ASHES TO ASHES, PIER TO PIER

There’s something inherently really rather nice about the Seaside Pier.

Invented, almost inevitably by the Victorians, they reek of a truly English, rather old-fashioned summer holiday. Strolls, or even train-rides, out to sea on a long, wooden slatted platform, deckchairs, theatres (sometimes quite high class ones at that), penny slot machines, Fortune Tellers and Candy Floss. Not a carbon based holiday air mile in sight.

The sight yesterday of the pier at Weston-super-Mare blazing into nothingness is really rather depressing. So many of them seem to have suffered rather violent ends, either from fire, the weather or even the occasional ship ploughing into them. Perhaps it’s Man being told that the land is his province, and the sea is a step too far. Who knows?

If it wasn't so sad, the black humour in you (or at least me) would at least note the comments yesterday from one of the well meaning firemen that they had suffered a shortage of water for the pumps. I'm sure he's right, but I'd have found a different way to say it.

As structures, they are very photogenic, partly because they are such simple, repetitive shapes and partly because they stand visually very strongly against a clean, uncluttered background. I've dug out a couple of pictures I've taken of them in the past.

Firstly Cromer in Norfolk. The pier here is nearly 500 feet long, and forms a beautiful backdrop to our walks on Runton Beach with the dogs in that part of the world. The first picture shows the theatre on the end of the pier, taken as the sun went down.

CROMER PIER AT SUNDOWN

The other was taken on a Saturday night in mid season, with the holidaymakers digging into their fish and chips in one of the shelters on the pier. I have deliberately grained the picture and taken a lot of the detail out of it, to make it look a bit like something from the past – which in a way it is.

FISH'N'CHIPS SEVEN TIMES PLEASE

The last picture, below, was taken at Morecambe in Lancashire about 15 years ago. I think the pier had been destroyed (here we go again) by fire, and the structure stood bent, twisted and destroyed against the horizon. As a metaphor for the town, which in the early Nineties definitely seemed to be on its way out as a seaside resort, it takes some beating. The town faces west, so the sun sets very invitingly against the stark structure of the pier’s remains. All you need is a gentle, misty sunset with the brightness of the sun dampened down into a lovely redness against the grey sea and sky, and the contrast of a black metal silhouette, and the result is a picture I’m quite pleased with.

Simplicity is all.

SUNSET - MORECAMBE PIER

Tags:piers,
photographs,
morecambe,
cromer

RAVE FROM THE GRAVE - NO.1

I’ve been sorting through some old pictures, and came across a few that caught my eye. Most are family images, but some may be of interest to a wider audience.

I’ve had a camera since the Year Dot, and started by playing around in the 1960s when I was Secretary of the School Photographic Society. One of our Wizzard Wheezes, which today would probably come under the business category of “Cost Saving Strategies” except I don’t suppose today’s National Curriculum includes a section on this, came out of our “A” level Chemistry Course. We somehow got hold of the list of chemical constituents that would allow us to process Colour slide film at home or in the Chemistry Lab. So we dutifully went through the “Eye of Newt, and Toe of Frog” bit, and lo and behold, we became proficient at processing slide films for about Ninepence each.

It’s easy to forget today just how far we’ve come with Technological matters since that time, and how Sci-Fi advanced it all seemed when we saw America’s “Put it all on Red” approach to landing a man on the Moon. Watching some of the heartbreaking failures, the fairytale journey of Apollo 8 around the moon one Christmas, and finally in 1969, Apollo 11 setting off in July with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard to create a bit of history that was probably the most important achievement that Man has made in my lifetime. I suspect most people won’t agree with that, but I don’t really mind.

Sitting there watching it all happen, in real time, was just so thrilling. We all learnt to love the fabulous intro to Strauss’s Zarathustra Tone Poem, and was there ever a piece of music more suited to such an epic voyage. You simply didn’t know what was going to happen, and it felt just like a Boy’s Own Story playing out in front of you.

Watching on our State of the Art Black and White TV, we almost prayed as Armstrong and Aldrin landed, walked and bounced around a bit, got back in the ludicrously shaped Lunar Module – inevitably called the LEM, and on the absurdly simple TV camera they left on the Moon’s surface to record their (hopeful) departure, we watched it blast off.

PURE WHITE TVs WERE THE IN THING IN THE 60s - I'VE CROPPED OUT THE LAVA LAMP!

You only got one swing at that ball, so I took a picture of the TV screen at 17.54 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on 21st July 1969. There were no Video recorders then. TV was a transitory phenomenon, and I wanted this one to keep. The picture is awful, but the words “Live from the Moon” had never been seen by Man before.

And that’s why it’s here today.

Tags:

apollo 11,
moon landing,
photographs

SIX OF THE BEST - IRELAND 2

The West Coast of Ireland is a magical place. If you've been, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't been, you've missed out Big Time.

These pictures of Fishing Nets were taken in a small fishing village in Connemara.

They're really just pattern pictures - colours, shapes, textures, and compositions that please me.

Simple really.

Tags:

photographs,
ireland,
landscape,
fishing

SIX OF THE BEST - IRELAND - 2

The West Coast of Ireland is a glorious place to be. The whole coastline is a series of large inlets, which cut into the mainland, forming hundreds of miles of endlessly varying and very beautiful coastline.

We have spent half a dozen thoroughly enjoyable holidays there. One of our jaunts was to Connemara, a beautiful area to the west of Galway. If you want desolation and “getting away from it all”, that’s your place.

For some unknown reason, whenever we’re there, the weather seems to turn into something more akin to the West Indies than the permanent rain cover which everyone I know who’s been there says is the Status Quo. In Connemara, we’re known as “Sun Gods” – we brought 14 days of continuous sunshine, something which has never happened before.

Wandering around the coast there one day, I came across a big boat called the SS Pibroch, moored on its own on a very unkempt jetty.

SS PIBROCH

I could see a raft of photographic opportunities appearing so got myself aboard, with camera and tripod, and wandered about on the boat for an hour or so. One of the little details which a Photographic Eye picks up on such boats is the areas of rust, paint, which has been painted on top of other paint, and the lumps of machinery which produces lovely shapes, colours, textures and compositions. You need to home in quite close to see these shapes, some of which are no more than a couple of inches across.

The pictures below are the result.

Tags:

ireland,
photographs,
photography,
connemara
landscape

LITTLE WALSINGHAM - RELIGIOUS CENTRE

Little Walsingham, in North Norfolk, is one of the most intriguing villages in the country. 950 years ago, the widow of a Norman Knight had a vision of the Virgin Mary in the village, and a shrine was built there. It soon became one of the most important religious centres in the country, with an Augustan Priory and a Franciscan Priory being constructed there in the 12th Century. It became a major site for pilgrimages, rivalling Canterbury in some ways, with every monarch from Henry III (1226) to Henry VIII (1511) visiting the site, Henry VIII apperently walking the last mile bare-foot.

However, Henry VIII subsequently decreed the destruction and burning of the buildings and the image of Our Lady of Walsingham, but, in spite of this the village continued to prosper for the next 300 years, with many new Georgian buildings being erected. This prevailed until in the Victorian era, when hard times befell it, and the buildings became very derelict and tumbledown.

And so it remained until in 1921 a zealous priest, one Rev Alfred Hope Patten set about rebuilding and renovating the place. Because there was almost no money to do this, it ended up being renovation fortuitously using whatever was left there, rather than replacement. Hence the unique and very harmonious way the village looks today.

So what’s survives today is a thriving religious centre which is now visited by literally hundreds of thousands of people each year. The village still feels old, with medieval and Georgian facades aplenty. Little new building, apart from the main church which was burnt down and replaced in the mid 30s, has been constructed, which keeps a real sense of yesteryear there.

The pictures below are a small selection of images taken over the last couple of days, showing the mainly religious and medieval thread which runs through the place

Most definitely worth a visit.

DAFFODIL FIELD ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE VILLAGE

HINGE ON THE DOOR OF THE VILLAGE PUMP

FOUR CONTRASTING BUT SYMPATHETIC BUILDING STYLES

WE HAVE LIFT OFF!

PRIEST PUTTING PALMS ON HOUSE DOORS

- IT'S PALM SUNDAY TODAY

MEDIEVAL HOUSES IN THE VILLAGE SQUARE

CEMETARY AND CHURCH

NOT EVERYWHERE IS RESTORED!

HISTORY IN THE STREET NAMES

REFLECTION IN CAR BOOT-LID

ONE OF THE VILLAGE GIFT SHOPS

Tags:

little walsingham,
walsingham,
norfolk,
photographs,
village,
england

SIX OF THE BEST - NORFOLK 1

We visit Norfolk quite a lot – its beautiful, understated countryside, its gentle non pushy people, its excellent seafood and its glorious, varied and usually almost deserted beaches and coastline make it very easy to “chill out” there.

I’ve started to put together my own photographic view of the area, and this set of six images is the first of a few sets I’ve taken so far of the area around Burnham Overy Staithe, Blakeney, Brancaster and the coast towards Cromer.

I've called the set of pictures - "Big Skies and Small Boats".

EARLY MORNING - BLAKENEY

NEAR SALTHOUSE

KIPPER HEAVEN! - CLEY NEXT THE SEA

CLEY'S FAMOUS WINDMILL AT DAWN

ON BRANCASTER BEACH

A TYPICAL NORFOLK SUNSET

Tags:

norfolk,
landscape,
photographs,
britain,
coast,
cley,
brancaster