As far as you can see – V.J.’S Weekly Challenge #67: Sky

Well this week V.J. has challenged us with ‘Sky’

Yes I think it is fairly correct to say that I am also obsessed with the sky, purely from a photographic view point I often spend a long time getting the sky ‘just right’, sometimes to the determent of the rest of the photo as the sky then becomes the focus!

Sky and skies often appear in the lyrics of my songs, and when I am out walking, moor, hillside, fell, countryside, it amazes me how big the sky is, and how small we are in comparison.  Even when walking in wood or forest you occasionally see the sky, and then when you come out of the trees, bam! there it is, stretching away before you.

Only in cities and towns do I find myself bereft of the sky, as buildings close in from all sides, yes you can look up, but look up too long at your determent, and urbanity will bite you.

Anyway a photo from a recent trip to Dunster castle, I think it is safe to say my focus was more on sky than building and landscape here! A three photo stitch where the focus of the middle photo is mostly sky.

‘As far as you can see’, Dunster Castle, 2019.

Ken

 

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How does my garden grow – V.J.’S Weekly challenge #51: Green.

Well this week V.J. has challenged us with ‘Green’

Well it is not actually my garden, it is a friends, but it is certainly green, and this abundance of green life is one of the reasons I love gardens.  There is something calming about all of that life in those thousands of plants, something humbling, but something to connect to.

‘How does my garden grow’, Crowdecote, 2014.

Ken

 

A Japanese man reading on an Oxen

Last week for Kamie’s oddball challenge I posted this picture:

Kamie wondered what the back story was, so here is a very brief synopsis.  It is a bronze sculpture and it is of a man dressed in a traditional Japanese travelling costume, he is sitting on the back of an ox, and reads a book while he travels.

It depicts either the statesman and scholar Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) or the itinerant Buddhist priest and poet Botanka Shōhaku (1443-1527).  It is suggested that Takamura Kōun (1852-1934) is the sculptor.  The sculpture was donated to Dyffryn gardens by Grenville Morgan in 1951.

References:

https://nttreasurehunt.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/a-japanese-sculpture-at-dyffryn/

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1682811

Photos:

And here are a few other photos I have taken of this sculpture.

Ken

 

Found at last – V.J.’S Weekly challenge #40: Things my father says.

Well this week V.J. has challenged us with ‘Things my father said’

This week I have taken the liberty of slightly altering V.J’s wording, as my father is still saying many lovely and annoying things.

There are a number of things my father says that I find quite challenging, little stock phrases that can turn me from an adult to a teenager in a matter of moments.  The weather is always ‘Bitter, its bitter’, and ‘are you sure’.  One phrase I know some of you will be aware of from you own lives, and may or may not use is:

‘Have you looked in the last place you had it’, or its alternative, ‘it will be in the last place you look’.  At this point I could turn rant mode on and ask what do these really mean, but instead I will leave you to think about them yourselves.

Just under three years ago we moved into a new house, as always there are little knick-knacks that you cannot find for a while.  However there was one, a small wooden huggle that had eluded us until last week.  Here it is below, we missed it and wondered where it had gone.

‘Found at last’, 2019.

Anyway last week we found it!  At the bottom of a vase.

‘I was in here’, 2019.

It was certainly in the last place we looked (is that not always the case, can it be any other?), and in fact I am not sure there was anywhere else we had not looked! But was it in the place we had it last, had it accidentally fell in here?  or had we put it in here for safe keeping during the move.

Ken

 

Unplugged and broken – V.J.’S Weekly challenge #39: Unanswerable

Well this week V.J. has challenged us with ‘Unanswerable’

So how to answer the unanswerable?  I have been thinking about this since V.J. posed this problem on Monday, and I am usually pretty quick in knowing what I want to use.  However this week I have to admit I was stumped.

However as I was just about to turn my laptop of and do some sewing on this chilly Wednesday morning in Wales,  I was struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration.  Leaping into action, the camera came out of the bag, and the shot was posed, and taken.

‘Unanswerable, unplugged and broken’, 2019.

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.”  – William S. Burroughs

Ken

 

Pictures without film – V.J.’S Weekly Challenge #38: What’s in a name?

Well this week V.J. has challenged us with:

As I type up each week’s summary, creating links to various blogs, I am struck by how different blog names are, and compelled to ask: what’s in a name? Specifically, your blog name.

So what is in the name: ‘Pictures without film – Using photos to capture life – Ken Humphreys Photography’

Well I started this blog about four and a half years ago.  I had just bought a new camera, a sony a6000.  At in its very basic sense, this blog speaks for the fact that I was using a digital camera and not a film camera.  I had owned digital cameras before, however this was to be my first interchangeable lens digital, and a mirrorless to boot! While I had owned SLRs I have sort of skipped DSLRs in favor of the CSC.  And so this blog was to chart some of my progress.

The blog became a place to post pictures, the occasional quote, and my photographic observations, I generally save other rantings for different social media platforms.  Over the years it has also become a place to make friends and find community, digital community that unseen bond that the modern person now shares with people thousands of miles away, who they are never physically likely to meet, but we feel we are in someway sharing part of the path our lives with.  To not so ancient humans this would have seemed strange, a magical undefinable realm, a place to which we journey without ever actually visiting.  Of course our communities of shared interests have always existed, but never have they been so visible, so tangible, and so perhaps it is magical in its own way.

Of course I mainly blog here by posting my answers to the various challenges that some of you host.  I use these to hone my photographic skills, when I am out taking pictures and at home in the digital darkroom.

The subtitle is an important part of my blog title – ‘Using photos to capture life’,  Or more specifically my life.  My photos are, as so many peoples are a visual diary of what I have done, where I have been.  Taking, editing and blogging with just a few of these, allows me to share a little of my ‘captured life’ with you.  Of course this is the way I see the world, and not the way you see it, it is not about changing your perspective merely allowing you an insight into the ‘other’, which in this case happens to be me, though the interface of my photos, provided to you not on paper with chemical fixing agents, but though a stream of ones and zeros!

So what is in a name?  It is about using my camera to capture the world around me in all of its beautiful and marvelous shapes, recording a small part of my life through a subjective lens, and it is about me sharing this perspective of the world with you.

And given that this blog is generally about photos, I better finish with a subjective view of the author of this post, a photo taken specifically for this blog, which I used as an avatar when the blog was created.

‘Photographer’, 2014.

Ken

 

Lilly – Weekly Photo Challenge: Structure.

This weeks Challenge asks us that:

“Today, take a moment to notice the structure of everyday things around you. Note the lines, freckles, and tiny hairs on your arm, and imagine the biological blueprint that created them. See the bricks of a building, and realize that they were individually placed there by another person. Then, share with us a photo of the structure of something wonderful. We’re eager to see details through your lens.”

So I could have used one of the many architectural shots I have awaiting processing, but instead I chose to use this picture of a Lilly.  Showing the structure of its petals and the graceful thrust of its stamen.  The photo was taken within the structure of Keld chapel a lovely little C16th chapel in the Lake district.

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

John Ruskin

Mickey Burrow

“Taking a photograph is a lot like falling in love. You see a light and it intrigues you; and you want to see or be in that light forever.”

― Mickey Burrow

10,000 ways

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

― Henri Cartier-Bresson

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

― Thomas A. Edison

Bill Watterson

“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”

– Bill Watterson