A new cleaner, simpler look for my ‘diary’ page nonsense – - – well the first one that is, as I can’t be bothered to adjust the others yet. Unfortunately, I have had to drop a few long-standing images from the top section as part of the general up dating but who knows, they may come back in another guise.
I’m starting a much needed holiday and soon we are all off to a secret location in mid Wales which will almost certainly involve shenanigans of one sort or another, expect plenty of photos and possibly some experimental movies from yours truly and the rest of the Flickristas.
The Cottage in Machynlleth © Oliver Wood I’m losing track with these diary entries and it seems as though there has been an exceptional hiatus since my last ‘write up’. At last I feel inspired to make comment once again and something of a muse has returned, albeit temporarily. We have just returned from another stay in glorious West Wales and yet another part of the UK which had remained completely undiscovered by yours truly up to press. We stayed in a lovely little cottage close to Machynlleth and very close to some of the most inspiring landscape you could wish for this side of Canada or Norway. Densely wooded valleys and hills comprising a mixture of native deciduous trees and conifers stretched as far as the eye could see and the whole place had a rather satisfying air of out doorsy adventure. Machynlleth is famous for both being on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park and also home to the fascinating Centre For Alternative Technology which has become something of a focal point for the areas long association with ecology and natural conservation issues. CAT is an intriguing mixture of environmentalists and scientific boffins and the centre is home to some of the worlds leading authorities and research in the field of renewable energy systems. We had rides on a number of the little steam railways which Wales is generally renowned for. They all pass through landscapes of outstanding natural beauty but the most impressive has to be the Rheidol up to Devils Bridge, trundling along at a sedate 12Mph in an open carriage with the fabulous smell of ‘steam’ intermingling with forest timber and the sense of climbing to an almost vertiginous height is, for me, the quintessence of West Wales and of course the whole experience was so much more fulfilling both socially and culturally than any package to sun and beach. Most of the area seems to be patronised by a certain wholesome or ‘real living’ intelligentsia. One gets the impression that their children have no interest in TV and can actually identify trees—amazing and refreshing indeed! On the way to Corris © Oliver Wood On the way to the little village of Corris and the charming Corris Railway. It started to rain quite heavily just after I had taken this shot but it didn’t seem to matter at all, this was a magical place. I have taken many photos of varying quality though the good ones are likely to find their way to either this site or Flickr or both within the next few days.
Gill at Hare Hill © Oliver Wood
Yes it’s one of my favourite local ‘attractions’, the ornamental gardens at Hare Hill between Prestbury and Mottram St Andrew and its only a 15 minute bike ride from the village. I’m not sure of the history or significance of Hare Hill but it is an enchanted place and very secluded. The centre piece is a large walled area enclosing a huge and immaculately manicured lawn. The gardens are home to a significant variety of acid loving shrubs that create a riot of vivid colour at this time of year; even without the Nikon D80’s mode ‘IIIa’ colour enhancement (what ever that is) the floral colour is still almost ‘unreal’. I have loaded my other photos from Hare Hill on to my Prestbury Gallery page and also my Flickr site.
Gill and I spent most of Saturday out on bikes and it was something of an opportunity for me to indulge in a vicarious exploration of my own locality and what a joy it is to be down here after the general ugliness and stressful ethos of the metropolis. A lot of property development appears to be under way in and around the Prestbury lanes and outskirts. This is not ‘property development’ as in new building on ‘green field’ sites (thank goodness) but rather a local phenomenon of indulgent revamping. Revamping seems to be something of a trend in the so called Cheshire ‘golden triangle’ where relatively new million pound homes are bought up, promptly knocked down, and then new even more expensive properties build on the site and within the allotted boundaries. One of the property ‘developers’ has recently used some of my village photos to illustrate the brochure for a bespoke home that is not yet even completed, needless to say this property will be in the multi million pound price bracket. The concept of such huge sums is rather mind boggling for me to say the least, but Prestbury and surrounding areas are rapidly becoming incomprehensibly exclusive, there are now whole roads where nothing is less than a million. I suspect that the BBC’s grand decamping northwards in a few years time may eventually result in a rather more inspiring breed of millionaire buying property in Prestbury and other parts of Cheshire though! I now promise to almost desist from using the term ‘millionaire’ as it feels so vulgar and greedy to me.
Out of curiosity I have just read the biography of the once iconic and engagingly enigmatic Mike Oldfield. I think you have to be of a certain age (i.e. culturally conscious in the 70s) to appreciate where Oldfield once ‘came from’. The now rather dated and exhaustively familiar Tubular Bells and the other two (still quite obscure) later albums Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn were, in their time, considered to be exceptionally cool and even ‘edgy’ albums. These LP’s once graced my erstwhile vinyl collection and were initially purchased as part of a reconditioning process after the musically incompetent punk fad had faded. Even though for most Mr O’s cool and credibility was at this time on something of a downward slope with easily accessible pop tunes that your parents would find acceptable, or at least understandable. It was hard to believe that this was the same musician who had produced the only album ever to get a full end-to-end play out by John Peel. The early albums however, are still remarkable, haunting, and sometimes eerie, and they do convey that ethos of the early 70s hippy hangover with their allusions to folky mysticism and something of a logical conclusion for the ‘prog rock’ concept. As a burgeoning Sound Engineer I also admired Oldfield for his status as a musician that had embraced the whole process of studio production in such a way that the means of production became part of his thing, like a proto electro artist of today.
The biography is a fascinating insight into those early years when the ego phobic Oldfield became the youngest millionaire in rock music at the time. It is inspiring to read a music (musicians) biography which is just so honest and devoid of the cringe making perma-adolescent crap that is such a feature of today’s personality cult media. Oldfield’s early existential angst is manifest in the total singularity of his early albums that make no recourse to any of the prescribed styles in force at the time and yet bearing that in mind it is remarkable that they were so successful.
I’m suddenly feeling quite nostalgic about this hitherto forgotten music if only for the fact that it stands for an era when there seemed to be something of a more widespread belief in the edification of popular culture. Can you imagine a totally instrumental concept album by a reclusive musician (or similar) even getting off the ground in today’s cultural climate?
It’s a fabulous start to the month of May, wall-to-wall sunshine for at lease the last week, though temperatures seem to be more ‘normal’ for the time of year. Gill and I had a fabulous time in South Wales last weekend and it was a joy to meet her lovely parents and family. We did plenty of cycling and visited a number of interesting places. I must admit that I have never been to this part of the UK before and found it all to be rather pleasant. We cycled up to the curious folly that it Castle Coch, not a real castle, but instead a palatial home built by the eccentric lord Bute and constructed in the Bavarian style that has come to be the model for all Walt Disney castles. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go up to the much more impressive ‘real’ castle at Caerphilly; but maybe next time. On the ride up to Castle Coch we stopped off at a curious little cafe, more a shed beside a mini vineyard which dished out gorgeous stone baked Welsh Cakes with filter coffee. Maybe it was the French girl that served us or the vineyard setting, but for a moment it felt as though we were actually in Southern France rather than Wales. Still, it gave a sense of that certain quirkiness and invention that is a distinctive part of this little country which is such a popular destination for all of Britain’s alternative life style seekers.
I didn’t manage to get quite as many pictures as hoped, or at least pictures that could be configured into a nice sequence on flickr or this site and (foolishly) I omitted to take the D80 to save space. So all photos from Wales are courtesy of the Sony. Fortunately, I now seem to have gotten to grips with all of the D80’s peculiarities including the infamous firmware glitch in the matrix metering and the need to set up a permanent -3ev to compensate. The camera is producing fine results in spot and the rather old fashioned (and disfavoured) centre weighted modes and I definitely prefer to use the assignable ‘single area’ auto focus mode, when actually using auto that is. Results with the other two dynamic modes where proving to be a little frustrating at times as the camera has a tendency to make random assumptions about the point of focus within the frame.
After about a week of messing with the Nikon D80 I have now just about got the hang of all of its multifarious features and settings. Initial attempts with the camera were proving to be alarmingly un impressive for a machine of this quality. The Nikon more than any other digital camera I have had has demonstrated in a way, just how different digital photography is to film.
I thought I would upload a recent snap of Gill. Although this shot was taken in AP mode I still used a bit of the dreaded flash, something I tend to avoid at all costs. I think it would be interesting to do a study into the two different camera modes and how they relate to users. I tend to be more of an Aperture priority photographer with an interest in detail and depth of field, I wonder if SP folks would tend to be much more ‘off the cuff’. An interesting side line debate for Flickr no doubt. Despite the inevitable losses incurred by the considerable downsising of this photo it still looks incredibly smooth to me, with very good contrast and colour.The original is stunning in its detail!
Gill and I are off to Cardiff in couple of weeks to meet the folks so there should be more opportunities for pictures. I hasten to add that I have never visited South Wales and a trip out to parts of the Gower coast and other places sounds very promising.
More innovations and modifications are on the way for this website including a more divergent approach to the Prestbury Gallery that will include some of my more unusual and not necessarily ‘post-cardish photos of the surroundings. Or rather more studied, abstracted and expressive images from here about. The churchyard alone is yielding some very curious photos. Now that I am armed with a camera that can capture images in a huge range of lighting conditions (with attendant atmosphere) not to mention an accurate replication of a whole range of film effects, I see interesting times ahead for oliver-wood.co.uk
Thankfully the pre-Christmas stress is over for another year but it has been a rather enjoyable festive season — my first with Gill and family Though we are spending most of the Christmas-New Year interim at mine. Today we cycled up to near by Hare Hill with the intention of having a sneak (out of season) preview of the magnificent gardens but the ornamental lawn with sculptures and surrounding arboretum were closed to the public as is customary with NT properties at this time of year.
Gill however, was suitably impressed with the general Mottram St Andrew setting which seemed to be at its most atmospheric in the misty winter half-light. At this time of year much of rural Northern England has a certain quality of verdant dankness, a becalmed quiescence or a tangible lull in the proceedings before the fertility storm of spring. Our local high rainfall and atmospheric moisture levels promote the most vivid growths of bright green moss and algae on virtually anything that remains still for long enough and these bright greens combined with the rich browns of earth, mud, and leaf mould are the predominant colours of the landscape. I got to try out my new Sony W70 camera in alfresco mode for the first time. The results are quite adequate thus far and at last I now have a digital camera with a satisfying degree of manual control—but it is still just a step on the ladder to a decent digital SLR. I keep pondering the prospect of a return to film and the resurrection of some pretty good kit from previous years but unfortunately the convenience of digital continues to override virtually all other concerns.
Mr P seemed to be airing a number of concerns about London life last time we met but we appeared to reach something of a consensus on the self evident superiority of life in the North. At least one can entertain the prospect of actually being able to own the roof over ones head in many places around Manchester and Cheshire, and more than just a ‘flat’ in an over populated area. Friendlier people, a much less competitive but highly creative cultural industry sector, low density housing, open space and a generally less frenetic pace of life are just some of the things I would recommend about life up here. As would many of the those decamping to the Mancunian suburbs or Cheshire towns and villages from the South. Even by comparison with near by Manchester my local town of Macclesfield seems to be pleasantly ‘relaxed’. Gill is still marvelling at the shear quantity of good quality privately owned shops in the town along with the extraordinary concentration of pubs and inns.
It was yet another bright sunny day and we finally managed to get up to White Nancy cycling from Prestbury—naturally. We were armed with a borrowed Sony Cybershot P100 camera, a much better machine than my A205 but unfortunately White Nancy proved to be a very difficult subject to capture. I think this was due in part to the lighting conditions and the huge contrast (dynamic range) of this famous white object with shadow foreground against sky. But photographic disappointments did not detract from a lovely weekend with the even more lovely and capable Gill!
On the way back we stopped off at the revamped Lord Clyde in Kerride, one of my favourite refuelling locations on the Middlewood Way blast. By now the weather was positively balmy, though conditions atop Kerridge hill were typically gusty and a little chilly when the sun went in. Long range visibility was no where near as good as it can be in autumn or winter but we could still clearly see the land marks of Jodrell Bank, Stockport and Manchester. The new and ever ascending Beetham Tower near Castlefield was remarkably clear and well defined in the distance.
Note to self, Total millage as of today: 5,817.9
Spring really is here now and a number of consecutive warm and sunny days have helped to lift the mood and inspire a degree of optimism, though I’m rarely lacking in that latter quality.
Gill and I managed to bike it into Didsbury last weekend and it was certainly a more fulfilling trip than one I made (and commented on) last year. This cultured and cosmopolitan Manchester suburb was positively buzzing with the old vibe, the essence of studentvile that characterized Didsbury when I was a kid visiting my grandmother’s house just outside the main town. But the blight of the megaplex mess on Kingsway is still just as irksome as ever. This temple to consumer orientated culture and artificial indoor activities was partly responsible for sweeping away the old Parswood rural studies centre, a very bohemian institution run and managed by the Workers Education Association and a place that offered some sort of a glimpse into the delights of rural life for inner city kids , now of course its just an over sanitized picnic area completely overshadowed by the giant tin shed temple to fast food, manipulative main stream cinema, and bingo.
We managed to stay ‘up the smart end’ for most of the visit and in this more halcyon time of spring Fletchermoss Park and the Parsonage Gardens looked just as good as ever. The photo of the magnolia tree above was taken in Parsonage Gardens close to the location of mum and dads wedding photos and my christening shots.
Next weekend I’m taking Gill up to one of my local vantage points, the famous white Nancy atop Kerridge Hill. Photos and reports to follow….indubitably.
It’s a short entry today but I felt compelled to note some recent thoughts and observation on photography—I think it is a sort of motivational dialogue with myself in truth.
I have got to get a Nikon D70 digital SLR as soon as poss. One of my contacts on Flickr has produced some outstanding work with one of these “affordable” SLRs and I know from first hand experience that this is a very satisfactory make. At one time Nikon was the king of Japanese cameras.
My good old FG20 saw me through college and more than ten years of film based shooting and it has never let me down. The shutter still moves like silk and the exposure meter remains highly accurate and reliable. Unfortunately, my days of film based work are petering out; I find that the convenience of digital (even bog standard digital) hugely out weighs the stress and tedium of a processing and printing stage.
Flickr in fact is proving to be highly educational, it is a sort of show-case for the digital idiom and one thing that strikes me about the medium of digital photography is the new found acceptance of a semi ‘pictorialist’ approach. Once again photographers are free to manipulate their images almost to any extent and still command respect from the photographic establishment, such manipulations have become intrinsic to the new medium. The process of ‘denaturing’ photography in the pre digital days was sometimes regarded as an almost sinful or treacherous act. It implied a desire to make the photographic image conform to the values of painting whilst simultaneously denying the photographic medium’s own unique set of artistic and cultural ‘values’. Now you are no longer seen as a photographic apologist if you over saturate to the point of melt down, apply all sorts of masks and layers, or radically denature the subject through post processing applications.