One morning the flowers were sparkling in the dew, on the other side of the garden fence. This very ordinary flower was Cow Parsley, transformed by the droplets of dew acting as lenses into the low sun.
Grown in my garage. A new venture in the series of flowers grown to photograph.
Sunflower: the second generation from two years ago.
Influenced by the Botanic Illustrator Mary Grierson, who was Kew Garden's official artist from 1969 to 1972.
From childhood, I have been fascinated by strong light, mirrors and reflections. My father had a dance band during WW2 and for a few years after. His spotlights, with large 500 watt bulbs and coloured gels in a rotating frame, together with his home made "Mirror Ball", were a part of my rich early years in Worcestershire. A little later, my father operated the 35mm film projectors for the Queen's University Film Club in Belfast. I can still see the large curved mirrors at the back of the projectors, and the splutter and hiss of carbon arcs striking up. Magic!
A dandelion seed head, in the last moments of the sun setting behind a neighbours barn.
Seen on a backlit hillside road verge on the Isle of Man. I suddenly recognised the tangled mass as a version of my Long Covid symptoms of "Brain Fog" . Connections and memories fragile, and slow speed of processing, especially when conversing with new people. Now, after diagnosis last November, these symptoms seems to be lessening.
A sunflower seedhead, grown in my garden from just one seed. The capacity of them to contain so much life never fails to evoke wonder.
Seen while hanging some photographs in the local church as part of a Platinum Jubilee celebration.
Revisiting the church, many of the cones had very few seeds left intact.
Morrisons cafe, Cambourne was an unlikely place to be struck by an image redolent of the TV coverage of the evacuation of Kabul. But there was the C17, just about to taxi off, with people running alongside. There was at least one casualty, crushed by the aircraft. In the cafe, the Lego was reclaimed by a boy and his father shortly after I took the photograph.
At the time of the TV coverage of the evacuation of Kabul, images sometimes seemed to be reflected in my local landscape. This time it was the perimeter wall, with a narrow gap into the airport
Morrisons again. I noticed the newspaper headlines about the Ukraine, and the embassies closing. Then, at the far end of the supermarket, a cleared space, and suddenly I saw this very bright flare of light, as if from an explosion.
A very unusual aircraft contrail, over Cambridge, suggesting a roll. " www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/military-aircrafts-take-cambs-skies-22934562"
Seen in a new Chinese restaurant in central Cambridge. Lunch was ordered on screens, rather than through people. Completely calm, natural and unposed, she seemed to embody a new age, perhaps post - Elizabethan.
Seen in Costa Coffee, Royston, Herts. In retrospect, the screens in the background form a nice theatrical backdrop, as well as a reference to the man's own screen. None of this existed 20 or 30 years ago. What will be next?
The ticket says "Tyley 1x Duvet."
