At random

I generally try to link my photos for the purposes of my blog - by place, narrative, style, theme or whatever. Every now and again I amass a few that simply don't 'fit' anywhere - but that, nevertheless, have some kind of appeal, at least to me. So here are a few random shots, wildly different in subject matter and linked only by the fact that I've played around with them a bit. 

I found the dropped and melting ice cream cone rather touching. There's a story there - and presumably, a very sad child somewhere... 

One yellowing bracken frond stood out sharply against those that were still green. It's an attractive shot in colour actually but I like the way the mono conversion emphasises the shapes and subtle curves, bringing out the detail. 

I liked the soft colours of the tree bark, which could be taken for rock or peeling paint, a riverbed or anything that one's imagination conjures up. And don't get me started on the potential pareidolia that might be involved! 

The last image is an evening shot, along the railway line at Saltaire station. I stopped and noticed it because, even though the lamps were not lit, the low sun shining through made them glow. Despite the electric power lines, it's timeless scene and seemed to need a cinematic treatment. 

Tapestry

 A riot of colour - a grassy bank covered in flowers. 

'I moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms

Pierced with my charmed eye, contemplating

The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms.'

PB Shelley

Wild!

Well, I didn't know I was going to create this! I started with a photo of light coming through autumn leaves - and in Photoshop layered it and blended it a few times, just experimenting. It's fun to 'play' sometimes. It's turned into a weird insect family or something! I'm never sure whether these kinds of experiments have any real merit but it was certainly a surprise once I finished. 

This was the original:

 

Sunday meditation: Refreshed

'He refreshes my soul.' Psalm 23:3

I've been skimming back through some older photos and I found a few that I overlooked at the time but that, with further scrutiny, seemed worth a bit of playing with. This is a composite of a few images I took in Bradford's City Park one summer. The Park has those variable water jets that the young people just love leaping about in. On a hot day, it's a refreshing pastime. Obviously this type of image isn't everybody's cup of tea (a good old English saying!) but I enjoy being a bit looser and more creative sometimes.

Alphabet

This was another exercise from the 'Mindful Photography' workshop: to find letters of the alphabet in non textual form. It was easier said than done but I think I managed quite well. It was a good project to focus on (pun intended!) on a very wet day as it could be undertaken largely inside.

Barking mad

I'm fascinated just lately by the different types of tree bark. I find it hard to ID trees but I think these three images may be the bark of mature sweet chestnut trees: deeply fissured with ridges that spiral up around the trunk. (I may be wrong!)

As to the specimen below... it's a symmetree!  One of the monthly themes for my online photo group was 'symmetry' so I had a little play in Photoshop. I like how this technique makes the trunk look a bit like a totem pole. 

Playing again

Since I retired I have not walked this way home along the towpath nearly as frequently as I used to. It's still a lovely walk and I feel fortunate to have chances to enjoy its beauty, and the grandeur of these Victorian mills: Salts Mill on the left of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and the New Mill on the right. Despite it being school closing time, the towpath was relatively quiet. I noticed all the greenery on the canalside that was drastically cut back a while ago has regrown. I like the way it looks but it probably plays havoc with the buildings. 

It's a long time too since I 'played' with a photo and the processing apps on my iPad. This scene (originally taken on my phone) has been tinkered around with, using the overlays in an app called Distressed FX. Sometimes the added overlays look a bit much to my eye but in this case I think the textures do add quite a rich and pleasing quality to the image. 

Grasses

Grasses catching the light at the edge of the riverbank caught my eye, looking dramatic against the much darker water. It seemed a good image to play with and a mono conversion adds even more drama and contrast. I do also like the softer colour image, hard to choose between them.  

Playing on a bridge

The design of the new bridge over the lake at Harlow Carr Gardens references the DNA of the Thale Cress plant, the first plant to have its genome fully sequenced. Made of blond wood and Corten steel, it's rather interesting and allows room for a photographer to 'play' - so I did. 

 

Arty details

Dumfries and Galloway holiday 14

Coastal locations are great for what I like to call 'arty details'. A brilliant turquoise sea and bright blue sky provided a colourful but mostly uncluttered backdrop for the objects and arrangements that I spotted. 

And, oh, those eleven chimneys again, this time adorned with jackdaws: 

Tree fantasia

I've taken so many photos of Saltaire itself over the years - and so have many other people! It's not that I get bored with it; the light changes, the seasons change, there's always something new. But it is difficult to come up with an original interpretation of such a well-known place. In nature however, the changes are more obvious and more rapid, from the march of the seasons to the ephemeral shifting of patterns and colours in water. It's those that I've lately found myself drawn to observe and photograph. While the trees were still bare, I was trying multi-exposures of their reflections in the river, like those above. I'm safe in the knowledge that each of those is unique - so unique that even I'd struggle to repeat them exactly. Whether they have any merit is a different matter, but they are pleasing me for now.

Frozen

It was a rather challenging theme for May in my online photo group: 'Frozen'. Given that we're heading for summer here and in the last couple of weeks the weather has warmed up, clearly we weren't going to get any frost or snow! So... thinking cap on... I ended up freezing some Welsh poppy heads (I have plenty of them!) in water in a container and then propping the resulting very large ice cube up by the window so sunlight shone through it. It's not at all an original technique but I've never tried it before. As always, 95% of the images were useless but I got a couple I liked and decided this was the best composition. 

Hmm, that reminds me... gin and tonic, anyone? 

Salts Mill fantasy

(This is better viewed large, on black - click on the image.)  As I said not long ago, I've been trying some blended collages, just for fun. This is a medley of views of the canal side of Salts Mill. I tried a tryptych (which you can see on my other 'Roots and Wings' blog HERE) but I'm not sure if the image on the left on that one quite works, so I removed that for this version. The problem I have with doing these type of creative images is that some days I like them and other days I can pick loads of faults in them. Perhaps it's always like that with the creative process. 

Roberts Park in blossom time

I was inspired by some artwork I saw in a gallery recently to have a play with layering some of my images into collages. It's a new kind of challenge to learn what works and what doesn't and how to blend different images together effectively. These things are always harder than you might think! The image above is by no means perfect. I'm not sure that the scale of the statue and the bandstand work together, although I didn't mean for them to look like one photo. I should maybe leave more of an obvious border between the images... Anyway, there's no such thing as perfection. It's about having fun with the process and stretching myself, both technically and creatively. I shall keep on trying, in the never-ending quest to produce some work that truly expresses my response to my surroundings. 

Space and beyond

Just messing about with a panoramic photo I took on my phone in Roberts Park. These 'tiny planets' do offer a different slant on life, spinning off into space. The cricket pavilion is foremost in the image but you can also see the Half Moon Café across the grass and Salts Mill in the distance. 

(It's altogether more successful as a space probe than Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship rocket that experienced a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' yesterday. 😞  I can't quite understand how we put men on the moon in 1969 and have made endless, almost routine trips, to the ISS and yet these latest rockets keep failing. Is it that NASA and other space agencies won't share their data with a private venture? It's clear someone knows how to build and launch rockets, even if Elon Musk and Richard Branson don't. ) 

On another tack, I note that this is my 1000th post on this blog, not to mention the nearly 4000 on my previous blog. I never imagined when I started in 2009 that it would become such an addictive pleasure!

Minimalism

The theme for my online photo group for November was 'Minimalism'.  It was a good excuse to play around with some ideas and try some mono and high key effects, not my usual style. 

White on white is hard to do! …

This one is all about light and shadow:

 

Sunday meditation: Fire on the water

I keep playing around with layers and blend modes to create impressionistic images. It's really fun. Sometimes something pops out that I quite like. This was originally an image from my Harris trip. I'd love to go back there again. 

'When you walk through the waters, I'll be with you; you will never sink beneath the waves.

When the fire is burning all around you, you will never be consumed by the flames. 

When the fear of loneliness is looming, then remember I am at your side. 

When you dwell in the exile of the stranger, remember you are precious in my eyes.

You are mine, O my child, I am your Father and I love you with a perfect love.'  

Based on Isaiah 43: 1-5

(Someone sent those words to me years ago when life was tough and I have always treasured the message.) 

The market

I took this a while ago when I visited Hebden Bridge but I only just got round to processing it. I thought I'd try a non-standard style of processing, just for a change. 

It's amazing what you find in markets. There was all manner of bric-a-brac. I'm at the stage where I'm steadily clearing stuff out so there's no way I'm interested in other people's 'cast-offs', though you can perhaps find some bargains if you look closely. 

To answer the question posed by Beatrice yesterday in her comment, as to what gear/lenses I use:

My camera gear is very simple as, these days, I don't like to carry a lot of weight and I've never really liked swapping lenses outside (knowing myself very prone to dropping things, for a start!) So, I have a mirrorless camera: Fuji X-T2 with an 18-135mm zoom lens. (That's equivalent to a 27-206 mm lens on a full-frame camera.) Mostly that suits me fine for the kinds of photos I like to take. There is the odd time when I wish I had a longer lens, for wildlife shots especially, but it's never a big enough wish to actually spend the money on one and have to lug it about! I also have a 50mm (75mm equivalent) macro lens that I occasionally use. I have a tripod that I only ever really use for long exposure and night photography since, to me, using one feels the same as fighting with an octopus! Probably at least a third of the photos on my blog (perhaps more) are actually taken with my phone (Apple iPhone XR) as I only take my camera if I anticipate doing some 'proper' photography and can accommodate the bulk and weight in my bags. 

Processing-wise, I primarily use Adobe Lightroom Classic, with occasional use of Photoshop for what Lightroom can't do, and occasional use of DxO Nik Collection plug-ins. 

Now then, that has answered more than Beatrice asked but never mind. And if you haven't a clue what I'm on about, then don't worry. Just enjoy the results. 

Not the Saltaire Festival

Current events have us all in a spin! This last weekend was meant to be the start of the annual, week-long Saltaire Festival. The death of HM The Queen and the consequent period of national mourning have caused many events organisers to postpone whatever they were planning, and the Saltaire Festival is one of the events impacted. I have read arguments from some people that it should have gone ahead; that the tradition of the Queen herself was always to remain steadfast and keep to her schedule, fulfil her promises as much as she could; that the many small businesses involved will be left with losses at a time when they already have so many pressures. Let's face it, there is also a certain element within the country that thinks the hereditary monarchy is surplus to requirements anyway, and is resenting the extensive coverage given to this story. However, I think most people feel it would probably seem wrong and somewhat disrespectful to continue with joyful celebrations at a time when most of us feel a bit sombre and reflective. We are mostly very conscious that we have been plunged into a hugely historic and significant time, a time that we should somehow strive as a nation to 'do well' because it will all be recorded in the archives for the future. 

Having said all that, it was rather a pity that Saturday was not the start of the Festival. It was a glorious day, warm and pleasant and there seemed more than the usual number of people out and about quietly enjoying the village and the park. The cricket match went ahead, the café was open, there was an art show, there was the open-air farmer's market and a horticultural show ... It felt all very British, somehow!

Down by the river

The walk along the river from Burnsall towards Hebden suspension bridge is famously scenic. I was attracted to this view, enhanced by the blue-grey storm clouds.  The river level being so low meant there was quite a lot of algae in the water, which in some ways doesn't improve the scene - and yet, as I looked, it seemed to me to add a certain painterly quality. That impression was strengthened as I moved to the river's edge. The composition below has a Japanese feel to me, for some reason! I've worked on it to add a bit more soft painterliness.