I enjoyed a brief trip this morning, in the company of friends, to photograph the lavender at Banstead. The heavens soon opened but, for a few minutes, it was perfect.
Mayfield Lavender
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Tag Archives: photographs
A recycled habitat
A recycled forest in the heart of Montreal’s Eaton Centre.
Last summer, while in Montreal on holiday, we visited the Eaton Centre and came across an art installation made from recycled waste materials from the shopping centre. Called Fragile, it was the work of Roadsworth and Brian Armstrong. Given access to the Centre’s recycling bins over eight months, the artists transformed the retail centre into an ecosystem.
Cardboard trees with soda can leaves.
Bubble wrap salmon leap up a plastic bottle stream.
Cardboard lily pad with plastic bottle and coat hanger frog.
Coat hanger dragonflies with cellophane wings.
Strolling through the recycled garden.
“When you present something playfully, or even satirically, you create a space where people can drop their defences. When you manage to do this, you can reach them at a level at which they’ll be receptive to what you have to say.”
— Peter Gibson (a.k.a. Roadsworth)
For so work the honey bees
For so work the honey bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home;
Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
William Shakespeare, Henry V, I.ii
One image three ways
I like this slightly arty shot of a cricket in my garden. I like the way the cricket barely emerges from its environment. But which version of the image do you like best? The cool-colour version above. Or the warmer version below.
Or the minimal black and white?
Red
Red is such a very photogenic colour. It looks great against snow and ice.
And makes a vibrant focal point for a colour-popped black and white.
We love red over here, on our buses, phone boxes, and postboxes.
It is the colour of earth, from the slopes of Kauai’s Waimea Canyon…
…to the raw power of the mighty Kilauea.
It is the colour of fire, and those who fight it.
But it is also a colour flowers use to lure bees,
the colour of a robin’s breast,
and of Christmas.
From a boat on Lindisfarne’s fair and ancient shore,
to the far more ancient walls of Egypt,
deserted cliff-dwellings,
and the roof of a Quebec church,
red is all around us.
It is the colour of our very life’s blood,
and of remembrance.
Weightless in water, swift as the wind
I live in a town on the confluence of rivers. Water is a significant part of my local landscape and so is rowing.
In any weather, the hardy rowers can be found ploughing a furrow through the Thames.
We are a nation of rowers and Surrey is in the heart of rowing country.
We like to do well at rowing in international competitions. This year, there is a small sporting event taking place on home soil, and water. You may have heard if it.
Hopefully, we will do well. But however we do, the rowers will still be out on the Thames, doing their thing, every day.
“How fared it with the wind,” I said, “when stroke increased the pace?
You swung it forward mightily, you heaved it greatly back.
Your muscles rose in knotted lumps, I almost heard the crack.
And while we roared and rattled too, your eyes were fixed like glue.
What thought went flying through your mind, how fared it, Five, with you?”
But Five answered solemnly, “I heard them fire a gun.
No other mortal thing I heard until the Race was done.”
R.C. Lehman
Summer squared
Something different, hot off the presses today. I had fun making this abstract mosaic from shots of grass blowing in the breeze.
And sing with us, away, Winter, away!
Come, Summer, come the sweet seasoun and sun …
James I of Scotland, The Kingis Quair
Reigate
We spent yesterday in Reigate, a quiet market town in North Surrey. The only camera I had with me was my iPhone so, in the true tradition (if there has been enough time for there to be a tradition) of iPhoneography, I have lightly edited the images on my iPad and uploaded directly from there.
Reigate has the remains of a castle so I get to continue my series on castles. The castle was built in the eleventh century and fell into decay in the seventeenth. None of the stonework remains but the earthworks have been turned into a pretty, and peaceful garden.
Underneath the castle gardens is a network of caves. The most well-known, The Barons’ Cave, is reputed to have been a meeting place for the barons who devised the Magna Carta. The stone pyramid in the top photographs guards an underground
sallyport.
The few remains of the castle were removed in 1777 when the land was converted into a garden. The mock medieval gateway was built at that time.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day in Reigate. The town has a lot of interesting independent shops, a fine array of eateries and an Everyman cinema (in which we saw Prometheus). Best of all, the sun shone: a rare event here this summer!
Shooting the City
On the whole, I find photography a solitary activity, and I am happy with that. I very rarely go out shooting in a group. When I do, I usually end up deleting the images I take; I just can’t seem to relax into it.
But a couple of years ago I did enjoy a stroll around the City of London with fellow members of a Flickr group, T189 Oct-Dec 2008. All members of this group, which I administer, took the Open University’s short digital photography course in Oct-Dec 2008.
Although activity in the group has gradually waned over the years, there is still a core of supportive and keen digital shooters and it was a pleasure to meet some of them in person on our City photo walk.
And I didn’t delete every image.
Trapped
An aphid caught in a web awaits its doom.
Dar’st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III.i
Focused Moments 