[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 February 2024].
Some Cyclamen hederifolium I photographed in the churchyard of St Nicholas' Church in Arundel while visiting in September 2021.
things of stone and wood
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 February 2024].
so he brought them to the haven where they would be
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 February 2024].
crucifixion
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 April 2023].
On a rainy day in late September 2021, I was returning from a few days away in West Sussex with my friend and fellow photographer, Phil.
That day, I was scheduled to return to finish my first cat-sitting with the kittehs I'm currently sitting.
Shiloh is nestled in my lap as I type this, despite my semi-regularly lifting her off my lap to go to the fridge or the bathroom during the past few hours of photo editing. When I do that, she gives me a Marge Simpson-like sound of disapproval.
I had an off-peak return ticket to London from Chichester, which meant I could take any train on any permitted route to get back to London within a month of the original booking.
Arundel was on the route back, so we drove there and wandered through the drizzle. Visiting a bookstore. Visiting Arundel Cathedral and the nearby St Nicholas' Church and its churchyard. And having food in a local cafe before Phil dropped me at the station for the next train.
Coincidentally, the train I had planned to be on was cancelled. But I digress.
In the churchyard of St Nicholas' Church, we experienced drizzle, rain, the beautiful after-rain sunlight and the saturated hues post-rain brings to stonemasonry, plant life and... well, everything.
In the churchyard, we also found this elaborate crucifixion scene.
At the time, I presumed it was a monument for someone with a lot of money. Perhaps with a name in the local community.
But, in retrospect, I presume it was installed by the church. Though I can't find anything online to confirm or deny that.
Since I took these photos, I've been keen to share them, but I knew I had to share them as a series, not as individual photographs. And, obviously, Easter is a timely point to share them.
I didn't capture a long shot showing all the participants in this act of mourning together. But, from the individual photographs and the photographs of Christ and the two women, I'm sure you get a sense of the scene.
I presume (with my limited atheist knowledge) the two women closest to Christ are his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene. A quick Google search tells me the man is unlikely to have been Christ's father, Joseph.
Earlier today, I tried calibrating the monitor I'm working on, but I'm unsure how successful I've been. Hopefully, successful enough that I don't have to redo the edits on these photographs over the coming days.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.
bosham
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 February 2023].
I've been working through my photographs of Bosham in West Sussex from a visit there in September 2021 since mid-January. Hoping each week to share a batch of the images with my patrons on a Tuesday as part of my Travel Tuesday curated series.
I finally finished this batch (edited down from about 21 photographs that would have worked together) last Thursday evening. And I finally shared them with my patrons on Friday evening. So, not quite as planned.
I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it.
October last year was a tough month.
Sitting a gorgeous but poorly kitteh proved to be both stressful and therapeutic.
My day job involved long hours in the lead-up to go-live of the rebuild of the organisation's website.
Amidst all that, there was worrying news coming in about my Mum. News that settled again, thankfully, but there was a lot of heightened emotion and stress to deal with until things seemed to return to her version of "normal".
Once all that died down, I still found myself feeling fatigued. My sleeping patterns were erratic. Getting out of bed was really, really hard. Staying out of bed during the day was just as hard. But in the evenings, I'd find my second wind and could make-up day job hours and work on some creative things.
In early November, about a month after my fast-track round of B12 jabs ended, I felt like the effects had already worn off.
I was still going through the process of elimination with health issues (technically, I still am, but the worst options are, thankfully, off the table). So I put some of it down to that but had my B12 and vitamin D tests redone in early January to check those hadn't started to backslide.
I had my next B12 jab a few days after the results came back. And though my vitamin D levels are still "insufficient", they're not terrible, and my B12 levels were back within an acceptable range.
But I didn't feel any better. And not knowing why was more frustrating than anything.
That is until a couple of weeks ago, at 05:00. As I lay there in the dark, unable to sleep, it occurred to me that I was suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) again.
Although knowing the cause doesn't mean the issue immediately resolves itself, it does help me feel less uneasy. I know what to focus on until the weather changes and that many symptoms will subside with time and by taking specific actions.
But then another bout of worrying news came in from Dad last week. We don't know if it will prove another false alarm or if it's the beginning of the end. And that almost makes it harder somehow.
All this to say that, right now, life feels a bit like wading through molasses. And it could get worse before it gets better.
But I have good days when I spend hours lost in ideas for new projects, instalments of existing projects, writing and planning and editing, and I'm excited about everything. And I try to hold onto those thoughts on the days when I lose hours lying in bed feeling emotionally paralysed.
I also have many sessions booked with my therapy kittehs and soon-to-be therapy doggos this year.
This past weekend I was with my regulars in Bromley for the first time this year after a break in January, and I hope it was as therapeutic for them as it was for me.
I hope you'll stick around to see the fruits of the good days as I have the chance to share them with you. And I will continue to share them with you as often as possible.
two heads are better than one
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 20 December 2022].
lichenometry
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 December 2022].
I love when my photography leads me to discover new (to me) and very geeky things.
In seeking an appropriate word to use as a title for this image, I read about an intriguing way of measuring time and dating rock.
No, not that kind of dating.
Rather, establishing the age of exposed rock.
la vie en rose
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 December 2022].
new lipchis way
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 December 2022].
A marker in Itchenor for the New Lipchis Way, a walking trail linking Liphook and Chichester Harbour.
this road floods each tide
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 30 September 2022].
It's been a while (like, over a year) since I created and shared a new digital collage for my lost in her own world series.
So here's one I created this evening using a photograph I took in Bosham a little over a year ago.
#FridayFeels
It's also been over a year since I wrote an instalment of my postcards from another's life series. But I've had some ideas gestating the past couple of days inspired by a couple of podcasts I listened to earlier in the week. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write those soon.
I hope you have good things planned for the weekend x
edward-howard howard-gibbon
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 July 2022].
The final resting place of a Norroy King of Arms.
death and roses
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 July 2022].
saint richard
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 July 2022].
As soon as I saw this fellow on the grounds of Chichester Cathedral back in September last year, I was immediately reminded of Nosferatu.
You know, ignoring the fact he was out and about in sunlight bright enough to create lens flare...
But I only read up on him as I edited these photographs, and he's quite an interesting fellow.
Here are some of the tidbits from the Wikipedia entry on Saint Richard of Chichester that caught my eye:
He's often depicted as a bishop with a chalice on its side at his feet because he once dropped the chalice during a Mass and nothing spilled from it. That's my kind of guy: no "alcohol abuse" (i.e. spilling wine)! Okay, okay, so he also doesn't spill "blood", so he's still my kind of guy.
However, he had a statute that the wine should be mixed with water. That could constitute alcohol abuse in some circles.
He also had a statute that practices such as gambling at baptisms and marriages is strictly forbidden. I guess that statute rules out the possibility of a wager on how long the marriage would last or who the baptised's father was.
Another of his statutes was that the clergy were not allowed to wear their hair long or have romantic entanglements. Spoilsport.
He kept his diet simple and rigorously excluded animal flesh; having been a vegetarian since his days at Oxford. He was well ahead of his time. This dude died in 1253.
After dedicating St Edmund's Chapel at Dover, he died aged 56 at the Maison Dieu, Dover at midnight on 3 April 1253, where the Pope had ordered him to preach a crusade. His internal organs were removed and placed in that chapel's altar. That's an odd choice of donation to the collection plate, but sure...
Other items in the entry indicate he was fair and reasonable in some instances:
The townsmen of Lewes violated the right of sanctuary by seizing a criminal in church and lynching him, and Richard made them exhume the body and give it a proper burial in consecrated ground.
But he was still very much of his time:
It was decreed that married clergy should be deprived of their benefices; their concubines were to be denied the privileges of the church during their lives and also after death; they were pronounced incapable of inheriting any property from their husbands, and any such bequests would be donated for the upkeep of the cathedral.
It seems his popularity has continued, with Sussex Day being recognised annually on 16 June since 2007.
between the trees
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 July 2022].
old man's beard
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 July 2022].
As with Ochna serrulata, this is another sneaky "floral but not floral" tribute.
These are technically the fruits of the shrub, Old man's beard, or Clematis vitalba. But, they grow out of the inflorescence and sepals of the plant to create infructescence.
And they caught the light so beautifully when I photographed them in Chichester last September, so I'm including them in my series.
hedge bindweed
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 May 2022].
untitled #9
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 May 2022].
Tonight was the calm, creative and productive evening I had hoped to have last night.
Something I desperately needed after an unexpectedly stressful and emotional 24+ hours.
Tonight was an evening spent editing photos, sharing work here with you and listening to my illuminations playlist followed by Dubstar's latest album, Two.
For much of the evening, I've enjoyed the company of a brimstone moth who you can see on my Instagram, chilling on my desk. S/he's nestled in a crook of the hutch on my desk as I type this.
I guess if I don't have cat-sitting therapy this month, then at least I have the calming company of a pretty moth. Though initially, s/he had the 'zoomies' around my monitor :P
untitled #144
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 May 2022].
I love the quality of sunlight after rain, especially on graves.
Phil and I were wandering the churchyard at St Nicholas' Church in Arundel just after the rain stopped and the light falling on the graves was just lovely.
Because the clouds were still moving across, I had to time my shot just right to take full advantage of the light.
I saw this photo before I took it, but as I lined myself up to take it, the light changed. I had to wait patiently in a squatting position until it returned.
I wanted a good pun on this fellow's name as a title, but I couldn't think of anything that didn't feel too forced or didn't quite work.
Contenders were:
the sun shines out of his puttock(s)
a firm puttock
Let me know if you have a contender, and if it works, maybe I'll rename this photo.
bosham ices
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 February 2022].
cracked and blue
A quick post to say happy birthday to my good friend Phil. And happy 21-year friendversary!
I took this photo during our trip to Chichester in September last year. It reminds me of a lot of his urban texture photography.