If you Believe…

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Guthlac

Another day…another wonderlust… Yesterday found our intrepid explorers once more braving the high country to the east. Here they encountered such marvels as great coffee shops and cafes, farmers going about their business and lots and lots of fresh air. Welcome to Gartree Explored!

It is a tough life but someone has got to live it. It was a lovely early autumn day, warm not hot sun, a cooling breeze and a clean air so that from the high points you can see for miles. We even had time to have a nonsense argument over medieval travel plans. The point of all this nonsense is that we were on the road again capturing images (me) and inspiration (David) for our latest creative project. My title is Gartree Explored – David’s is somewhat different but in the end they serve the same purpose: To produce a visual essay on the sights and sounds we found travelling around Harborough District Council.

Yesterday was dominated by the ironstone churches dotted in the small villages that were once the beating heart of what was once one of the richest parts of England – thanks to unfettered access to an expansive European market for our produce, in this case wool. Those were the days (Too soon? Not a bit of it!)

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Time to Sing Along…

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Guthlac

I’m sure there are some of you out there who might read this will recognise what I’m about to say, perhaps not. Anyway, there reaches a point in every person’s life when you realise that songs you thought were only released yesterday (maybe not yesterday but I’m sure you’ll excuse my hyperbole) but instead it is over 30 years ago. As I write this I’m listening to Automatic for the People which, according to Apple Music, was first released in 1992. Ouch.

So the rain has come and the temperatures are falling. This morning’s walk around dawn this morning was undertaken in a gentle shower – very invigorating. I have been exploring the best way to edit iPhone photographs and exporting them into my photo management system. After a bit of fiddling around I think I have come up with the best solution that suits my needs.

If anyone is interested it involves the following steps:

1, Capture image on iPhone;

2, Edit image on iPad – the apple pencil is really much better than a finger in my view;

3, Export the Image to Lightroom app on iPad. Add any additional edits that are not available Apple Photo editing software;

4, Open the Lightroom App on iMac and export image out of app as a DNG file – this preserves the most data.

This might seem a bit long winded but I think the results are worth it. It also requires access to iCloud and Creative Cloud accounts but once you have these the images zip from machine to the next in a matter of moments – well if you have a decent internet speed that is.

So the temperature is more bearable and I have taken another step to enable me create the images with my iPhone I want. Whether they are any good is very subjective and small blog images are not the best way to judge.

As REM said…September’s coming soon…

PS: I’m not claiming this as anything other than a process that works for me. Should you try to replicate you might find it cumbersome and that is fine…your mileage may vary to mine.

PPS: I see I have referenced Automatic for the People 6 times in the last 15 years…interesting?

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Tragedy

Posted on September 10, 2023 by Guthlac

With another hot day forecast I was out early this morning. I think I’ve moaned enough about the heat so it is fair to say I enjoyed the dawn dampness more than the humidity we have at the moment – it rained earlier on and the rain hasn’t cleared anything (Note from Ed: Stop Moaning!).

The damp dawn light was wonderful and allowed me to indulge my love of oversaturated colours.

The good news is that from tomorrow the heat should slowly die away and we should start to move into misty morning territory… you have been warned.

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I Hate Hot Weather…

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Guthlac

I know. I know. This is an heretical thing to state out loud but it is true. I hate hot weather. I always have. As a kid I would hide away when it got too hot and nothing has changed the older I have got. I know many people who can think of nothing better than to sit out in the hot sun, drink cold drinks and slowly turn red. Not me.

This morning I took my morning stroll just as the sun was rising and whilst this was lovely by the time I got home I was covered in sweat – in September! The Met. Office have stated that tomorrow will be the seventh continuous day of weather above 30 degrees c. In September. Whatever happened to the season of mellow fruit?

Of course anyone from the USA who might come across this will scoff at my plight. This is the lad of air con I know this because I have spent many wonderful family holidays in Florida in the Summer. Air Con does change your perception on heat and humidity. Well I don’t have air con, unless I’m driving my car, but isn’t that missing the point. Perhaps if we didn’t waste so much energy on Air Con then we might not have the situation where the world is making every effort to resemble the Triassic Period temperatures.

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Get on Up when you’re Down…

Posted on September 8, 2023 by Guthlac

It is official – we are in the middle of the hottest September days on record. Yipee (?) So glad that we humans have had nothing to do with this. Back in the hothouse yesterday started with me walking around the garden just watching the sun rise and snapping the odd photo.

Then it was off into the blistering heat, look I’m an old man from England so temperatures around 30 c is way too hot for my liking, with my heavy camera gear. This proved to be too much for the weather conditions and I ended up using my iPhone. The plan was to bag more villages with my good friend David for the Gartree – Explored project. We sort off did this but the heat was getting too much.

In the end we had to retired to a local pub. The cool Heineken, it wasn’t quite Ice Cold in Alex but was very refreshing all the same. After lunch many things happened which were not planned but we eventually found our way back to base. All in all the day wasn’t as planned. Such is life.

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I tell you what I want…

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Guthlac

The tale of two gardens…this morning I found that we are getting a wonderful crop of wild strawberries. Layter in the day I visited my friend’s garden and enjoyed the latest crop of frogs. It’s a hard life…

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Sometimes I feel like Throwing my Hands in the Air….

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Guthlac

I was going to write something about how infrastructure is a vital part of any society and the last 13 years of Conservative rule has not really understood that. But what is the point as every day passes it is becoming more and more evident that the Tories cannot run anything other than into the ground. So I’ll leave it at that.

The reason I was down at the Catthorpe Interchange was part of my long running Gartree Explored project, something I started with my friend back before COVID was a thing. Well this Autumn I’m going to try and make a real big dent in the project, the problem is I’m really not sure when I’ll consider the project complete.

Such is life.

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All the Single Ladies…

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Guthlac

‘Life you know…’.

This afternoon whilst walking around the Cathorpe Interchange, Leicestershire’s version of Spaghetti Junction, I came across this little lady. (Well I think it is a lady as I don’t have the best track record when identifying Dragonflies or other insects for that matter). The reason why she was there is because there are several balancing ponds around the junction which are great habitat for all manner of invertebrates.

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Blue Moon?….

Posted on August 31, 2023 by Guthlac

So last night saw the last ‘Blue Moon‘ until 2037. This of course got me standing out in the dark pointing my camera and rather large lens at the moon. So here we are – the last Blue Moon for more than a decade. Exciting isn’t it. If you are wondering why it is not blue well that is because a blue moon isn’t blue but rather it is the 13th full moon of the year which is rather rare.

The moon really is a wonderful object but it is almost unmeasurably tiny, as is the earth, when viewed against the infinite (almost?) size of the cosmos.

The only time I was able to capture a ‘blue’ moon was when clouds and contrails drifted across the sky and the light reflect from the moon was refracted through them.

In other news…

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Talk to me…

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Guthlac

Blast from the past….I’ve been working through some of my older iPhone images and I came across this one from 2015. When I se works like this I always wonder just how many pieces have of the exploded building, in this case a shed, they get in the correct place. I suspect with all the best will in the world something missing or in the wrong place. Either way it was a fascinating piece of work to encounter.

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