAGMH cameras home with me so that I can test and set them up ready for Tuesday's mind-bloggling session, when I'll be showing mind-blogglers how to take pics and add them to their blogs... I'm really looking forward to it - it'll be great to meet in person some of the bloggers I have reading so avidly...

from the sofa of Jones the snotty

....got a norrible cold (sniff) which has set off my RA - so I'm a bit stranded in the cockpit- see pic left - missed lots of things I planned to do this week.

Talking of pics - a vivid illustration that some clouds have silver linings...
I lent my lovely baby digi-cam (a Canon IXUS 40) to Cath 'cos she was going to Finland on business (I have such globe-trotty mates), and although she packed it carefully in the middle of her suitcase, it got broken on the journey back. Bugger! we thought - but she claimed on insurance, and I now have a replacement - a Canon IXUS 800 IS. And because prices have fallen and technology has advanced a lot recently, it is much more super-wizzy than the old one -and if you show the slightest interest I'll bore you with just how much wizzier it is than the old one.




You know what your hair is like when you've just crawled out of bed? - well I get that with my beard - attractive and a little raffish eh?- see pic right

frogsporn

... I suppose I might come to regret that title - but probably not as much as some who arrive here via a google search.

There were around twenty frogs in our pond this afternoon - soon you won't be able to see the surface for spawn.

Frogs have actually been active since the 21st Feb, and spawn appeared first on the 26th - significantly earlier than in the last four years. Also out and about in today's sun, a peacock butterfly...

click for a big pic - taken in our garden this morning

list of the month...

...this month - at the end of grey, dank windy winter - a look back at memorable holidays and a chance to look forward to more eye-opening, beautiful breaks...

photo - the beach at Essaouira, Morocco - click for big pic