Wall and Water

This week's gallery is Colour

The light in Australia creates wonderful colours.

These are 2 of my favourite pictures and yet they are complete contrasts.

A very tired Cog, just out of the shower, hugging the wall for the last of the days heat they are holding.



































And a happy, alert Cog enjoying the cooler water and breeze away from the intense heat on the sand.

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Laughable Corsetry

This weekend I stood pondering this photograph for a while in the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.  

OH came up behind me and said over my shoulder "and without photoshop too"

So we were both looking at the waists of the women.  They may be without photoshop but not without pain.  How thankful I am that the 2 world wars put a great thorn in the side of the corset industry and it only makes occasional fetish return - or so I thought - nope it's all the new rage thanks to our ever 'I don't care how I affect young girls' celebs with their pathetic next 'keep myself in the press' big thing.  The 'fitness waist trainer' - nope it just pushes your fat around my love.  Fitness comes from using the equipment not taking photos of yourself in perfect make-up.  FFS.

 And this is what girls aspire to look like.

Bet you can't wait until your cherub skips home and says "'mummy I want to be like that Romanian model, please can I have a corset for Christmas"

I've seen all of these girls look stunning in prom dresses but do you know I like them best when they look like this.  Not one of them wore make-up, just comfy clothes and they didn't care.  They cared about getting breakfast cooked and having a laugh.

And I like to hope that their partners of the future will also like them best when they are still confident enough to be this way because they really understand what actually matters and what is just laughable corsetry.

This week's gallery is Girls.  

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Boys body image

This week's Gallery is Boys

I was thinking earlier in the week about this picture because of the news events surrounding D&G.

(Great news, I don't wear them now because I've taken the moral high ground rather than because I'm poor!)

There was a lot of social media chatter about this being a gang rape photo.  Whilst it is an assertive position for the man, it doesn't come across to me as rape and I'm not perturbed by it at all in that sense.

What disturbs me most is that it has been photo-shopped in every way to make it as close to CGI as your going to get without actually drawing it from scratch.  Let's forget the woman and her legs stretched to Barbie 'she'd actually fall over were it true' proportions and 'how does she fit all her organs into that squished body' alongside the 'you appear to have no pores in your skin you freak'  No, let's forget her and look at the chiselled, tanned men.

Do you see the hip bone line on the man on the right, that is digitally enhanced there and I'm slightly put off by the height of his belly button, but given that when they digitally enhance the pecks they move the nipples, I see no reason why they wouldn't move the belly button too. Did you know you can get pec implants now? Presumably it's a plastic surgery taken up by the boys/men that want to look like someone that has been digitally enhanced.  Look at the six pack on the guy second left (I'm convinced that is CGI man not a photo) that is also drawn in.

Yup, anyway you wash it these men are as fake as a Britney Spears photo shoot. And these men are what your sons are growing up to believe they should look like.  About 10% of people with eating disorders are male and that figure is growing.  And they are getting younger, the highest rates of new cases are for boys aged 10-14.  And the support networks for boys are not the same as girls, it is much harder for them to be treated.

We have accepted what the media, the film industry, the advertising industry have done to women and partially the tide is starting to turn.  I think the advertisers have woken up and smelt the male pound and they are going to prey on boys self confidence for every penny they can get.

We are very good at telling our girls that they are beautiful no matter what, the internet is stuffed full of girls shouting about being 'all about the bass', do a few searches and see how much harder it is to find any level of 'feel good about yourself' for the boys.

What support can you give to your lad to say "do you know, you don't have to be chiselled like a photo shopped Beckham to be ok" ?

I despair at what we are allowing into the minds of our children.  1000s of images constantly flashing at them: have muscles, be toned, be tanned, have clear skin....developing teenage boys can't live up to these ideals.  Their reality is oily skin, a body that isn't ready to grow those muscles yet - if ever, and a total lack of a real world airbrush.

I enjoyed watching this:



But actually I enjoyed watching this more, it applies cross gender.

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Eclipse the 'fail to photograph' edition

My main problem in life I think is that I don't plan ahead too well. I knew there was an eclipse coming but having already 'done one' in  1999 and a sterling one at that, I wasn't too interested until the moment start to happen.

source: twitter I think, I just remember sighing
 at the highlighting of my ineptitude and saving to disk!

People like this live in pre-planned life where they enjoy a moment properly with correct equipment.

I on the other hand was on my hands and knees on the hall floor with a swiftly grabbed colander and a confused cat.

The wooden flooring with stained glass colouring effect wasn't going to cut the blog mustard so I grabbed some old card from the Brownie kit and tried again in Cog's room.  At this point I realised the colander holes are a weird shape and it was never going to work.

I grabbed a biro from close by and stabbed a hole in the card and the effect was as bad as the colander.

Finally admitting I had to do this properly, I stomped downstairs for a pin...

Mmmmm'kay that was a bit better.

Source: twitter I think, I just remember sighing at
 the smugness of some photographers and saving to disk.

But twitter was already awash with photos like this......

Yeah, well.....I can do arty with the tools I had to hand.  Cats are way more popular than birds and the sun is there....what?! what?!

The irony of this is I've been moaning for ages about the sunspot created by my camera in the lower left of every picture I take, and in this one the sunspot is the sun eclipsing (is that even a word?!)

Anyway, with a bit of effort I totally nailed it....

!!!

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A dead canal is no joke

It was a normal walk by the canal.  I'd not been paying much attention whilst marching along listening to my new favourite podcast "stuff you missed in history class"

I noticed the lock gates were chained closed.

Then I started to notice this.

An old chap came walking by in the opposite direction and I asked him what was going on.  Slurry spill apparently, had left the water in a bit of a mess.











With a lot of dead fish.




















And this was after the water had been cleaned up and fish saved, so imagine how dreadful it must had been. After that for quite some distance I saw floating fish after floating fish.

I guess it has a knock on affect to the other wildlife too.

There were 2 herons in the distance.  The old chap had a nice SLR with him and me my new pocket camera.  "you'll not get them with that" he said.

Actually considering the zoom it didn't do too badly.

I was quite impressed with what it managed, he was too.












So back to dead fish being no joke, one of my favourites:


What did the salmon say when he swam into a wall? 

Damn! 

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Red sky at night, Shepherds Delight - is it true?

This week's Gallery is 'Sky'

Jesus (Matthew 16:2-3):

When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.”
And in the morning, “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.”

Shakespeare:

"Like a red morn that ever yet betokened, Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.”

The old rhyme:

"Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; Red sky at night, sailors' delight."

Or the more commonly used:

"Red sky at night, shepherds' delight; Red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning."

Or the Met Office:

"The saying is most reliable when weather systems predominantly come from the west as they do in the UK. Red sky at night means fair weather is generally headed towards you.
A red sky appears when dust and small particles are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure. This scatters blue light and leaving only red light to give the sky its notable appearance.
A red sky at sunset means high pressure is moving in from the west so therefore the next day will usually be dry and pleasant. "Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning" means a red sky appears due to the high pressure weather system having already moved east meaning the good weather has passed, most likely making way for a wet and windy low pressure system."

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Buckets on heads now girls

This weeks gallery is 'Faces'
This is an interesting topic for 'A Guiding Life'.  I don't do faces!

I have permission from all the Ranger's parents (or themselves) to use photos in Guiding publicity but there are particular clauses about social media. I think blogging probably falls into that remit, so I try very hard not to show faces

Sometimes I will 'alter' them using photoshop but that's hard work,

so mainly you get pictures of hands and backs

Backs are great but I often still have to obscure names off hoodies.

The best pictures for me are where they simply put buckets over their heads.

 

The Rangers are getting used to me though and as soon as they see the camera come out they dive for cover.  This would have been a  lovely photo with 5 girls in it 4 managed to hide completely within 2 seconds!

 

 

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My face is this way

This week's gallery is "Through the eyes of my phone."

Tara said "for every photo I take on my camera I take about 52 on my phone".  That's not the case for me, I tend to have my camera in my pocket most of the time. My phone is probably capable of taking a better image but I've got to unlock it, open the camera app, wipe the lens, and then click.  My camera is usually on sleep and just 'good to go'. 
 
So I don't have a stash of phone photos to share with you.  Given that a large part of my weekend has been spent either visiting a sick friend or fully factorising equations (I'm not enjoying helping Cog with her homework much at the moment!), there wasn't an opportunity to go break a habit of a lifetime.

But the whole mobile phone thing is a little annoying really and I think my own habit is bad enough as it is always seeming to yell 'check me, check me' when my mind takes a brief brain break.  I wonder how much of my life is being detrimentally affected by my phone?

I do know how much my life is detrimentally affected by HWMBO's phone.  I play second fiddle to it in all cases.  Whether that is on holiday, at a meal out or even on a train home when we have only just met for the first time that day and met up specifically to share the journey home.

I actually tried this quote on him.  I'm not sure he heard me as he was reading the AFL website at the time.

Sometimes to actually experience life you have to put the phone down, no put it down....down. 

 

Oh I give up.  

 

Cog has started riding again recently after a break of a few years.  I have never taken many photos of her riding as I know it would put her off.  I think a fall as a result of me taking pictures isn't worth the risk, so just occassionally having a phone hip shot is the only option.

 

Can you see what I mean about the dirty lens?!

 

 

 

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The Dead Fauna Collection

This week's Gallery is 'Frightful' and I've been struggling with what to share.  But I have decided it is time to out my frightfully macabre pastime of photographing dead fauna.

Fox : I suspect this one had been shot, not hit by a car.

Magpie: The number of birds that just seem to drop out of the sky always surprises me.

Blackbird: I suspect this one was hit by a car.

Starling: another middle of nowhere bird.

 Vole (I think) : by the canal.

Badger: there are a lot of them around here, a huge number, almost to problem proportions I suspect.

Badger's tail.

I am almost sure this is badger after the crows have had a good go at it.



It's quite difficult taking these photos, putting aside the need to stand down wind, you get very odd looks and most road kill is destroyed to unrecognisable very quickly by cars or crows.  The golden day there was a bloated dead sheep floating down the canal I hadn't got a camera on me (or a phone), I think I must be one of the few people that hopes the opportunity arises again some day!

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Shop Photography Policies - HollisterCo fail

The day in London with the camera started well.   Buildings...

Crockery underground...

Tiles....

You can see the light theme I was feeling can't you.

So this would seem like a perfectly natural follow on. But this, apparently, is the photo HollisterCo do not want you to see.

HollisterCo, I quote, "Do not permit any pictures to be taken of our store or merchandise.  This is a strict company policy. Our store models are informed of this policy and are to inform customers of this policy if they see anyone taking photos. This policy applies to any aspect of our stores -- frontage, inside the store, merchandise, fixtures, etc."

Well, you can see how a photo of this nature would cause commercial issues can't you?!  Interestingly, as I left the store, I had to push past the front of store models having their photos taken with customers.  The double standards astounded me.

So having left Hollister with credit card intact, we moved onto SuperDry.  Whilst the teens wandered the store I started playing with the camera again, and then panicked and asked permission: they had no issue with a bored parent entertaining herself with light bulb pictures.

Ching, ching went the till and we all left happy.

I rang SuperDry and JackWills (another winner of my money that day) customer services and they both said they had no issue with this type of photography.

I decided to check it out with the King of them all and rang Harrods customer services.  They do have a photography policy. No photographs are allowed where security could be compromised i.e. not in the jewellery department, bank or safety deposit area.  They also may ask for no photography if for example a celebrity is there or on the escalators if it causes an obstruction.

I like this sort of policy, it is common sense. No they don't mind if you want to have your photo taken with a lego door man but please don't block the flow of people and don't start snapping expensive stuff - yup, I can work with that.  And hey guess what, yes, ching, ching - Harrods also got a share of my salary this month!

So HollisterCo, yet again, through their inability to provide a creche (or at least a level of tolerance) for the one holding the credit card didn't get a bean.  And from the tone of their customer services department, that's perfectly ok by them.

So my message to the people holding the money that Hollister are hoping the teenagers are going to spend (that's you and me) is walk on by because they really don't mind.  If they cared about getting your buck they would have a customer service and treat you the way stores do that really would like you to spend your money in them.


And go back and have another look at the illicit picture because I suffered to bring it to you!

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