Looking at – and seeing – the world
December 26, 2019 13 Comments
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Another image from this lunch, and more context, can be found here.
Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 10 Dec 2019.
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December 17, 2019 15 Comments
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Sitting in a local pub, awaiting their Festive Meal, which is more or less a complete Christmas dinner, but served up for many weeks before The Great Consumer Festival itself magically dawns. The food is really quite good, and inexpensive too >>> and this Meal was my second act of devotion (nay, of downright enthusiasm!) at this particularly festive culinary shrine, and my wife’s third.
While waiting for food to arrive, I got the TG-5 out and started looking at things. For human interest, there was the genial soul at the bar, downing pints of cider like there was no tomorrow and, to the evident alarm of the barmaids, revealing that he’d just been thrown out of the pub next door for threatening to burn it down. But I was looking for a still life – or at least a stiller and less incendiary life – and so to my wife’s glass of wine.
The subject itself is obvious, while the curving, tilting, patterned surface behind is the table top, catching the light. Something of a Minimalist image really, I suppose, but if you turn your screen upside down (or stand on your head, if that’s what gets to you) and carefully look at the glass, you will see the reflection within of an elderly drinker (yes … that’s right … someone just a bit younger than me …), sitting near us, downing a beer. Ah, that Old Consumer Magic … already here …
Click onto the image twice to see an enlarged version.
Technique: TG-5 at 80mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the B&W 03 profile; south Bristol; 10 Dec 2019.
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December 8, 2019 10 Comments
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Sitting in Browns restaurant, waiting for a breakfast – a second breakfast as it happens – to arrive. I’ve often visited this rather up market venue after hours of early morning photography on Bristol’s streets; its a wonderfully quiet place to relax – and the almost ritualistic presentation of the Full English Breakfast is a minor delight – you can see what I mean here.
But whereas Browns used to have beautiful yellow chairs that caught the sidelight pouring in through the large windows, these are now gone and – in the interval between ordering the meal and receiving it – the place is not so photographically rewarding as it once was – for example here .
But, still, there was a dull red bottle top sitting on the window sill across from my table, and the perforated top of a radiator below it, all with shadows and backlighting courtesy of the light from the large windows.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 200mm; 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Pop profile; Browns Restaurant, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.
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November 29, 2019 17 Comments
Local theatre
(best viewed enlarged – click onto it twice)
Weston-super-Mare, my home town, on the coast where the Somerset Levels run down into the Bristol Channel – the local, somewhat muddy, version of the sea. Following a recent reunion with age-old friends there (here), I’ve been visiting Weston again, and walking streets echoing with things remembered – sometimes only half-remembered – from over half a century ago.
Weston is a seaside town and, like seaside towns the UK over, it is experiencing something of an economic downturn – the era of the family seaside holiday in uncertain British weather is long past, due to cheap holidays in warmer and far more reliable, foreign climes. So, there is to Weston something of the cheap and cheerful, a – to me, anyway – rather attractive tattiness at the edges, that makes walking here with a camera a pleasure – a definite feeling of not knowing what will appear next. The Ghost of FATman Past perhaps? Well, if he gives me half a chance, I’ll photograph him …
And so in Nov 2019 to pictures taken with an open mind – pictures which are, for better or for worse, in the main quite different from the preceding 400+ that I’ve posted of the Somerset Levels. Some of them may be a little obscure / far out / radical / unexplained / I don’t know… but I did mention photographing with an open mind, which means looking, on the spur of the moment, at anything and everything … But, whatever, warts and all, I hope you’ll like (at least some of) these images. (Click onto them to enlarge them)
Earlier posts in this series are here: 1 .
A short history of Weston is here.
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Wet morning
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Public seating
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Empty café
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September 29, 2019 17 Comments
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Life moves on. As Dylan Thomas so wonderfully put it, in Under Milk Wood, “Time passes. Listen. Time passes.”
And so to an Italian restaurant in a reasonably run down, seaside town, and five people around a table – already hitting the electric sauce, if only moderately, and good naturedly corralling a waiter into taking a snap of the occasion. He was somewhat disconcerted by “Focus on the wine bottle!”. While after “Squeeze yourself right back into that corner to get us all in!”, it had to be explained that we were not in fact all planning to try and get in the corner with him. Ah, the youth of today … But, anyway, here is the result.
So just who are these smiling worthies? Well, as a landmark, something to navigate by when in distress on the sea, the lolling lout front right (magnified by proximity to the TG-5’s wide angle lens I might add) is me >>> does my tum look big in this???
Then the two women are the partners of the two blokes opposite me.
But the two blokes opposite me are the thing really, because we three were in the same school in the 1960s. I’ve been friends with one nearest the camera for 60 years at least, we were in adjacent primary schools. And the other is one of the two luminaries responsible for getting me into birdwatching in 1967, an interest that was to later take me to Kenya for 12 wonderful years – an experience from which, thank goodness, I’ve never quite recovered.
And although three of us live locally, the other very special thing about this occasion is that the other couple live on the other side of the world, so that we see them only very occasionally.
And so here we three are, back in our home town as it happens, and not a stone’s throw from the primary schools where two of us started out. And we are all stunned by the fact that, having known each other since our childhoods, we are now all approaching our 70th birthdays.
“Time passes. Listen. Time passes.”
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September 22, 2019 10 Comments
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Out for lunch, and lunch taking awhile to appear. Well, it was a Monday, the school holidays are over, and maybe the restaurant hadn’t expected such a tide of (mostly) oldies. Anyway, the TG-5 camera was in my pocket, as it often is, and so to looking around at the things on the table in front of me. When you’re into photography, there’s always something to look at …
But when it eventually appeared, the large mixed grill couldn’t be faulted – a carnivore’s dream, accompanied by tomato, onion rings, mushroom and (an inexhaustible supply of) chips, and probably with more than a whole day’s quota of calories. In fact it was almost more than I could eat; must be getting old …
And, as always, the Olympus TOUGH TG-5 camera was wonderfully compact, and very capable and adaptable. I used spot metering; and also the Microscope Mode, which enables extreme close up shots with illumination from the camera; 1600 ISO; processing in Lightroom. Each picture can be enlarged by clicking onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and clicking onto that image to further enlarge it.
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3 >>> COMPETITION!!! BIG PRIZES!!! QUESTION: WHAT DOES THIS ARTWORK SHOW??? >>> First prize: a night out in the Outer Suburbs with The FATman!!! Second prize: two nights out in Outer Suburbs with The FATman!!!!!! And furthermore, really entering into the spirit of the thing, The FATman will on this occasion lower his usual standards and dress code so that black tie will NOT be de rigueur!
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September 1, 2019 28 Comments
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1 – The view eastwards along the North Drain from the Jack’s Drove bridge on Tealham Moor; 17 Sept 2010. Early morning mists are starting to be dissolved by the rising sun, just after 7am. I walked on up Jack’s Drove to the low bridge, which is a favourite place of mine – and this scene was unfolding to the east. Canon G11 Powershot; 140mm; Silver Efex Pro.
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2 – The Chapter House Steps in Wells Cathedral, Somerset; 7 Jan 2005. Near the top right of this photo, the steps can be seen turning right into the Chapter House. Straight ahead, through the illuminated doorway, is the bridge that allowed the clergy to come directly into the cathedral from their lodgings, rather than having to be exposed to worldly temptations by mixing with the townspeople. Olympus OM-4; 21mm; Agfa Scala monochrome slide film, rated at 400 ISO.
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3 – Meadow at Allermoor Farm, on Aller Moor, south of Wedmore; 24 May 2009. The meadow itself is a pale, yellow-green haze – a friend said that she could almost smell the air scented by the thousands of blossoms. The sunlit branches of the tree, just starting to come into leaf, seem to be reaching out over all of this late spring colour. Nikon D700; 300mm; 400 ISO.
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4 – A busy morning in the kitchen at Sweets Tea Rooms, on the Blakeway between Bleak Farm and Turnpike House, on Westhay Moor; 25 July 2009. Note the still warm rock cakes on the tray- absolutely delicious! There are three tearooms in this area and this is the one I know best – friendly owners, excellent, simple food and drink, toilets, parking – and an intriguing Peat & Science Museum in the adjoining building. Nikon D700; 24mm; 1600 ISO.
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5 – Irate bull, Westhay Moor Drove, northwest of Lower Godney, in the Brue Valley; 28 Oct 2009. This bull was in a field along Westhay Moor Drove and, as I walked along the drove towards it, I could see at once that he resented my presence. As a first show of strength, he did what I’ve seen large animals like Eland and Buffalo do many times in Kenya – he turned sideways on to show me just how big he was. He didn’t have any trouble impressing me. His hind quarters were lean and strong, in the peak of physical condition and, if he had his way, I knew that those powerful hind quarters would soon be driving his front end ferociously towards me – and his front end was an enormous, bludgeoning battering ram of bone and muscle, that would be guided on its course by two, very irate eyes. However, feeling halfway secure – mainly because he and I were separated by a fence, a gate and a water-filled ditch (albeit the gate was only secured by a single rope), I continued along the drove and drew up level with him, whereupon he advanced right up to the gate, giving me the most malevolent of glares. Not being able to resist the photo – and also being not a little out of my head – I knelt down in front of him and focused on his right eye to get this shot. He kept pushing the gate but the rope held firm – and I’m still here to tell the story. I like this picture. His whole mien radiates malevolent bad temper, right on the edge of unstoppable violence. His right eye is sharp, as is all the wonderfully tangled hair on his face, and I have rarely seen a glare of such malevolence. Nikon D700; 400mm; 800 ISO.
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6 – A Cottage Special served up in the Cottage Café, Burnham-On-Sea, Somerset; 29 Apr 2010. Though I’m prone to slightly high cholesterol, I’m a complete sucker for a full English breakfast, as long as its not too greasy. I don’t eat many of them but they are amongst my favourite meals, with the taste combination of bacon, eggs and grilled tomatoes often being more than I can possibly put into words. This particular breakfast was a slight disappointment because the beans had been poured over the fried bread, demolishing much of the latter’s superb taste and, especially, texture. But just look at the locally made sausages, the slightly blackened tomatoes …. the black pudding …two eggs …. the lean rashers ….…. DO I EAT IT OR GET DOWN AND MAKE LOVE TO IT!!!??? The Cottage Café’s breakfasts are in general superb, possibly due to all of the ingredients being fried together in same large frying pan, which makes everything extremely flavoursome. Since we first started going there over a year ago, this eatery has moved up market – so what used to be the Belly Buster has now re-invented itself as the Cottage Special! And, quite apart from all that gastronomic gush, I like this as a picture. Canon PowerShot G11; 400 ISO.
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7 – Pollarded Willow in the mist, Tadham-Tealham Moor; 8 Aug 2003. Originally in colour, I’ve reduced this image to low contrast and misty monochrome, so that it more resembles a pencil drawing than a photograph. Olympus OM-4; Fuji Velvia 50 colour slide; Silver Efex Pro.
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August 20, 2019 10 Comments
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A couple of years back, I was doing a lot of early morning visits to Bristol city centre, and glorying in the abilities, light weight and compactness of my second mirrorless camera, the Fujifilm X-T2 (my first being the X-T1). Having tramped the early streets for several hours, I would at last fetch at some or other eatery, and flop down to a second breakfast – which was usually a Full English.
One of the eateries I frequented was Browns: the food is excellent and, while not inexpensive, the Full English with a pot of tea (together with a tea strainer!) has a definite sense of occasion and ceremony about it – which I’ve tried to convey in A Distinctly Civilised Full English, here . Even though I say so myself, if you’re anything like interested in food, this post might be worth a look.
And while waiting for the food to arrive, I took many pictures of the restaurant’s tables and beautiful yellow chairs, which were side lit by large windows looking out onto the street. Some of these images have already been posted – search for Browns in the tags shown along the bottom of this post – but here is another that I came across recently. Mostly low key, its about the way the light coming in from the street illuminates the various objects in the frame, notably the yellow chair. I hope you like it.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.
Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 212mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Provia/Standard profile; Browns restaurant, Bristol; 24 Feb 2017.
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July 28, 2019 3 Comments
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Passing time in central Bristol: tables for patrons only, outside The Crown.
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There are other pictures in this short series here: 1 2 3 4 .
Click onto each image to open another version in a separate window and click onto that image to further enlarge it.
Technique: TG-5 at 49mm (equiv); 1000 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; outside The Crown pub, in All Saints Lane, central Bristol; 25 June 2019.
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July 17, 2019 14 Comments
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Looking in through a restaurant window, Bristol Harbourside; 14 July 2016.
Looking in through this window, I was at once taken with the single, beautiful flower, caught by the light. But, there being all sorts of visual rubbish off to the left, I could not make the flower anywhere near central in the composition, nor get it near to any of the compositional thirds. I could of course have tried portrait (ie vertical) format, but this seemed a waste of all that diffuse, half-seen, “restauranty” detail off to the right – table cloths, more glasses, cutlery, upholstery.
And so to this. Westerners’ eyes often enter images from the left, perhaps because we write from left to right – I’ve often talked about this on this blog in the past. So, in this case, my eyes enter this image from the left and run visually slap bang into the flower and its attendant glassware, sharp and well lit in the summer sunlight – and are for a moment held there.
But as I look at the bloom and its reflective attendants, my eyes keep wandering off to the right, wondering what’s there – only to be dragged back to the flower again.
Do your eyes do the same, or do you see this differently? Is the flower really too far left? What do you think?
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it.
Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 3200 ISO.
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