Beautiful People

Beautiful People are every where whether in music, ghost or place.

Beautiful People are found in Beautiful places (normally?) How stereo typed.
They are Everywhere.

Chris Brown's version

Reculver - Castle Remnants, last weekend.




Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells, this weekend.


River Stour, Sandwich, Kent, last weekend.


Canterbury February 2007, post winter suddenly it was warm and sunny!

The Unknown Factor of Life and ...

Do you hear the Ringing?

Cartoon Stock

A sure sign of Tinitus self misdiagnosis, but then its double entendre has to be time is nearing the end.
Going back to a an article about an Angel in the sky...I've begun to hear the music playing. Someone else has taken the Conductor's Wand and with a more powerful voice begun writing new music inside my head.

I suspect the concoction of pain killers and hayfever tablets with the weather changes has something to do with this. If it isn't it's more likely to do with the fact I found out about the Voca People from the Planet Voca, my that's an extra-ordinary musical performance from a highly original 'band'.

The question is do you hear the ringing? Well, connected with the Angels yet another addition I have found of Angels. And to the story too, the losing of ones soul:

Mist (Nebel) Orchestrations.

When in time we are ready to leave, the plug is pulled. Everyday, the wheels turn, the motors squeezed a little further, someone old and new comes past and yet no one wants to stop by.

I fear I have lost me

"Somewhere out there the real me exists, but this pretence I currently hold, is just an exaggeration of one scope. My softer suttleties are bruised and whatever I do are not repairing, everytime one step forwards, two steps back. I could be shouting from the skies and still be drowned out."

I smell the Division Bell coming, I see the awkward faces, I hear the unsaid thoughts. I am no longer meant to be, the struggle, the downfall, the end is here. Three months tops, it turns out no one is willing to provide a genuine warmth, all I see is cold breaths and murky scars even the genuine ones of olde have abandoned.* It's time to sail this ship one last time.

Foreclosure does not exist in humanity only as a commodity, I am not a commodity and therefore the end.

Why is all I have left to ask, why do I have to abandon ship.

The Tree of Life

*When accidental contact of people you knew from another life time occurs what is the appropriate thing to do? It turns out on this occasion, all that's happened is a direct line of interrogation. Once accompllished, you are forgotten. The aim: to prove they're better than you and throw you back in the heap and this from a lady of the church.

Gott weiss ich will kein Engel sein

(God know's I wouldn't want to be an Angel)
Rammstein Lyrics: Engel

Michael Maier

"The last thing I expected to find was you on the beach front. I've spent ages, literally years walking this earth wondering 'where are you and who are you'"

...your the one who always pops up unwittingly to whisper in my ear that something awaits my final destination, oh is this, is this, have I finally arrived...

"tell me you're for real. Why do you stand with you back to me, I've seen you before, no need to hide. Play, let me listen..."

"No, I don't want to play, this is where I get my peace and quiet, where the world talks back to me, I need to heal too", she says remaining firmly placed on the sand sinking in further. "We rest, the cello, rests, I rest so you see the sea refreshes me."

"Do you want me to go?"
"Just don't come too close, like you I need time off, a person with a gift, a guide to make all of it worthwhile. This is no job for the faint hearted, it's all giving, can you give your whole time without receiving anything in return except for seeing your charges continue to fail. Were not perfect either, that's why I'm here."

I'll just, just sit here and...wait, with you" I said, sheepishly trailing off. Your so happy following around, looking after your charges...why the pain...I wish I could just hold you, make you feel better, it's been too long since our last duet, was it never enough or too much, you haven't lost just need more time...it's very peaceful here...the clouds...the clouds are moving fast, too fast for us, time is washing away like the stones are dragged out to sea, we should go in.
"Yes we should go in, but this is not only the end of the line for you, but for me too, after this I may not have any more charges, you're my last, I've not kept to my good past enough. (Pausing) Come here, just watch and listen. You couldn't begin to imagine the reasons...I'll be a fallen Angel soon, maybe I should just stay here with you."

"We can't go on living in a dream, I'm getting old too."
"Quite, I'm not, well I'm older but I'm the same as when we first met...times past, the clouds we'll keep us company with music from the ocean. Then when I'm clipped I'll play the cello for my own self, look the clouds, they are softening up, it's time, they're going to sleep...I won't be going back".

And with a feigned smile of it'll be alright, they stood and watched.

"They live behind the sunshine
separated from us, infinitely far
they must cling to the stars (very tightly)
so they don't fall from the sky."

"Only once the clouds have gone to sleep can you see us in the sky
we are afraid and alone."

Rammstein Engel - Scala and Kolacny Brothers version

For Writer's Island 2011, No.22.

Past is Future, the wheel of time

Saturday, a bursting hot day,
hardly a whisper of cloud around, enough to notice the skies not completely blue in places,
blue still blue.

Late into the evening, late dinner awaiting the arrival of family and friends, the instant urge to be out amongst fields, crops two foot high already, the late sunshine, a light breeze and enough to stir the hayfever,
ah-chu.

No need for boots, just put some footwear on that grips the bumpy ground along the footpath.

It's all good, two friends walking their dogs, no care or worry it's a beautiful evening.

Up over the hill and into a chalk grassland site, rare for the area now (the sign says), farmers taking over the land from once it was. The rabbits burrowing in, the coppiced stumps unchanged in a month, the hedgerows trimmed.

The blue skies seen from all around across the hills, everything is green, the hedgerows blossom whitening, one harvested field alone, golden brown, reflecting the remaining sunshine on the opposite hillside.

The sheep will always be on the site nearby, generations of sheep gone by and coming.
People will come and go, time will continue on as blue skies come and go.
(But the sheep will remain the same.)

One day history will tell our story, pictures of our past,
your childhood brushing past with each step along the footpath and around the site,
a knowing you'll be with those people already gone after months and years.

A welling up of those lost after only weeks or minutes of knowing:
a secret knowledge on the doorstep between two strangers,
a twinkle, a smile...a look, infectious,
no more.

*

Memories running in the parks at age five, with parents screaming back to be careful,
all abliss to the warmth in the day, the trees to hide behind,
friends, brothers and sisters to squeeze, chase,
the sand for castles from earlier gradually dissolving under waves at the beach,
the moat around the parents on the beach towel filling up,
trying to make the day last longer.

*

The sunshine dropping and making one last punch of brightness into the sky, bright but cool,
increasing shades for the day to close on, take the route home down the hillside
where hundreds have trodden before,
where the train line once went,
where the married couples once walked,
where the horses once pulled carriages,
now just a path, girls and boys used to giggle and play hide and seek,
where it all remains still and silent...

the hedgeline trimmed by you after years of knowing it,
the hedgeline as much a friend as anyone else,
trees standing on,
(every inch known of them by your childhood and now grown skills,
they knowing every inch of the land around here,)
to out live you and your children,

summer sunshine to give warmth and happiness,
sunshine of the past, sunshine for now,
sunshine...in view, for miles around across the fields,
to continue the journey,
and a question of where that twinkle, that smile is now,
to complete the future
to grow a new hedgeline with you for next time,
with the trees holding the keys to the past, looking on,
awaiting the next set of kids games, giggles, memories and regrown hedgerows.

On down the hill back in to the quietened village,
scented smells of cooking food,
no one around, just abandoned,
stillness in the air,
emptiness from within and from without, comforting,
the blue sky dissolving with the heat for the return to the present,
the childhood living on in the shadows,
no one to hold on to, but a star somewhere up in the air,
awaiting the future,
never to hold with you.

Codex: The King of Limbs, Radiohead

Choices

Sometimes it is hard to choose which is the best of photos from a collection, here within the space of a minute due to the camera angle and the sunset pace the hue's have changed and changed the topic of the photo.

So I bring both, because each tells a story, a story of a cold winters night, where the due forms in the rolling hill side, producing mists, fogs and brief cloud layers along the ground, where the "red sky at night brings the shepherds delight".

This also marks my 100th post. Keep in touch.

P.s. Apologies, it seems uploading destroys the pixel quality. The expanding option is pretty rough on them and the entry originals are much darker, having uploaded them.

It might be Bonfire Night, but what time is it. The Sun, Moon and life eternal.

Stonehenge Winter

With thanks to Madison Reece for her blog entry "Something Special", which set this ball rolling.

It might be Bonfire Night, but what time is it. The Sun, Moon and life eternal.
"Though we are many we are one body", says the Holy Communion for Christian faith, but whilst I may have been going on my themes of magical rights and folklore due to Halloween. It got me also thinking about the Neolithic culture, the Stonehenge world, where people didn't have God as we know today, but the planets and the sun was God to them.

On the 21st December, the Winter Solstice, Pagans and admirers of this past culture gather in wait to see the sun rise.
The Neolithic's are thought to be no body's, something where humans didn't have any control and was a form of prehistoric dark ages, alas so little is known about them and there time, history portrays very little factual evidence. Still with what we think we know, a mass of people every year walked to the stonehenges and Passage Tombs to see the sun rise directly up and over until the central stone was lit. These features, built over years in life time amounts (20 years), suggest they were actually very intelligent people.

Knowth Ireland
Stonehenge UK

The potential out there for something as big as God may well exist, but scientific evidence attempts to defy the odds. Will we ever know? Ants are tiny compared to the earth, but really us humans in relation to the universe, indeed our Galaxy is small. A good concept of this feeling I found, was the Men In Black film endings, particularly the first one. Our Universe is just inside a marble.

I always wanted to know what was making the world go round. How comes it all exists? But such big thoughts makes for bad headaches and questions over life, what happens when we die etc. So many of us happy with believing in a God can be happy, but what makes people happy if they have God?

I have a good tendency to forget, I don't want to know in many ways because its scary, unless a whole hearted solution can be found. So maybe after all that our human instincts to enjoy fire and watch the sun rise in its mighty power is a good thing.
Our 80 odd years is just a dwindle in the suns 10billion, and that's before it goes Supernova. Questions behind time and space, the after life can be dulled down for a little while longer. Lets enjoy our time here. We all like to watch a healthy fire, something that connects us to our bushcraft, our more natural way of life, away from these modern times.

Music for thought:
Sting Featuring Eric Clapton: It's Probably Me
The Korgis: Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime
Karl Jenkins, Requiem: In These Stones Horizons Sing

Thought Bubbles - Now, forever, and the past

Photo by Nathalia Suellen: Forgotten and Never Heard

Ok, so I've been holding back on blogging recently with all sorts of job hunting stuff I have to do, but it doesn't mean I haven't been writing my odd bits and bobs down ready to go out once I've drafted them out neatly.

Well, I say that, but I had to advance this item passed the others (which are taking more time).
Firstly, I was on my wanders today and a friend mentioned flash backs and nightmares. Which set me thinking about the past which had already been on my mind, evolution and change... these last two particularly because at the moment some landscape gardeners have arrived, and today day one (I will hopefully create its own blog, its got about 60days) will have radically altered a small patch of Berkshire that was once and forever the same way for quite some time, most likely 10 years or more...and now its all gone, its being felled as I speak, and so the world goes round and this small place has yet been redecorated for more normal outside wonders than invasive species.

Secondly, I came across some music which took me back way too long ago. I spells from hearing some music and trying to find out whose it was. Well I have failed on the original, I think it's from an advert but I found something more interesting.

Given, websites that play music in the background tend not to be the best sites, I feel compelled to mention Nathalia Suellen who has only recently started producing photgraphic material, and is very compelling. Further her pictures have inspired Vladimir Agaev, who has composed some short classical pieces mostly of piano concertos. A promising start for a young man from Russia.

In a tail of twisted thoughts in this tracking of music, I ended up searching high and low only to end up with Jan Hammers' Crockett's Theme, which really did take me back in time.

All those times we relflect and day dream about how we miss our loved ones hurts. Sometimes we want to go back but, I found it only hurt, you can't fix or have back what you've lost. The strange thing is, Crockett's Theme reminds me of a time when all I wanted to do is fly, I wanted to be up in the sky, have that uplifting sensation. I wanted to be thrown around the sky, I wanted to be up there photgraphing the world below me and travelling as fast as the wind, I wanted to be filming helicopters and aeroplanes as they flew over hedge rows. But this is unlikely to happen, and so I remind myself that if ever there was a chance, I'd take it, I'd fly away with whoever she was...but if only this were true.

You see, today, whatever the past is, the present can only help correct.
The future we hold only tentatively in our hands.
We must keep hold of our nearest and dearest,
for one day you and they will not be here.

Photographs: Inspiring concepts and ideals.

Lambourn Stables, Berkshire

The photo above was taken in February 2009. At the time I was unsure of where I would be next I was hoping to come to Manchester for my Masters course. Today, I handed in my 7500 word dissertation on water quality. This means I am now free from university again, I am unfortunately back on the road of job hunting, I have been looking but to no avail.

The reason for this picture was because this was the first large snow fall, the second being last winter in December 2009. In my state of mood swings and job hunting I go out and attempt to formulate plans and get inspiration from the environment. However, I have packed most of my belongings off to family, which means whilst I still have ten days in Manchester and I want to wander around with the camera, I cannot. Maybe I shall buy a disposable one and attempt to see what I can do with it. Photograph some urban areas in Manchester...see what comes out, visit the art gallery on Walls are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture before it closes. It intrigues me because it's a play on words from "Walls Have Ears", the old WW2 spy idiom.

I have a 35mm, Kodak 200 to develop yet, hope it hasn't degraded in the years I've owned the role and now the length of time its sat waiting to be developed. I used to know someone who developed his own film, I wonder how hard it really is, is it worth the while. Meanwhile I guess I'll have to rely on a shop for it. Most of my photos are digital these days, but sometimes, I like to escape fully and handle a manual once in a while, apply some pressure to the moment.

P.s.There's been some excellent photos of the Perseid Meteor shower this year.

Photos of Old

I was reminded of these photos today. Which one's better? I have a whole stash from trying to create the mood I wanted. I always thought the first and last one were the best.

Porlock August 2008: Was it really all that time ago? Which reminds me I wrote my car off soon after.
Judas H Priest man
(Always a familiar term used by Lt. Howard Hunter, Hill Street Blues 1981-1987, also frequented by people wanting to blasphemy without blasphemy.)

Fieldwork on Photo

June has become one of the busiest months of the year. Fieldwork on each weekend has lead to more research in the week. It's only going to get busier. However, amongst the needs of collecting water samples for my 'Hydrological Pollution in the Peak District' dissertation and running lab tests for nutrients and metals, I did manage to get some good photos on the classic upland landscape. Unfortunately, there on a roll of 35mm film still, so for now, I will have to make do with the digital ones I have from the actual fieldwork collection and not my attempt to photograph the impossible landscape as the sun laid in to the hills from behind me mid morning. Looking at these I hope the manual setting on the manual aren't nearly as over exposed as these.

Upper North Grain, River Sett and Bretton Clough are all interesting in there own way. Upper North Grain is quite bleak. Open moorland sits on top of the hillside, the peat drains the landscape and pollution rains frequently from the surrounding cities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Bradford.

Upper North Grain back out to the A57 (Snake Pass)
River Sett on the other hand is way more beautiful, slightly touristy for the campers but none the less couldn't look better if it tried at the moment. The ultimate photo however would require dangling precariously from a tree with the camera attached to a pole to photo a river coming down a hill in a gull, sided by small shrubs and unfortunately in the 100m length drops about 5 metres, how I will get it I don't know yet, attempts so far have failed. (In case my supervisor finds me, I did not break H&S I promise.)

River Sett

Bretton Clough is typically farmland surrounded by plantations and sits deep in a valley. It's just a bit too much like farmland. Also the sheep and horses are way too interested in my field bag. Being accosted by them was never really my intention. The sky was a lot more blue, however, it was really bright and hard to get the camera settings set, oh well.

Bretton CloughIf only that fern was at ankle height. That stuffs 2ft high in most places and grown beyond anything I expected in a week. These almost make the North Downs not look as good, but then again the Surrey hillside cannot be beaten.

Time after Time

Saint John's Point County Down.

They say photos express a 1000 words. Well I never intend to write a 1000 words, but I can merrily knock a 1000 words out in an email if needed.

Back to the subject from months back of what photos mean to people. Is it a psychology answer I'm really after, no. But if you can find what the photo is describing and explaining to you, then you can begin to question why its showing you that.

Books full of long and short stories, poems, quotes, pundit lines and food for thought always detail and make you bring a new feeling to reality. Here I ask again for you to look at this photo and see what its saying.

I also have one other thought for everyone. Not everything I say and do is plain straight up. So as always like an East Egg hunt, I expect you to find your own clues and your own thoughts. After all my "Sweet Harmony" and "Gargoyles" photo I have uploaded from the internet now show multiple meanings not just the intentional thought.

This wet road roles up the hill, moisture freezes between the rocks and clouds show the threats of storms as if peace was needed across the shores. As bright as the sunshine the lighthouse provides a way across, alas the sea churns and many a ship has been set down on these shores. Down comes the strikes of lightning, so close no rumble is ever heard. The rocks will show no mercy and yet there is still time to turn against the tide and go hard back out to sea. There is little chance of any escape but Neptune* will once again rule unduly upon this land. This land has fort time after time, you may take me and break me, but you'll never take this land.

*Neptune is the Roman God of the sea.

Photography

They say a photo is worth a thousand words. Last week I heard of a competition being run in my department. This was to photograph our time on our degree course for one category, the other to photograph our time in the city, views of the city and wider university.

Neither of these are easy, lots of design and planning may have to go in to this. I did not intend on entering this competition. However, it has set my mind churning, churning to find a photo which represents my subject and its wider context. This could not be entered in to the competition, but if I had to create a photo of Environmental monitoring, modelling and reconstruction or Geography what would the photo be.

When I did my undergraduate course I was in Canterbury, Kent. In this time I went on many a walk with Sam (friend and housemate). These two photos have him in them. I happened to look through my collection and came upon this photo and have made some simple edits. These photos sum up geography in many respects.

In the first instance, the colour one. It was not designed to look aged, but due to the light balance and October morning mist across the farmland, grassland, barracks area. It appears to be 1960s a bit. This photo shows a man not just looking, studying his surroundings, binoculars at the ready. Prepared for bird watching and spotting any form of wildlife that we may pass. He stares to the left wondering what is down the way. The rural idyll that geographers talk of so much and prescribes the general public's want for a perfect countryside is seen here.



Agriculture in the foreground, woodland in the background. He stands studying the complexities of the local geomorphological processes, the conservation issues and weather at the site. Standing completely still he awaits the natural habitat to open up for him on this cold and misty morning.




In the second version. I have made it black and white and adjusted the balance. Its purposely aged. I tried to get a 1930s-1940s feel, but without giving it a yellow staining for real this looks slightly new. The sharp black of the scarf around the neck, with the foreground sharpened; the background still in tact but making you wonder what's going on it still hides the big secret behind the mist. The field disintegrates before reaching the tree line at ground level and yet we know there is a woodland out there.