SOMERSET LEVELS 439 – WALKING WESTON’S STREETS 6

 

 

Autumn on drain cover

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 twice to enlarge them)

Earlier posts in this series are here: 1 2 3 4 5 .

A short history of Weston is here.
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Looking up on the High Street: demise of the seaside holiday, and the economic plight of so many seaside towns

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 Looking into a trendy bar

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Rainy morning: umbrella in car

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ARCHIVE 424 – VEHICLE IN A STORM (TWO ORIENTATIONS)

 

 

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Vehicle hit by high wind and a cloudburst, on a rooftop car park in south Bristol; 15 Feb 2014.

The view from my car’s window stretched off to the south from where, closing fast, mist and dense gloom were coming at me.  I barely had time to get the G11 from my bag and switch it on before the car shuddered under the impact of the first gusts and the rain’s rattle was all around.

A vehicle, a large black 4×4, was just pulling out, lights on and heading straight into the storm and, as it moved slowly away, I focused on my car’s streaming window and fired.  Long white walls and overhead signs lit up the backdrop, and the tungsten white balance – still set on the camera from a previous photo session – brought a blue cast to the scene.

I’ve modified the image in CEP4, raising contrast and detail, lowering brightness, and counteracting the tungsten’s cold feel with just a little warmth.

After this manipulation, this image no longer faithfully reproduces reality, but it is an impression of things that reminds me of what it was like being there.  And as well as attempting to interpret what this image portrays – which is for many, many of us our initial response to an abstract – I can enjoy this simply as a collection of shapes, textures, colours and tones.  It could also be rotated 90 degrees clockwise, as shown below.

Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: Canon G11 PowerShot at 140mm (35mm equivalent); 400 ISO; tungsten white balance; Color Efex Pro 4.

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OUTER SUBURBS 166 – COLD MORNING, AFTER RAIN

 

 

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The sky clears after rain, the first flushes of sunrise do nothing to dispel the penetrating cold, and a street lamp stands – a gaunt sentinel – above The Way Ahead.

And in the distance, the lights of cars, the slow and often halting journey to work in south Bristol.

Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 30mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 9 Dec 2019.

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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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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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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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SOMERSET LEVELS 426 – UNINTENTIONAL SELFIE WITH PARKED CAR AND UMBRELLA

 

 

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Ah, the best laid plans of mice and FATmen!!!  Roaming the damp streets of Weston-super-Mare, where the Somerset Levels run down to the sea.   Seeing a wet car with an opened umbrella inside, thinking it might make an interesting image >>> and clean forgetting to check if my reflection or shadow were in the frame!  Must be losing it … tho (doubtless intending kindly reassurance) you might wonder how I can lose something I never had in the first place ….. yes, well …. good point …..

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

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 55mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Neutral v2 profile; Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 8 Nov 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 424 – WET MORNING, LEWIS’S DROVE (MONO)

 

 

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Looking northwards along the glistening tarmac of Lewis’s Drove (no relation!), on a very wet morning.  Telegraph poles lean haphazardly, a crow atop one; and the higher ground at Panborough is just visible through the murk.

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

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in APS-C format to give 450mm; 3200 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait v2 profile; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Triste 2 preset and adding a light Coffee tone; Lewis’s Drove, on Westhay Moor, on the Somerset Levels southeast of Wedmore; 25 Sept 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 422 – WET MORNING (MONO)

 

 

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A wet morning – LOL! this is England in late September after all!!! – driving westwards on Godney Moor, rain pouring down, one side of the single track road already awash – and I stopped to take a picture through the streaming windscreen.

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

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 105mm; 3200 ISO; in-camera processing of a raw file using the Graphite profile; further processing of the jpeg in Lightroom; Tripps Drove, Godney Moor, on the Somerset Levels southwest of Wells; 25 Sept 2019.
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