There is not too much happening at this time of year but it is nice to take a walk when the weather clears up a bit. The local landscape where I live is not spectacular but I love it right now, the grass is very green, the branches on the bare trees are so intricate and the fine twigs look almost like mist from a distance. Here are a few photographs taken on recent walks near my home:
There are many official dates that mark out the passing year but one of my favourite personal markers of the coming spring is the first day I can drive home without using my lights. Yesterday the horrendously wet weather we have been having took a little break and I found myself driving in beautiful sunshine.
A brilliant sunset but this photo does not show the howling wind!
After picking up my husband Alex at home, we drove to the beach to see this recently very unfamiliar sun set below the sea. It was a very windy day and the air was full of sea spray but the light was beautiful. The wind was stacking the waves up so high, they seemed to tower over the beach and the water at some moments looked almost solid.
A shot taken along the beach shows the air full of spray
I got busy with my camera and got some nice shots despite the howling wind freezing my fingers and having to fight to avoid being blown over. I ended with wet frozen feet too because my wellington boots were leaking and I was caught by a few fast moving waves.
The waves were towering over the beach
We stayed until the sun sank below the horizon, then, as the sky darkened we decided it was a special day – to be marked with takeaway fish and chips rather than the healthy dinner waiting for us at home!
All too soon, the sun was gone!
Here are a few more photographs we took on our visit to The Eden Project last week. This time we present some of the more unusual / abstract / eccentric images we came home with. Hope that they inspire you!
The Natural History Museum in London houses one of the world’s great collections on the living world but it is also one the nation’s truly amazing buildings. Designed by Alfred Waterhouse (1830 – 1905), the Museum is like a Romanesque Cathedral to Science with a touch of Victorian railway station thrown in. Waterhouse’s design is not only striking in terms of style but also for its innovative use of materials, with the entire building being clad in fired terracotta tiles in an interesting buff and blue colour scheme. The extravagant, nature-inspired decoration was also produced in terracotta with huge numbers of sculptures and sculptural reliefs both inside and out.
Romanesque Cathedral crossed with a railway station – A Temple of Science
I studied art at a time when Modernism was still very much the dominant force in architecture. I seem to remember that a building like the Natural History Museum was not so much attacked in discussions of good architecture (except by implication), it more just totally ignored; but I loved the building the first time I saw it and love it even more today.
Waterhouse’s Museum is as far from Modernism as you can get
These images are just a small selection of the reliefs and other decorations to be found in just the main hall of the building; the same decorative scheme is carried on throughout the building and can be the basis of an interesting museum trip all on their own.
Birds at the bottom of the grand staircase
Each piece of decoration was drawn by Waterhouse himself, then checked for scientific accuracy by Richard Owen, the museum’s director, then sent to a sculptor for modelling in clay before being cast and fired.
A canine – probably a domestic dog
The great sculpture of Charles Darwin by Sir Joseph Boehm now commands the grand staircase.
The greatest figure in biology looking over the main hall
A ram’s head decorating the base of a main pillar
A feline with her young
Another bird
Darwin
For further information see Natural History Museum – History and Architecture
and the RIBA Natural History Museum pages
or make a trip to see the museum yourself.
Alex and I went to visit Cornwall’s world-renowned Eden Project last weekend. This was our first visit for a couple of years and it was interesting to see how the various parts of the site are developing. “Eden” is marketed very much as an experience in horticultural education (and there is much of interest to be learned there) but I always find my experience of it is more as a work of art.
The iconic Eden domes
Art is certainly important to the creators of Eden (there are sculptures to be found everywhere) but the entire experience seems to be primarily an aesthetic one for me.
The Eden Project is situated in a disused china-clay pit
Most interesting has been seeing the changes in the developing plantings over the years. The Tropical Biome (as the giant greenhouses are named) seemed mature from very early in its life but I can recall when the Warm-Temperate Biome was a rather barren affair with little plants struggling to be interesting. Now this area has matured into a very pleasant space with a warm, calm feel.
The Tropical Biome at Eden
Only some areas of the outside plantings now leave me feeling a bit underwhelmed. This is partly a lack of any mature trees but is also the problem of some mass plantings looking a bit like the sort of horticulture found around municipal car parks. Another serious issue is where too many different displays have been packed into too small an area, so that they are out of scale with the grandness of the architecture.
Nice autumn colour but there is still a great lack of mature trees
I have always been fascinated by geological specimens. They offer me so much inspiration in their form, colour and pattern and give up a glimpse of how the big, complex world is built out the intersection of simple, deterministic rules and chaotic complexity.
Order and randomness in a beautiful relationship
Sadly, being “into crystals” nowadays tends to mean something anti-scientific and disturbingly irrational, which I find both troubling and ridiculous. For me they are just objects that display the structure of our world at a visible scale.
Crystalline minerals display a history of their growth
Many of the lessons about structure that one can learn from (these large-scale) minerals suggest direct parallels with the structure of living things, though living structures (like the majority of minerals) have to be viewed under a microscope. This is because growth, in both cases, proceeds from simple rules and constraints at a local level interacting with degrees of randomness on a larger scale.
Here the growth of one type of mineral crystal within another looks very similar to bacterial or algal growth seen under a microscope
I see many parallels between mineral specimens and my own work. I too am seeking an intersection of order and complexity; crisp control meeting happily with chance.
Texture, colour and the hints of hidden order in minerals all inspire me
This post is just about the visual qualities of these rocks and I have ignored the matter of identifying them. This, together with the science of how they are created is fascinating field in itself. These samples were all photographed at The Natural History Museum in London. A visit there (or to your own local geological collection) will provide a fascinating day out and lots of inspiration.
This is Isla again, I wrote a post a month or so ago about my trip to Orkney, and promised another one was on its way (sorry it took so long!)
Chains
The last post took a wider view, but this post is going to zoom in and focus on the details of Orkney. I invariably find that half of the photos that I take are detail shots, which is probably a habit I’ve picked up from my mum – she’s always been one for looking a little closer.
This first set of pictures was taken at Kirbuster Farm Museum, a homestead that has stood for at least four centuries, and that reveals the traditional way of life for farmers on Orkney. The museum is scattered with rusting farm implements, and there are fantastic textures to be found on worn surfaces and old wood.
Fence post
Old Harness
Scrap Metal
Glass
Enameled Tin
Old Chair
Old Mirror
This second set of pictures was taken on various beaches along the Birsay coast. I love the colour of the seaweed, the perfect placement of the bleached curl of driftwood, and the knobbly dinosaur tail-club.
The final image is a quick sketch of seaweed drawn with a biro and some colouring pencils, that I used as an image for thank you cards.
Spinach Spaghetti
Bacon on the Rocks
Driftwood Curl
Dinosaur Tail-club
Kelp Drawing
Related Posts:
Orkney Skies
“Orkney Wings” neckpiece
Orkney Jewellery set
This post includes some of my photos of India’s bovine inhabitants.
When I photograph the Cornish landscape there are usually some cows in the shot (or ponies, or sheep!) but in India, the cows are not simply statues studding the landscape, they are the photograph.
These photos show cows with individual personalities, who would provide plenty of inspiration for a caption competition!
And your tour guide today is….. (love the sign)
All by myself. Sniff.
Places to go, people to see!
Sulking. (This is the drying yard at the fabric printing workshop we visited)
This handsome fellow was posing for the tourists like a Bollywood star
Hard at work
And… this is not a cow – Thought I would slip in a photo of a hoity-toity camel!
For today’s blog post I’m handing over to my daughter, Isla, who has just returned from a trip to Orkney with some wonderful photographs.
Until this summer, the sum total of my Orkney knowledge was that it was somewhere up north, and that it had something to do with archaeology. Having now spent a week there, I still don’t know as much about the place as I should, but I can’t wait to go back to find out more.
The sky feels huge in Orkney: the hills are bare of trees and the clouds layer high above, allowing you to see for miles. This post is all about the moods of Orkney (though I was lucky enough to miss out on Orkney’s temper), and I’ll be writing another post soon that includes some of the more detailed shots that I took during my stay.
The other thing that makes Orkney special is the people – though I was only there for a very brief time, I was adopted with incredible warmth. Thank you to everyone (I’m looking at you Margaret, Rae, Jim, Lilian, Donald and Stella!), and especially to Bi, my host and friend.
The Island of Hoy is the first sight of Orkney to greet visitors arriving on the ferry.
Aboard the ferry – dramatic interplay between sun and stormy clouds.
Sunset over the beach – the light seems almost to render the water solid.
The Standing Stones of Stenness outlined against the sunset.
A shot that made me smile – flammable Orcadian cows.
Sunset and clouds across a loch.
Sun breaking through the clouds at Kirbuster Farm Museum.
Sunset over the Brough of Birsay, with a cow-parsley sized person.
Sunset clouds over the Brough.
The sun dipping over the horizon with streaked clouds overhead.
The somber grey of Skaill House against a moody sky.
The Brough of Birsay rising from the mist.
Yesterday I went for a walk around the lanes near my home and headed for a spot where the road crosses a stream, a place where I often see dragonflies.
Although this time I had remembered to bring my camera along with me, there were no dragonflies anywhere in sight. I eventually spotted one perched high above in a tree and, putting my camera on maximum zoom, I tried to frame the tiny creature.
I didn’t have much hope that the pictures would be very good, but I was delighted to find the one below – mainly because of the creature’s shadow showing through the leaf.
Dragonfly on leaf with shadow
To go with the dragonfly, here are some of my favourite photographs of various six-legged creatures:
Butterfly on my apple-blossom this spring
Another shot of the same butterfly showing the amazing eyes
I love the bees buzzing around my chives in spring
This cricket (?) was standing on the Great Wall of China
Butterfly near Nikko, Japan
For more bug photos, have a look at this post:
Moths In the Night
