A Damp Weekend In Dorset

Posted by Mark on Mar 18, 2013 | 1 Comment

A bit of a spur of the moment thing, but this weekend my wife and I decided to have a short break in the neighbouring county of Dorset.

The weekend started on Friday evening. Many do. Straight from work we dropped off work-related stuff, grabbed a bag full of clean clothes and toiletries, and set off westwards down the A27 towards Bournemouth where a hotel was booked. It rained on the journey. Rain, actually, may not be accurate enough to describe what the car had to travel through in its passage from Hampshire to Dorset. Quite frankly, if you’d been a passenger in the car and I’d turned around to comment that I was sorry for having driven into the sea but with luck we’d make it to a distant shore before the seals around the window gave way and heralded our drowning doom you wouldn’t have had cause to disbelieve me. It was wet. The speed was slow, the concentration was high, but eventually we reached the hotel.

Hotel room of the Wessex hotel in Bournemouth.

That evening we had a quick walk around the area near the hotel but it was dark and raining – of course – and we were hungry so after a quick perusal at what was on offer we decided to eat at a place called Cristallo. As we arrived a couple were just leaving and decided to recommend the steak. I followed their advice and it was one of the best peppercorn fillet steaks I’ve had. Nice. Also consumed: garlic bread, tiger prawns, desserts, and a bottle of chianti. Very nice.

Friday finished with a couple of stops in two nearby pubs. The first was busy and noisy and… odd. Everything seemed geared for young people but there were precious few of them. We actually constituted some of the younger members and that’s wrong. The second pub, right next door, was a pub that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a sports bar or an Irish bar and so settled on both at the same time.

We sat next to a framed picture of the Southampton 1990/91 team.

Sitting next to a photo of the Southampton 1990/91 football team encouraged us to drink up fast and vacate the premises. That and the pub calling time at eleven. Eleven. On a Friday. To go with the photo it was like drinking in the nineties too.

Saturday! After getting some inspiration from the literature left in our hotel room for tourists we decided to head for Dorchester. There now follows a message to Dorset:

Dear Dorset,

Please consider relocating some of the revenue from the three point eight million speed cameras in your county towards repairing the potholes in your roads.

I mean it.

In Dorchester we took advantage of a deal that allowed us to visit a dinosaur exhibition, teddy bear exhibition, terracotta warriors exhibition, mummy exhibition, and Tutankhamun exhibition. It was an exhbitionorama.

Taken in one of the exhibitions but I forget which one exactly.

The exhibitions were indoors and dry but outside it was decidedly damp you won’t be surprised to hear. We didn’t get a chance to really look around the town so instead hopped in the car and headed towards Swanage…

…except I decided to divert down towards Lulworth as there was a shocking break in the rain. Lulworth cove is somewhere that my wife had been before but I hadn’t. It was set at the base of a steep path which, when accompanied by the strong offshore gusts and the soggy footing made the descent an interesting one. Also interesting was Durdle Door, the natural rock formation in the cove.

I imagine that Durdle Door at dawn looks wonderful.

It’s a door called Durdle.

Early afternoon on an overcast day it’s not quite as good but still impressive. But it was also cold. And our shoes weren’t suitable for much exploring. And we were riding our luck with not getting drenched as it was. So we headed back to the car with just a few stops to pretend to take photos when we were really catching our respective breaths. Did I mention it was steep?

From there to Swanage which wasn’t a bad little place and did provide us with a very nice lunch in a café. That café also provided shelter because it was absolutely tipping down outside.

At some point around Swanage I also managed to knock the dial on my camera which ensured I underexposed shots by one and two thirds stops; this is a full stop lower than I normally shoot and makes for dark photos and puzzled expressions on my face because it never occurred to me to check that setting as I never usually touch it.

One of a series of murals on some walls in Swanage.

From Swanage thence to Studland for a quick nose around. A quick, damp nose around. It was raining, you see.

This took us to the early evening and with light – not that there was much of it anyway – failing we headed back to Bournemouth so that some Saturday night drinking could take place. The journey back took place in rain interspersed with hailstones so large and cold that they coated the pothole-ridden roads with an inch-thick layer of white ice. Cars suddenly took on the appearance of having been snowed on. It was quite weird.

So, to drinking! Only, there was still some light and the rain had vanished again so it didn’t seem right to hit the pub straightaway; that led to us taking a wander from the hotel near the cliff top down to the end of the pier.

View from the end of Bournemouth pier.

Not that great as piers go, to be fair; neither long nor very interesting, other than the art deco architecture. Importantly, though, once we reached the end of the structure, numb from the biting wind, we were provided with a nice view of Bournemouth beach and the vast, low, obviously raining cloud rushing in. This caused us to hurry along off the pier and seek shelter in a cocktail bar. What a pity. While there it started pouring down outside and – since we’d already had hail – the weather decided to treat us to a thunder and lightning spectacle too.

The sun set and the rain mostly satisfied itself with occasional drizzling just to mix things up a bit and we commenced a miniature pub crawl of Bournemouth. This included the world’s noisiest Wetherspoons and the world’s hottest, crowdediest (er?) bar but culminated in an enjoyable couple of pints in a pub with comfy chairs and good music at a volume that allowed you to talk. It also had a barman who referred to his fellow barman as “darling” which made me look around and perform some calculations: two men there, two men there, three men there, a foursome of men there, two men there, two very close men there, a rainbow poster behind where my wife was sitting… I… I think it was a gay pub. There was, in fact, just one other heterosexual couple in the place and they were staggeringly drunk; heads lolling, dropping things, etc. Naturally, they were refused service, albeit politely.

Poster in the toilets of the pub that might just have been a gay one.

Whilst I was at the bar getting a second drink the drunk couple dropped their bag of shopping on the floor. I am nothing if not a gentleman and so picked everything up for them; had they bent down I doubt they’d have got up again. Amongst the items retrieved was a double-headed, purple dildo. Still in its packaging, thankfully. By way of thanks I was asked if I was a postman or a letterbox. Indeed.

Dorset in a nutshell: Dorchester, Durdle Door, decidedly damp, and mistaken for a homosexual in a gay pub. Would visit again. A+++++++

The Art Of The Self Shot

Posted by Mark on Mar 11, 2013 | 3 Comments

Browse the web long enough – about six minutes should do the job – and you’ll stumble upon a self-photograph taken by a partially-dressed, young girl in a room in her house. Well, you do if you browse the sites I browse. I don’t know why young girls feel the need to strip naked or as near-nude as makes no difference but it’s clear that there’s either peer pressure or herd instinct at play here.

As somewhat of a keen photographer I find the pictorial style represented by these undressed girls fascinating on many levels. Do they obey the rule of thirds or do they flaunt it? Are level shots the norm or is a jaunty angle considered de rigeur when snapping oneself in the nip? Actually, none of these questions can be answered as intense investigation has determined that there is only one rule when taking a self shot: include the counterpoint of interest.

Self shots need a counterpoint of interest; something which draws the eye from the girl and then to the counterpoint, then back to the girl with a puzzled look on the face, back to the counterpoint, then to the girl in shock. It’s this interactive element that makes the self shot so absorbing and the photographic style such an engrossing art form. In very short order I’ve become something of a expert in the style.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

A brunette girl with an enigmatic smile stands in a bathroom, framed by towels. It couldn’t be a more normal scene played out in many bathrooms the world over. But then you see the sock. Why is there just one? Where is the other sock? There’s wonderful symbolism of loss here, something we’ve all experienced as we hunt through the tumble dryer and then run a hand around the still-damp inside of the washing machine drum wondering where it is.

A wall covering hides a piece of conventional artwork in the background making certain that we’re not distracted from the art filling up the rest of the volume. So we can let our eyes fall on the scene: a girl with blonde hair and white knickers stands serenely in the middle of chaos. This is the eye of the storm and a clear reference to the camera with its picture-taking eye that casually freezes moments of continual motion every day in a way that should seem like magic to us but yet we take for granted. Beautifully-crafted.

Another shot of a girl in chaotic surroundings but this is decidedly different. Here we see a short-haired girl trapped by the mess; it’s a very clever piece of framing using the mirror doors to convey the imagery of a cage. Inside and outside the captive environment we see objects of everyday consumerism: a shoe, a bottle, a brush. But the girl is relaxed and we can tell that she’s fully accepting of her confinement. She knows that we’re all in the same trap and the only thing to do is lay back and relax.

Here, we see an example of religious imagery in the young girl self shot art form. The girl in this picture is standing in a room dedicated to the worship of idols: film stars, television stars, music stars; it’s a temple and like all temples it’s a solemn place and not to everyone’s taste. But we’re also presented with an escape from celebrity in the form of a corridor heading away. The religious metaphor carries through well in this shot and we see that one pilgrim is heading towards the bright light. Are we tempted to follow? If we do then we’ll be following a dog’s arse. It’s an intriguing offer.

This picture portrays a damning indictment of the cosmetics industry in its clever juxtaposition of all those bathroom goods that keep you clean and fresh arranged in such an unpleasant way. Lids left open, bottles on their sides, and that counterpoint piece of perfection: the used cotton wool bud, so filthy your mind reels at the possibility of where it’s been. The look on the girl’s face is wonderful too. Her look over her shoulder says “well, what are you going to do about it?” What indeed?

Finally, a simple piece of advice conveyed simply through art: it doesn’t matter who we are and what we look like, how beautiful we may appear on the outside, or what tiles we choose to decorate our bathrooms with, we must never ever ever shit on the toilet seat. Because it’s just wrong. So very wrong. Did Henri Cartier-Bresson ever impart a little nugget of wisdom like that?

2012 In Pictures

Posted by Mark on Jan 1, 2013 | 0 Comments

Well, I’m starting off 2013 without a functioning camera (not strictly true; I can still use the old 350D) because my 5D Mark II has developed a shutter problem (the infamous “Err 30″) and will need to get sent off to an authorised repairer. This is one of two camera-related disasters of 2012 (*). Still, it’s a new year and I’ve updated the colour theme and logo on the site and need to keep the content flowing so why not take a look back at 2012 and pick out a photo I’ve taken every month with a little blurb for filler? There are many reasons why not but I’m just going to go ahead anyway.

January It was my oldest friend (in terms of how long I’ve known him as opposed to person of greatest age) Matthew’s fortieth birthday so a family and friends gathering took place at Portchester Castle. It was quite cold. Well, it was January. Pictured is Matthew’s dad and his son playing on the old walls.

February My love affair with street photography continued and every now and then I took a nice shot too. This is one I particularly liked, featuring a girl on the phone down an alleyway just off East Street in Chichester. I got myself close to the wall so that I could get nice lines down the brickwork.

March The days were getting longer in March – it’s my understanding this is a common occurrence – which meant the evenings as I left work were occasionally visited by interesting-looking sunsets or weak suns. This shot is taken from the roof of the multi-storey car park where I (big surprise!) park my car.

April Our annual trip up north to watch Wakefield in the Super League took place in April in 2012. To mix things up we went a different route from normal and ended up popping in to Matlock Bath on the way. Very nice it was too. Pictured is a shot of a bridge over the river Derwent and snow on the hills in the background.

May A friend from the states, Michelle, popped over to London on business in May and since she’d been kind enough to show us around Washington D.C. the year before we returned the favour and took her on a walking tour of our capital city. This photo was during a lunch break that we took in Covent Garden where you have to accept that you’ll be sharing your food with winged pests.

June In June my dad took my wife and I, my brother and his wife, and my sister-in-law’s two kids to Spain for a week. A lovely time had by all. Salou was our base but Tarragona, Reus, and Barcelona all featured heavily in the list of places we visited. Weather was glorious and we came back knowing that we’d have to visit Barcelona again for a longer visit; beautiful city. This shot is from Salou along the promenade.

July In July the Olympic torch came through Portsmouth on its way to London for what proved to be a far better Olympic games than I think most people were expecting. It was probably only surpassed by the Paralympics for great sporting events in recent times.

August The International Kite Festival came to Southsea Common and the day that we visited was just perfect for it; bright blue sky but plenty of warm wind to keep the many vibrantly-coloured kites flying magnificently.

September After seeing a demonstration of the sport at Gunwharf a month or so earlier it was in September that I went to see an actual game featuring the local team, the Portsmouth Roller Wenches. Great fun, great event, and 2013 should be a good year for the team if the events I saw were anything to go by.

October In October we popped along to the Portsmouth Beer Festival. It’s because we like beer. And much beer was consumed. This is a shot I managed to take while still capable and it’s one I liked because of the lighting on the woman’s face; it reminded me of an old film noir.

November In November my wife and I went to see Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie in concert at the O2 in London. If you ever get a chance to see Rob Zombie in concert then you are hereby ordered to attend; unbelievably awesome. We stayed in London overnight so this gave us a day either side to so some sightseeing. This photo was taken in the foot tunnel that runs under the Thames at Greenwich. Yes, it’s a ballerina posing for photos in a Victorian tunnel. Why wouldn’t it be?

December Finally, in December we visited relatives in Abingdon in Oxfordshire where – it turned out – in addition to lots of flooding they were also celebrating the Abingdon Extravaganza. Morris dancing, brass bands, and various other activities were taking place. This photo is of the Snow Queen who towered over everyone as she wandered around. This might have been because of stilts or she might naturally have been one of those eight foot-tall women you read about. I suspect the latter.

(*) The second camera-related disaster was me forgetting to take it with me on a trip to America at the end of October/beginning of November. And that’s why there isn’t a picture from that occasion. I mean, I could have shown you one taken on the phone but, well, you know. It’s a phone. Not a camera. I’m a bit of a camera snob darling.

A Google+ Photo Journey

Posted by Mark on Oct 7, 2012 | 5 Comments

I was browsing Google+ today, leaping from stream to stream like a social networking salmon, when I thought to myself: wouldn’t it be good to find a picture from someone’s stream, post it here with a note describing why I liked it, leap randomly via someone who’d interacted with that stream in some way to discover a new picture, and repeat a few times thereby giving me something to post on my site?

And then I thought: no, that’s not good at all. That’s the opposite of good.

And then I decided to do it anyway. Here are five shots from five streams browsed one after the other for no other reason than that I wanted to. It’s the best reason there is.

So, first off was a quick look at my Street Photographers circle, one of the two main circles I’ve created that I check numerous times a day. And the first photo to catch my eye was this shot entitled “Love, Work, Create… Ride” (although I think it should be live not love) by Garth McKay:

Lovely warm tones from the low sun behind the camera and gorgeously lit with that same light reflecting off the store windows and into the street; this creates some great shadows and reflections onto the road surface. The bike neatly framed with the words around it is excellent too.

Someone who liked that photo was Andre Behrmann so a quick scroll down his stream brought me to this:

Great sharpness picking out all the textures especially in the foreground and obviously lovely symmetry here. Particularly nice is getting the natural light from the sun directly overhead so as to cast great light and shadow right down the middle of the photo.

This shot led me via one of the commenters on it to the following photo by Thorsten von Eyb:

Three things I love about this photo: firstly, it’s the moment in the centre of the shot; the hug in the middle of the crowded scene and the working of the camera phone by the hugged individual. Secondly, there’s the angle of the shot; always nice to see something off the vertical or horizontal and in a crowded shot like this it works well to convey claustrophobia to me. Finally, of course, it’s the woman in the white trousers who – for some reason (ahem) – is actually the focal point for the picture.

Liking Thorsten’s shot was Serein Lee and I know I’m always going to see good shots from him so off to his stream and this shot is the one I wanted to pick out:

The girls are wonderfully-isolated is this shot, their white clothing beaming out against the darkness around them; lovely use of high contrast for this. And the girls themselves are great too; I love that they’re forming a diamond formation and that they’re all so happy. Brilliant moment framed perfectly.

This then led me finally (well, as far as this post is concerned) to Richard Kralicek and I felt in the mood for a colour shot to show off so this one stood out in very short order:

Another symmetrical shot but with a vastly different feel to it than the earlier one by Andre. The architectural designs coupled with the piercing, clear blue of the sky lends this a futuristic look that appeals to me. Then, because it’s utilising a reflection for the symmetry, there’s the bonus that comes from peering through the glass to see what’s behind the glass.

American Hotels And Motels

Posted by Mark on Sep 9, 2012 | 1 Comment

I’ve shared some of the fantastic postcards of Jordan Smith before – American Motels – and the urge came over me to do so again. No, I don’t know why but that’s all the explanation you’re getting for what you’re about to read.

It’s the Alvyn Hotel describing itself as the friendliest lobby in town. Certainly, if wood gives you wood then you’ll be smiling too but even if you’re not some sexual deviant turned on by the smell of pine there’s a lot to recommend at the Alvyn Hotel; for starters: they have a rocking chair! And if you’re the sort of person that likes to listen to the TV but not watch it then where else are you going to find a chair conveniently located with its back to a supporting pillar facing away from the set in the room? Nowhere but the Alvyn Hotel, that’s where!

This is the William Hilton Inn, Hilton Head, South Carolina and if you’re a fan of hotels with no troublemakers in them then this is the place for you as every guest is subject to police background checks and an interrogation by two federal agents before their bags are checked in. Since this policy was put in place the murder rate of guests at the William Hilton Inn has fallen to a record low.

If you’ve ever wondered what it must be like to be behind the counter in the lobby of the Weatherford Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona then this postcard should give you all the help you need. Should you pick up your book on the counter top? But what if someone comes in? Would they think you’re smart because you’re reading or would they be offended that you’re not staring at the doors waiting for them? Who can know the minds of people who would stay in this hotel? And what’s your favourite chair? Is it the blue one that you found down the street? Why would someone throw out a good chair like that? It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t match anything else! It doesn’t! Or do you like the chair with the head on it? That has got to be a good talking point to guests, hasn’t it? What else could you talk about? The weather? It’s Arizona! It’s hot! Why is there a head on a chair? Maybe you’ll pick your book up. Maybe you won’t think about the head on the chair any more.

This is the Tropics Motor Hotel, Seattle, Washington and you’ll want to stay here; it’s got a kidney bean-shaped pool. Oh, other motels have kidney bean-shaped pools? Well, this kidney bean-shaped pool is indoors and heated! Oh, other motels have indoor, heated pools? Well, do other motels give you the opportunity to wake up in the morning, throw back the curtains, and look out on the view of a couple of strangers sitting outside in the rain peering in? No, you’re damn right they don’t! And that’s why you’ll want to stay at the Tropics.

These days we’re constantly told to drink responsibly (whatever that means) but back in the day bars were all about one thing: getting you drunk. Even better: getting you falling down drunk. The many bars had many and varied ways to achieve this goal but surely none ever did it better than the bar at the Monteleone Hotel in New Orleans. You want to be falling down drunk? Then you want to a bar that also revolves at up to forty revolutions per minute! Getting on a bar seat can be tricky but centrifugal force makes leaving a doddle.

Lexington, Kentucky is the horse capital of the world (allegedly) these days but it once tried to be known as the most patriotic city in America. In order to achieve that aim the scourge that was communists was hunted down wherever it may be, and one of the places that it was deemed it may be was in the Continental Inn. And that’s why every bed had wall-mounted microphones installed over them and why two-way mirrors were placed in every room with space for a film crew behind. If at the the end of your stay you were deemed not to be a threat to the American way of life you could purchase a movie reel of your nighttime exploits for a very reasonable price and delight in the athleticism you showed in leaping from bed to bed and having sex across that gap in a manoeuvre you would later dub the Golden Gate Bridge position.

A small sample of the many in the full set on Flickr.

Photoshopped Pictures

Posted by Mark on Jul 14, 2012 | 1 Comment

Many moons ago I was a member of the Something Awful forums. I took part in the regular Photoshop Phriday themes. I even got a few published. Looking through some backup folders today I happened upon some of the pictures that used to be on this site prior to its migration to WordPress. I should put them back, I thought. And so I have.

Project 365 – Week Forty Five

Posted by Mark on Nov 13, 2011 | 0 Comments

Week forty five of the Photo Every Day project rolls around and brings with it a few faux HDR shots. And I don’t even like HDR. What’s with me? Going crazy on photographic processing chemical fumes, that’s what!.. is what they’d say if I wasn’t using a digital camera. But they are a strange bunch so maybe they’d say that anyway.

Project 365 – Week Forty Four

Posted by Mark on Nov 5, 2011 | 0 Comments

These are the photos of week forty four of the Photo Every Day project. I know! Photos! On this site! Whatever next?