SOMERSET LEVELS 435 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS 4

 

 

Wet morning

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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 2 3 .

A short history of Weston is here.

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Lion, drainpipe and CCTV

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Wet morning: drenched leaf on drenched pavement

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OUTER SUBURBS 160 – EARLY MORNING 31

 

 

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Clear morning, early December.

Other images in this Early Morning series – from both rural and urban settings, and from Kenya too – are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 4 Dec 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 433 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS 3

 

 

Wet morning: face with condensation or rainwater

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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 2 .

A short history of Weston is here.

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Front door

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Wet morning

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Autumn

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OUTER SUBURBS 159 – EARLY MORNING 30

 

 

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This picture is best viewed enlarged: click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it.

Bus shelter (with illuminated arrival times) beside a busy main road, a major route into the city from the south.  And the first, faint flush of sunrise.

A few minutes prior to this, crossing this road, I had witnessed two cars narrowly avoiding a collision, only to then myself narrowly avoid being hit by a driver speeding through a red light – ah, south Bristol ….. que je t’aime! …..

Other images in this Early Morning series – from both rural and urban settings, and from Kenya too – are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 .

Technique: TG-5 at 70mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 27 Nov 2019.

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SOMERSET LEVELS 432 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS 2

 

 

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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SOMERSET LEVELS 431 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS

 

 

Uncertain destination

(best viewed enlarged – click onto it)

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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)

A short history of Weston is here.

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Wet morning

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Cracked and weathered frontage – built of one of the honey-coloured limestones from the Cotswold area, like Bath Stone.  An older house, once genteel.

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OUTER SUBURBS 158 – EARLY MORNING 29

 

 

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Other images in this Early Morning series – from both rural and urban settings, and from Kenya too – are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 .

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 9 Nov 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 429 – CONGENIAL CAKE, A LITTLE PIECE OF IMAGINATIVE SIMPLICITY

 

 

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So much of today’s world consists of buzz words, of “smart” this and “smart” that, of hype and image – and, quite frankly, most of this leaves me cold.  In many cases I feel such things to be a triumph of style over content.  I have produced some stuff over the years – geology, data analysis/management, ornithology – but I have never felt the need to label any of it as awesome or amazing – it was just, well, what it was – no marketing, no hype, no bullshit.

So that when I encounter things now, however commonplace and mundane, that show genuine sparks of imagination and innovation, I do tend to hugely admire and treasure them, and the people who have dreamt them up – in a way, I suppose, because amidst all of the commercially driven hype, media pressure and bullshit that modernity continually throws at us, I see these things as evidence that true imagination and innovation persists – and that to me is a very valuable and reassuring thing.

And so to a little bakery – Winnies Bakery  – in Weston-super-Mare, where the Somerset Levels run down to the sea – and also to a branch in Burnham-on-Sea, just down the coast to the south.

So just  what has Winnies  produced, that really gets to me???  Well, quite simply, a range of inexpensive and very tasty cakes with a really inspired but very simple name – Congenial Cakes.  I mean, wow!, who thought that one up????  And the two shops themselves are very unprepossessing, again no hype, no marketing bullshit, just simple counters and shelves stacked with inexpensive but extremely pleasant cakes, pastries and savouries >>> really, what more can one ask????

And here is a picture of a Congenial Cake – you can’t even see the cake clearly – but, take my word for it, it was delicious.

Technique: TG-5 at 30mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 9 Nov 2019.

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OUTER SUBURBS 157 – PARKED CAR 8

 

 

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Parked car with sunrise, dew and tinted windows.

There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate wndow, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 320 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 18 Nov 2019.
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BIRDS 122 – PIED WAGTAIL

 

 

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The Pied Wagtail, a member of the pipit family, common along freshwater margins and in towns, car parks etc.. The name derives from the habitual wagging of the long tail.
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All recent bird pictures are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 .

Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window; clicking onto the larger image a second time further enlarges it – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in APS-C mode to give 450mm; 800 ISO; upper image: Lightroom, starting at the Camera Standard v2 profile; lower image: in-camera processing of a raw file, including cropping and use of the Vivid profile; Herons Green, Chew Valley Lake, Somerset; 18 Oct 2019.

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