Two Interiors

Two interiors, one new, one less recent, but I like the way they go together.

Stony Faced

Holiday.

Had a couple of nights away in Scotland (further away in Scotland, I mean) thanks to some good friends who offered us a spare room in their holiday lodge as a wedding present. So we got to see very good friends we don't meet up with very often any more, and it was a lovely place. I learned a lot about whisky, not least that it gives me a headache.


Went to Loch of the Lowes in the rain to see some ospreys but they'd buggered off back to South Africa the day before, probably because of the rain. We did see a jay, which although not in the same league was an event nonetheless. And a robin.


Took the long way home on Friday to have a look at some waterfalls (I like a good waterfall.) This was a good one:

The Deil's Cauldron near Comrie.

Where we stayed there were the beginnings of big, beautiful hills on the near horizon. It was a difficult thing to turn round and go the other way, so we may be heading back up there in September, but with less of a lodge and more of a tent.

Rallying Round

Tried something a bit different today, photographing objects that were moving at something more than geological speed.

The Jim Clark Rally was going on just up the road so we took a wander up there yesterday evening, I forgot my memory card, and we went back this afternoon for another go. It was fun.





This was nearly the best one, being a Mini, but I just clipped the wheel off.


And there were lots of photos like this;

Root, One

Another addition to the ongoing Plant Portraits series. Usually it's flowers and seeds, but this is right at the other end of the process, a very dead and dessicated root found on the shingle at Coldingham Bay. Always something interesting to find at the beach.

A Dig in the Ribworts

Ribwort.

Yesterday was day one of the Crossing Borders Open Studio weekend here in the Borders, of which more in another post, but suffice to say that as well as being a fantastic day out it was a kick up the arse to get on with doing good work.

To that end, I've had a selection of vegetation wilting in a tumbler of water in the kitchen for two or three days now, and if I don't get on and photograph it it will all expire and have lived for nothing.

First one, the first plant portrait I've done in a long time, is the humble ribwort plantain.

Rust Never Sleeps

I love rust, me.

One of my most exciting photographic trips out was the time my friend Colin and I sneaked into the sidings at Carnforth and spent a good couple of hours poking around among the quietly redundant rolling stock. It was marvellous. I'm not particularly into trains as such, but they were satisfyingly large pieces of engineering; peeling surfaces, compartment handles smoothed by years of use, greasy springs (leaf and coil), glass dials, a driver's coat and hat stiff with oil and damp still hanging in a cab, paint receding through layer upon layer of decaying colour. Fantastic.

We were temporarily in the custody of the police later on when we were poking around Heysham ferry terminal. There was a small wait while they checked if I was the Richard Johnson who had jumped bail in Warrington. The WPC who was with them at least had a sense of humour ("Do we need the guns?") and wasn't as baffled as her more bovine colleagues by photo after photo of rust in close-up. Finally they realised that we posed no threat to national security and we weren't about to steal a ferry, and warned us that a) if we took photos near the power station we could be shot, and b) "These days" we had to be careful where we took photographs, e.g. near playgrounds, schools, anywhere outdoors, etc. Colin, who had the previous day been taking pictures of a colourful climbing frame, said "Funny you should mention that..." How they laughed.

One of my favourite photographs, that one at the top of the post there, came from that afternoon, and one day I'll start working it up into a painting. Until then, a painting of something else pleasantly weathered, the registration number of a Belfast fishing boat in Eyemouth harbour.