The Grand Burstin hotel in Folkestone.
leeds castle
Leeds Castle in Kent. Taken in May this year during a visit with friends.
wisteria sinensis
birdhouses in my soul
I didn't notice a swan was photobombing when I took these photos!
Unfortunately, you probably can't make it out in these photos at this size, but s/he is behind the white house with red trim in the centre.
The realisation made me laugh very loudly as I was editing.
keep away from edge
beach aster
lifebuoy
we come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden
new lighthouse [dungeness]
please keep this gate closed
Phewf! Feeling that strange, scattered, drained feeling at the moment. The one I get after I finally make it over the finish line of a project and my brain starts to zone out a bit.
I had a manic evening into the wee hours overnight. And again this morning until mid-afternoon, ensuring I got a client's design work finalised for their first conference, which is now taking place virtually as I type.
Between client work and my own photography/art/writing, I've already clocked up 36 hours since Saturday. And I have plenty of plans for more photo editing and other bits and pieces for the rest of today and tomorrow, including a call with a potential new client.
I also need to squeeze some cleaning in before a potential flatmate comes to view the flat on Saturday morning, but that can wait until tomorrow. This evening is all mine and will be full of photo editing, and likely some 'Vikings' when I run out of steam.
I took this photograph at the entrance to the field surrounding St Thomas a Becket Church in Fairfield, Kent, on Walland Marsh, part of Romney Marsh, in 2016.
I still have so many photographs of the church and the resident mowing team (sheep) still to edit and share with you from that little oasis.
But for now, it's back to editing photos of Londinium :)
untitled #184
There have been rumblings of a potential day trip with friends again this year.
You know, so long as the rumblings about a third wave of coronavirus here in the UK don't turn into a rollback of restrictions before we have a chance...
In September 2016, Chris, Sophie, Paulina, and I ventured down to Margate, then to Botany Bay and Broadstairs.
In 2018, at the beginning of September, Chris, Sophie, and I pootled down to Durdle Door via Brockenhurst and Wilverley Plain.
At the end of the same month, Chris, Sophie, one of Chris' friends and I popped up to Cambridge for the day.
In 2019, Simon and I went further afield a month later, so there was no real opportunity for a proper summer jaunt together as a group.
And last September, well, let's just say we had to stay local, and restrictions meant we weren't all allowed in the same car together anyway.
Days out last year were kept within the M25 or just over the county lines in Hertfordshire or Essex.
So far this year, it's been the same. But perhaps this September we can once again arrange a day out of the city in the sun somewhere.
Destination to be confirmed.
untitled #174
056 elephant slide
Day fifty-six of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
I didn't allow myself enough space for this guy, and the tusks are a bit off. I managed to correct the left leg length (elephant's left leg; not what the viewer sees as left) in overdrawing the original sketch.
As has become my wont, I sketched the elephant slide with a 4H pencil. Most of the overdrawing I completed with an HB pencil. The shadowing in the elephant's interior was done with a 2B and a 4B pencil.
The source image for today's sketch was taken the day before the referendum on Britain leaving the EU took place. I took it after a morning spent wandering on the shingle beach at Dungeness.
I was slathered in sunscreen, and the cooling sea breeze deceived me into thinking I wasn't burning, though the mirrors in The Pilot Inn told me otherwise when we paused for lunch.
Foolishly, I went back out on the beach to continue taking photos after lunch without reapplying sunscreen.
That sunburn was horrific. It was the worst I had experienced in years. I've posted photos of it previously.
It was probably the worst sunburn I've experienced, even by comparison to one I acquired, wearing the same dress, at Southend-on-Sea in 2018.
Despite hurting like hell and my skin peeling for months, it came and went. I had ridiculous tan lines created by the straps on my dress and bags many months later, but now you'd never know.
However, the impact of Brexit on the UK will last far longer than the burns and then tan lines of my foolish decisions in 2016 and 2018.
At least once a week, it's confirmed to those who voted remain that this was the wrong decision.
And it was a decision driven by disinformation campaigns sponsored by the Leave campaign, UKIP and the Murdoch media.
The Murdoch media that's also responsible for so much of the political mayhem currently taking place in the US.
The same media responsible for the anti-vaccination rhetoric permeating almost every country globally.
The fact Rupert Murdoch is an Australian has never made me proud to also be an Australian. It has largely had the opposite effect.
Similarly, if I already had UK citizenship, Nigel Farage would make me ashamed to hold that citizenship.
The damage continuing to be done to the world by entitled white men will never be something I forget.
Whether purely political for the purposes of greed. Or reinforcing inequality by silencing diverse voices, embracing racism, endorsing white supremacism. And/or destroying the environment for the sake of their own personal wealth.
I will never forget.
In that way, my memory is very much like an elephant's.
heaven or hell
This is another photograph I submitted to issue #149 of Shots Magazine.
Like encrypted, this photo was taken in the ossuary housed in the crypt at St Leonard's Church in Hythe, Kent.
It's a fascinating place for people like me, but maybe not up everyone's alley...
This was taken about 14:00 one day in summer. The mixture of daylight through the window of the crypt and the artificial lighting overhead creates a nice contrast of red and gold light on the shelves of skulls facing each other.
time for reflection
Last week I submitted some of my photographs to issue #149 of Shots Magazine. The theme for the issue is open, so work on any subject can be considered.
This was one of the images I submitted, though the version I sent through was black and white as the magazine is printed that way.
I took this photo of the Church of St Peter and St Paul, the Appledore Parish Church, in Kent on 20 June 2016. It was taken mere days before the referendum on Britain leaving the European Union.
A short walk around the town revealed posters, placards and flyers proclaiming many of the town's residents as proud Leave supporters. Conversations overheard while we ate at The Black Lion confirmed we were in prime Leave territory.
Fast forward four years and the UK has left the EU, but we're still figuring out what that means.
About five months after the UK referendum, Donald Trump was elected.
The passing of time since then has revealed the world to me as seemingly the inverse of what I had believed and hoped it to be.
I felt we were moving forward as a global population. But since 2016, I feel like we've gone backwards in every way except time. Honesty, compassion, empathy, rationality, sanity and logic all seem at an all-time low around the world right now. At least compared to what I've seen in my lifetime.
Though gender and racial equality has made leaps and bounds over time, it feels like notions of equality are bending back into shapes of the past.
Two steps forward. One step back.
Or, more accurately, two steps forward, three steps backwards, another two, another two, another one for good measure...
I often feel like I'm staring at a weirdly inverted, sideshow-mirror-reflection of the world I thought I knew.
Though I've (perhaps foolishly) not 100% discounted the thought of having children, I've seen so much in the past four years to make me thankful for not having children up to this point. And fearful of what they might face if I were to have any.
On a day when everything feels alternately raw and jagged or dull and numb, this photo feels like a metaphor for the disorientation I've been feeling more and more lately. But perhaps it appears calmer than my feelings.
bathing beauties
Day ninety-nine of The 100 Day Project.
My penultimate collage for the project!
Illustrations:
a sheepish confession
Day ninety-seven of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Sheep confessing to wolf by J. J. Grandville from Cent proverbes
nun but the lonely heart
Day eighty-eight of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
vim and vigour
Day eighty-seven of The 100 Day Project.
Today’s collage inspired by a title suggestion from Simon 😀
Illustrations:
Dancers by Émile Marcelin (Émile Planat) from L'Illustration (Issue 763)
knee deep in conversation
Day eighty-one of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Frogs by J. J. Grandville from Fables de La Fontaine, volume one