A shutterbug of stone
Tuesday 26 March 2024
Crinoids in the hall!!
Saturday 17 February 2024
Yellow Chalk?!
Or is it, though? Is it not lemon mousse? Well, I for one would not want to try to serve this into a bowl with a spoon... And neither are the orangey lines toasted sugar. This is harder than your average chalk - which in turn is far from bring the boring white featureless mass that you might think. When you look at it you see details, structures, layers and beds. It tells tales of a greenhouse Earth, of the movement of continents and the growth of mountains. It tells tales of the life that lived in the seas where it settled.
This is West Runton in Norfolk on the east coast of the UK. You're standing on the top of the Chalk (with a capital 'C') and looking up at huge blocks and rafts of chalk which have been driven uphill by glaciers. Yes, glaciers can do that - they can do whatever they want. The chalk now finds itself surrounded by much younger sediments that tell the tale of temperatures falling into an Ice Age. West Runton was home to a Steppe mammoth, excavated there and now on display in Norwich, and to a variety of other terrestrial and freshwater fauna and flora. Norfolk isn't flat and it certainly isn't boring!
Saturday 3 February 2024
Mosses and a tiny 'shroom
Rather typically of me, I got into another project and haven't visited this blog recently. Nevertheless, here is a photo from my walk to the local supermarket this morning; mosses on the stump of a felled tree. That tiny mushroom, though!
#100Photos #36
Friday 10 November 2023
Red berries, blue sky
Like it says on the tin, red berries against a blue sky - the tree they're on has lost most of its leaves and the sun is shining on the berries and the tree's silver bark. The tree caught my eye as I was walking home from a doctor's appointment today.
#100Photos #35
Saturday 28 October 2023
River view
Wednesday 25 October 2023
Broken symmetry
Before Covid 19 and a change in role within the organisation I work for, I used to travel across the Fens by rail to Cambridge quite often; I miss that journey! I do like the open landscapes and the big skies of that part of the country. I was actually born in a Fenland town in Lincolnshire (long story, I wasn’t supposed to be…), so I guess there’s an inbuilt sense of home for me in the Fens.
My favourite part of the journey to Cambridge is the couple
of minutes that it takes to cross the Ouse Washes, especially on the outbound
journey as you look northwards into Norfolk. The hydrology of the Washes is interesting; in
the summer water is pumped off them and cattle graze there, unlike the
surrounding areas where they’re pumping water onto the land for irrigation, and
in winter water is pumped onto them while they’re pumping water away from the
farmland. The cattle are replaced by
wintering birds – the Washes are famous for the thousands of Whooper swans that
arrive from Iceland to overwinter, and in recent years there have even been
cranes on the surrounding land! I was
absolutely thrilled when I saw them for the first time (and still really
pleased every time since)! It’s always
fun to see the astonishment of fellow passengers who don’t know the area when
they see the miles and miles of water either side of the train.
One of the things I love about the Ouse Washes is that in winter, particularly, the light changes every time you see them. On a still day, the surface is a mirror, and on a windy day you could be looking at a seascape. When I took this photo, you can almost see the cloudscape reflected; it’s a broken symmetry. I’ve learned enough physics for that to amuse me even if the photo does break the rules of composition!
Speaking of the photo, one thing I’ve learned through this
project is that my palette tends to silvers, blues and golds, largely because those
are our local colours. This was a phone
photo, by the way; my phone (currently a Samsung A23) tends to be my main
camera simply because it’s always with me. At photo 33 I’m a third of the way
through the 100 photos, looking at what works from the ones I’ve taken
previously and looking to improve my photography in the time the project takes.
#100Photos #33
Saturday 21 October 2023
A modern icon
There are not many modern buildings in the UK that are instantly recognisable. It's not that we're short of great architecture but apart from, say, the London O2 and Belfast's Titanic Museum, there just aren't many modern icons. The Selfridges building, though, clad in metal discs, is iconic in a way that very few other buildings could hope to be. It is the highlight of the remodelled Birmingham Bullring.
This day, under a glowering sky, was the first time I had ever seen it close-up. It has the wow factor in spades.
#100Photos #32
Friday 13 October 2023
The lamp
A few months ago, I found myself staying in Bristol overnight after a rare face-to-face meeting.
From what I've seen of Bristol in the two or
three short visits I've had there, it's an intriguing city. I had (and took) the opportunity to look
around the Cathedral and my colleagues and I had the bonus of a working visit
to a city farm the next morning before we returned to our scattered homes.
For this visit, I stayed in a hotel in the city centre. The
reception area was very modern, with an ‘Instagram wall’ that I couldn't resist
standing in front of and asking one of my colleagues to take a photo of me. I don't normally do that!
The room I was in was very different from the Reception area and I loved it from the moment I walked in, but it took me a few seconds to realise
that it was really steampunk. The safe and the coffee fixings were in an alcove
with wire grill doors. And take this wall lamp - it had a really ancient-looking
style of bulb which was exposed by the wire-frame ‘shade’ and an industrial cable
duct from its power source. It was artfully bright enough to light the room but
not bright enough to hurt your eyes. I'd never seen anything like it! The room had a really comfy bed as well,
which is always a bonus.
#100Photos #31
Saturday 7 October 2023
Marston Marble
This photogenic, fossil-rich, limestone hails from Somerset
in England's West Country. It's not often that a polished slab of stone
photographs decently with just a smartphone, but I was really pleased with this
photo. The main issues I find with this
sort of shot are (i) holding the phone rock steady (genuinely no pun intended),
and (ii) the fact that cameras tend to focus straight through polished surfaces
onto something – often the photographer! – being reflected. This slab is inside a glass case, which tends
to add an additional complication in terms of reflections, but I was lucky here
and this photo didn’t need to have a filter used or to have any adjustments
made.
Incidentally, this variety of stone (which dates back to
the Lower Jurassic) is not actually a 'true' marble in the sense that geologists
use the term - limestone metamorphosed by heat and pressure - but stonemasons
use the term to describe any limestone that takes a good polish. This one
certainly does that! Stonemasons were using some 'geological' terms long before
geologists were.
This beautiful specimen is in the Sedgwick Museum,
Cambridge, UK - do go and see it for yourself!
#100Photos #30
Wednesday 4 October 2023
Norwich - leading lights
Everybody has favourite places. For me, there’s Edinburgh; partly because of its history and partly – mainly - because of the story told by the exposed geology of Holyrood Park, Castle Rock and Calton Hill. If a certain brewery did geology trails, Edinburgh would be the showcase one. At the other end of the size scale I have lovely memories of a village called Uley in Gloucestershire, where my great aunt lived and where I rode a horse for the very first time.
Then there's the county of Norfolk on England's East Coast. My grandmother came from Castle Acre; it's a
beautiful village with a ruined castle and the remains of a Cistercian Priory. My father was twice stationed in Norfolk with
the RAF, and I went to boarding school near Norwich when he was posted from
Norfolk to Germany. Add in visits since then to the Broads and to North West
Norfolk and the North Norfolk coast and you've got a bucket full of memories. I've been back to Norwich a number of times
with my partner and it's very definitely my favourite English city.
We were walking through the Royal Arcade one day and I took
a truly mundane photo as we did. I've cropped that photo since then and it's
almost what I would take now if I were trying to take a photo of the lights. I
could have done with standing slightly further to my right, which is what I
hope I would do now, but I do quite like this as it stands.
#100Photos #29
Sunday 1 October 2023
The coming storm
Looks idyllic, doesn't it?
It’s what the photo doesn’t show that comes to mind when I look at
it. Out of the window on the other side
of the carriage, the sky was black. Not
just grey, but black-with-menaces. The
sort of black that a daytime sky has no business being.
As we rounded toward the small town and seafront station of
Dawlish (which is now famous for the railway line being washed away there in a
later, rather more massive storm and equally famous for the Herculean work of
the 'Orange Army' who repaired it), the heavens opened. As those of us who were getting off the train
there did just that, and those who weren’t getting off looked smug, we were
lashed by horizontal rain, salt spray and rather stiff winds. The passengers who had a particular
destination in Dawlish made a run for it, but I just took shelter in the
station, wondering whether my trip was in vain.
Luckily, the storm was reasonably short-lived although I
did watch several more squalls going past out to sea during the morning. I did
get my quality time with the cliffs (Permian sandstone, as you ask) - and a
long journey back to the Flatlands of the East, tired but happy, afterwards.
That said, it will be a long time before I forget that storm!
#100Photos #28
Thursday 28 September 2023
St. John's, Smith Square
If there's a type of stone that characterises London, especially the Government estate and major historic buildings including Buckingham Palace and St Paul's, then that stone is Portland Stone. It's a limestone, dating back to the Jurassic Period; some facies (varieties) are very fossil-rich, with Grove Whitbed being rich in oysters, and Roach Stone being famous for it's 'Osses' heads' (Trigoniid bivalves) and Portland screws, a variety of gastropod mollusc. Other facies are freestones, very suited to carving by stonemasons.
Monday 25 September 2023
Conditional discharge
These spent batteries were at the top of a full, tall but narrow cylindrical recycling bin. If that's one snapshot in one shop then hopefully there are many thousands more being recycled each week across the country.
But: How many more are *not* being recycled? And how the heck many are we using?? Why???
#100Photos #26