The bonnie, blooming heather

Like bluebells, the heather peaks at different times in different places. I took a walk on Shipley Glen and found it in bloom, perhaps not quite at its peak but near enough. (I'm hoping the heather on Haworth Moor is a bit slower to bloom. I'm supposed to be leading a photo walk there in mid-August and I was hoping for some colour then!) I do love the soft tones, though purple isn't a colour I'd ever wear, or decorate my house with. It's very pretty on the moors though. 

I really love the harmony of purples, greys and greens that you get with heather, the gritstone rocks, soft mauve grasses and, in this case, some purple flowered rosebay willowherb in the background.

Up close

It's rewarding to get up close and personal with some of the flowers in Harlow Carr Gardens. There's a wondrous variety of colour and form and some lovely juxtapositions too. 

Blue poppies are fairly rare and difficult to grow successfully. Harlow Carr have some beside the stream, though they were past their best when I visited. 

Bramble art

I shall have to gee myself up to make some trips further afield, as I am running out of/getting bored with pictures of the immediate locality. I'm still a little wary of the virus situation, not convinced it's advisable to come out of lockdown yet but I am perhaps too cautious.

In an effort to find some inspiration, on a walk back from Shipley, I decided I'd look for square format pictures, just using my phone. I quite like this one. Bramble throws out exploratory creepers and is really rather a tatty plant, albeit it can produce luscious blackberries in the right spot. I don't think this one will bear fruit but I loved the vibrant colour against the fading graffiti on the wall.

Project 'Inside' 5 - red pepper

A dull and rainy day was best spent making one of my infrequent trips to the supermarket to stock up, working through that pile of ironing that's been waiting for me  - and then, in the afternoon, practising with my macro lens some more. I retrieved a red pepper from the fridge, before it started looking too shrivelled to be nice. There's something about the red and green combo that is pleasing and attention-grabbing. These were just lit by the light through the skylight in my attic. On a cloudy day it gives a nice even spread, ideal for photography.

No 11 Victoria Road

I pass this doorway at the corner of Victoria Road and Caroline Street several times a week and one day - as sometimes happens - the way the light was catching it gave it a whole new beauty. The coloured glass panels positively glowed and I noticed the Victoria Hall's tower reflected in the central window.

The building is now part of the offices of chartered architects Rance Booth and Smith, who have restored and imaginatively reinstated aspects of the original building to provide office space that is both contemporary and historical.

When it was first opened in the late 1850s, the corner shop was a grocer's, before becoming a specialist bakery in the early 1900s. By 1937, trading as H W Ready, it was apparently 'the place to go' for catering for weddings and funerals. By the 1960s, as new, more modern shops opened in Shipley and the mill contracted, demands changed. There were at that time three bakeries in Saltaire in close proximity. No 11 had a change of use and became a furniture shop, then a TV repair shop, later a wool shop and then a seller of artificial flowers. Rance Booth and Smith took over in 1989.  It would be interesting, I so often think, if walls could talk. What stories these old buildings would tell.

A rainbow and a memory

I've been following a few photography projects that I've seen online. The inspiration for this image came from a photographer called Paul Sanders, who teaches 'mindful photography'. He says: "I, like many of you, will have seen the rainbows drawn and painted by people and then placed in the windows of shops, homes and offices to acknowledge support of our health service heroes. This got me thinking and playing. Remember that I spoke about approaching things with a child's mind and that photography is really about playing anyway, so I played. Get your camera or phone and photograph things with the colours of a rainbow - remember the verse from school? Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain - Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet - simple or you can sing the song that goes "Red and yellow and pink and green, orange and purple and blue, I can sing a rainbow" it really depends on how much playing you want to do! Fill the frame of your phone or camera with the colours, doesn't matter if the images are out of focus, remember we are playing and there is no judgement. What you are effectively doing is photographing abstract colour. It is a celebration of gratitude, not only of the power of observation but of the key workers and front line health services battling to save the lives of those affected by the Coronavirus."
A dear friend of mine, also - coincidentally - called Paul Sanders, recently passed away, having been infected with Covid 19. My rainbow is dedicated to his memory, as well as to the NHS heroes who looked after him and continue to care for so many other people.  Paul was a warm-hearted and very kind man, who will be sadly missed by his family and friends. Sending my love and prayers to his family. 

Project 'Inside' 2

More idling away of time in lockdown... This triptych is made with paper and coloured acetates through my macro lens.

Project 'Inside' 1

Given the current constraints on being outdoors, I've been trying, without much success, to interest myself in some indoor photography projects. I had a little play one day with my iPad and a glass vase I've had for ages. I like the colours, at least. It's good to experiment - and then push yourself to experiment some more. The first image I came up with is below and I do quite like the simplicity of it. With a bit more thinking and inspiration I created the image above, marrying the vase with a sprig of fake blossom that I keep in my bathroom (don't we all?!). The more complex study is, I think, the better of the two, though it will no doubt be down to personal preference in the end.

Here We Rest Gratefully

The Hirst Wood Regeneration Group (HWRG) are active far beyond the boundaries of their own immediate area. They have for a long time taken care of the area around Hirst Lock, initially planting a garden with a nice seating area, and later taking over a boggy field to create what has since become quite an attractive little nature reserve. They have also installed a series of very solid-looking wooden benches along quite a long stretch of the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath. I noticed some in Shipley when I walked that way. This one is at the end of the aqueduct, so from it you can see both the canal and the river below. HWRG - Here We Rest Gratefully.

I am beginning to notice more signs of spring. Lesser Celandine shines like little sunbursts on the edge of the canal and in the woods.

There's a forsythia (I think) bush in flower by the rowing club, looking like a firework exploding. I like how so many spring flowers are yellow, as if nature reminds us that the sunny weather is coming.

Embroidery

The brightly coloured dogwood stems in the winter borders at RHS Harlow Carr Gardens always uplift my spirits. I feel starved of colour in the winter. I think the shrubs make lovely abstracts - as, indeed, I suppose is the intended effect.


The colours were echoed in an exhibition in the library there. These were panels made by the Richmond and Leyburn Embroiderers' Guild. They had taken four seasonal photographs of the gardens and chopped them each into 48 squares. Members of the Guild had then interpreted each small square using embroidery and fabric collage. The resulting squares were then collected into wall hangings. The one pictured depicts 'Autumn'. In close-up, the work was exquisite, with a huge range of stitches and fabrics. Viewed from further back, the resemblance to the photographs was amazing.

I can't embroider for toffee... school needlework lessons sadly killed all my enthusiasm for such crafts. I can recognise good work when I see it though.

Going upmarket

My sister and I had a day trip to London recently to meet up with my nephew and his wife. We found ourselves in the upmarket district of Mayfair, one of the most expensive districts in London, so we popped into the famous Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly, just for a quick look round the foodhall. It's a long-established (1707) department store and grocer, eye-wateringly expensive of course but the goods are undoubtedly high-quality and not the kind of thing you can pick up in Sainsbury's. Miso and seaweed butter, anyone? I was most interested in the fruit and veg: such colourful displays to lift the spirits and tempt the photographer, even if I only had my phone with me.  Who knew there were so many different varieties of lemon, for a start?

The front elevation of the store is very elegant, with its distinctive eau-de-nil colour scheme. Above the door is a mechanical clock, out of which Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason emerge every hour to bow to each other!

More macro practice

My mastery of macro photography is still very much 'a work in progress'. The depth of field is very narrow with a macro lens and, given that I can't really see the detail on the screen on the back of the camera, I'm finding getting the focus right is a very hit and miss affair. Still, practice makes perfect or so they say. Some of these approximated to what I was trying to achieve...

I'm awestruck by the beauty and variety of our flora, especially when viewed so close up. Many of these blooms were tiny, on alpine plants. It always amazes me how our world has so much to wonder at; so many different creatures and plants, so extravagantly formed, with such exquisite detail. We should treasure it more than we do.

The alpine succulent below reminded me of one of those Chinese dragons.

'And all of creation sing with me now; 

Fill up the heavens, let His glory resound.'

Industrial colour

There was plenty of wonderful colour in the threads on the weaving looms. This particular model was a moquette loom. Moquette is a thick, woven, velvety, short pile, hard wearing fabric with distinctive patterns, used traditionally for upholstery, in particular the seats on public transport: our trains, buses and London Underground trains. Holdsworth Fabrics in Halifax still make it, one of the very few manufacturers left. Wherever you are in the world, if you get on a coach, you're likely to be sitting on Holdsworth of Halifax moquette.

Spring?

It's been such a mild and damp winter that signs of spring are already appearing. I've got miniature daffodils in bloom in pots in my garden. On a recent walk, I noticed the hedgerows are filling with blossom. There is a type of cherry plum that's usually the first to bloom so that is probably what this is, though I'm not 100% sure. It's very pretty anyway, and a welcome sight. Snowdrops have unfurled too - a February flower but a little early, even so. The growth could all be knocked back by a cold snap. We've had no snow here so far but it's not unheard of in March or even April so there's time yet!

The trees are still colourless and the footpaths are all very muddy and brown, squelchy with leaf litter. There is some bright colour to be found, despite the grey and damp. I noticed some vibrant moss on the roof of an old farm building.

On the edge of the village, a householder had made a cheerful display of brightly coloured pots, rather Mediterranean in feel, I thought.

Luck and promise

Even on a dull day, spots of colour, shape and texture attract my eye. I snapped all of these in a small area by the entrance to Linton churchyard. Some of the dying geranium (I think) leaves had turned to vivid orange and red. The winter jasmine was in full bloom, a little early perhaps as it's been quite mild. It's such a cheerful shrub, happily promising spring from the depths of winter. As for the horseshoe, it's a lucky symbol (and we could do with some of that in the current mire!) Hung with the end upwards, they say, it catches the luck; others maintain it should hang with the ends down to pour luck on those who pass beneath it. If you're of that persuasion, you'll have to turn your laptop upside down!

The small things...

'There are pockets of peacefulness everywhere if you look for them. Small beautiful and quiet things happen in our every day life - from sunlight in the leaves on trees, clouds moving in the sky to the birds by the lapping water on the beach. Easily missed as we rush from one thing to another.

Take some time to notice the small things and see how slowing down makes you see the wonderful things happening quietly around us every day.'  [Margaret Soraya]

I've recently discovered the work of Margaret Soraya (see HERE), a landscape photographer who works a lot in wild yet peaceful places like the Outer Hebrides. She encourages us to hear our 'small, quiet voice within' as a way of accessing our deepest creativity. Her approach really appeals to me, though I have only just started to recognise, value and explore my own need for solitude and peace as a path for expression. 

Walking back from the shops on a dull, rainy day, I found a little 'pocket of peacefulness' - ironically perhaps - in this wild jumble of bright, shiny, rain-speckled toy windmills in a tub outside the vintage shop in Saltaire. 

The harbour

Harris, day four
A little further beyond the church is the village of Rodel, once the historic capital of Harris, situated around a harbour that used to host the Skye ferry. Those accolades now fall to Tarbert and Rodel is much more tranquil.

I really enjoyed taking a few 'mini-landscape' shots here. There was much to inspire me: old boats, rusty chains, knotted ropes, seaweed and lichen. Some lovely colours too...

For some reason I can't quite define, this shot of seaweed caught in a gap in the decaying harbour jetty is probably one of my favourite images of the whole trip. The shapes and colours just seem very pleasing to me. I think it's an archetypal feminine image in some senses - a bit Georgia O'Keefe, albeit not a delicate flower. 

Macro practice

I haven't found much time to practice with my 50mm macro lens yet, so I decided to take only that one to RHS Harlow Carr this time. It is interesting trying to take scenic shots like those I showed on Sunday. It works quite well but it's a challenge remembering that I've got to walk backwards and forwards rather than zoom the lens to get the framing I'm after. 

Close-ups are nice, with a lovely blur to the background, though I'm still not that good at getting the focus point exactly where I want it. It's all trial and error. I managed to find some wonderful colours though - and that is welcome as the nights draw in and the colour leaches out of the world.