OUTER SUBURBS 72 – PATH THROUGH MODERN HOUSING 6

 

 

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Another functional and not unattractive pathway through modern housing, and something very different from the previous one.  Unusually for me, colour and mono images here – for me the black and white gets it – and I think its worth enlarging >>> click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it yet again.

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Earlier pictures of a paths through modern housing are here: 1 2 3 4 5 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Contrast Orange preset and adding a light Coffee tone; south Bristol; Jan & Feb 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 71 – EARLY MORNING GUTTER WITH LAMP POST, FROST, MOSS AND BANANA SKIN

 

 

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

Walking – and looking down – in the early morning.

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 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film preset; Color Efex Pro 4; south Bristol; 31 Jan 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 70 – A GOOD NIGHT OUT 3

 

 

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A carrier bag full of small metal canisters dumped into a gutter from a passing car (not the car in the photo, as it happens) – the remnants of another good night out in the Outer Suburbs.

So what is this?  The canisters contained laughing gas (nitrous oxide) and, in the image below, here is their provenance – their “official” use is for whipping cream to float on coffee etc, and laughing gas is also still used as an anaesthetic in dentistry and childbirth.  But all over the UK, although not on sale to kids aged under 18, those same kids and many others use the laughing gas to get a brief high.  The kids puncture the cylinders, release the gas into a balloon (a deflated blue balloon can be seen in the third image), and inhale it.  I’m told that its often used by kids too young to buy booze.

So, a good night out in the Outer Suburbs: stock up with cylinders and balloons (and probably booze and ciggies too – as in the third image down with its empty cider and ciggy packaging), drive to somewhere not too much in the public eye and have a good time >>> and toss the bag of used canisters etc out of the car on the way home.  But the image below was taken at a bus stop: the revellers were waiting for a bus, or perhaps just sitting in the bus shelter, beside a main road, in the middle of the night.

I’m not being at all judgemental here, laughing gas is not for me but I do after all very much enjoy getting highs via alcohol.  That our society considers booze legal, perhaps because it has been enjoyed/used for millennia, is not a central argument to me.  Laughing gas is thought to be mainly harmless, although I recall seeing details of a person with very serious side effects on TV recently.

Oh and the feet in the final image are … now just how did Mick Jagger so succinctly put it? … “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste …” …

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There are earlier Good Night Out images 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 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5; flash in the second image; Lightroom; south Bristol; autumn and winter 2018/9.
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OUTER SUBURBS 69 – A GOOD NIGHT OUT 2

 

 

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Self-expression on the walk home, after a good night out in the Outer Suburbs.

Or perhaps this is the good night out.

And maybe fuelled by booze and banned (but eminently available) substances, or a perceived aimlessness and emptiness in modern life, or a desire to impress, or … who knows?

I’ve never felt the need to express myself in this way but then, as I do deeply believe, we are all different.  But then again, as I do also deeply believe, there is the question of whether those causing this carnage would view such damage to their own property with composure.

And subsequent events?  Well, the bus company will carry out the repairs, after which events may repeat themselves.

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There is an earlier Good Night Out post here: 1 .

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 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; January 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 318 – LOOKING TOWARDS GLASTONBURY TOR

 

 

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A very muted winter sunrise, and the view from Tealham Moor towards the iconic landmark of Glastonbury Tor, topped by its ruined church tower.

What can we see?  The water-filled ditch in the foreground is known locally as a rhyne (rhymes with seen); rhynes pervade this wet landscape, and act as liquid fences to the fields.  Follow the line of the rhyne off into the distance and, just right of where it disappears, are two Mute Swans, visible only as two white dots, and these great white birds pervade this landscape too.

And, as already mentioned, off at top right is Glastonbury, instantly recognisable by its Tor.  When these wet flatlands were actually lakes and marshes, the high ground of Glastonbury was an island.  The Romans had a harbour there: Glastonbury is 14 or more miles inland now, but in those far off times seagoing ships could still reach it.  And in addition to its world famous pop music festival, it is the centre of a vast mythology which, amongst other things, encompasses King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail, the Isle of Avalon and other medieval stories.  I dearly wish that each and every one of the Glastonbury legends were true, that would truly be wonderful, and so it saddens me that I cannot find it within myself to believe them.  That said, this small town really is a unique place, and I feel very fortunate in not living far from it.

And finally, if you look very carefully, you’ll see a line of tall electricity pylons marching across the horizon, on either side of Glastonbury’s high ground – evidence that, here, we are not that far from the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, which is something somehow highly incongruous in this flat, quiet, peaceful landscape.

Composition: the bright line of the rhyne takes my eye straight up to the top left of the frame, and less prominent pale and dark, horizontal lines come across the frame (just below the Tor) from the right margin to meet the rhyne’s vanishing point.  Hence everything drags my eye to upper left, but the Tor is such a strong feature (to me, a local, at least) that my eye swings to upper right too, so that there is a dynamic here.

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 143mm (equiv); 6400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Tealham Moor, on the Somerset Levels; 11 Jan 2019.
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PEOPLE 365 – GOING TO WORK 89 (MONO)

 

 

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GOING TO WORK: THE PROJECT

This project has been running, on and off, for sometime now – the first post (number 1, below) was in July 2016.  For those not familiar with the earlier posts, this project is now in three parts.

First there is the great bulk of posts in the earlier stages: numbers 1 to 86 below.  This really came about for two reasons.  First, having retired in 2013, I became increasingly interested in the work phenomenon, and a single photographic look at Bristol’s early morning rush hour ramped this interest up to the level of a fascination for a twice daily event – a twice daily tide –  that, until recently, I had been a part of.  And such long, early morning visits to the city centre were considerably facilitated by the excellent, lighter and smaller Fujifilm mirrorless cameras (X-T1 and X-T2) that gave me a break from my also excellent but bigger and heavier Nikon DSLR gear.  In some part I felt (and feel) that commuting and city centre working can be something of a pressurised and dehumanising experience; as I recall from two bouts of overwork and stress-related illness.

And then part 2 of this project is a single picture (number 87) taken in heavy rain with the Olympus TOUGH TG-5 camera.  I’d bought this camera with the aim of looking at the rush hour in atrocious weather conditions, but that aim has yet to be fulfilled – >>> the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak???  🙂  But the TG-5 has  instead proved itself very flexible and useful in the Outer Suburbs project, which makes up the bulk of my posts these days.

And, last week, I found myself with the TG-5 in the morning rush hour in Bristol’s Bedminster suburb, and so to a few more images, part 3 of Going to Work, starting with post 88.

But where this project will go from here – as usual – I have not the slightest idea!!!

POST 89

Alone on a cold, damp morning.  Overcast, and going to work.

Earlier images from this series can be found 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,  31,  32, 33  34  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 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 .  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 – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 500 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Full Contrast and Structure preset; St Luke’s Road, south Bristol; 29 Jan 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 68 – MODERN LIFE 7: BRING IT HOME

 

 

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Modern Life and bins of by-products.

There are earlier Modern Life posts here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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 .  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 further enlarge it.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 29 Jan 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 67 – MODERN HOUSING 9

 

 

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Bees around a sunflower.  And – unseen – imaginative south Bristol inhabitants.

There are earlier Modern Housing posts here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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 .  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); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 29 Jan 2019.
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STANTON DREW 61 – WINTER SCENE (MONO)

 

 

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This image 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.

Gull flock amongst the prehistoric standing stones at Stanton Drew.  Such flocks are a common sight on pastureland during the winter: this one consists mostly of Black-headed Gulls (lacking the dark heads of their breeding plumage), but there are a few Common and Lesser Black-backed Gulls in there too.

Tall, dark stones, sombre sentinels (sombre sentinels??? >>> what on earth am I on???) overlook the scene, and bare winter trees form the backdrop.

Already posted images from this early morning shoot are here: 1 (with context) 2 3 4 5 6 7 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting  at the Underexpose EV-1 preset and adding a light Selenium tone; Stanton Drew, in the Chew Valley south of Bristol; 14 Dec 2018.
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STANTON DREW 60 – FROSTY MORNING

 

 

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Early morning in the village.

Already posted images from this early morning shoot are here: 1 (with context) 2 3 4 5 6 .  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 further enlarge it.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Color Efex Pro 4; rotated; flipped; Stanton Drew, in the Chew Valley south of Bristol; 14 Dec 2018.
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