One reason for my walk this week through the woodland of my local park was to see the Bluebells that have grown up profusely in the past few years since the park has been managed by the Friends of Coedbach with the support of the council’s Parks Department. The temptation with bluebells when photographing them is to exaggerate the saturation of colour in an effort to replicate the impact a carpet of blue in woodland has on our senses as we walk amongst the trees.
They are amazing but however anyone processes or presents a photograph of them, the reality is that, at best, the image will provide a good memory of the last time you saw bluebells in the real world. I have tried to avoid exaggerating the colour in my photography of this phenomenon but looked instead for anglesContinue reading→
The tall marsh grass I enjoyed so much on my walk this week was enhanced by the beautiful evening light and the high tide which flows far up the River Loughor from the estuary. On this evening the level was perfect for a walk – not so high as to cover the surrounding marshes, but high enough to make the river brimful.
The result is a smooth mirror in the middle of the landscape, one that reflects all above and around it – the colours of the sunset and the riverside grasses. The surface was broken onlyContinue reading→
We didn’t have a lot of time to stay in Leeds on my walk this week but I still managed to take in some of the current sculpture exhibition at the Leeds Art Gallery. One of my favourites was this piece by Barbara Hepworth from 1953.
Barbara Hepworth – Hieroglyph
The title of the work, “Hieroglyph”, prompts towards an interpretation of the piece I suppose but not knowing the title at the time of initially viewing it, I didn’t think of it as being a hieroglyph. However, its language spoke to me in terms of surface texture and pattern, form and I guess, humanity and nature. The shapes of the hollowed out areas seem figure-like and looking through them to the other side had an essence of intimacy about it. I wanted to touch and caress its cool warmth! If such a contradiction in terms can be accepted, it is the only term I can find to express my perception of the piece while expecting the stone surface to be cool to the touch.
The Richard Long installation left me cool, if not cold. The impact of the work may come again from the contradiction (or should I say juxtaposition?) of the arrangement of the natural material and the space it is in, but for me it felt somewhat contrived.
The work that had the greatest impact on me, though I cannot say it was a particularly positive one, was the alabaster figure holding a bird to her shoulder by Woman and Bird by John Skeaping. The material had a strange effect on me and looking back at the VR shot I took of the room (see below), I think it may have been the sense that I was able to see inside the body at the same time as seeing its surface – I found it a bit disturbing. Again with this piece there was an element of contradiction – the apparent textures of the stone revealed through its changes in colour, pattern and internal structure was in contrast to its worked smoothness and again there was the warmth of colour but the knowledge that if touched it the sensation would be of cold or coolness.
Richard Long installation
Richard Long installation detail
Barbara Hepworth – Hieroglyph
Barbara Hepworth – Hieroglyph reverse side
Barbara Hepworth – Hieroglyph detail
Graham Sutherland – Tin Mine: a Declivity
Mobile by Lynn Chadwick
Woman and Bird by John Skeaping
As with my previous post, if you click the VR image below on an iPhone or Android phone with the Google Cardboard Camera app installed, you will be able to view the full 360º of the space in virtual reality. On the linked image on your phone select the “Save to app” button and then fit your phone to the Google Cardboard device.
When I crossed the Millennium Footbridge in York at the start of my walk this week I was interested in the arrangement of the half submerged objects in the flooded River Ouse. In post production I also saw the potential for the use of monochrome in many of the photographs I shot with the result that this week I have been posting parallel image galleries in colour and black and white (and one or two in sepia).
There were some images which would have been pointless in monochrome, such as the one above or those below of the primroses. But there are others where the colour was almost pointless such as those of the bridge itself and its wet railing. And then there is the sound . . .Continue reading→
My walk this week follows a flood – not so much follows in fact, more dictated. The River Ouse in York regularly floods if there is a lot of rainfall in the area or up river and when I was there at the start of April the rain was teeming down across the country. I took the earliest opportunity when the rain stopped to check out the watery scene.
I was at least able to cross the Millennium Footbridge whereas on a previous occasion I had not even been able to approach the bridge! What caught my eye in particular was the arrangement of objects such as semi submerged bollards, fence reflections and the ghost image of the footpath as it curved round under the water.
In looking back at the photos I couldn’t decide whether I preferred them in colour or monochrome, so they are both included below – all except the curved footpath shot because in monochrome the path was completely hidden.
My walk this week has been through a space between, a space on the edge of both nature and industry – and nature, of course, wins every time and in so many ways.
Looking at the evidence of man is perhaps not the best way to finish my posts on this walk but there are other elements to the landscape apart from the old tyres and wires. The profusion of old Buddleia bushes will soonContinue reading→
On this, the third side of my triangular urban walk this week, my main focus (or perspective) is on steps. It was a long set of scaffolding steps that I originally wanted to photograph and which turned into a walk round the block that revealed some other angular and twisted (spiral) steps. I was amused by the “floating” gate below which advertises the entrance to The Forge.
As someone who enjoys many different aspects of metal I couldn’t resist the first perspective shot below of the structure and pattern of shop front shutters, but as I turned the next corner I was also taken by the colour, repeating pattern and perspective of the short terrace across the street. I found other perspectives Continue reading→
My walk this week returns to the National Botanic Garden of Wales. It was Mother’s Day here in the UK and we took the opportunity of our membership to visit at a time when so many plants and flowers are getting ready for growth.
We can see the plants in our own garden getting ready for growth of course, but we do not have a team of volunteer gardeners and professionals attending to it and neither do we have the wonderful range of native andContinue reading→
