OUTER SUBURBS 193 – CIDER AMONGST GARAGES

 

 

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Dropped on the way home after a good night out – perhaps by carefree lovers (well I can dream, can’t I?)  >>>  and still containing remnants of the golden nectar that, made from apples, is to a Somerset Lad like me The One True Drink.  But now lying with other garbage (mercifully out of shot) amongst run down old garages and the reflective metal wall of an electricity substation.

Ah, but is True Romance past? … what was that poem? … Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? … well, ok, Shakespeare … >>> just don’t say you don’t get no culture on this blog!!! … 🙂 … but I’m rather more for Lennon & McCartney’s … And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make … seems pretty basic to me … a good and simple way forward …

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

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 7 Feb 2020.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 446 – THE NORTH DRAIN, LOOKING WEST (MONO)

 

 

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An early morning visit to the Somerset Levels on Friday.  There was a storm here last weekend and the effects were still apparent: trees down, lots of surface water everywhere (tho no real flooding as yet), and farmers on enormous tractors trying to manoeuvre farm machinery through simply vast amounts of mud – and temporarily blocking the narrow roads in the process.  And, as I type this today (Saturday), yet another storm, with further vast amounts of rainfall and high winds, is hitting us this weekend.

I got to a favourite spot on Tealham Moor, where a little bridge crosses a manmade waterway called the North Drain, which helps to take the water off these frequently sodden flatlands.  It was a quiet morning, a short-lived ridge of high pressure – the calm before today’s storm! – was over us, and I looked west along the almost flat and morionless surface of the drain.  There were the reflections of three small bushes in the still water, and the waterway disappeared around a bend in the distance.  The scene was simple, almost Minimal in a way, with the blank sky and water separated by a great dark wedge of winter landscape pushing across from the right.

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

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 195mm; 800 ISO; jpeg created and processed in-camera from a raw file, using the Graphite profile; further processing in Lightroom; the North Drain, on Tealham Moor, on the Somerset Levels southwest of Wedmore; 14 Feb 2020.
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OUTER SUBURBS 186 – EARLY MORNING 42

 

 

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Rain during the night, and the streets glistening and reflective just before dawn.  On the right a bus shelter, and on the left, dimly seen, a supermarket’s advertisements.

There is another shot of this bus shelter here .

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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 . All will open in separate windows. You can also search on the “early morning” tag.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 85mm (equiv); 6400 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 27 Dec 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 178 – EAST STREET: NEAR ASDA

 

 

1 Looking up under an arch, light spilling in from the left

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Near the Asda supermarket.

The first photo in this East Street series, with context, is here .  Subsequent images are here: 2 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid profile; East Street, Bedminster, south Bristol; 21 Jan 2020.

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2 Love the pose!

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3 The reflected light of the rising sun hitting a frontage; and reflections in the windows too

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SOMERSET LEVELS 442 – EMPTY SHOP

 

 

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So, what the hell am I pointing my camera at now?  These are the windows of an empty shop, most probably a victim of both the current general downturn in UK retail, together the on going impoverishment of seaside towns.

These are the shop’s windows, with a white, wooden frame between them.  On the left a smaller window adjacent to the shop’s door, and on the right a larger window facing more out onto the street.  Because the premises are empty, the inside of the windows have been wiped with whitewash to deter curious eyes – there may still be things inside the shop worth stealing, or perhaps it is being refurbished.  Seen from the outside, presumably taking some colour from the sky, the whitewash appears bluish.

Then, on the right of the picture, the larger window reflects the terraced houses in the street, a white van, twin yellow “No Parking” lines and the sky’s dull, wet overcast.

Other recent pictures from Weston are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 .

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

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 24mm; 12,800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait v2 profile; Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 3 Jan 2020.
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PEOPLE 386 – SELFIE WITH FATHER CHRISTMAS, SNOWMAN AND WARNING ABOUT WET FLOOR

 

 

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Down a dull sidestreet in a seaside town, and this last vestige of overhyped festive cheer – still warm and bright despite early January’s gloom, drizzle and inescapable realities.

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

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 48mm; 12,800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Flat v2 profile; Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 3 Jan 2020.
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OUTER SUBURBS 163 – GLASS OF WINE WITH DISTANT DRINKER (MONO)

 

 

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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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SOMERSET LEVELS 434 – ANOTHER WORLD (MONO)

 

 

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Walking in The Boulevard, one of Weston’s main streets.  It was a wet morning, rain forever around, and there was a lot of surface water.  In my path, a large puddle spread across the pavement and, well before I reached it, I could see reflections in it – and so to ramping the telezoom up to 300mm and, standing quite some distance back from it, looking at and into this puddle.

I was looking into another world.  There was the reflection of a tall street lamp and, nearer, a street sign too, and the patterns of paving stones were also visible.  I’d taken several frames when the reflection of a gull suddenly passed through the frame – and I managed a single shot before it was gone.  And thence to simplifying the image by presenting it in mono, and presenting it upside down to make it more readable, while preserving the dreamlike, otherworldly atmosphere.

And, in yet another (this time, bygone) world >>> opposite this spot, 60 years ago, a toy shop called Driver’s was an exciting centre in my young life – forever adding to my vast regiments of toy soldiers, and also allowing me to buy fireworks in the days when they were both affordable and freely available to youngsters like me.  For those of you old enough, do Penny Bangers, Jumping Jacks, Volcanoes and Catherine Wheels bring back any memories???  We youngsters used to light a Penny Banger (effectively a small explosive device, costing one OLD penny) and hold it until it started fizzing and was just about to explode, and then drop it into a puddle, when it would shoot across the surface of the water before blowing up: delighted – and retaining all our fingers too – we called it a Torpedo …..

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; 3200 ISO; in-camera processing of raw file, using the Graphite profile; further processing in Lightroom; 180 degrees’ rotation;  The Boulevard, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset; 22 Nov 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 425 – BESIDE EASTERN MOOR BRIDGE (MONO)

 

 

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Riverside reflections.

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 300mm; 400 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Adobe Standard v2 profile; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Architectural preset and adding a moderate Coffee tone; Cripps River, at Eastern Moor Bridge, on the Somerset Levels east of East Huntspill; 31 May 2019.
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BIRDS 121 – MUTE SWAN 7 (MONO)

 

 

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I have been posting images of a family of swans swimming quietly away on Cripps River (see links to earlier images below).  Here, the three young swans swim off slowly up river.  The nearest one’s head is seen in profile as (s)he keeps me cautiously in view.  The other two are looking to either side.

Albeit its my picture and I’m inevitably biased, I have to say that I find calm and beauty here.  So many things in this world are otherwise, but here, on an insignificant backwater in Somerset, three young birds – momentarily (in the UK sense) and quite unconsciously – have formed themselves into a tableau which to me is visually and emotionally attractive.  As is usual, really, the Natural World is always worth looking at, never boring.

Earlier pictures of this meeting with swans are here: 1 2 .

All recent bird pictures are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 .

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

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in APS-C format to give 450mm; 3200 ISO; in-camera processing of the raw file, including use of the Graphite profile and cropping; no further processing; Cripps River, at Eastern Moor Bridge, on the Somerset Levels east of East Huntspill; 25 Oct 2019.
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