Family, Photography and other misc news
Family related posts; generally only of interest to fellow members of the Brown Clan and relations by Marriage into this mad house.
Dolly Parton could have been a Billionaire, but she chose to use the wealth she earned with her immense talent to help people, from funding vaccines to her book program for the under fives, even books in brail.
A true Christian who believed in love and charity, and who did not judge.
One of the local village pubs held a charity coffee morning to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support.
We provided a rather nice chocolate carrot cake for them and instead of coffee I had coffee cake with a nice pint of Landlord Ale.
Last night we were in the garden with our little home made pin hole projector.
The last solar elipse in the UK was back in 1999. I got up at 3am in the morning and rode the few hundred miles down to the line of totality. Then pointed the motorcycle at the bluest and clearest bit of sky and road to the south coast.
Parked up in a pub carpark sitting in full biker leathers with a glass of cold lemonade I enjoyed my first and only total solar eclipse.
Last night it was about 90% in the uk, so with a piece of card, that we had punched a small hole into, and a piece of white paper, we projected the sun onto the paper to view it safely.
It did go darker and it was a great experience.
The next one is about 50 years away so its looking doubtful that I will make that one.
Sorry for the lack of posts recently, been concentrating on other things. Had a few studio shoots, catch up with my favourite model and generally concentrating on the day job.
The heat and humidity just seems to go on at the moment.
Hope your all taking care in this warm weather.
For those of us with good incomes, we can afford to install solar, buy electric cars. Install systems like the Eddi which provides free hot water from the solar.
On a sunny day like some we have had this week we are getting free fuel and free hot water. For those who cannot afford such things they are stuck with higher energy costs and fossil fuels.
More needs to be done to allow more people to get the benefits of the switch to green tech. At least electric cars as they get more popular, the secondhand market grows and prices come down.
How do you relax. If I go out it’s generally taking photographs. Or it can be walking the dog and listening to podcasts or music is also high on the agenda. At home it’s often relaxing with a fine wine, or whisky. But sometimes I want to do something different and stretch my brain. So then I hit Chess.com, and play puzzles or occasionally a game.
This game was an interesting one. My opponent did not develop their pieces fast enough and so I pushed hard, it cost me my queen and on paper he was ahead, but I had forced his king out into the centre of the board and it was not long before I check mated him. I’ll be living with the buzz of this game for a while.
More and more companies are asking their staff to come in. I usually find a need to head into a clients office or a clients data centre once a week. This week it was Lincoln and they have a great independent coffee shop just off the high street.
A good photograph does not necessary have to be correctly exposed or sharp. A Henri Carrier-Bresson said – “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept”.
Today the Artemis II crew return to earth. I wish them a safe re-entry into earths dense atmosphere.
Once home safe I am looking forward to more high resolution images from the lunar flyby.
You can see some of them here that they have already sent back to Earth.
https://images.nasa.gov/search?page=1&media=image&yearStart=2026&yearEnd=2026&keywords=Lunar%20Flyby
It’s been a long time since we have been back to the moon.
The fashions on show from our local vintage market were likely new.
In that time NASA has moved from film Hasselblads on the moon to professional Nikon D5’s well proven to stand up to the temperature range and radiation of space.
I believe there testing mirrorless cameras but for now the trusty Nikon D5 professional camera is NASA’s main stay and is currently heading back to earth with the crew of the Artemis II mission.
The other day while walking Ted the greyhound, we came across a cardboard white Rabbit. It turns out someone has setup a treasure hunt for the children.
From the school, to the post office then on to the crossroads, each bunny had a poem to lead you to the next.
From the post office to the village cross roads, to the swings and then to the village tennis courts. From there around the main playing field with the mini vintage trains and tennis courts.
It was then to the old blacksmiths and off to the church.
Now down the old church lane where the paths, road and streams all meet.
So down church lane to school lane and back to the start to find the last bunny and claim our prize.
And so the end of the trail.
If you noticed each bunny had a letter:
R, C, T, A, E, O, L, I, E, N, B
So now to work out the anagram. Can you get it?