I think the weather didn’t get the memo. Well into October and as I write this 23 degrees C. This is not at all normal. I was discussing the weather this morning with my new friend. She, well I think it was a nanny – could be wrong, didn’t seem to have an opinion and was more interested in whether I had any treat for her – I hadn’t.
It was another lovely dawn over the Welland valley but still no real signs of mist but what there was still worth the small trip out.
Oh COVID what a wonderful virus. I can say this because on Friday I had my COVID vaciantion, yes I’m that old – well almost but have contributing conditions that put me over the edge. Temporally not quite an old fart – shame no one told my body! For my sins I’ve felt a bit shit over the weekend. Not really ill but enough to mope around the house – my wife has not been impressed! Today, finally, the sudo COVID has disappeared – horrah.
To celebrate I went out and took some photographs of an enterprising spider who had spun a web across a window at the front of the house. I have no idea how spiders even conceive such a thing as they only have the smallest amount neurons to help plan such an undertaking. But they do and it is a small marvel which I think should be recognized.
In other news I see that the Tory party are starting to eat their own babies. ( I see Nigel Farage turned up – big Rishi fan I believe) Perhaps there is a grand plan, a cunning plan, perhaps it will work but at the moment it does have more of Baldrick about this than anything else. I’m tempted to cheer them on to their own destruction but of course they are the nominal governing party and could be still in power this time next year. So the more they screw things up we all suffer. The old adage that shit only flows in one direction still applies. Would Labour be any better? Don’t know but at this point they couldn’t be any worse so not that much to loose were they to win* the next election.
*What exactly win will mean at the next election is a multi headed beast which I know doubt will discuss on this blog in the coming months – you have been warned.
I’ve been at it again…reworking iPhone images captured using the Adobe Lightroom photo app. It is an awful lot of fun realising new skills can make disappointing photographs just that bit better. I had plans this morning to get out at dawn and capture some images. Well I got that 50% correct – I did go out but for a walk rather than capturing any photos. (I blame the COVID vaccination jab I had yesterday – damn you Bill Gates!) Instead, I was messing around after breakfast with Lightroom on my iPad and came up with these. The one great advantage of using the Adobe app to capture the images is that any filters etc you apply at the time of capture are not final – hence the reworking.
I’m not sure you can really see the difference on these low res internet images but I can and I think the reworking (should that be remastering? Not Sure) has improved them. Subjective but it is my blog.
Anyway, I seem to be getting a small but steady stream of new subscribers. I would like to welcome you along to this strange externalising of my befuddled mind. I hope you enjoy what you find.
I had a conversation the other day with a friend about how, it really doesn’t seem that long ago, our current age seemed, to us, very old. Now I’m not so sure or am I? Oh life is so confusing these days…
So is Ahsoka any good? Well according to many diehard supporters it is. They luxuriate in all the whooshing of lightsabers and its continuance of the the Clone Wars, or is it Rebels (?), storyline. For someone who has not bothered to watch either I find the whole thing pedestrian and not really taking the Star Wars universe anywhere.
We have had nearly half a century of lightsaber’s whooshing surely there must be something else in this galaxy or, spoiler alert, galaxies far far away. Of course there is one show that doesn’t contain one whoosh and that is Andor which does try to move the story on – let’s hope that the end of the writers strike may well expedite the production of the second and final season. However, this appears to have been coolly received by the self appointed gatekeepers of what Star Wars should be so I guess we won’t see anything else like that anytime soon. This is a shame.
As for Ahsoka? I will watch to the end but with no great enthusiasm. I suspect I have finally grown out of the movie I loved all those years ago. This saddens me more than I can articulate.
One never knows just what little creature will turn up when clearing out years of rubbish from the garage. Today it was a young Common Toad. We moved it in a glass jar to a part of the garden that we hoped would be suitable for its toad needs.
It is one of the more nonsensical things about modern life. So much TV – nothing to watch. 3 channels and only one TV in a house – always something to watch (I suspect someone has been sniffing at the nostalgia to type such a line). Perhaps the older you get the more you realise that most of TV is crap and it has always been thus.
So instead I just sit on the sofa with my iPad and doodle and sketch which is actually more rewarding – most of the time.
A question for the philosophers out there – When is a photographic image created? I’m really not sure what the answer to this is. As I have mentioned I am currently working on a photographic project called Gartree Explored. This is a photo essay set in the Gartree (Harborough District Council) hundred. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or who might have been following this blog for sometime but I have captured images based in the Harborough area before starting the project. Could or should I use them? Or should I remaster the images from the original DNG and then use them. These images will be brand new images as, in the case of the images here, 14 years has passed with a significant improvement in the image software. They are images made in 2023 just from DNGs that are 14 years old.
I have no answer to that question other than to ask does it matter? To which the answer of course is not one jot. These are constraints I am putting on myself and it will affect no one else.
It is very strange but I find talking to a pony is very pleasurable. Very relaxing. Somehow makes sense. I know the pony is just a bit hungry and is eyeing up a potential snack coming its way but they are the most wonderful listening creatures. They are nothing like as nosey as cattle who just can’t help sticking their snouts in and having a good sniff.
So this morning I was up early(ish) and out with the animals in the Welland valley. I had hoped for a bit of mist – not cold enough but the season is still early and we’ll see. Instead I did a bit of communing with all creatures great and small as the sun slowly rose above the horizon.
I ended up in Slawston, a more rural place you couldn’t wish to visit. The last time I drove through there at dawn I shared the main street with a hare casually lolloping along. So bucolic. Only of course it isn’t quite as first reported. Slawston is infact 15 minutes from the train station that will take the Slawston resident to central London in just over an hour.
Still on a crisp autumn morning none of that really mattered. It was just so nice to have a chat to my four legged friends.
Not quite night swimming but rather evening walking. A typical best camera situation – my iPhone 13 was excellent but with many pitfalls – not least of which is the small size of the produced by the super wider lens. Still we must enjoy what we can.
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