Simon's Blog

Kodachrome

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Guthlac

They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day

Paul Simon

This morning I went out for my first Lockdown walk and it was a glorious experience, well at least it was around the new park. Walking along the main road at rush hours was less enjoyable especially as it was noticeable that the volume of traffic was almost the same as the start of the week.

I only had my iPhone with me and I sorry to say I’m not entirely sure why the images turned out so kodachromey as I wasn’t really paying that much attention to what I was doing photographically. These were just snap shots.

I rarely use my iPhone as a camera of record anymore and whilst these were captured as DNG they still don’t have anything like the heft (a technical photographic term – no?) of my Sony and modern lenses. Still they made a pleasant surprise when I uploaded them.

Posted in autumn, Corvid 19, iphone, Photography | Tagged Covid, Dawn, Everards Pasture, iphone, iphoneography, Lockdown, Mist, River Soar, Rush Hour, Sony A7 R Mk 3 | Leave a comment

Remember Remember the 4th of November….

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Guthlac

Here we go again. England has joined the other nations of the Union (actually that is not true. Only Scotland is a nation: Wales is a Principality and Northern Ireland I believe is a province but I am not sure but that is a whole can of worms I don’t wish to open here!) and we are in lockdown. It isn’t as severe as the first but it is, nonetheless, very restrictive.

One of the restriction that has now been been put into place is the ability to travel. (Again the details are still a bit hazy but in principle was can’t travel all over England – I think?). So with this in mind I spent much of last day of freedom – probably until the New Year – travelling to and from the East Coast of England for the frivolous reason of taking in the sea air whilst at the same time taking some photographs.

When I got to Hunstanton it was strangely warmer than when I left home. Anyone who knows the North Sea coast will know that it can be really cold. Yesterday this wasn’t the case. We clearly live in interesting times!

It was also nice to bag a few shots of my personal bete noire (not sure this is right but I’m going go with it) the Fulmar. I have lost count of the months I have spent trying to capture half decent photographs of this bird as it glides effortlessly through the air above the cliffs only to come away mostly disappointed. Yet with modern technology it really isn’t that difficult anymore. Oh how life changes.

So hopefully it won’t be too long before I can venture out to the seaside once more but until that day comes I’m going to have to stay closer to home. Are well if this helps reduce the spread of the virus it is a small price to pay and we all have to try and do our bit!

It could be a long winter!

Posted in autumn, Corvid 19, Photography | Tagged Beach, Covid, Dawn, Fulmar, Hunstanton, Sand Dunes, sunrise, The Fens, wind farm, Wind Turbine | 2 Comments

Variations on a theme…

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Guthlac

I’ve been busy the last few days with other matters to think about making any photographs – in truth I didn’t really have any motivation. So yesterday evening and dawn this morning I put arse into gear and went a walk around my local park.

There is a group of four trees that I have captured over the last 10 or so years that I keep doing back to again and again. I guess it might be fun to make a book from the images and if you look back through the blog I’m sure you see many of them. I know I’m being lazy but I put it down to Covid – it just seems too much trouble to go anywhere new at the moment so I find myself visiting my local haunts again and again. (This is somewhat self defeating as the autumn night draw longer it looks likely that my opportunities for travel will diminish so now is the time I should be getting out but I don’t feel I want to.)

As an interesting aside I have just updated Lightroom and I have to say I like the new colour grading panel (I think that is what its called). I have been able to achieve the same effects with other techniques but this has just made things easier. Well done Adobe.

So there we have it seven photographs of the same four trees taken either side of last night – enjoy.

Posted in autumn, Jubilee Park, Photography | Tagged Adobe Lightroom, autumn, Autumn Colour, Colour Grading, Dawn, Dusk, evening, Jubilee Park, photography, River Soar, sunrise, trees | Leave a comment

Are we there yet?….

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Guthlac

We have just one week left of the American presidential campaign. One week left for Donald Trump to pull things around. Things don’t look promising for the incumbent and this is mainly due to his own shortcomings. Back in April I suggested that Trump only needed a 4% swing in his favour to make things very difficult for Biden. Since then he has squandered one opportunity after another to try and reach out to voters who are none too keen on the thought of a Joe Biden presidency. Instead of doing this he appears to have been happy to play to his base and make very little effort in the way of moving away from that.

Every attempt that Trump has made to turn Biden into a boogeyman have magnificently back fired. The latest in a long line of attempted smears, the Hunter Biden story, is perhaps the best example of this. As I understand the allegation Hunter Biden was involved in some form of hazy behaviour in Ukraine. It is suggested that this was a cover for his father and if so Joe Biden is in someway corrupt. Now I haven’t the first clue as to whether these things are in anyway true, but given the motley crew of people behind this story you have say it looks less likely to be true and more likely untrue. In truth all it really does is open a line of attack on Trump himself because when it comes to hazy financial dealings he has a charge sheet as long as your arm:

Secretive Chinese account with over $17million cash deposits which Trump since being President has withdrawn;
Between $400 million to nearly $1billion of outstanding loans due in the next four years to owed to nobody knows;
A probable tax fraud case where he may have to repay $100 million back to his own Federal Government.

I could continue but I think this proves my point. Whatever, Hunter Biden and his father may have got up to in Ukraine is likely to be small beer compared to what the current President of the United States has been up to whilst he has been in office.

So would a Joe Biden Presidency be a good thing? I don’t know and I guess it will be impossible to judge as, should he win, he will always be judged against Donald J. Trump and, in my view, that would make the 44 other holders of the office look really really good and so it would be with Joe Biden. In short he couldn’t be any worse.

Posted in American Politics, Apple Pencil, Art, Donald Trump, drawing, Procreate, USA Presidential Election | Tagged Corruption, Donald Trump, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, President of the United States, Tax Fraud, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Autumn comes but once a year….

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Guthlac

Up until last week autumn hadn’t really happened. Yes some of the trees were turning but not as many as there should be by now. (My measure of this is personal experience so not very scientific I know.)

Now, oh how things have changed. Now we are fully paid up members of the leaf peeping society and it is great until you realise this is just the foreplay to three months of short days and very long nights.

Winter is coming!

Posted in autumn, Gardens, Photography | Tagged autumn, autumn Leaves, Calke Abbey, Flowers, garden, National Trust, winter | Leave a comment

The future belongs….

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Guthlac

I think anyone who has taken the time to read my blog will know that I am not a fan of Donald Trump. Whilst it is very important to me to express my thoughts on the man on this blog I realise that it has zero effect for two reasons: First, in this world of social media blizzards, my very small blog is heard by almost nobody. To stretch the metaphor just a little more in such a blizzard my blog would make up no more than one snowflake and when you have 2 metres of snow who cares about one snowflake! The second reason is I am not a citizen of the United States of America and so have no vote. The whole thought of a Trump second term is sickening to me but what is worse is the knowledge that there is nothing I can do.

Posted in American Politics, Apple Pencil, Art, Digital Painting, Donald Trump, drawing, monochrome, Procreate, USA Presidential Election | Tagged Apple Pencil 2, Digital Art, Digital Painting, Donald Trump, portrait, Presidential Elections, Procreate, woman | Leave a comment

Well Done HMG….

Posted on October 18, 2020 by Guthlac

I’m that sort of guy. I like to see the data wherever possible, that backs up policy announcements. Since quite early on I’ve been downloading the UK Government’s Covid data and analysing the data myself. It has not always been easy to get hold of the data and for me the overall trend is more important than the day to day. So this afternoon I went to get my weekly data download and guess what – it wasn’t there even though it is supposed to be.

Now you could get all X files on this crap and see some great conspiracy which I always find less than helpful for one big reason: Very few organisation, especially governments, l are that good at organising anything let alone a huge conspiracy. No they are much more likely to be incompetent and so any conspiracy will quickly fall apart. Anyway Governments have far easier ways of deceiving their populations like just lying or making distracting claims.

Of course this is exactly what ‘they‘ want you to believe but if we follow this route it is the way that lives are ruined and you start making Wyoming mountains out of mash potatoes. So HMG – get you act together and fix the data release!

Posted in Apple Pencil, Art, Corvid 19, Digital Painting, drawing, Procreate | Tagged Apple Pencil 2, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Conspiracy Theories, Covid, Devil's Tower, Digital Art, Her Majesty's Government, Procreate, woman, X Files | Leave a comment

Nonesuch…

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Guthlac

Does anyone really know anymore what the hell is happening? I fear we all know the answer to that. In Britain we have a government who try to pretend everything will be fine as they demonstrate a total lack of any ability to govern. The latest nonsense is that we should all embrace the idea that a no deal Brexit is nothing to be concerned about. Of course we must now not call it No Deal instead we now must use the correct speak Australia Deal. Perhaps this may well have worked last year or maybe even the first month or so of this year but now? How many ‘world beating‘ things have we been promised since Boris Johnson started taking the virus seriously and how many have been ‘World Beating‘ but not in the way that he was trying to pretend? Then of course there was Barnards Castle.

Look, I haven’t got the first clue what is going to happen between now and the end of the year as far as Britain’s relationship with the European Union is concerned. Perhaps we’ll get a deal perhaps we won’t but the one thing I do know is that we can always tell when Boris is telling porkies – his lips are moving.