Walkers depart White Nancy

Back to one of my favorite local spots, the magnificent vantage point that is the saddle of Kerridge Hill and location of the White Nancy folly. Great light, brilliant sky and a 10mm lens — I’m in heaven — or pretty close to it!

Bollington weir

I keep forgetting the name of the location but it is tucked away on the far side of Kerridge Hill as one heads back down toward Bollington. It also marks the start of a very scenic path that goes all the way over to the Cat and Fiddle inn. The highest pub in Britain.

The view West from White Nancy, Bollington, Cheshire.

I think this was my first visit to Kerridge Hill and White Nancy of 2011. March 13th was the first reasonably pleasant day of the year — shirt sleeve weather — and the cloud was good! I just knew it would be a good day for Nancy. Snapped on my Sigma 10 -20 lens and headed out for Kerridge in anticipation.

New gatework at White Nancy

{ White Nancy, painted with light (LED Torch) and 20 second exposure at 100 ISO f5. Lens: Sigma 10-20mm. }

I have been planning this kind of thing for some time now and last Sunday the conditions were just about right. It was a fairly balmy night with a clear sky and a large and reasonably bright waning moon. I decided to ride up to Kerridge with all of my gear crammed into a back pack — not a very comfortable ride with a tripod and large camera on ones back but I just felt that I had to try my White Nancy light painting experiment. I took some flash shots too but they are much less interesting than these.

The photos were taken with a Nikon D80 which is probably not really the best camera for such long exposures, some have reported that they are very noisy above 1 second of activity due to the current hungry sensor heating up but these shots appear to be better than I had expected though they are not suitable for up-scaling and printing at any appreciable size unfortunately.

I enjoy light painting for a number of reasons, not least being out doors after dark but there is also something very interactive about it, the sense of actually working with the image as the camera is capturing it is very satisfying and creates a feeling of man and machine (camera) working in some new kind of harmony.

This video constitutes something new for me, it is the first (to go online) which actually features a sort of reflexive monologue, it also has a few unique technical features which attempt to off-set the very lofi characteristics of the video from a Sony W50 P and S camera. I have recorded the monologue sound direct to the computer with a high quality system then spent hours re-syncing it with the video, loads of trimming and ‘nudging’ was required. Unfortunately, a couple of shots were lost (ha – accidentally deleted) so there are a few unintentional jumps in the flow. The idea was just to make homage to White Nancy in my own inimitable poetic style. I do like to create something with technology that is less than perfect and where some degree of technical coaxing and invention is required — and this is very definitely an end product of that kind of activity.

New Gallery format I have also updated / reverted my new gallery page to old-fashioned html page displays for the large versions of the photos rather than having them come up in java lightbox effects. It has taken the best part of two years for me to realise that lightbox was preventing my images from getting into the google image search results. Hopefully this new (old) approach will do wonders, it also enables me to write much more in depth descriptions / narratives on my photos which is always a good thing.

It’s looking a little dull outside at the moment but I’m still planning a major long commando assault ride into the hills tonight and will probably explore the Bolli – Pott Shrigley – Bakerstonedale Rd route. Must try and get some photos of that working gas lamp in Pott Shrig.

Music of The Moment

Pharoah Sanders Village of The Pharoahs Chanan Hanspal It’s Only Just a Garden

Music news: this weeks GP show has got to be one of the best and most inspiring I have heard for a long time, almost wall to wall goodness hitting all the right buttons. More of a classic soul jazz – modern Jazz warp theme to the selections and plenty of magnificence in the form of the genius Pharoah Sanders and a wonderful new collaboration between Jimi Tenor & Tony Allen called ’3 Continents’ superb rhythms from Mr Allen as always. Another new thing which really got my attention is the full Chanan Hanspal “It’s Only Just A Garden” track complete with the orchestral intro by 4Hero’s very own string and brass ensemble — fabulous evocative old school Soul Funk inflections around smoothest of smooth melodies. Some very nice swooping eltro warps courtesy Kode 9 and avant-garde fuzzy hamond organ strangeness from messes Joel Martin and Gerry Rooney – ‘When Sally Met Mandingo’.

All of this is going strait on to my MP3 to sound track my ride out into the night — oh yeeees

As always, much of this is still at a certain stage of pure speculation but you never can tell if I may go off like an explosive and act on a speculation as if it where just the blue touch paper. Of course, I may also just simply fizzle out and spend the rest of my life in a state of interminable status quo.

Anything is possible within the coming weeks and the likely direction of my life does still depend on a number of external arbitrary factors.

Total mileage: 10,527

Heading out of Bollington and deep into the night.

Last night I managed to do a full circuit of the Bollipot Loop without mishap — (mental note to self) must return Jane’s light! This time I had the good sense to take one of my cameras, actually a bit of a cop-out as I decided to take the little Sony w50 — which is still rather surprisingly good and allows a lot of creative latitude — no pun intended mind! Generally, it is not quite up to ultra low light exposures as the slowest shutter speed is about 2 seconds but it did allow me to capture some interesting deliberately shaky shots of lit objects and also carry out a little “light painting” with my bike lights. A kind of luminous abstract homage to the Bollipot Loop I think.

I seem to become ever more taken with Bollington every time I visit the place, the cosy sense of community, a certain down to earthiness and the general aesthetic of the architecture, which is both typically rugged and at the same time quirky and whimsical. Bollington is full of intriguing little details. The shear variety of cottage door designs and also the way that people decorate the stone lintels and a door surround is a very charming feature. Bollington does have some semblance of an active cultural life, which is contemporary and genuinely artistic.

Night Ride

light painting with LED bike lights on drystone wall Bollington.

Next I need to do the much more challenging trip up to Bakerstonedale and Charles Head where wind formed Scots pines and gorse bushes line the hilly high altitude roadsides. A landscape which can at times appear very surreal and cries out for my black and white treatment.

Since Farrow & Ball set up shop in Wilmslow I have noticed a steady return to more traditional paint colours and finishes on a lot of the local buildings. Prestbury is starting to look a little more colourful again with personalised but tastefully traditional paint applications on New Road instead of the universally applied and rather drab black and white timber work. I have noticed quite a lot of transformative activity in and around the village since I have been enjoying the luxury of extended free time, job in-betweening or whatever euphemism is currently in vogue for the inevitable down side of capitalist labour exploitation. The large swath of land behind Ford House (the village allotments during the war apparently) is currently being landscaped, no doubt for private use. This patch would make an excellent communal village green but I have an awful feeling that it is either going to get built on or turned into a car park — eventually. The old vicarage is all being done up and the charming features of Spencer Brook close to the start of the Vicarage drive way have all been enhanced and cleared of vegetation — or something? I can’t ever remember the stream feature down there but this may be because it was so overgrown.

The Bollipot Loop ride usually consists of a stop at the top end of Bollington for chips, before the climb up to the highest point then dropping down into Pott Shrig. At this point I decided to put fresh batteries in my rear light but unfortunately put them in the wrong way round in the dark and must have blown all of the LED’s in the unit. No rear light on this particular ride can be almost suicidal, as one has to traverse a number of pitch-black hilly lanes that are frequented by mad drivers and country boy racers in vans, 4x4s, and large tractor trailer combos etc and even after dark. At this point I had to abandon the rest of the trip up top and headed back down into Bolli where I met a very nice lady walking her dog and asked her if there was a garage near by that may sell bike lights? Nearest is in Tytherington, a long dark lanes ride away. Jane invited me back to her house where she was able to lend me one of her daughters bike lights. So, I managed to get home without incident. Only in Bollington will this kind of thing happen, in fact other people have asked me if I am alright on other occasions when I have had to stop with bike problems, or just chat about the general minutia of my trip.

So there we are, not much in the way of news but my spirit is replenished and I’m finding that basic satisfaction in my environment and the sense of just being out and observing. It is great when otherwise familiar settings seem to take on a whole new life of fascination, this is when you start to notice details and certain qualities that are conducive to photographic work. I’m still trying to perfect my night time photography and find a certain group on flickr to be particularly fascinating. It is for nocturnal photography with no artificial light.

Mark (our man in London) is attending the Festival of Sins in Camden tomorrow night and he has provided a photo of his make up for the night, actually this was just a test run.

I really do need to get my act together with regard to trip down to the big smoke to meet up with some of my old chums.

Apart from all of the terrible human tragedy, the recent spate of both natural and man made calamities (9/11, Asia, Katrina etc) have illustrated the relative importance of various occupations and skills. When disaster strikes we need Engineers, Emergency workers, Health Workers, and Construction Workers, in other words those people that have the skills to restore vital services, save lives, provide shelter, and boost morale. I think I have spent too much time in useless and effete bourgeois occupations! At the end of the day the “workers” skills are the only ones that matter, the only ones with any validity. Also let us not forget that these terrible events serve to demonstrate the awesome power of nature and are a mere taster of things to come if she is wounded and usurped by our own greedy and selfish demands.

But I digress, again I have been enjoying night time constitutionals on my bike, have to keep those wheels turning, the legs pumping its better than any substance I know! The routine night time trip includes Prestbury to Rainow via Kerridge and back through Macclesfield, the “Kerain” or the “Maccerainer” if going in the opposite direction, a real test of physical capability. The other regular is Prestbury to Bollington, across to Pott Shrigley and then back through Bolli to Pres or the “Bolipot Loop”.

The last couple of nights have been wonderfully mild and yet clear, once out of the lit zone and heading up into the Peaks, I can at last fully savor the wonder of the night sky. It is particularly good at this time of year as those classic northern constellations Cassiopeia and Ursa Major are well aspected throughout the night, but you can also see the milky way when reaching the high point before the descent into Pot Shrig. I just can’t help but stop and look up, and then of course I become transfixed. There is something about this type of landscape that resonates with the cosmos and I don’t know how to define it, a primordial quality, or a certain timelessness perhaps. Last night the sky scape was complimented by a lot of activity in the “approach stack” for Manchester Airport. The sight of aircraft circling high above the White Peak with landing lights projecting ten mile long beams was just surreal, like a scene from Close Encounters. Then an enormous meteor shot across the sky, it appeared to change from a dazzling blue white to a vivid crimson colour and projected shadows on the ground! I have never seen such a display and it was awesome. Unfortunately, the likely culprit could have been metallic “space junk” not very romantic, though maybe the prospect of having seen a piece of the earliest ventures into space burn up is quite romantic. My brother once told me that one is supposed to report sightings of burn ups or “fire balls” of this magnitude because A) they could have resulted in the atmospheric penetration of deadly radioactive “space junk” or top secret “space junk”. B) They could have been incoming Russian ICBMs. And C) meteors of this magnitude could be mere fragments of something much larger on the same course. So, I may have witnessed the prelude to the end of the world last night.