Skip to content

Posts from the ‘photography’ Category

Jan 8

32 Comments

Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock

France is speckled with more than her fair share of rugged fortresses and fairy-tale chateaux and every shade and hue betwixt, between, beyond and behind.  This one (le Chateau d’Arouze) stands dominant over le Vallée D’Alagnon in the commune of Molompize which has it’s own unique micro-climate enabling it to pioneer the revival of Cantalien wine-making.  We walked the terraces and we conquered the Castle. I have a tendency to hoover up the ambience and atmosphere of  buildings to the extent that my life imagined appears to play out within and without them and I find myself a player in my own drama without ever needing to put pen to paper.  This one did not disenchant as I swished and swooshed and scrambled and scaramouched my way around it, the fantasy trumpeting loud in my head all the while.

HB² (that’s my husband with two brains for new readers) took this sublime shot which seems to me to indicate weightlessness on several levels – the bristly half grown beards of grass like immature goaties on the tops of those ancient towers seem drawn upwards as though absolved of gravity, the stone skillfully, artfully placed so long ago (in 1309 for pedants such as me) reaches heavenwards vainly trying to touch the clouds, themselves apparently weightless wafting serenely and, I always think, a little scathing of that which they float effortlessly above.

DSCF4608

I’m responding to the prompt ‘weightless’ in this weeks Daily Press Photo Challenge …. all the other, more marvellous entries are here.

PS:  Sylvia Plath, that most fragile of souls, who I love thoroughly and unashamedly wrote the poem that I snatched my title from.  That she was born in the same year as my still living mother but died only three years after my birth has always resonated  poignantly with me.  Now it suddenly strikes me that she was born so close to where I am making my home for a while in Massachusetts and the echoes ring more shrilly still.

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.

Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break.


Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
Conversation Among The Ruins
Sylvia Plath

 

 

Jan 6

98 Comments

Miles to go before I sleep

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep’ … if you know who wrote the lines you have a clue to where I am and indeed the place that is now home for some time to come.  Fancy a guess? Leave a comment below and those of you who already know keep your council a while longer if you please.

DSCF5497

The picture is in response to the Daily Press challenge to greet this nearly new year and titled ‘Circle’ – here are the other several hundreds of wonderful entries.

This place where I landed a week and a day ago has the most unimaginably beautiful light.  Gentle, pale, soft, benign and the reflection in the frozen pond of delicate sky charmed us as greatly as the ripples made static circles by the freezing puff of winters breath

Here, to make my test entirely untesting is the poem that gave me the line that seemed so apt to title this new chapter in my life:

 

 

 

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’

Robert Frost

Dec 4

24 Comments

I will sit on this style and continue to smile

I live in an area where the standard quip is that we have three cows to every human.  Most recognisable and the symbol of the Cantal are the Salers with their Harley Davidson horns and rich reddish brown coats.  In fact the original Salers were black and you do occasionally see a raven coated throwback still.  They are prized and revered and considered to be lucky.  And indeed they are fortunate since you won’t find them going to slaughter in a hurry.

But this beauty is actually a Ferrondaise.  There used to be far more of them but for reasons that they have so far failed to divulge to me (remember I speak like a Spanish cow not a French one) they dwindled.  Now the great and good of the Auvergne are encouraging farmers to restock them.  In our village we have an enchanting  farmer who sings lilting songs to his Ferrondaise as he walks them between fields.   The fact that he is missing several teeth does not make him self-conscious and he is happy to stop and pass the lisping time of day and share pearls of wisdom as his cattle casually amble up the main highway through the village. For my part, I don’t sing well though it doesn’t stop me from chirping, warbling and in particularly uninhibited moments positively yodelling which perhaps accounts for the look of disgust in this disgruntled beauty’s rolling eyes as we stopped to snap her.  I offer her to you in response to the Daily Press prompt Eye Spy.  Here are all the other fine offerings laid out for you to enjoy

DSCF4730

PS: The title is Edward Lear.  My mother-in-law lived in his house in Seymour St. London W1 for several years and he became ever more a part of the family tapestry as a result.  His whimsy nonsense, delight in bending and stretching words to his pleasure and seemingly simple illustrations never fail to cheer me.  This one goes thus:

There was an Old Man who said, ‘How
Shall I flee from that horrible cow?
I will sit on this stile,
And continue to smile,
Which may soften the heart of that cow.’

I did not sit on a style, nor did I try to soften her heart – I think she was a lost cause that afternoon though I don’t for a moment think she is horrible.  But then I am not an Old Man ….

Nov 14

46 Comments

When you don’t have the strength

I selected this image last night – I had just the story to go with it.  But what a difference a  moment makes.  I wandered past my drawing room where my TV was still on, left talking to itself when my youngest daughter rang for a chat some 2 hours earlier.  But here was no frou-frou Friday entertainment, here was our Giant Panda lookalike of a President looking shaken and grave.  Paris riven assunder AGAIN by terrorists.  Reports of death and maiming and pointless, unspeakable, unthinkable violence.  Our borders closed, we are on lock-down and in a state of emergency for the first time since 2005.  This morning, the community I live in is numb, shocked, shattered by proxy to the core.  We have shaken hands and dolled out les bises with tears in our eyes and rolling down our cheeks.  The last post I made on here was about bells.  Our bells have tolled their mournful E flat for a full ten minutes every hour this morning.  Peeling for the dead.  Peeling for the bereaved.  Peeling for the battered, mutlilated injured.  Respect.  Respect.

So I give you this image of Napoléon on his Marengo – a strange fabricated effergy that I photographed in Paris in September.  Just off Rue Saint Honoré close to the Place de la Concorde I have no idea what he is doing up there waving his banners like that.  But somehow I feel that he IS appropriate today.  When the very fabric of the country is waivering, reeling, tested to it’s extreme.  Maybe a molded dictator riding bare-back and tied down by guy-ropes is an accessible image of victory we can embrace.  Victory not of one party over another, nor one country over it’s adversery.  But the victory I dream of that love will prevail.  Because I do believe that in the end love is all we need.  And we must not let the bile of retribution get in it’s way.DSCF3479PS:  I was posting this in response to the Daily Press Weekly Photo Challenge entitled Victory – the other more remarkable entries can be found here.

PPS:  The actual Napoléon is responsible for my title – my favourite of his attributed quotes ‘Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength’.  Today of all days, those words resonate.

#jesuischarlie #jesuisparis #parisattacks #prayersforparis #jesuishumanité

Oct 16

55 Comments

Every time a bell rings an Angel gets his wings

In villages all over the world bells mark time.  They mark the hours, often the half hours and even the quarter hours through the day and sometimes throughout the night.  They call to prayer, they toll for the dead, they ring out joyously the news that two people are wed.  They sound their eccastic pleasure on Christmas morning and in France they are silent from Good Friday til they sound sonorously, building slowly, softly, increasingly exuberantly on Easter Sunday. After they have flown to Rome to be blessed and have dropped their goodies for the worthy on their flight home, of course.   Here in my village we have eight-til-late bells tolling out the hours and giving a single bong for the half hour.  I rather think I know their secret – shhh, don’t tell but … they are mechanised.  However a human person, possibly the Priest himself rings the bells for Mass.  He’s a dashing figure who wears his Catholic robes with a panache that the kings of couture would applaud on the catwalk.  He is also quite clearly tone deaf and devoid of any rhythmn.  A far cry from the rehearsed peels of my village church in England.  That was melodious this is frankly cacophonous.

Church bells to me are the soundtrack of ordinary life.  They mark out that rhythm that man has lived to for centuries.  It matters not whether you are part of the Church. It matters not, indeed whether you have any religious faith.  The bells provide the backdrop to life itself.

My birthday is at the end of September.  My youngest daughter came to stay for a week and wanted to take me for lunch.  Her treat.  This is a HUGE deal when the daughter in question is a student.  We drove to Brioude.  Its a town I have wanted to explore for a long while, just over the border in the Haute Loire (also part of the Auvergne Region).  We had very delicious lunch and then walked in the rather insistent mizzle that marked my birthday out from the WHOLE of the rest of the sunshiney month.  We heard the bells of the Basillica and we knew instantly from their sober tone that they were marking a funeral.  No-one needed to tell us to be quiet as we passed the building, the bells did it for us.  And somehow, those bells wrapped us for a moment in the huddled sadness of the group waiting to greet their loss for the last time.  Brought us to a halt, illicited respect.  Yes, bells are the soundtrack to ordinary life and that soundtrack is played in simple notes that mortals simply recognise and divine.

These bells are in Sainte-Anastasie in the Cezallier Cantallien.  They sit in a fine clocher-peigne which for non French speakers translates as a ‘bell comb’.  It describes perfectly the open structure that prettily suspends the bells rather using than a tower to house them.

DSCF4013PS:  Zuzu, George Bailey’s ‘little ginger snap’ is quoted in the title … at the end of the magic that is Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ squeezed tight by her daddy whose Guardian Angel (second class), Clarence has literally been his salvation she tells him this fact.   Her teacher told her so ….

Screenshot 2015-10-17 11.27.45

This piece was originally written two years ago, in response to The Daily Press weekly photo challenge (Extra)Ordinary – all other entries are here

Oct 11

62 Comments

Don’t Stop Me Now!

They played this song nine years ago and we wept an ocean.  They played it because we were saying adieu to a boy.  Sixteen years old and he had made his own decision to leave the earth.  I still feel the anguish like a razor to my heart.   Yesterday, I found this piece of driftwood which seems to me for all the world to be an elephant.  He loved elephants.  Particularly pink elephants.  He loved many things especially including my daughter.  My daughter loved many things especially including him.  She wrote yesterday that she hopes he is in a happy place.  I know he is.  I know he is smiling.  I know he is laughing.  And I know that in some intangible way he took me to this trunky trunk to gently remind that he is happy.  And that the part of him that dwells in each of us that love him will never be lost.

DSCF3904PS:  The song is Queen, of course.  Who he also loved.  Of course.  And he loved that I had worked for them when the dinosaurs were barely hatched in the garden.   I on the other hand am very cross with him for getting in first … there is nothing worse than outliving our young.

This is my response to The Daily Post prompt ‘Happy Place’ …. you can see all the other’s gloriously displayed here  And here, with a smile, is a bonus

Screenshot 2015-10-11 18.08.45

Oct 3

18 Comments

The Wind Beneath My Wings …

‘You’re not dead – so stop living as though you are!’ shouts CC Bloom as played by the immeasurable Bette Midler at her best friend in ‘Beaches’.  The story of two girls who meet under the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ and begin a 30 year friendship cut short by jealousy, poor (and even more unfortunately, conflcting) choices of significant others and all the other things that can and do get in the way of ordinary lives – and then impending, premature death wields his scythe unscrupulously to focus us further on the importance of living the life we have whilst we have it.  I watched the video with each of my daughters in turn when they reached the age of 11 or so.  Some would say it was an odd thing to do – some would say it crossed boundaries – it certainly made us cry and it certainly reminded us that life is a lottery and that we can lose those we love the most and that we should make the most of every day.  Here, in response to The Daily Post’s weekly prompt entitled this time, Boundaries is my local beach (or one of them) – lakeside on the Dorgogne you can see the Correze on the other bank and the unutterably Disney Chateau du Val in the distance.  Boundaries are important in life but steer them clear of  love  …. and whilst you have life promise you will feel it, promise you will breath it, promise you will see it, promise you will live your life and not a dynamic death.

DSCF5164

PS:  ‘The Wind Beneath My Wings’ comes from ‘Beaches’ … it is one of the very few songs that has caused me to pull the car over and listen to it when it first came on the radio.  When you have a chance, lend an ear to it yourself and ask yourself who that person is in your sentience – there is one in every life, I do believe.

Sep 21

38 Comments

4711

I took the picture through a wire screen because I had no choice not because I was being clever or in anyway creative but I do like the effect and since this weeks Photo Challenge is called Grid it fits and I thought I might share it.  The challenge for you is to guess where it is … the clue is in the title.

DSCF3109

PS:  Unlike my local gothic cathedral this one is black with centuries of filth rather than being built of raven basalt.  So the clean up that is currently and visibly in progress is revealing the honeyed blonde of her youth and doubtless she feels all the zestier for it though whether a place of worship is allowed to have more fun, I rather doubt.

Aug 12

22 Comments

Trust in me, just in me ….

I grew up in a malecentric world.   Sandwiched between two brothers and with numerous boy cousins (all much older than me) I learned to perform young.  My latent Lily Langtry was my ticket to inclusion in boy games whence otherwise I would have been barred.   I remember one Autumn day, damp and musty my brothers and I were playing in the front garden.  My father re-gravelling the drive, we were probably supposed to be helping.  But my older brother had a better idea.  It involved a rubber snake.  I was briefed, repeated back my instructions to ensure I accurately understood, little brother confirmed that father was unable to see big brother planting the ductile serpent in the undergrowth and once all was point perfect  I took my cue and ran out of a copse of trees screaming hystrionically at the top of my voice.  My father instantly rushed to my aid and I stammered sssssnnnnnaaaake whilst pointing melodramatically at the glimpse of viper in the grass.  With not a smidge of hesitation dad swung the spade and smashed the snake with all his might. Over and over again.  We were quite helpless with laughter as it’s rubber body twisted and writhed and indeed bounced.  When entirely satisfied that it was properly dead he took a step forward and picked up it’s stretchy corpse.  The head was utterly flattened like a dimpled pancake.  We were helpless with laughter.  He was thunderous with rage.  We were sent indoors to our rooms.  It was worth the punishment.

The prompt is beneath my feet … it almost was as I clambered over a rock close to home:

DSCF6702

PS:  Kaa the snake in Kiplings Jungle book anthropomorphisised so brilliantly by Disney hypnotised Mowgli as he murmured his song ‘Trust in me …. just in me’.  My dad was the man I could always trust to protect and defend me from all foes including, crucially,  rubber snakes.

Jun 14

33 Comments

I love not man the less

Here is The Bean demonstrating the joy of being outside in uninterrupted open space.  The grass tickles her underside, the sun beats down on her topside and she is solitary except for the necessary human behind the camera capturing her off-season delight at a mountain to herself.  This was June last year but here it is mostly off-season

In the high range of extinct volcanos that spirals upwards to its climax at the Plomb du Cantal, July and August bring all manner of tourists.  Hikers, bikers (those using their own pedalling power and those with petrol horses between their leathered thighs), caravaners, motorists and wanderers.  For a couple of months it is difficult to get around without coming face to face with far too many bothersomes for my liking.  I’m a bit schitzophrenic about tourism to be honest – I want it and encourage it because I want the region to thrive but I detest it because I have the soul of a hermit.

It’s a family trait – I remember well a holiday in Scotland.  We normally went  on that unseasonal cusp between Winter and Spring, but for some reason, this particular year, the sharabang north happened in August.  We went to the gloriously named and, as it turns out, hugely popular, Trossocks.  Each day my father got us out of bed earlier and earlier in the morning and drove us hell-for-leather to avoid the ‘wagons ho!’ of caravans in convoys sometimes hundreds long winding relentlessly towards whatever beauty spot had been picked by one of them and  seemingly passed on to all the others by osmosis and which always seemed to coincide with whatever the parents had planned for our day out. From our hotel.  In our estate car. With no caravan.  We had no caravan.  We did not WANT a caravan.  The wagoners seemed quite happy to chug along nose to tail.  We werent.  Selfishly we preferred the wilderness to ourselves  and would park the car and stride or, more accurately scramble for those of us on more juvenile, less emphatic legs, penetrating deeper and further into the hills through prickly heather and crunchy bracken and the odd morass of unsolicited bog, each day dragging our picnic bags and groundsheets and rugs to happily enjoy some family isolation.  Every day, every SINGLE day at around 1 o’clock my father would bellow ‘bloody hell!’ as he spotted life trudging towards us.  We seemed to magnetically attract others.  I think the truth was that no-one else shared our desire to just BE in unperturbed nature without the company of strangers who, though Blanche Dubois took such comfort in the kindness of, sometimes, indeed mostly, one could not stand to be near.  I haven’t changed.

Off-Season suits me and was the title of this weeks photo challenge … many finer interpretations can be found here

IMG_2859PS:  The poetry lovers amongst you will have spotted that the title is stolen from The Lord Byron ‘I love not man the less, but nature more’ from There is Pleasure in The Pathless Woods which, albeit referencing  the seashore and woodlands rather than mountains, pretty much captures my attitude perfectly.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »