When you go for a regular walk, and you follow the same route you see the same people. It only takes a smile, and a “Good Morning” and before you know it, you are friends.
So, on my morning walk there’s Mike (although he’s retired during the lockdown), Ray, Bob & Sue and Drone Boy – don’t know his name. He looks about 20 and is there a couple of times a week flying his drone.
Bob & Sue have only introduced themselves this week, after the rough sleeper episode, they sit outside Gregs having breakfast as I walk past on my return journey.
I would have preferred a bit more light behind the clouds, but I’ll take what I’m given. I do like to see a nice dramatic sky. I like to see the drama in the sky. Hence today’s picture – Angry clouds over Portsmouth.
Really, this is all about Street Photography. Wonderful landscapes are of course a joy to behold, but people add the interest to a lot of photographs. Like a lot of things, I can’t explain any of my obsessions, and street photography is certainly among them.
How much have I done? Possibly a dozen pictures, not many at all really. Too scared, nervous about confrontations with subjects, not very good. Why bother? The desire to do I suppose.
A couple of weeks ago, I took a picture of a runner, from behind and had one of those lightbulb moments, don’t face, don’t confront. Do it from behind. Then, I was reading somewhere, that this was a recommended way of starting in the genre. So here we go. Look for the red in the picture, not just the lady. It is there.
I was out delivering leaflets, when my I was taken by the line of windows. Along a street not far from me. When I read about photography, there is a focus on lines and shapes. I confess I’m not really very good at seeing them, but I am trying and looking. This line of houses, curving away in to the distance, with phone lines connected to most houses. For how much longer will they be a part of our street life?
There’s a thing about delivering leaflets. In the past I’ve had some real battles with letter boxes, both with the tightness of getting a thin leaflet through, and an eager dog the other side, looking to nab your fingers. I found the perfect solution. A spatula, with a leaflet folded over does the job, straight in and out. With 200 odd leaflets delivered. It only went wrong once. Excellent.
It was a grey outing, but the rain Held off until near the end. But I had a small brolly with me, so that was fine. Over the course of the trip out, I walked 4.8 miles. Happy with that.
I saw this little thing as I was walking along. It made me feel sad. They are so busy, and I love watching them. A Bumble bee will have a lifetime of anything from 2 – 6 weeks for workers, through to a year for a queen, the workers can be seen daily busily moving from plant to plant, helping to fertilise and gather pollen. They are lovely to watch, peaceful, forever on the go.
Of course I know they don’t live forever, but it is sad nonetheless to acknowledge that it has done its duty. I hope it had a busy productive life. I would like to say thank you for it’s service would that be inappropriate?
I have not been doing anywhere near enough on this blog. I needed a mission. I therefore commit to posting a photograph a day for the next year. If I have nothing else to write about, I can write about the photo
There is one thing, the photo doesn’t have to have been taken today, but where possible I will use a photo that i have taken on that day. Take the one above for example. It was taken a couple of days ago. In comparison to a picture taken today, when it was grey and verging on rain this is, in my opinion a much nicer picture. Chances are that before the year is out, you’ll be sick at the sight of the Spinnaker in Portsmouth, and the water between it and Gosport. But the pictures perfectly illustrate the changing days. Before long, the mornings will be darkening and we will go through the blue hour, that time before the sun rises. Where possible I will diversify.
Like today, nothing is burning my pen, no news has got my ire. I like the smoothness of the light in this picture, I find it quite relaxing. As a note, I also like using black and white, so expect to see some of those. Enjoy,.
On YouTube, one of the channels I subscribe to is Ant Boy Xander,
You’ll see on his page for around the 17th of July his 3 1/2 minute skit on the Big Butterfly Count
I thought to myself I can do this, There is a very good app, which enables you to easily identify the most common species very quickly and count them. I downloaded the App and started doing the counts.
Over the week, it has become clear that we have three – four regular species; Large Whites, Small Whites, Comma, Peacock. I’ve now seen these over the last week. Today, I had my reward, that comes when you pay attention to something. I saw two butterflies that I thought were the same species, on our pathway, I thought one of them was dead, and the way the other was flapping around, it was almost like it was mourning. Then the dead one moved, a lot and I realised they were whites, but different species. The way they were going at each other, it certainly looked like they were fighting.
Then, I sat down, and low and behold, one of the two Commas came and sat on me. Staying still for at least a couple of minutes, it obviously wasn’t chance, and assuming it was the same butterfly, because it happened twice, and another time it Seattle’s very close to me. Brilliant. Thank you Ant Boy Xander for introducing me to the Big Butterfly Count.
Yes, I do this. IT isn’t aa case of putting off until tomorrow what I don’t want to do today. I daydream, waffle and don’t focus. I don’t really have a goal at the moment. I think I need to set one. What could it be?
1. To get my full licence (I’m an intermediate level radio ham)
2. To lose a stone in 7 weeks – I am a bit overweight
3. To walk the Southdowns way (not all in one go)
4. To improve my photography
5. To contribute to my Locality project (that’s a little imprecise). Think about that one.
A horrible thought occurred to me; not only am I not particularly good at writing, what if i don’t have a story to tell? Do my writings have too be about me? I don’t suppose they do. So, what could I write about?
Religion? –Too controversial, bound to upset somebody.
Politics? – Too controversial, bound to upset somebody.
Other topics? – Too controversial, bound to upset somebody.
Do we have free speech? At your peril, bound to upset somebody.
I need a non-controversial topic. Locality? Would like to, but not active enough. Need to become more so. I have the writers yearbook. Must look at that.
The bird table has been fairly active today. Magpies, Pigeons, the odd Sparrow and Starlings. No squirrels though, as far as we are aware – we haven’t watched the table all day. The starlings though, were well on form. One in particular did not want to share the table with any others, although happy to tolerate the sparrow. It was a real running squabble, with lots of squawking, and angry flapping of wings.
We went for a walk, along Stoke Road to the Cycle track, down to Clayhall, over to St Mary’s church. Alverstoke. I wanted to have a look at the church, one to see if there were any gargoyles, and any other symbology. I’m reading a book about ley lines, but it talks a lot about the markers on the Ley lines, and of course that has sent my brain off in a direction. I’m even thinking of getting some dowsing rods – just for the fun of it of course, they sell them on Amazon.
St Mary’s does appear to have some gargoyles, but as the church was built in 1862(ish) they are decorative rather than serving any religious function I suspect. Couldn’t go inside the church obviously. The Covid–19 lockdown has seen to that. It was interesting though to have a look around. Next weekend, I may try to visit Rowner church, I believe this to be the oldest in town – more on that after the visit.
On then, with the walk. From St Marys we walked through the village to Jellicho Avenue, then down to the waterfront of Stokes Bay. Luckily the wind was from our backs, pushing us forward, It was quite breezy and a little chilly. And then the rain started. Not at all heavy, but threatening. We decided we would cut our route short by not going across to Gilkicker, but making our way back Tupe to the cycle track, to take the quickest way home.
It didn’t rain much.
It’s strange isn’t it. I have this iPad,upon which I can compose and publish a blog post. Every so often, I get the urge to be be productive, of course I know what that means, but how can I be productive on a medium that I’m barely allowed to use for work related activities? It seems, that writing a blog post satisfies the productive urge.
I looked out the kitchen window just as I was preparing my breakfast. I could see that the bird table was absolutely rammed with starlings. It’s not a big table, less than a foot square. I reckon it had about seven or eight starlings partaking of their morning meal. Were they preparing for their morning murmurings, or had they already performed and were rebuilding their energy supplies?
Either way, it was a real food throwing party with, surprisingly for starlings, not that much squabbling. There was though, plenty of food flying around.
I like soggy breakfast cereals, so having put the milk to the weetabix I moved on to emptying the dishwasher. As I did so, I noticed that the starlings had departed. There was something else on the table. To begin with I couldn’t quite make out what it was, and then I realised it was the squirrel. I to was having a right old feast!
It probably took me about 5 minutes to empty & fill the machine. During that time I kept a running watch on the table. The squirrel was there the whole time. I was more than glad that it was making the best of the seed there. And then, I noticed the pigeons.
I assume that it is the same two to three fat pigeons that return to the table. I don’t really mind, but I do want the smaller birds to get a decent meal. The pigeons were not pleased. The squirrel was stopping them from getting their breakfast. They were stomping around on the shed roof, pausing to look down at the bird table. One of the pigeons took a flying dive at the table, catching its roof causing it to rock. The Squirrel looked as though it was going to flee, half on the table and hanging on to the tree next to it, but it decided that it had not had enough and so returned to his morning meal. The pigeons became even more frantic, with lots of stomping and dive bombing the bird table. The squirrel was now used to this and remained unruffled, stuffing itself. I finished loading the dishwasher, and sat to eat my breakfast and read my morning (actually meal time) book. Sometime whilst I was doing this, the squirrel decided he’d had enough. The pigeons were on the table, and happily gorging themselves.
Hi! my name is Sebastian (You can call me Seb!) ...welcome to my Blog. I'm a photographer from Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy my work.
I'm here to work on fiction. Occasionally I'll blog but that's certainly not my focus. You have a specific fiction genre or format you can't find enough of? Ask me. Maybe I got it. I migh share it with you. Otherwise, leave me alone; I'm toiling away at my workbench.
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