Memoir of an aspirant photo journalist

My magazine editor brother advises me that misfortunes make more interesting reading than purple passages about nature. If a nauseating photo of a gashed leg or the like can be included, so much the better. Remember photographer Hurley with Shackleton - his cumbersome photo plates were one of the few things salvaged from the stricken ship. His presence of mind had provided a priceless record of dramatic events, although the main motivation for saving them came from Shackleton’s awareness of their potential commercial value later - he would have made a good journalist.

That’s all very well, but I am a bumbling, non-instinctive amateur, and dealing with the emergency usually takes priority, although I have had my moments.

Because of waterlogged fields, last Thursday I routed our walk again on Tarmac, but included one section of what OS defines as “track”, that is an unsurfaced lane varying from a well found, hardcore Land Rover highway to a little used medieval mudfest often blocked by brambles and nettles. Even the supremos of the OS have so far been unable to represent those differences. You therefore rely on experience and intuition.

Within a few yards of leaving the Tarmac I knew experience and intuition had failed me - we were squelching and slip-sliding along a mud path, which eventually widened into a mini flood-lake thirty yards across and fifty yards long with no obvious circumvention short of climbing several walls and barbed wire fences. Undoubtedly an impasse. Sod’s Law had located this well beyond the point of no return.  Here we go: with the distraction of formulating Plan B, I took no photos. There was not much comparison with the scale of Shackleton’s drama, but I was so cross with myself when it dawned on me quarter of a mile later. Would Hurley have gone back? Well, he would never have missed that opportunity in the first place.

Zoom to Whitestone Crag near Newby Bridge. A minor crag where my old climbing partner Tony had the only fall I can remember for him. Fortunately it was not serious, but once again I took no photo.

A unique seating facility at Field Broughton built for the millennium

Just for the story herewith. My cut vein when I fell descending Nan Bield Pass on my walk from Lowestoft to The Lakes in 2009

What did you accomplish in 2013?

Well, perhaps all those posts over the last year were my version of a Donald Crowhurst (Google, or see my post: Whither the next TGO, 6th July 2013).

Here is what I have really been up to:

How many possible games are there?

Wikipedia says:

 There are 52! (i.e., 52 factorial), or approximately 8×10⁶⁷, distinct deals. However... 

...yes, it can get a lot more complicated than that. If you have any nerdish, or mathematical inclinations at all you would be in heaven looking at the Wikipedia entry.

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Katie update.

Playing with dolls' house, Christmas morning

Home sweet home

Daughter High Horse teaches. I am told pupils start winding down weeks before major school holidays making constructive lessons increasingly difficult.

Our recent Thursday walks seem to have caught something of that ethos. We have kidded ourselves about weather and reduced our six milers to a measly four. Until last Thursday we would actually not have encountered anything unpleasant with a longer walk.  Not so this last Thursday. (Ian Fleming said that "actually" was a word not in Bond's vocabulary). 

We were foiled on two geocache attempts. The first where we could see the container, but an elderly woman was parked in the lay-by  smoking out of her car window, and within fifteen feet of the hiding place. On the second, although I am six feet tall, we were still sufficiently vertically challenged to reach the damn thing. People were approaching and Pete was reluctant for us to appear like a couple of drunken idiots by getting on my shoulders.

Within a hundred yards of regaining the car heavy rain started and continued with fiendish intensity for over two hours. If we had been on a six miler we would have had another three quarters of an hour of misery, and worst of all, probably not been in a fit state to visit our favourite café. 

As it turned out that would not have been a problem, Café Ambio hadn’t a table available. Neither had our upmarket garden centre café. We went to Booths, bought a de-luxe Lathoms apple pie and repaired to chez moi for debriefing and another lesson for Pete on his new smartphone. Having entered a couple of destinations into the pseudo satnav app we found it impossible to delete them despite consulting various internet forums where the same problem was being aired. The only consolation is, that unless Pete decides to remove, he will now always be able to find his way "home".

A fine stand of Yew trees

Farleton Fell

My commenter Gimmer recently faced part of his abode with shingles. I thought he may like to see this fine example

Looking south down the West Coast Mainline half an hour before the vicious rain onslaught which no doubt  enhanced the already visible flooding

Plonker of the year award

Today I was cleaning my car. A guy pulled up on the other side of the road to visit my neighbour. The road is not wide enough for two cars so it was blocked. He folded his mirror and went to visit. Another car arrived so he had to return. He pulled his car across the top my neighbour's drive on my side of the road and asked me if he could park there. I said that was not for me to say. Thirty yards up the road, and visible from the venue of this incident, and quite obvious, it is possible to park on the side of the road with no problem.

What is wrong with people? Just for the sake of walking thirty yards. Or am I just a grumpy old man?

FATHER CHRISTMAS IS ON THE WAY

The season's greetings and best wishes to all my readers.

Thanks for your comments and I look forward to exciting projects in 2014

Photoshop paintings

I promised Mike M to put some of my finished Photoshop paintings on display.

Click for the slideshow, then click on the first picture to view all full size.

CLICK HERE FOR SLIDESHOW

Tech, fresh air and motivation

Pete and I are not wimps, but last Thursday we nearly succumbed for opposite reasons.

I have a reputation amongst friends and acquaintances, (albeit those who rarely flirt with tech), for being an accomplished technocrat. The truth is that I have a love-hate relationship with gadgetry and waste endless time bumbling along trying to make things work based on a thin layer of knowledge. I often achieve the result, but in more time than NASA took to get a man on the moon, when a paid up member of Club Technocrat wouldn’t even have seen a problem.

Pete has elected to travel along the bypass of tech. When I re-met him after a forty year hiatus he usually had his mobile switched off ..."saving the battery", so I could rarely contact him. Well, we got over that  and progressed to texting  and other "advanced" functions, BUT he has now upgraded to a smartphone - oh dear!

Thursday was dreish as the Scots say. An hour or so of our walking morning was spent  at my house fiddling with the Xperia and looking glassy eyed at the on-line manual -  how much does a guy get paid for inventing those names? By then we had mastered how to make a call, but cabin fever set in,  and we deluded ourselves that dreish had gone back north over the border. We departed for two local geocaches close to Fairy Steps, a geological semi-impasse on The Limestone Link.

Pete is not a geocacher, so I was pleased when he made the first find - that helps to encourage those, who I suspect, feel a bit embarrassed and uncertain about the value of ferreting around the countryside for plastic boxes. The second geocache had a contradicting two part clue and we aborted - a dnf (did not find) will be registered, yes, geocaching is, like tech, riddled with jargon.

Fairy Steps - pics taken circa Christmas 2006

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Reasons for motivation are difficult to interpret, especially for the one who is motivated. I’ve  started  another Photoshop painting of a rusty old barn - Here is my w.i.p.