Bills Posts

It has been a little while since I wrote about Vlogging. Don’t think i have forgotten about it. Some of the kit is very cheap and I now have the setup to produce videos of a reasonable quality. Now I did, and do have a plan. But its one thing to have a plan, it is something else entirely to have the skills to do it.

Now, I don’t want to produce videos of the type that a lot of Americans produce, there is nothing wrong as such with their videos, except they leave me a bit breathless, I know it’s they way they’ve cut it, leaves me quite breathless.

I’ve written before about a person the style of who’s TV programmes I’d like to emulate, Jack Hargreaves;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egVfxSkjWaE

The thing is to start simple. I will be doing some practice videos. I may even post a couple to my YouTube channel.

When I went out for a saturday walk I noticed the owner of one of the yachts hadn’t furled their spinnaker properly. It was making quite a noise flapping backward and forward . I don’t think it was unreasonable to assume that someone from the marina would spot this and do something about it.

It appears they didn’t. When I had to pop in to town today (Sunday) I did so via the waterfront (why not in this stormy weather? I figured that the waterfront in the harbour would be safe and it was – for people, not incorrectly furled Spinnakers.

Other than I couldn’t help but think the expense of the repair to the sail I found it quite amusing. I couldn’t help a little bit of anthropomorphising and I got the distinct impression that the sail was very enthusiastically waving the loose bit of itself. Either to say “Look at me, I’m here” or “Yay, go on”. It was brilliant to watch. Sorry the video is a bit unstable, as you can imagine the wind was really blowing.

As I was walking back, the wind was almost stopping me from moving forward and there was a light rain shower, but even though light when driven by a high wind, it felt like my face was being peppered with BB pellets. Normally I find walking in weather like this to be exhilarating, but my joy in the fun of being out in the wind and the rain is very much tempered by the thought of the loss of life and the damage caused by the storms.

I walked past the Geese;

I couldn’t help thinking that the geese are completely unfazed by the storms. The other birds, the gulls and swans were pretty much hunkered down trying to shelter, the geese just keep on eating. I did wonder how birds of any species cope on their migratory journeys when they encounter a storm. Presumably they either try to get down straight away, or just accept that they are going to be blown off course.

Now, this is a bit awkward. The Rotary club is a very worthy organisation and I am sure that they have not done this intentionaly, and I acknowledge that the banner has been there quite a while., I am not sure when it was put up. But, I went out today with the specific intention of taking a particular photograph, and I am sad to say I could not, because of the positioning of the banner.

What have they done to raise my ire?

Well, in my opinion, even if they do have the permission from the council to place the banner in that location, I think they are being disrespectful to the history of Gosport. For, underneath the G of the first line of the banner is the blue plaque to Henry Cort, who in the 18th Century developed and patented an improved method of the puddling process for refining cast iron.

You can feel the plaque underneath the banner. It was most frustrating that I couldn’t take my photograph, for another in my series of the Blue Plaques of Gosport. I do feel an email to the council coming on.

IT’s not often I complain, I don’t like doing it, but I do feel that sometimes it is called for.

It’s a bit unnerving when you hear the clunk and the crash of a ridge tile falling off the roof. It’s always a bit of a fear when we have a storm, but this is the first time it has happened.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning, it was raining and I didn’t for a walk at lunchtime as it was a bit blowy, and it was before the tile. I did though have to out mid-afternoon. The wind was still blowing. What got me though was that it was sunny with small clouds scudding along at a high rate. It was the combination of the high winds and the sun that I found surprising.

What is disappointing, apart from the damage to the house, which is of course the main thing, I have missed out on my daily walk. A consolation in that respect is that I am slightly over the weekly walk1000 distance, so anything I do over the weekend is a bit of a bonus.

There’s a bit of a theme tonight. Not unreasonably the weather has been a topic of conversation throughout the day, with the arrival of Storms Dudley and Eunice (I don’t know the order, which comes first). I’ve been lucky that there has been no rain, so I haven’t had my walks interrupted by rain – that’s not strictly correct, I think there was one day where it was raining at lunchtime, so I took a walk in the evening, which was quite interesting.

I had thought before of going for a walk in the evening. You would expect there to be stuff going on, but as I was walking around on Wednesday, the town centre was as quiet as I see it in the morning.

There’s no sign of the wind at the moment, but I’m sure it won’t be long before it arrives. We even had it as a topic on the Thursday night net. That was recorded as a Facebook live. If you are on FB, just look for GB3IW and you’ll find it.

I think that I have become a little bit more adventurous in my photography. By that I mean that I have been more prepared to take pictures of things, from different angles, because I am not sure what will make a good picture, so I try. Sometimes it may work out. Most of the time though, like above it doesn’t

Now, this one of the light, taken a couple of weeks ago, does work for me. There’s a sharpness to the lamp, and the beam of light, perhaps it’s the positioning of the lamp, it looks a bit imposing. It’s one of those I just like it.

One of my inhibitions I had when taking pictures of unusual things, or from unusual angles out in public was being concerned about what people may think of me, namely mad! I think the transition is trying to get a good picture being thought as more important than being thought mad.

I have to admit that I am finding the change of mindset quite refreshing, the release of inhibition – I’m not going to do anything mad or dangerous, absolutely not. But, if I’m kneeling, or crouching to take a picture of a piece of litter that I think may make an interesting picture and somebody walking past thinks I’m mad – so be it. Like this pile for rubbish. Again, it didn’t work out, but it could have done.

I feel a bit like new doors have been opened for me, and I can afford to be a bit more adventurous.

At six thirty in the morning there isn’t much happening at the waterfront. The Gosport ferry going backwards and forwards, a Brittany ferry coming in usually it’s the Mon St Michel or the Normandie. Yesterday morning it was the Barfleur, a ferry that I don’t think I had seen before.

This morning, the Mon St Michel was followed in by the Whitonia one of the bunkering ships, that I knew was heading for the Galicia, one of the ferries that I still haven’t seen. Most frustrating.

Just every so often a cargo ship will enter or leave the harbour. Usually these are ships carrying refrigeration containers, the ships are consequently called Reefers. Sometimes they can be general cargo carriers.

After the channel in to the port was dredged for the aircraft carriers, the harbour became more readily available to cruise ships. Not the giants of the major lines, but bigger than what had been coming in. I haven’t seen a cruise ship in a fair while.

Whatever the happenings in the harbour, it’s always a pleasure to see it.

I’ve just started reading A history of photography, but I have a bit of a dilemma. Several hundred posts ago, I started reading about the Hubble Telescope, but I stopped fairly early in to the book as I quickly realised that although the history of the telescope was accurately reflected , in terms of discoveries and recent activities, it was hopelessly out of date.

The version of the history of photography that I am reading has a publication date of 1977. So much has happened in the field of camera technology between then and now initially made me wonder whether I should stop reading this particular book and find a more up to date version of history.

But then I started thinking that whilst we need to be aware of the discovery and development of photography up to something like the brownie camera. Certainly the brownie we had in the 1960’s took 120 film, and it was the early 70’s before I had my first 35mm camera.

We had to reach a point where it was easy to take pictures – note I say easy, not necessarily cheap. Film was (is) not cheap. Digital is a world of difference. But thinking about whether I needed to not read the 1977 book and look for something up to date really is a distraction. I realised that the technology is irrelevant. It is all about the picture.

This is why I have realised that I do not need to stop reading the book, because the detail of the early knowledge will not change. The photographs people took will not change. It is my view that the book is as relevant today as it was in 1977.

I shall continue reading it.

The Delfin, taken whilst on board the ferry heading towards Portsmouth. The Delfin if outbound.

Yesterdays post was very short. My apologies for that. I had a seriously lovely day for more reasons than the consumption of alcohol. It was a mini pub crawl with two people for whom I have an awful lot of time.

I returned home early enough and sufficiently sensible to do the regular Saturday evening zoom, for which I struggled to stay awake and not surprisingly went to bed almost straight after, luckily awakening this morning headache free. I put that down to drinking plenty of water the night before.

I should stress that this is something I don’t do very often, and won’t be repeating for quite a while. It was part of a very nice weekend.

Another short post. Sorry again. I really am trying to get back to some reasonable posts.

This is HMS Warrior, I was on a trip across to Portsmouth today. I had a really nice time. I’m really sorry, tonight’s post is very short. I am absolutely fine, I have had a seriously lovely day. I went to bed very late last night, and I have been out this afternoon, leaving me very tired and really unable to focus on a topic tonight, which is very unusual for me.

/i really did have a lovely time.