These poppies are courtesy of Reg, from WoW yesterday and very nice they are too. The depth-of-field tapering away into the distance works well.The ears of wheat offer a pleasant setting. If I have a slight criticism it's the black border which is a little funereal. Rather like a condolence card - and I wasn't that bad even though it felt like it.
I love the poppy still in bud, bottom right - it pulls my eye to it each time I look at the picture.
Picture 2 is some more flowers from Helen. Identification not established and therefore suggestions, or even knowledge, would be most welcome.
The flowers are set against one of Helen's customary 'rocks', the main one being nicely situated in the frame. Again I have a slight criticism. A quarter in from top left, and a third down, there's a rather distracting long, light brown, oblong shape.
It would be a comparatively easy Photoshop job, to either clone it out, or tone it down abit. When you return from your singing weekend one of us will show you how, if you don't feel like tackling it yourself.
The last picture is one of my own. I wanted to share with you the brilliant job Joan has done on my extra, extra large denim shirt.It was far too big, and bulky, but its main defect was that it was too long. And I really fancied it as a denim jacket, which I haven't got one of. (sorry about my English there - such an ugly sentence).
Joan is a star seamstress and handles a needle and thread, or a sewing-machine with equal panache.
Last time we were at her house she measured me and asked me how I wanted the garment to be. And this is the result. She shortened it considerably and cut off the flap at the rear. With the material she fashioned the side pockets, one with a chevron (I don't mind being a lance corporal) and a handy little pen-pocket near one of the breast-pockets.
Believe me - my bespoke denim jacket is extremely comfortable, and I wear it all the time. Denim is like that I think - you don't get uncomfortably hot/cold.My day has been a pottering sort of day.
Made potato/leek soup.
Picked raspberries. We have lots and I hope Bungus and Dan have too.
Cooked evening meal.
Sorted out bird-feeders.
Solved fridge problem. I'll tell you tomorrow.
Comments..... Bungus .... Cousin Bernard, the Sheriff, was ambidextrous. Hence his gun-slinger reputation.
I also forgot to tell you that his lady Yanaha (she had some Navajo blood) ran the Saloon and looked a cracker in her Basque. She
collected together his poetry and odd bits of prose - requests for samples therefore would have to have been addressed to her. Sorry I can't be of more help !The snap on the right is one of the few remaining of the Saloon.
She should of course been in it. But she was operating the camera and couldn't trust either of the two idle sods standing behind the bar, to do it properly.
Thanks for the 'graveyard' jokes. Didn't we used to call it 'gallows humour' ?
Running vehicles on used chip oil sounds like a splendid idea. And thanks for your, as usual, witty later comment.
anonymousrob.... Glad you too enjoyed the Annie Leibowitz. I think you and I still see pictures in, broadly speaking, the same sort of way.
You are right about 'surgical wards' but I think the 'motor-bike lads' are in 'orthopedic wards' and they want the telly on till 1am minimum. These days though, with individual TV sets to each bed there isn't a problem. The card you need works out at £2.50 a day. In any case my DAB radio and MP3 player is plenty for me and I could have a couple of ripe melons instead.
I love the BSA superbug joke.
Lets just hope that you never need this information anyway.
I think the music with 5 flats is the 'D-flat major' scale - sounds most triumphal I understand.
.......................................................
Quotation time...... He really was a wise old bird I think..............
"Health is not valued till sickness comes"
I agree that the black border looks funereal ‘Look Who’s Coming for Dinner’?).
ReplyDeleteI also agree about the rather distracting long, light brown, oblong shape on photo 2. I think it may be a lolly stick.
The shirt jacket (one of which you had not got) looks very good althoughI cannot agree that denim is comfortable, especially trousers, the devil’s design.
Yes, we too have done well for raspberries; I eat them straight off the bush. Gooseberries too, which are seldom seen in shops. At least 5lb off our one bush, most of which I pickled (delicious with smoked mackerel).
What a coincidence! I once knew a Basque woman who looked a cracker in her Navajo (the language used to confound Japanese listening to American radio in the war).
I also had a cousin who was gunslinger. He lost several in the gorse bushes.
The saloon photo (described as being on the left when it is on the right) puts me in mind of the famous one of Billy the Kid, which I googled today, because, apparently, it is reverse printed which is why he was mistakenly believed to be a left-handed gun (his revolver, according to the photo, being holstered on his left hand side). And did you know that he was a first cousin once removed to Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, who had 12 wives?,
I also admire Annie Leibowitz, as previously discussed. I admit to thinking I would have spoilt that photo by cropping, had it been mine.
I have never been patient in an 'orthopedic ward' but I have been in both surgical and plastic wards where som 70% of the patients were victims of motorbike accidents.
The individual TV sets in King’s Mill were a pain in the backside, whatever operation one had endured. It took three days to get them working properly by which time the tenner had gone and you had to start again.
'D-flat major' it may be. Triumphal it wasn’t when the flats were ignored.
More hospital stories:
On Thurs evening’s news was a story about East Midlands ambulances going to the wrong destination (aided by SatNav).
When Sandra was in Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital some 30 odd years ago, a woman on the ward was being discharged in the late aftenoon.
“Where d’you live, love?” asked the ambulance man.
“Skegby,” she replied, Skegby being about 5 miles from the hospital.
“Right. We’ve got a full load so we’ll drop you off last,”
In those days, very few people queried things.
After riding around in the ambulance for two and a half hours, the driver asked, “Whereabouts in Skeggy do you live, love?”
By then it was too late to take her home so they took her back to hospital.
Another woman on the ward was taken down for a hip replacement. This entailed breaking her leg. When she came round from the anaesthetic she found they had broken the wrong one. Whlle waiting to go down to have the correct one broken, she had a heart attack. But she remained cheerful.
Remembering that, when Sandra was going down for her back operation, they only had one surgical stocking. Half conscious from the pre-med, all the way to the theatre she was saying, “Tell them it’s not my leg, it’s my back,”
STOP PRESS
Sandra has received a recorded delivery letter from our neighbour which is not at all conciliatory. More to follow.
Before you point it out: I have never been particularly impatient in an orthopaedic ward either. Sandra was; she wanted to come home.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Sandra - I would want to come home too....though I did spend five months in hospital with TB when I was 19, which had its moments....Y used to come and see me straight from work - I looked much healthier than she did, having spent all day out in the sunshine we used to have then.
ReplyDeleteLove the poppies, not the black border.
I was going to offer up 'lolly stick' too. My first thought was that the flower was 'heather' - but that seems too obvious?
Sorry black bordernot intended to be funereal I just toggled the 'f' key in photoshop and though they looked best on a black mount.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to comment on sartorial matters - you must look the bee's knees in that rather super/practical shirt. Tuppence to speak to you now...
ReplyDeleteI have never worn jeans and don't intend to. And although I did (light years ago) have a jeans jacket, I didn't like it, it wasn't warm enough, found it stiff nd awkward. (I don't like leather jackets either...). I have knitted when genuine denim yarn - indigo dyed - which gently fades and becomes softer every time you wash it. I had a gansey-type jersey which I was very fond of (hi-jacked just as it had got comfortable by daughter). And I find that toddler-jackets knitted in this yarn go down very well with Mums - I often wash them half a dozen times before giving them, so that they are reasonably soft.
I’ve been catching up on the blog after my return from Norfolk. I’m pretty sure your bird wasn’t a swift. It looks more like a bird of prey and my best guess would be a kestrel, although at that distance it’s hard to say.
ReplyDeleteHelen don’t crop your picture, if you do you will lose the circle of heather which holds the eye in. Just tone down the left hand stone and the patch of earth bottom right. Then clone out the lolly stick (even I could do that so should have no difficuty)
Graham I like your denim jacket, you must wear in on WOW. In fact I have a denim jockey cap you can borrow which will match it well. Failing that you can always borrow the famous blue hat. We will of course need a picture for publication.
When we were in Norfolk we visited a gift shop which was selling a line of cards based on Tommy Cooper jokes. The main body of the joke was on the front with the punch line inside, no illustrations of any kind, just the joke. I suggested to the owner that possibly people came in, read the jokes, had a chuckle and walked out again. She said that on the contrary they were by far her best seller and surprisingly at least half of the puchasers were too young to have even heard of TC.
Graham this ones for you
Two men have been arrested by the police, one for drinking battery acid and the other for eating fireworks.
They have charged one and let the other off.
I don’t care, I’m going to criticise Annie Liebowitz. I find the bright door on the left very distracting and would crop it out although I don’t suppose she had any control over what was published.
Roy
Reg, I can understand why you thought a black mount was needed with all that red. I think the 'problem' is that the border is too wide; a very thin one would not, I suspect, attract comment. As it is I get the impression the poppies are receding away from the border which, I guess, was not your intention.
ReplyDeleteThat aside, I like the image and am sooooo glad you didn't add something of another colour in the way 'pot-hunters' would have done (ie me 20 years ago).
I like Helen's picture as well but it gives me a bit of a dilemma. Some readers will not be surprised to learn that I think the rocks and greenery would work better in black and white. The flowers, however, are probably best in colour. If you don't mind, Helen, I would like to copy it and have a 'play' in Photoshop to see what sort of black and white result could be produced.
Bungus refers to the picture of Billy the Kid which was printed the wrong way round. Being a N&EMPF judge I can tell you the saloon picture is also published the wrong way round. The towel on the right should be on the left and the towel on the left should be on the right. I also know because this picture is part of my family's heritage as well.
The "two idle sods" in the picture are in fact my great-great-great grandparents on my mother's side. Although it's difficult to tell, one of them is a woman. They left Ireland, separately, to seek their fortunes in the new world and met up there. They returned to Ireland to run that country's first ever chip shop which, coincidently given recent blog comments, was located between a hospital and a graveyard. My great-great-great grandad became known as 'Chip' Murphy as a result of this venture. Fortunately for our family, he left an account of his life and times in America. He says in there that the west wasn't so much wild as just extremely annoyed.
Rob
Sorry, Roy, but I disagree about the brightly lit door in the Nicole Kidman picture. I would expect it to be deliberately lit and deliberately included. The picture is from an exhibition so I feel sure the photographer was in control of what was shown.
ReplyDeleteTo me the picture says Here you are, young, glamourous, beautiful and famous. But all these things are transitory. Behind you is a door through which you could disappear at any moment and never be seen again.
I also think that, for her part, Nicole is playing just another role. It isn't so much a photo of Nicole Kidman as a photo of how ordinary people imagine Nicole Kidman to be. If she goes out of fashion we will forget her but she will still be Nicole Kidman, not the person in this photograph.
Does that give me an Art History degree or an entry into Pseud's Corner?
Rob