Bills Posts

I think there is a point up until which, it is almost impossible to separate art from religion, it was a tool that was used to illustrate religious events. The 16th Century introduced the reformation. I haven’t really looked at the reformation, I’d heard of it of course, but not having looked in to it, I had no understanding. A little bit of research reveals knowledge.

Artists that were famous at the time, and famous now. Lorraine, Rubens, Van Dyck, Poussin. The book is fascinating, and it is certainly making me think about art, and I am looking forward to being able to go to a gallery, especially if it features some of the pictures discussed in the book, so that’ll probably be London then, so can’t see that happening for a while.

I’m now on page 430, not far off two thirds of the way through. Right at the very beginning of the book, Gombrich gives a warning about judging art. Reading the book does not qualify you for doing that. Knowing some of the trials that artists went through will, I think make me appreciate the artist more that what I have done.

I acknowledge that the two pictures weren’t taken at the same time of day, from the same angle, at the same time of year. But they are sufficiently close that they will do for my purpose.

That purpose is to compare the normal and night modes on the P20 Pro.

For whatever reason I haven’t played with the night mode and now I think I need to explore it a bit more. So, which picture is which?

The bottom picture is Normal, the top is with the night mode.

It’s not just this picture, but also this one;

Taken only a few minutes before. In both cases the colours are deeper and richer. I like them both, and that makes me want to explore the mode further. I am also now asking if the mode could be used for astrophotography. So I am hoping for a clear sky in the morning to test this. But the weather forecast is for cloudy skies so probably not in the morning.

This picture was taken October last year. We had a lovely day in London. Sometimes it’s nice to look back to remember good times.

I didn’t go for a walk this morning. I woke up around 6:15 ish. I’ve previously explained the self imposed problem I have getting out of the house by 0610.

In a recent post, I wrote something along the lines of that’s I have been walking to the waterfront and taking pictures of the same scene. You would think I’d get bored with it. Well, sometimes I do. Thrash’s why occasionally I might take a morning off, or change my route. The thing is though that I almost invariably end up at the waterfront – because it is lovely and interesting.

I also wrote about sometimes needing motivation to get up and get out. Two of the best ways of doing this are to look out the window and see a lovely morning developing. The other way is to have an objective for the walk. Frustratingly, I did have an objective – which I will carry over to tomorrow. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. I have been dropping the occasional hint, but I’m not yet ready to reveal. But, I do have a plan.

I’ve seen the small single person sailboats with a hydrofoil. But it is only recently that I’ve noticed surfboards, whether sail, or kite, with a hydrofoil. The reduction in friction means that these things can reach sixty miles an hour. It’s amazing to see. I’m not tempted to indulge though.

Up until about an hour ago, it has absolutely chucked it down. We haven’t left the house, except to put food on the bird table and rubbish in the bin. Just pottered about really. I should have spent time getting my radio shack sorted, but I’ve been having a bit of a mare installing Big Sur – got it done eventually, but it wasn’t straight forward. In a way the problem lay with me choosing too low a spec machine.

It’s Saturday, we decided that there weren’t any house jobs we felt we had to do. So, we’ve had a a bit of a relaxing day. That’s OK, I won’t complain about that. Not long before lunch, I suggested that it would be quite nice if we went back to the waterfront at Titchfield Haven. I had an ulterior motive, partially. I wanted to shoot some video in what are some quite wild conditions. As you can see from the photo, not massive waves, but enough to show that there was quite a breeze blowing. The wind was driving the intermittent showers quite strongly, the rain felt like needles hitting my face. I have to say though, that I was enjoying being out.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the 30 or so minutes that I spent on the waterfront, there’s a bit of a shingle bank that is walkable when the tide is low, so I took the opportunity to get out as far as I could – not far, only about a hundred yards, if that. It gave me an opportunity to speak to a couple of the surfers as they were preparing to go out. They were friendly and keen to speak. One had only been doing it for a couple of weeks. Wasn’t going out very far, but was keen to get out.

There’s something to be said, I find, for being out in wild weather. There’s just something about it that really appeals to me. Lunch was lovely, Tuna Mayo rolls, making the whole expedition a very enjoyable experience.

The morning skies are getting darker. It won’t be long before my entire morning walk will take place at night. Every day, the length of the daylight or night changes by at least a couple of minutes per day. The light over the Haslar Marina had a strangle very delicate glow to it, quite unusual.

Now, this is strange. All of a sudden, I can’t think of what to write, and so of course my ultimate fallback is to write about that. Why that should suddenly happen, I’m not sure. Usually, I try and think about the blog a little bit during the day, and usually a thought will come to me for the topic of the evening post. Today, the only thing that came to me was was the photograph at the head of this post. But then, having started to write about, I have dried up.

The weather forecast last night indicated that it was very likely to rain at about 7AM, there’s alway’s a bit uncertainty there , so it may have rained on me. Luckily it didn’t. In fact, what I think was supposed to be a bit of a storm, turned into not even a damp squib. That made it a nice walk as usual.

Not too bad considering I pretty much stopped at the end of the first para. Unfortunately, you can expect this to happen again.

I’ve been walking this route for almost four years now would you believe, 5 days a week for the most part. All year round, the exceptions are rain, holidays, illness, and over-sleeps. I’ve probably accumulated not far short of 20,000 pictures of the same subject. Well not really, the same area, but each picture is unique it’s own way. I would quite like to do a 365 day project of the same scene; either a street scene or the waterfront. I don’t think I can commit to that, not because I literally couldn’t do it, but factors would inevitably intrude. I’d inevitably miss a picture for one reason or another, and that is the project ended effectively.

I have to say that whilst I am typing this, I’m sat watching the Joy of painting. To be honest, we are open mouthed at Bob Ross, he makes it look so easy. Are his pictures formulaic? I neither know or care – they are effective. Apparently our neighbour is doing it. We really must ask him for an exhibition.

I hope you haven’t realised that, from my writing, as I sat to write this evening I couldn’t think of what to talk about. I’m happy with this.

Ah! Right, so this is not quiete what I intended. No. 90/365 was going to be a celebration of the fact that I had reached No. 90. Then of course, not the doubts, but the wondering set in, should I celebrate at No. 90, or or as seems more likely at 100 – given that is only 10 days away. So, given the three confessions I have to make, I thought I had better leave any thought of celebration a bit further down the line.

OK, where to start? Oh, well, actually, my two mistakes both relate to one period of time. So, in my remembrance post on Sunday, I made a couple of statements. Both are wrong.

Firstly, I said that our visit to France and the tour of Normandy was our first trip to “Rural” France. Wrong. A few years before that we had booked a villa just outside Carcassonne, southern France. In part it was because we had all read Kate Mosse’s book Labyrinth based around the city. We had a lovely week with dear friends exploring the area. It was delightful.

I then said that I must do a blog on Castle Bagging. Oh Dear! It was we were holidaying in Carcassonne that we came up with the idea of doing a bit of Castle Bagging. We managed to get several quite spectacular sites in the bag.

The third one is, after looking back at the post, I suddenly thought “Hang on a second, I’m sure I’ve a post about castle bagging, and looking back through the list, there you were, and here’s a link;

Www.localitystories.com/2019/10/18/castle-bagging/

Well, my brain really let me down this time. My excuse was that I was in thrall to the writing of the post.

One of my magazines turned up earlier this week, Country Walking. Like Black & White Photography, I like reading this publication cover to cover (almost). For me, it’s a combination of reading about people’s walking experiences, lovely pictures from all over the country and quite frequently, you pick up something of interest.

This issue (413, Dec 2020) had several articles that made very interesting reading;

The ten maps every walker should own. It’s not the maps them selves, one of the websites recommended is;

http://www.Marvellousmaps.com

Go and have a look at it, you can get specialised maps such as The Great British Adventure Map or Great British Place names. Or, you could get your own personalised map from the Ordnance Survery at

shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/custom-made/

Particularly interesting to read was the story of the London A-Z and how this was developed and published by Phyllis Pearsall.

Then of course there was the little gem of TrigBagging (which reminds me, I must do a blog on Castle Bagging – I will explain all). What is Trig Bagging? I’m sure you must have been out for a walk and found one; these small concrete pillars in the middle of nowhere for no reason, with strange mountings Trig points; Although the country had been mapped in the 18th & 19th centuries, a more accurate re-mapping was needed. Brigadier Martin Hotine completed the task, giving us these more than 6,000 trig points across the country. To bag a trig point, is to visit it, touch it, feel the environment, and respect the effort that was put into creating this monument to the country.

Time to bag a trig point or two.

Reading the SoA has been held up a bit this week. With the arrival of the B&W Photography magazine, and Country Walking. The thing is with the magazines, when they arrive, I like to read them straight away.

Anyhow, that done I was able to get back to the SoA. At the moment, we are still moving through the 16th Century. My eye was particularly drawn to the Cupola of the Parma Cathedral.

I can imagine laying on the floor in the centre of the cupola looking up falling up. When you think this was drawn between 1520 and 1524. It really is an amazing piece of work, and I am only looking at it in a small picture in a book – what must the real scene be like? I must admit, I would love to see it. Here’s a link to a picture;

https://bit.ly/3eGJtwV

A little bit further in I encountered Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as the “el Greco” or “The Greek”. He drew the vision of St John. My first thought was that this was a very different style, bordering on surreal. I was secretly pleased to read a few paragraphs later that el greco’s work, although popular was quite heavily criticised. Bearing in mind that it was drawn in 1609, it tells you just how different it was that it wasn’t until after the First World War that it was recognised. Here’s a link;

http://idlespeculations-terryprest.blogspot.com/2007/02/opening-of-fifth-seal-vision-of-st-john.html

It really is a strange picture. No wonder it so disturbed people of the time.