OUTER SUBURBS 189 – EAST STREET: PHOTOGRAPHING A FACADE

 

 

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Lower angle winter sunlight blazing across the side of a building – and not the slimmest creature in this whole world photographing it.

The first photo in this East Street series, with context, is here . Subsequent images are here: 2 3 4 5 . Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 53mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; East Street, Bedminster, south Bristol; 21 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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ARCHIVE 427 – A TORTOISE, FUNCTIONAL HEADGEAR, AND ME

 

 

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Tortoise at Lake Bogoria, in the Kenya rift valley; November 1979.

These reptiles are helpless when lifted up from the ground but, in this situation, their last ditch, shock tactic is to eject great spurts of urine – hence when picking one up it pays to keep its rear end pointed away from yourself and anyone you are friendly with!

Technique: OM-1 with 50mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide, rated at 64 ISO; converted to mono with Silver Efex Pro.

And below is a decidedly slimmer version of me taking the photo – this shot courtesy of an old friend in The States.  I’m using the OM-1 with a 50mm F1.4 silvernose Zuiko llens – and sporting the legend that was Photographic Hat. This hat was originally bright orange, and I’d bought it to shield my hairless dome from the sun during fieldwork in the Middle East. Later, bleached and sunblasted, it accompanied me to Kenya.

The hat’s crown was fast getting too thin to be an effective sun blocker so, to help matters, I hacked a circle of denim from an old pair of jeans and very crudely “sewed” it over the hat’s decaying top. I was of course wearing a faded rag on my head, but the great thing that drew me to it – and the origin of its name – was that its limp brim fell down just nicely over the gap between my glasses and my camera’s viewfinder, so that I could always see well to photograph, even in the blazing, overhead sunlight of the equatorial midday.
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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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THE ANSWERS TO LIFE’S PROBLEMS

 

 

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Two aspects of what I laughingly call My Lifestyle have come together in glorious conjunction this stormy morn.

First, although no longer watching it quite so much these days, I’m a big fan of The Simpsons and in particular, of Homer – someone who in my more imaginative moments certainly ascends to the status of role model.

And then second, and not at all in keeping with the times, I still use – and depend enthusiastically upon – a paper diary >>> which leads to simple but rock solid logic along the lines of “If it goes into the diary it’ll get done, even if its something far ahead in the future” – a state of affairs which my wife has quickly come to see can have its very positive side (and the more so should she ever become adept at forging my scrawl  … ).

And so, sitting down to breakfast this morning – salmon fishcakes with chilli and ginger, accompanied by mango, cooked tomatoes, pickled garlic and hot lime pickle – I turned to today’s page in my diary and was instantly uplifted, instantly set up for the day.  Why?  How?  Well, because my dairy has a quote on every page, and today’s quote is from Homer himself: 

 

When will I learn?  The answers to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle.  They’re on TV.

 

What can I say???  Well …. Role model!!! >>> ROLE MODEL!!!!!!

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PEOPLE 374 – VERY OLD FRIENDS (MONO)

 

 

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Life moves on.  As Dylan Thomas so wonderfully put it, in Under Milk Wood, “Time passes.  Listen.  Time passes.”

And so to an Italian restaurant in a reasonably run down, seaside town, and five people around a table – already hitting the electric sauce, if only moderately, and good naturedly corralling a waiter into taking a snap of the occasion.  He was somewhat disconcerted by “Focus on the wine bottle!”.  While after “Squeeze yourself right back into that corner to get us all in!”, it had to be explained that we were not in fact all planning to try and get in the corner with him.  Ah, the youth of today …  But, anyway, here is the result.

So just who are these smiling worthies?  Well, as a landmark, something to navigate by when in distress on the sea, the lolling lout front right (magnified by proximity to the TG-5’s wide angle lens I might add) is me >>> does my tum look big in this??? 

Then the two women are the partners of the two blokes opposite me.

But the two blokes opposite me are the thing really, because we three were in the same school in the 1960s.  I’ve been friends with one nearest the camera for 60 years at least, we were in adjacent primary schools.  And the other is one of the two luminaries responsible for getting me into birdwatching in 1967, an interest that was to later take me to Kenya for 12 wonderful years – an experience from which, thank goodness, I’ve never quite recovered.

And although three of us live locally, the other very special thing about this occasion is that the other couple live on the other side of the world, so that we see them only very occasionally.

And so here we three are, back in our home town as it happens, and not a stone’s throw from the primary schools where two of us started out.  And we are all stunned by the fact that, having known each other since our childhoods, we are now all approaching our 70th birthdays.

“Time passes.  Listen.  Time passes.”
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PEOPLE 372 – SELFIE, WITH TRAINERS, CAR DOOR HANDLE AND (REDUCED!) BEER GUT

 

 

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Just getting back from one of my marathon walks around Bristol’s outer suburbs and, seeing my neighbour sitting in his car, leaned on the ledge of the open passenger door window to pass the time of day with him.  Looking down, I could see the stripes of my old shirt reflected in the car’s bodywork and door handle and, well, the TG-5 was as always in my pocket …  My neighbour considered me mad of course, but then that’s just one, evidently minority, opinion.

So, taking the image from the top, what’s here?  At the top, the fully wound down window of the car between its black rubber seals – not sure if that’s the right word, but you know what I mean.

Below which is a curved surface, reflected in which can be seen the blue Bristol sky, together with my two rather scrawny hands, between which is a dark area that is the camera, the TG-5.

Below again is this huge, rounded and striped affair which is my paunch (well I am The FATman …) – but nothing like as big as it used to be, despite having been nourished by many thousands of Belgian golden ales, and in any case thankfully covered up by an old striped shirt.  To either side of me are the reflected reds and greens of a garden.

Below that again, the car’s door handle, reflecting clouds in Bristol’s blue sky, along with more of my shirt’s stripes.

And, finally, far below, my neighbour’s driveway and the toes of my trainers.

A souvenir – perhaps eccentric, perhaps not – of passing the time of day for a few minutes with my neighbour, on a sunny Bristol afternoon.

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); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 19 Aug 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 111 – PHOTOGRAPHING SHADOWS (MONO)

 

 

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Shadows: a fence, a tree and me.

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 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 35mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Portrait film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Silhouette preset; south Bristol; 6 May 2019.
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PEOPLE 367 – WRESTLING WITH THE BARS, TRYING TO ESCAPE

 

 

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Selfie – my shadow against a metal fence – with the camera, as I remember it, held in my right hand.

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 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, desaturating colour and using the Camera Natural film simulation; south Bristol; 26 Feb 2019.
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ARCHIVE 397 – SELFIE WITH ROAD SIGN (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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Quite early on a morning in spring, and Jack’s Drove, the road north across the Tadham and Tealham Moors, on the Somerset Levels, is blocked; 10 Apr 2014.

The jet black area that cuts horizontally through my silhouette is the water-filled ditch that separates the rough pasture of the field at the top of the frame from the road on which I’m standing.  These wet ditches do duty as fences hereabouts.

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

Technique: D700 with 16-35 Nikkor lens at 16mm; 400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro2, starting at the Dramatic preset, and restoring the sign’s colour.

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