With the lockdown ongoing (at time of writing), there is a definite need to get out and about for the regulation one-a-day constitutional, and on these trips out, you can encounter endless wildlife.
One of my recent discoveries was the Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve – on deserted mornings, all you can hear is the wildlife around you, various birds chirruping and tweeting, interspersed with the occasional booming of the nesting bitterns.
The photos below are not limited to Shapwick Heath, but it provides the inspiration for the set of images.
Another opportunity to photograph my environs, while getting some exercise in at the same time.
As I’ve mentioned before, he idea of the project is to set out on a walk with a phone/stopwatch and your camera. Set your stopwatch for five minutes and start walking. When the five minutes is up, stop walking. You have a minute to compose and take a photograph. Set your stopwatch for another five minutes and start walking. When the time is up, stop and, within a minute take and compose your second photo. Keep going until you have walked for 45 minutes and have nine photos.
4th May 2020: 13:07
A slow and steady start to the walk, and my aim was Cinnamon Lane, a quiet country road within spitting distance of home. As befits the current lockdown, there were few people out and about and, aside from a handful of dog walkers, I saw nobody.
4th May 2020: 13:12
The beauty of this time of year is something we have tended to overlook before – our lives have been so rushed and busy that we don’t usually get the chance to stop and look about us. If there’s one thing good to come out of the pandemic, it is that we have had no choice but to do exactly that.
4th May 2020: 13:18
But some of us have to carry on working, including those farmers who have to keep an eye on their flocks and crops, so it was no surprise to see some people at work.
4th May 2020: 13:23
The positive about the route I took for this 9-in-45 is that on the way out the road is a quiet country lane. The downside is that the way back is the main road between Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury! The A361 has always been a local bone of contention, because of the constant flow of juggernauts it ferries between the two towns and beyond. Having said that, on a Monday afternoon under Covid-19 rules it’s a lot quieter!
4th May 2020: 13:29
Despite the busyness of the road, the view from it are spectacular.
4th May 2020: 13:34
The road is the main thoroughfare in this part of Somerset and, in decades past, was prime for local businessmen to earn a penny or two. (I hasten to add that this is for show, not a true toll!!)
4th May 2020: 13:40
Be kind and keep smiling! You’re nearly there!
4th May 2020: 13:46
Back to nature, then; I’ve photographed numerous full dandelion clocks in the past, so why not a denuded one?
4th May 2020: 13:52
Last of the nine and almost full circle! The Somerset Levels make for some big skies!!
Click on the links below to see my previous 9-in-45 walks:
Colour seemed to unleash a lot in those who have submitted this time around, so enjoy!
Colour by Cooking-Post Nerd
Name: Cooking-Post Nerd
Location: United Kingdom
Note: I managed to escape from my kitchen and made it out into the garden. Nature has moved on while humanity has paused, and the April sunshine has brought the plants and flowers out. I love lilac, and this starburst of a shot, with a really narrow depth of field, is my submission this month!
Note: A few weeks ago, someone started placing colourful plastic flowers on benches, lampposts, etc in our neighbourhood. I have no idea what the significance of this is, whether it’s related to spring, Easter, or perhaps as a symbol of hope during these trying times. Anyway, this fabulous plastic rose is attached to a community noticeboard that I pass on my way to the Valu-Mart (got to love North America!), and seeing it adds a little splash of colour and also a sense of mystery to my day!
Note: This long exposure shot was taken while shooting a night time ‘9 in 45’ (click the link if you wish to know more about 9 in 45). The location of this shot was determined not by me but by the rules of 9 in 45! A long exposure introduced the colour trails of passing cars and a quick edit in Photoshop isolated them and the grass verge from the rest of the shot. Both the presence and absence of colour in the one image. I like the minimal aspect of the composition and the colours between the gate posts on the left hand side, which look like someone has stretched some plastic sheeting across!
Colour by Cap Does Craft
Name: Cap Does Craft
Location: Attercliffe, South Yorkshire
Note: This shot is of the Gripple factory in Attercliffe. They are a wonderful, forward thinking, innovative company and the design of their building reflects how they do things differently. This is a small section of one of their buildings. Without the colour and reflective elements to the windows this could just be a grey industrial building which might not be given a second glance. The colour is what lifts this image to something far more interesting.
Colour by CKPonderingsToo
Name: CKPonderingsToo
Location: Taunton, Somerset
Note: Again, while curating this post, I became very conscious that I had not really connected to what I was going to include. On my one-a-day I have still been taking photos, but nothing really leapt out at me. So, I have dug a bit deeper with this one, looking pre-lockdown, and my first visit to the (now) local town of Taunton. One one street corner, a hoarding hiding a patch of disused land, is this piece of street art. It leapt out at me as a potential photograph, and, with a slight tweak here and there, it soon matched this month’s theme.
Colour by Doctor Ken, Gin Sop
Name: Doctor Ken, Gin Sop
Location: Somerset
Note: A sign of our times that caught my eye. Still, it’s a splash of colour in a seemingly endless grey…
Something a bit different today, to wrap up the month.
I’ve posted a couple of panoramic shots before on CKPonderings, as a test of my iPhone’s photographic capability, and was impressed with the results.
So, on my one-a-day a week or so ago, I thought I would try it out again.
Somerset – the Summer Lands – is, in the main, a flat, low lying county, but at the eastern edge of the levels lies the Isle of Avalon. In old English, the Island of Apples was so named because of the orchards lining its hills and one hill, Glastonbury Tor, stood out as a beacon in the inland sea.
Wearyall Hill (or Wirral Hill) runs down from the Tor, and provides an ideal platform from which to view the landmark and the moors beside it.
From the bench I was sitting on, in the late sunshine of a spring day, the views were spectacular.
She’d seen him a couple of times around town, over a period of a few weeks, and sensed that he was closing in, seeking her out.
Hunting her down.
She feigned ignorance, of course. She didn’t want to let on that she knew he was following her. Didn’t want to give the game away.
So, she carried on as normal. Walking around like a tourist, she wandered into the Abbey Park.
She knew the place like the back of her hand, having all but grown up there. But still she feigned ignorance. If he thought she was just a tourist, taking photos like the hoards of visitors did during the summer, perhaps he wouldn’t give her a second glance.
Perhaps.
He’d tried to hide, of course, to bury himself in reading. But she knew the stance, the look, the outfit; he gave himself away a lot easier than she knew he would have liked to.
So, she had just walked on by, past the bench he was discreetly sitting on, under the magnolia tree where they had first met, all those years ago.
As if he thought she wouldn’t remember! The audacity of the man. The sheer gall of him!
And yet, the mere fact that he was there, that he was following her, gave her some reassurance.
He still wanted her.
He still needed her.
So, she resolved to go to him. Surrender to him. Accept his love, in whatever form he chose to give it.
But first, she needed to gather herself. To work out what she was going to say. She needed the words, the right words that show she was open to him.
Acceptance, but not desperation. She didn’t want him to think she was desperate.
Not again.
(This is a story based on candid street photos I took over a couple of days, and should not be seen as a true reflection of either of these people’s lives.)
How we view life is all about the perspective we see it from.
2+2=4, but so does 1+3 and 3+1.
One result of the coronavirus lockdown is that we are stuck indoors with family members. Another result of the coronavirus lockdown is that we have the opportunity to spend time with our loved ones in a way we never have before.
Another result of the virus is that we have to queue for ages outside the supermarket, waiting to get in. However, this gives us an opportunity to stand and do nothing – or perhaps converse with those around us – providing us with time we would otherwise not have had.
Glastonbury Tor is a hill that stands 518 feet (158 m) above the surrounding moors, but is tiny when seen against the immensity of a clear blue spring sky.
May’s Mass Observation Project is coming up, so take a photograph based that sums up the theme COLOUR to you, however you want to interpret it.
Email the image to adayinphotographs@outlook.com by Thursday 30th April 2020.
Images should be a maximum of 650 pixels wide.
Include your name, website/blog address and a short note about the image, including where it was taken.
There was a sense of loss, a sense that belonging had been forgotten years back. The shell was there, but the heart had been ripped away and buried deep miles away.
And yet The Watcher kept guard. He knew not who or what he was guarding against, but he was there. The one sense of permanence left, while life crumbled around him.
The worst element was the silence, the complete lack of noise. When the wind blew, and if it was in the right direction, the rotting boards creaked ever so slightly, but even their muffled cries echoed with a sense of obligation rather than any commitment, any passion.
But beyond that there was a deafening silence, that unnerving calm that always came before the storm. But the storm had been anticipated for months, for years, and yet it had still to break. So the silence, the absence, remained.
Another quick reminder about the May’s Mass Observation Project!
Take a photograph based that sums up the theme COLOUR to you, however you want to interpret it.
Email the image to adayinphotographs@outlook.com by Thursday 30th April 2020.
Images should be a maximum of 650 pixels wide.
Include your name, website/blog address and a short note about the image, including where it was taken.
The lockdown in the UK came within a couple of weeks of me moving from West Sussex to Somerset. (Editor note: Oh really, CKPonderings? I hadn’t realised you’d moved, given all of the Glastonbury photos you’ve posted of late!)
There was plenty to do on the house, but the restrictions put in place by the UK government meant that we were unable to get anything started as quickly as we would have liked.
Back in West Sussex, with us both working full time, we were not able to spend as much time on the garden as I would have liked, and one of my missions for the move (and the eventual change to part-time work) was to enjoy and make the most of the new patch of land.
Glastonbury is known for its Bohemian, back to nature lifestyle, and I had in mind that I wanted to have a go at growing some vegetables and fruit, but the lockdown gave me the opportunity to speed that process up a little.
The back garden has a strip of decking across it which, even when we came to view the house, we knew had seen better days. It would need replacing or landscaping at some point, and my “Good Life” plans provided an ideal opportunity for that.
So, armed with nothing more than an idea floating around in my head, I decided that a section of decking could come up, and compost could go down and a veggie patch would be born!
Take into account, however, that I am not necessarily used to building projects, and the small tinkerings that I have attempted up to now haven’t always ended in glorious success.
The positive for this was that, whatever the outcome, the decking would ultimately have to go anyway, and, if push came to shove and the vegetables came to nothing, I would have a nice new flower bed to fill!
The decking proved to be a harder foe than I had anticipated…
As I mentioned, it had seen better days and, quite frankly, it was quicker to count the planks that were not rotten than the ones that were. However, it put up a valiant fight.
Surprisingly, it was the crumbling piece of wood that proved harder to lift than the solid ones, but, at the end of my first day of heaving, shoving, swearing and sweating, I had managed to clear around half of the 7ft x 8ft section I was planning on.
One of the things that the lockdown has taught me is to pace myself, rather than going hell for leather, trying to get everything accomplished in the quickest possible time. So, after a day off, I got back out to the project.
This time, it seemed quicker to achieve what I wanted to; the remaining planks came up a lot easier to lift, and soon I was down to the bare joists.
Mother Nature had taken its toll on the wood, and the first joists crumbled at the merest hint of a saw. Time had been ticking on, however, and I left it there for the second day’s work.
Day Three of the project and I was definitely into the swing of things by now. I had a plan: there were three joists to cut and a number of battens to remove, and if I was able to do that, I would be happy!
Again, however, six cuts with my saw and a bit of brute force meant that the decking was no more!
I had kept a number of the planks – as much as anything, the more solid ones would allow me to replace some of others that had rotted – and used five of them to edge the hole I had created. They would be no good for standing on, but they made it look a lot tidier!
God Bless Click & Collect!
A week or so ago I had ordered some compost from my local B&Q. (Well, I say ‘some’, it turned out to be nearly 1200 litres of the stuff!)
As much as anything, getting this from the shop before I started any work gave me the incentive to get going – it would be a complete waste of money buying all of that compost without then making use of it.
So, decking lifted, compost ready, the last stage of the project was in sight!
Filling the hole began, then! After the first few bags, I admit I did panic a little about whether I had, in fact, purchased enough of the black stuff, but I needn’t have worried. It turned out to be almost the perfect amount!
So, the vegetable patch is ready, and there remains only the small matter of putting some actual plants in it.
Again, with the lockdown, there are no physical shops open, but online stores are there, and I have placed an order, which should be with me at the beginning of May!
As I have already suggested, I have never undertaken this sort of project before; I am not a manual person, and, while I am not afraid of hard work, I do have a tendency to get bored easily and give up if things aren’t going the way I want them to.
I am personally impressed, therefore, at how it has turned out; it’s not perfect, but it will suit its purpose for the first year, anyway. Who knows, this could be the start of big things to come!
More, I am sure, to follow!
Another quick reminder about the May’s Mass Observation Project, then!
Take a photograph based that sums up the theme COLOUR to you, however you want to interpret it.
Email the image to adayinphotographs@outlook.com by Thursday 30th April 2020.
Images should be a maximum of 650 pixels wide.
Include your name, website/blog address and a short note about the image, including where it was taken.
Some more spring colour now, with some photos I took last year in Switzerland.
The town of Rapperswil, on Lake Zurich is renowned for its rose garden and, at the time I visited, the blooms were out in full force. Summer was beginning to ebb away, but the weather was still definitely on my side as a tourist, and it was a pleasure to spend time wandering amongst the blooms, colours and scents.
Colour is also on the cards for the new Mass Observation Project, so get snapping!
Take a photograph based that sums up the theme COLOUR to you, however you want to interpret it.
Email the image to adayinphotographs@outlook.com by Thursday 30th April 2020.
Images should be a maximum of 650 pixels wide.
Include your name, website/blog address and a short note about the image, including where it was taken.
Following yesterday’s post, some more evidence that spring is definitely here. Not from my back garden this time, but from a recent wander.
Amongst the desolation, there was still the vaguest of hints that something new, something big, was coming. She wandered through the ruins and rubble, and stopped beside a pile of stones. The barest glimpse of colour among the greyness had caught her eye and she had to go back and check.
Yes, there it was, a tiny blossom, subtly pink, tiny yellow stamen that reflected the weak sun’s light.
She felt a tear run trickle down her left cheek, clearing a path through the dust and dirt she new she was covered in. For the first time is weeks, no months, the tear was a happy one. This tiny bloom, this tiniest of blossoms represented something she had not encountered in a long, long time.
CKPonderingsToo 