BRISTOL 137 – EARLY MORNING LIGHT – AND UNDER MILK WOOD

 

 

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Walking the old, narrow streets of Bristol city centre, looking at anything and everything.  And watching how the morning sunlight crept across the buildings’ facades, I was irresistibly reminded of lines written by Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood:

Time passes.  Listen.  Time passes. …

And the dawn inches up.

I just simply love the thought of being able to hear the passing of time; and similarly the sound and connotations of the word “inches” in this context grab me and do not let me go.

And Under Milk Wood itself?  I bought my first copy when I was a university student, and have never fallen out of love with it.  I can still remember opening the book and reading the first few words –

To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

>> and I was hooked, and I have been hooked – wonderfully hooked – ever since!  The words inspire me and I think, in some small measure, have affected how I look at the world, how I see it and how I photograph it.

You can find out about Under Milk Wood here .

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

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; Little King Street, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 110 – CINDERFORD GLOS (MONO)

 

 

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The shadows of a fence and streetlight, falling across a pavement and onto a road.  And a drain cover from long ago – probably before WWII –  when such things were still made around here (Cinderford being a town in Glos. (= Gloucestershire)).

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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Technique: TG-5 at 28mm (equiv); 500 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Monotone film simulation; south Bristol; 11 Mar 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 109 – FOGGY MORNING 4 (MONO)

 

 

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Trees, fog, stillness, depth.

There are earlier foggy morning pictures here: 1 2 3 .

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Monotone film simulation; south Bristol; 17 Apr 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 332 – MORNING DEW (MONO)

 

 

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

Gate to a field, with spider’s web and early morning dew.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 400 ISO; jpeg produced by in-camera Raw processing in the Z 6, using the camera’s Dramatic picture control; minimal further processing in Lightroom; beside Bourtonbridge Drove, on Queen’s Sedge Moor, on the Somerset Levels south of Wells; 26 Apr 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 103 – FOGGY MORNING 3

 

 

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Main road; early morning; fog.

Technique: selective desaturation of colour: the green lights are the main thing here and the morning was in any case very grey, but I’ve desaturated the yellows and blues of the crossing control boxes mounted on the traffic lights’ poles, and also the traffic cones standing on the traffic islands, to remove distractions and give the green lights greater prominence.  Another method would have been to convert the image to mono in Silver Efex Pro 2 and then restore the lights’ colours.

There are earlier foggy morning pictures here: 1 2 .

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 640 ISO; Lightroom, selectively desaturating colour; south Bristol; 30 Mar 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 101 – FOGGY MORNING

 

 

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Walking in early morning fog.  Walking off the edge of the world.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 .  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); 500 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 30 Mar 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 86 – SLIDE

 

 

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Slide in a children’s playground.  The green backdrop is fabric, thick and cushioned in case of tumbles.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 125 ISO; Lightroom; south Bristol; 11 Feb 2019.
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ARCHIVE 401 – END OF A CIGARETTE (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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Cigarette stubbed out on the top of a smokers’ bin in Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 16 Aug 2013.

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Technique: Canon G11 PowerShot at 140mm (35mm equivalent); 400 ISO; conversion to mono and selective restoration of colour in Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Film Noir 1 preset.

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OUTER SUBURBS 73 – LATE AFTERNOON LIGHT

 

 

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The shadows of trees, and a roadside drain, late on a winter’s afternoon.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 14 Feb 2019.
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ARCHIVE 398 – DRAIN, WITH KERB, DASHED WHITE LINE AND SKID MARKS (MONO)

 

 

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Drain, with kerb, dashed white line and skid marks; Thatcham, Berkshire; 1 June 2016.

Street scene in downtown Thatcham: shapes, textures and (mainly) curving lines.

Color Efex Pro 4 has been used to give the end result the look of black and white infrared film.

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

Technique: D700 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 24mm; 400 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4.

POSTSCRIPT: to me, someone who admittedly doesn’t get out much, the curving lines are streaming out across the image from sources along its left margin.  The kerb has just missed the drain, and arrows on through the picture’s lower right corner.  The skid marks are spraying out upwards, towards the image’s upper margin.  But the white line is more accurately set, and we have caught the moment in which it first impacts on the drain’s periphery.  And if all this imagined dynamism – seen through a child’s eyes maybe –  is real, then this isn’t a still life at all, it should not have been originally posted in this blog’s Still Life category, and I have, as the phrase so happily puts it, shot myself in the foot …

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