Crete, photography

It wasn't quite warm enough for the beaches to be crowded

 
 
Two years ago this month I had a wonderful holiday in Crete.


I still like some of the photographs I took there.  The Mediterranean light and the building in Kato Stalos of a number of new and some of them very expensive villas, inspired me to try out a few semi abstract compositions.

 

 

 

 

 

St Ives harbour, December - Picture of theWeek for 7 December 2013

Low Tide
12.04 pm on Sunday 1 December.

I decided to make this the blog header picture, just because it's so much more relaxing than the bloke with the digger.

Landscape with mosque and pyramid - but where is it? Picture of the Week for 6 November 2013

No this isn't in Egypt - not even in Africa. It's another mystery photograph - this time I know where it is, but do you?!

I took the photo in 1997.

I will post the answer in a week or two. For other mystery photographs, click the label below.

Update - the photograph shows the brand new Ibrahim al Ibrahim mosque at Europa Point, Gibraltar. Inaugurated in 1997, it is the most southern mosque in Europe. I was lucky to visit only a few days after this. 
 
The small pyramid marks the Rock of Gibraltar as one of the mythical 'Pillars of Hercules' - the one on the African side of the ocean being Jebel Musa in Morocco, 14 km across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Far Cuillins - Picture of the Week, 7 September 2013



The dramatic Black Cuillins, a volcanic range on the Isle of Skye, seen across a meadow of buttercups.
Photo John S Gilbert C1980
 

Oh, the far Cuillins are pullin' me awa', As take I wi' my cromack tae the road. The far Cuillins are puttin' love on me As step I wi' the sunlight for my load. Sure by Tummel and Loch Rannoch And Lochaber I will go, By heather paths wi' heaven in their wiles. And if it's thinkin' in your inner heart The braggart's in my step, You've never smelled the tangle o' the Isles. Oh the far Cuillins are puttin' love on me As step I wi' my cromack to the Isles.

It's the blue islands are pullin' me awa', Their laughter puts the leap upon the lame. The blue islands from the Skerries to Lewis Wi' the heather honey taste upon their name. [This traditional folk song was given the title "The Road to the Isles" during WWI]

Lighthouse, Chania harbour; Picture of the week for 12 July 2013

Anyone can take the shot below... I prefer the one above.

The Horse is a Noble Animal - New header picture

I like to change my header picture every now and then. Meet Big Bertie. He is a horse unlikely to end up in your burger any time soon. I manage to photograph him as he trotted into the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last year, before sampling their pastures new. The horse was commissioned by sculptor Marcia Farquhar, who calls the sculpture The Horse Is A Noble Animal, after a saying of her grandmother's.

Big Bertie was the biggest hand-made rocking horse in the world. He is 3.65m (12ft) tall and 4.9m (16ft) long He was made by craftsman Tony Dew, modelled on a real horse called Bertie who is stabled near the Rocking Horse Shop at Fangfoss, a village near York. Bertie at 17 hands is not as tall as his wooden replica.

However, Big Bertie has been overshadowed by Tony Dew's later creation of Bigger Bertie, who stands 15 feet tall and weighs in at almost two tons. Both horses were largely hand made, with just the assistance of hand held tools. No lathes or industrial machinery were involved.

Bigger Bertie is still stabled at Fangfoss with original Bertie. Big Bertie still grazes at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Whether the three Berties will ever get together is a matter of intense press speculation...

Grimescar Valley, midwinter: Picture of the Week 26 Jan. 2013

Grimescar Valley, Tuesday 22 Jan 2013

 



This is why I've spent most of this week at home. Very picturesque but roads are treacherous and the wildlife doesn't enjoy it much either. I have put out five different bird-feeders.

Around here, grey squirrels have brown patches. They are very acrobatic, the only bird feeders they can't extract food from are those like the one on the left in this photo, where the cage of peanuts or birdseed in enclosed inside another cage. Sadly this also puts off some birds.

 

This squirrel is feasting on fat balls, which most of the birds love too. There is usually a backbird or pigeon on the ground below the feder, picking up all the scraps which the squirrel drops. The smaller birds avoid the squirrels.

 

The robin can't perch on the hanging feeders, neither can the blackbirds, so I've attached a fat block to an antique wooden post, made of well weathered oak, which has supported my washing lines for thirty years and before that who knows how many other peoples laundry for n-years. Tumble dryers are for those with no sense of history!

The Great Hedge of Meikleour; Picture of the Week, 9 January 2013

There was an item yesterday on BBC's The One Show about the Great Hedge of Meikleour, which is the tallest Hedge in the world, as recognised by the Guinness Book of Records. It is 100 feet high, almost 600 yards long and over 250 years old so the Beech trees (fagus sylvatica) are not growing any taller and are past their prime; they were planted in1745, the year before the battle of Culloden.


The Great Hedge of Meikleour in winter, photo by John S. Gilbert

The Great Hedge of Meikleour is beside the A93 about 12 miles north of Perth in Scotland. It is kept in trim annually with the aid of loppers, not a chainsaw in sight! This photograph of the Meikleour hedge in winter was taken by my father, John Sinclair Gilbert, probably 40+ years ago. His mother was Scottish and he enjoyed many holidays north of the border as well as spending two years billeted in Edinburgh Castle whilst he was in the British Army.





There's a legend that Robert Murray Nairne of Meikleour was one of many hundreds of Jacobites who died at the battle of Culloden and his wife Jean Mercer allowed the hedge to grow up to heaven in his memory. What is more likely is that after the loss of so many men (most Jacobites who were not killed in the battle were taken prisoner and many were executed or transported to Australia) there was nobody with the time or enthusiam to trim the hedge.



More recent photographs can be seen at:-
http://www.perthshirebigtreecountry.co.uk/places/perth-blairgowrie/meikleour-beech-hedge

Hastings ruined pier, latest; Picture of the Week 26 Dec 2012



The ruin of Hastings Pier

The pier, which was devastated by an arson attack in 2010, has won Heritage Lottery funding for its restoration, granted in November. Work is expected to begin in the New year and be finished in 2014.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/19/hastings-pier-lottery-grant

Bridge Over Calder's Waters; Picture of the Week 8 November 2012

Sterne Bridge crosses the Calder River just where it leaves the mill town of Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire. High on the hill across the valley stands the landmark of Wainhouse Tower.

Sterne Bridge and Wainhouse Tower 2011

The river flows on through the towns of Brighouse, Mirfield and Dewsbury before enterning the city of Wakefield. Then it proceeds to Castleford where it joins the River Aire. The Calder's water then joins successively the Ouse and Trent as they cross the rest of Yorkshire, before falling into the North Sea via the Humber estuary.

Meanwhile Sterne Bridge, which is dated 1914 and was one of the earliest reinforced-concrete slab bridges in the UK, goes nowhere. Calderdale Council, in their wisdom, decided it was unsafe and closed it in 2010, to the discomfiture of residents south of the river who were left with an inconvenient treck to get to town.

Immediately downstream of the bridge is a beautiful L-shaped wier - see http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/File:River%20Calder%20-%20geograph.org.uk%20-%20983914.jpg/-/en
 
We surveyed the bridge in 2011. Due to restricted access I was unable to photograph on the north bank, or downstream.



Yorkshire Landscape, with Lions; Picture of the Week, the ones I missed...

I began posting pictures of the week on 6 October 2011, with the intention of posting one every week for one year. I've just done a count and I think I only missed three weeks in the year. As health problems have meant I haven't taken as many new photographs since January as I would have liked, I don't feel too displeased with this.

I've enjoyed looking through old photos too, and I will continue posting a picture weekly.

In the mean time, here's one for a week which I missed...



Yorkshire Wildlife Park, 28 August 2012

Ruined Pier; Picture of the Week 16.10.12

A ruined pier, a sandy beach, but where?

The first mystery photograph for a while. One more clue, for what it's worth; I shot it in September 2001.


* Update  7 November 2012

The old pier was on the coast at Atlantic City, New Jersey. When I shot this picture, the landward end of the pier still had a pavilion on it. I haven't been able to find any pictures of this online, which means if any remained after 2001, it probably was probably washed away in the hurricane of 2012.

Rainbow, Picture of the Week for 17 August 2012

Sometimes you just have to take a photograph, words can't do the job.

Galway Coastal 2, Picture of the Week 9 August 2012

Galway beach, with anchor, boat, seaweed.

Photograph taken while on holiday in 1986.

I didn't take  many colour photos on that trip to Ireland and this is the only one I really like.

Masayuki Koorida - Flowers , Picture of the week 25 July 2012

For my picture of this week, I'm sticking to our last visit to the wonderful Yorkshire Sculpture Park, with this photograph of work by Japanese sculptor Masayuki Koorida. The biomorphic shapes of his pair of 2009 'Flower' sculptures sit quietly on the grass in a wooded glade like beautiful, giant, alien blooms, each one and a half metres across. They appear to have not so much grown here as just landed from elsewhere. In the background, beneath the trees, sits his 'Growth' from 2007, another alien creation.

Born in Kyoto in 1960, Masayuki Koorida has travelled and exhibited his beautifully crafted, granite sculpture internationally including in China, Germany, Italy, Nethelands, Taiwan and the USA. He currently lives in Taiwan.

Joan Miro; Picture of the Week for 19 July 2012

Femme Monument by Joan Miro 1970 

The marvellous work of Joan Miro, Catalan surrealist extaordinaire, is on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park for the rest of this year.

Galway Coastal, Pictures of the Week, 22 June 12

Kelp and Boat, Galway Bay

While I was looking in the corner which I've designated as my store-room, for a box of stage props (hats are needed for a script-in-hand performance of my new play), I found an old album of photographs of the West of Ireland, not far from the City of Galway. 

These are black and white pictues and they are slowly fading, disappearing. The back of each print is covered in yellow/brown blotches and even the album page behind each photograph is discoloured and stained with the developing solution which is still reacting, slowly, to exposure to light.

Making Tracks...

The effect this deterioration has had on the photographs is in places like sepia toning, although they were never intended to be sepia toned. I know this for a fact because these photos are not 100 years old, but 26 years old.

They were probably the last images which I shot on Black and White film and at the time I didn't have access to a darkroom, so I took them to a photographic processing lab to be developed and printed.

These pictures of sea, sky, boats, rocks and tracks are not becoming discoloured because they are old.  Photographs, as far as we have experienced to date, can last at least 130 years without serious deterioration. How long will digital files last, I wonder?

My 1986 photos of the Galway coast are deteriorating because they were badly processed, improperly fixed. Anyone who has printed their own black and white photos will know what I mean.

Sunset, El Nil - Picture of the week for 4 April 2012

El Nil has been Egypt's most important thoroughfare for millennia. It remains vital to modern Egyptians, quite apart from the tourist vessels which carry visitors from Cairo to Aswan, providing jobs and income for some of the locals. Whether the shipping is ancient or modern, the River remains beautiful.






 The sailing boats are felucca, traditionally used for fishing, transporting goods and today also for tourists. The Felucca is generally a smaller vessel than the sea-going dhows which ply the oceans between the Red Sea and India, though Feluccas are used in the Red Sea and also the Mediterranean.


Photographs taken from a second floor balcony overlooking the river at Luxor (2006).