I seem to have missed my usual pre-Christmas update on here this year so this entry will have to suffice. I’m still running other more ‘business’ orientated blogs elsewhere but have since decided to use the blogger space (may soon move to WordPress) as a sort of overflow for these pages as well as a place to post more theoretical photography and photo hardware related material.
I have had a very enjoyable couple of days with Brother and SIL, a much-needed down shift from the recent nagging worries and now I am back home immersed in the quiescent inertia of these days between Christmas festivities and the New Year. Toby and Lill of course will be over here for the usual New Year nosh up at one of the local restaurants.
The weather has turned pretty drab all of a sudden with rain instead of snow but it is still reasonably cold, of course it is also completely overcast and grey. They have promised more snow for the New Year, not sure if we will get it here.
I do hope this coming year will be OK, I have a few trials and tribulations to get through in January but I am sure I will prevail – I usually do!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all that chance by — quite a few apparently!
Snow in the top field Prestbury, yes I have had another session in the snow, I’m in love with it all! Snow is still lying on the ground as I speak. These are fairly unusual winter conditions in the UK now and again it all makes for interesting change, photography wise.
Christmas is almost upon us and as ever I am looking forward to spending the day with my Bro and SIL with a good nosh up. I’m just a little concerned about not being able to afford to offer much in return this year but I do intend to make up for this later!
Listening to GP at the moment, usual recanting of the years new (more or less) jazz orientated stuff. It dawned on me that I have most of these tunes on my MP3 already!
We are trying pet coke at Oliver Wood towers this year, for those not familiar with the arts of solid fuel heating PET coke is Petroleum Coke, it is not a naturally occurring mineral coal but a residue of the ‘cracking’ process in oil refining. It is ridiculously hot and turns the dog grate into an incandescent glowing mass of metal. I am concerned that this stuff is pretty bad for the environment though, it also makes a massive amount of smoke in the early combustion phase which drifts throughout the whole village, but nobody has complained yet?
The weather over the last few days has been very cold but also extremely scenic, we still have a lot of snow on the ground. I just had to get out with my camera and indulge that fascination for the kind of forms and vistas that others may miss. I now have quite a backlog of images to work with and some may find their way to this site, all should find their way to flickr.
I find these snowy settings to be quite inspiring and particularly amenable to mono treatments, though most of the images I have appear to be virtually mono in colour anyway —
It is extremely cold tonight yet beautifully clear outside. I have used the last few shovelfulls of coal on the fire and once again a prevailing lack of funds is making life very difficult. I keep meaning to get out with my camera on a night such as this and attempt some more long exposure ‘light painting’ shots. These are the sort of conditions which should lead to something of a more natural nightime sky colour, i.e. one which is not suffused with the orange glow of a distant conurbation’s sodium street lights.
This has been a year of strange good and bad luck for yours truly, flushed with no worries to almost destitute in the space of a few months and all compounded by less than wise job moves.
Next year has got to be a lot more stable, I have enjoyed the better times of 2009, specially the spring and early summer months when a sense of bohemian freedom gave rise to a state of permanent rapture. Conditions that can only be instilled by a feeling of complete autonomy and self-determination, my ideal state of existence as it happens.
Suffice to say that I am keeping a close eye on the fight against the king of trash, AKA Simon Cowell and his evil empire that seeks to promote the pre-eminence of all that lacks substance, style and meaning in contemporary popular culture. Over 100,000 people on Face Book have joined the fight. They are busily trying to vote up Killing in The Name by Rage Against the Machine for Christmas number one instead of the insipid, morkish and unoriginal identikit nonsense from the Cowell stable which has normally taken the spot.
I’m not as massive fan of RAM but it is the principal that counts and they do represent the idea of contemporary music as a vehicle for rebellion, provocation, protest and artistic design. Myself, I would have preferred something from the Jazz or new contemporaries set, a Battles tune for No1 would be quite satisfactory.
{ A leaf in suspension by my front door. A chance find that attracted my gaze and which has yielded an image with both Rothko and Miro like qualities I think. }
Prestbury Living magazine has one of my photos on the cover this month, the same image is also used (rather more effectively) as background for an inside spread where its effect is quite impressive. I supplied several images for this but the one that I felt to be most appropriate for the cover has not been used — yet?
Of course I am grateful to the folks at PL for using my photos and as ever, any kind of publicity is always gratefully received.