A Glimpse of England
Spitfire, The Shuttleworth Collection, Biggleswade
On a hazy autumn morning in Hertfordshire you can just about picture the exhaust trails from Spitfires and Messerschmitts looping about the skies - I say just about, because really what you see and feel, as a traveler from Canada, visiting friends and family, with no job to hurry to and nothing in particular to do or get done, is the peace and tranquillity of gentle hills and tidy villages, the softly diffused light of Keats’s ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ and of course the drizzle and damp.
Not that I minded, mind you. With a waterproof jacket and a good cloth cap, boots, Leica in hand, tramping the hills and country lanes (and popping into the odd pub for a pint and a bite) I was fully equipped and prepared for a glimpse this time of a less-travelled England, off the tourist grid, far from the madding crowd.
Previous trips to the UK have been business, for the most part, not pleasure, with perhaps a weekend or two thrown in and a day at the end to ‘do the sights.’ Not so this time - my visit this autumn amounted to three pretty much perfect weeks of family meals and family walks, solitary explorations, side trips to Cambridge and surrounding villages, just a day or two in London, to see Lucian Freud’s terrific portrait show at the National Gallery and to pay respects with the grandchildren to the dinosaurs at the Museum of National History (no reference to the excellent museum staff, I’m sure) and spend a few days further south with my old friend Mike in Kent.
The mood, the tone, the purpose of this visit are reflected, I think, in the photographs I made. They are low key, perhaps deceptively simple; focused as much on the details as on the wider picture; moments of quiet observation and contemplation. No selfies or Instagram moments here - but a portfolio, I hope, that is worth taking some time to look at, absorb, and think about.
You can click on the link, here, to see my portfolio, or here, to start at the Home Page on my website.
Oh, and do please remember to send me your comments and feedback! You can use the Comments box at the foot of this blog post.
Signs of Life, Toronto - 9 photographs added
Santa and the Snowman
Along with my new portfolio, ‘A Glimpse of England,’ I have added nine old and new photographs to my ongoing portfolio on Toronto - click here, and scroll to the bottom of the web-page, to see the additions.
In black-and-white, there is a photograph of a church rummage sale - the photograph divides neatly down the middle. On the right, two Orthodox priests are seated, to the left, under a tent, busy parishioners serve customers. You could say there is an implied social comment…. Also in black and white, a photograph of a Seventh-Day Adventist Church enveloped in fog, and a grey Santa and Snowman of the desolate suburbs. In colour, a clutch of second-hand boots at the Kensington Market, and some urban yachts sailing on a garage side-wall. Comment, or humour? You be the judge.
And there are other images also, which I hope you will find interesting or amusing, so do take a look!
