Travelling in time(lapse)…

One of the main reasons that I keep getting behind with posting stuff, is that I’m continually sidetracking myself with things which seem more interesting than whatever I’m doing at any given moment.

Yesterday, I thought that I’d better write some more in the collaborative space opera that is Starship Gypsies, as I have been very lax recently in keeping up with the story. But, despite my best intentions and having made good progress on a new new episode, my magpie mind soon drifted upwards, to the clouds above my head (serves me right for sitting out in the sunshine, I suppose) and to thoughts of trying out the timelapse feature on my camera.

So I stopped writing (I’ll get back to it this afternoon, honest I will) and set up my impromptu studio on the patio to do an experiment.

While I cooked Audrey and I some dinner, my trusty smartphone camera patiently clicked away in the garden, recording the passage of big fluffy clouds and gently waving trees. Then, full of spaghetti, meatballs and after dinner coffee, I began to apply the all-important “mucking about” element to the collected images.

I decided to add one of my swirly musical compositions to the resulting visual creation, after having run the original thirty second clip of the sky above our garden through several different editing treatments and ending up with the following, rather hypnotic, multi-media presentation.

So please sit back, relax and enjoy this little video for Speedwell…

 

Surf ‘n’ turf…

The best of the weekend sunshine, complied on my photographic blog, Photo Sans Frontiers.
If you haven’t visited it yet, then click the title link just below this intro and check it out.

Images From An Internet Nobody

It was actually proper summer weather for a change at the weekend, so Audrey and I got out and about in the sunshine, both at Rock Park in Barnstaple and on Woolacombe beach.

Here are some moments captured on our travels, including the original shots that made up this week’sCosmic Photo Challengepost.

And here, for no reason except that I like it, is B.A. Robertson and the little heard (I suspect)“b side the c side”, from, unsurprisingly, the b side of his biggest hit,Bang Bang…

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#atozchallenge: U is for Undulation…

U is a bit of a problematic letter, there aren’t too many ways can think of to crowbar it into a post for the A-Z challenge, so I’m going to cheat.

I really like the words “undulating” and “undulation”, they are just nice, satisfying words to say. I also like the motion which they describe; “one of a series of wavelike bends, curves, or elevations”, which can be applied to the curvaceous shape of something, too.

So here are a few photos, picked from shots that I’ve taken over the years, that feature undulations of one sort or another; whether it’s in landscapes, hills, clouds, treelines, or one of my more peculiar architectural compositions…

#atozchallenge

 

Send in the clouds…

Third post of the day, to mark my 500 post milestone and to entice you over to Photo Sans Frontiers, my beautiful photography blog.
I’m giving you this post as a reblog from there, but please click over, just for a moment, and hit that follow button.
Thanks.

Images From An Internet Nobody

It’s been an amazing day for clouds, here in North Devon, so much so that I had to stop off on the way to and from work and capture the beginning and end of one of the sky’s best days (photography-wise) of the year so far.

I’m always being told I’m not supposed to shoot straight into the sun, but I don’t hold with any of that…

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Photo Sans Frontiers reblog: Devon skyline…

From dusk until dawn, there’s always a spectacle in the sky over Exmoor at this time of year.
Here are some recent examples from the latest post on my photo-blog, Photo Sans Frontiers; if you haven’t visited it yet, pop over and check it out…

Images From An Internet Nobody

At this time of year, I manage to catch the sunrise and the sunset on my way to and from work, on the edge of Exmoor National Park.
Here are a few from the last couple of days.

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Just Jot It January: Day three…

For the third edition of this month-long feature, I’ve decided to change medium and post some pretty pictures for you to look at.

What with Christmas, the crappy weather and all three of us having the same horrible cold, we haven’t been out much in the last week, so it was good to get down to the park in the winter sunshine today.
I took a few photos of the winter trees, a rather impressive sunset and the ever-present gulls feeding by the river, all of which I shall post on Photo Sans Frontiers shortly, (watch out for the reblog on here too) but I thought I’d give you a sneak preview now, as part of Just Jot It January.

I hope you like them and if you do, pop over to my photo-blog and check out the rest later on.

#JusJoJan

Pingback to Linda G Hill.

 

Spreading myself thin…

As I intimated last week, life has taken a bit of a lively turn of late and I’ve been rather swept up in events.
Not only has much of this new activity directly affected my entire life, but as a result I’ve also found myself drawn to “other projects”, as we artistic types are so fond of saying (oops, I think my pretentions are showing) and whilst I’ve always considered Diary of an Internet Nobody to be the main forum on which to air my usual blend of eclectic and random ramblings, sometimes one outlet just isn’t enough and I’ve had to expand my protruberance into the bustling virtual village that is the blogosphere in order to accommodate material that comes from a slightly different cerebral direction.

Oh, and I’ve still not gained mastery over the art of short sentences.

First things first though: Let’s have a quick run through some of the unwritten stuff I’ve been working on for the last couple of months, much of it as a result of the main, soon-to-be-revealed event that has informed so much of my life recently.

As you may remember (possibly even without undue physical pain), I had started work on some new audio-visual projects before taking my unplanned sabbatical from the blog in October, a few of which I had previously inflicted on you allowed you to sample the delights of.
Well, as with most new toys, I got somewhat distracted with my new-found ability to produce sounds that very nearly conformed to what some folks might just, with a charitable spirit and one finger shoved in their ear, describe as “music”.

And you know what..?
Even allowing for my natural modesty and disinclination to blow my own trumpet (ok, it’s not much of a disinclination, I’ll give you that) I’ve got to say that I was impressed with the increasingly slick-sounding production that I managed to achieve with such limited (i.e. non-existent) musical training and minimal technology.
I won’t bore you with anymore details, we’ve a lot to get through in this post as it is, I’ll just furnish you with the links and you can judge for yourself.

To start with, here is one of my favourites, a jaunty little number called
SYMBIOSIS..

….followed by a piece that I composed with somebody particular in mind and inspired by their hometown;
TRAVERSE..

…ending with something that I partly named after my new address, after relocating (yet again) to alternative accommodation, for reasons which will become obvious soon, honest.
This one is called
SPEEDWELL.

There are other new examples of sonic improvisation, all of which will be available on the Sound and Vision page shortly.

Before we get to The Main Event, so to speak, I’d also like to share a few of the best of my recent photographs, (photography is something I’ve never been shy of claiming proficiency at) so here, in no particular order are my favourite pictures of the last few weeks.

First, some images of the incredible natural beauty we are so privileged to live beneath, the gorgeous panorama of the Devon sky, at both sunrise and sunset…

Staying with nature, here are a few photos I’m especially pleased with, a couple of woodland scenes, some Christmas lights on the river at Bideford and some action shots of gulls feeding, taken at one of our most picturesque and peaceful local beauty spots, the wildfowl lake at Chivenor.

Right then, that’s most of the unimportant stuff out of the way. Now we come to the main reason for my preoccupation and absence from this, my own little window on the world;
Love.

Yes, there really is no other way to explain it, I’m in love.

Now you may think that the most obvious thing to do (if you’re a blogger, that is) would be to write about something that is so deeply personal, and that’s exactly what I did.

But I didn’t think the way I wanted to approach this most emotive of subjects was…compatible with the tone of this blog, so I did the next most obvious thing.

I started a new blog.

A few of you have had a sneak preview of this project already (naturally I wanted people to read it, but after having sent links to one or two other bloggers and a few close friends, I thought I’d see how it did on its own, without promoting it on social networks and the other platforms that Diary of an Internet Nobody regularly appears on) although I have made an effort to keep the two separate, for reasons which will become clear when you read it.

Because you’ll all read it, right…?

The link below will take you to the first chapter of the story and you will find links to subsequent posts at the top of each one.
If you wish to leave a comment, which I’m always delighted to receive, please do so in the spirit of the new blog, or of course leave them here as normal.

You’ll see what I mean.
Let’s just say that “Dale” wasn’t invited to contribute…

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

A LOVE AFFAIR.

 

Picture this. A break in Somerset…

Having taken a break from work for a few days, I thought I’d get away and visit somewhere I’d not really been before, the area round Bristol in Somerset.

I stayed on a very peaceful holiday park in Clevedon, complete with fishing lake to stroll around and a total lack of screaming children for company.

As is my habit when I’m away, I went on a couple of excursions to take photos, first visiting the seaside town of Clevedon itself, with the “only fully intact, grade one listed pier in England”, built in 1869 and still in immaculate condition.

A walk along the pier offers beautiful views of the Bristol channel, the entry toll house is imposing in its grandeur and the very structure of the elegant pier itself provides a wonderful counterpoint to the dusky sky when the lamps are lit in the evening…

…and I saw this lovely tiled Victorian water fountain on the wall opposite the entrance.

Another place I took a look at was the Lake Grounds in Portishead which, all in all, has a very pleasant, very English summer holiday feel to the area. Ducks and swans on the boating lake, blustery wind in my face and striking red rock formations, reminding me of the ploughed red earth of the Devon countryside.

Further up the coast I discovered the Windmill Inn, a pub with not only a good selection of ciders, but gorgeous views from the terraced gardens of the Welsh coast and the rapidly scudding clouds and choppy waters of the Bristol channel.

After a relaxing drink and a leisurely drive back towards my temporary home from home, I couldn’t resist stopping off at the particularly photogenic Church of All Saints in the Parish of East Clevedon, nestling in the lee of a wooded valley and looking like something trapped forever in the permanent dappled glow of an English summer afternoon.

I carefully picked my way among the headstones…

…until I came upon a resident who didn’t look like they appreciated my trespassing on their sunbathing spot..

So I took this as my cue to leave for home, taking one last look as I walked back to the car…

…and arriving in time to snap yet another glorious sunset over my holiday retreat.

Thanks for joining me on my tour of this tiny corner of Somerset, I hope you enjoyed it.
I’ll leave you with a rather appropriate musical sign-off

Until next time…

 

Picture this. The sky’s the limit…

While we may be sandwiched between the wide open panoramas of nearby Exmoor to the east, and the even more impressive sweep of the skies above rugged Dartmoor further west of us, here on the River Taw estuary we still get some pretty impressive sights overhead,especially in the evenings.

Having had some nice comments recently about a few pictures of these natural oil paintings in the clouds that I’ve posted online, I thought I’d go back through my many photos and put together a small gallery of meteorological awesomeness.

All of these photos were taken within half a mile of our house in Barnstaple, North Devon.

              Low winter sun.

               Cloud Angel.

               Dusk in the fields.

               Thunderheads.

The sky can go from distinctly Turner-esque…

.. to apocalyptic.

This next one seems to involve a cloud floating in front of a house (no manipulation involved on my part I assure you)

You can see why I like to sit outside by the pond with a pint and watch the sunset can’t you?

And what better tune to chill out to at the end of a beautiful summer’s day than this ambient classic from the Orb.