Stapleford Walk – Along the River Beane – 3.2 miles.

A very nice 3.2 mile walk starting at St Mary the Virgin church in Stapleford near Hertford.

You can start by parking along the road next to the school in Stapleford. Then walk down the road toward the River Beane and on the way visit the mid 12th century church of St Mary the Virgin.

The church is of flint rubble, cement render with stone dressings, stock brick buttresses and with an interesting weatherboarded tower.

Walking through to the back of the church, the walk can be accessed by continuing to the back right hand corner of the graveyard and through a gate to continue alongside the River Beane and along a stretch of The Hertfordshire Way (Start). The path is a gravel path with easy walking. There are a couple of benches along the path where one can stop and take a rest.

The walk continues along the path by the river and at one point there is a wood on your left (Foxleys Wood). At this point the path goes slightly uphill to the left of the wood until you arrive at a gate and a barn on your right (point A). At this point, turn sharp left down the farm drive.

(Point A) After this gate turn left down the farm drive.

The walk continues along this surfaced farm drive past the wood which is now on your left. After some time the farm drive arrives at the road (Point B). Continue straight across the road onto another surfaced foot path.

The continuation of the footpath and South End Farm Cottage.

Continue on along this farm drive which eventually starts going slightly downhill toward the river again. If you wish to take a slightly shorter route you can turn left at Point C just after South End Farm which will take you downhill to rejoin the return leg of the walk at Point E.

At this point (point D) turn left through the gate shown and continue up the field track over the hill toward the wall and the gate through and continue along the path alongside the river. The path continues alongside the river and you end up at the road where you parked.

The lovely path alongside the River Beane on the return leg.

My daily lockdown walk with my OM2n.

Perry Green and Henry Moore.

8th May 2020 – My target for today was to go for my daily walk in the morning, expose a roll of black and white film on the walk. Get home and process the film, scan the negs and write this blog post.

I first met a problem with the scanning and had to do it again. I think it may have been a problem with using the dust and scratch removal on the Plustek scanner. They came out a bit blotchy so had to re-scan them all. Second thing I hadn’t factored in was that yesterday was a celebration in remembrance of V.E. day so had to go out for a social distancing street party later in the day and consume vast quantities of beer. All not conducive to finishing the post.

Anyway, continued today. Negs scanned and all OK. Edited in a format to post and ready to go.

The walk; A stroll of about 2.5 miles in the Hertforshire countryside near the village of Perry Green.

The equipment;

Olympus OM2n 35mm film camera.
Olympus 35-105 f3.5 Zuiko lens.
Olympus 200mm f4.0 Zuiko lens.
Fomapan 200 film developed in Ilford ID11 1+3 dilution @20degC. for 13 minutes.
Negs scanned using a Plustek Opticfilm 8100 film scanner with Silverfast 8 plus software.
Minimal post processing. Nik Silver Efex to add 35% sepia toning and black border.

The walk takes you from the church in Perry Green and past and round the Henry Moore Foundation grounds.

Past the farm buildings including what looks like an old WW11 Nissen hut.

Some interesting textures on the old buildings.

I like the verticality of the farm buildings against the randomness of the plants!

Further along the walk we pass one of the Henry Moore sculptures. Large Figure in a Shelter.

And more Moore across the road! Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped.

The modern Visitor Centre to the Henry Moore Foundation.

We do a right just after the entrance to Henry Moore Gardens and follow a footpath which takes us round the other edge of the gardens.

Doing another right at the end of the gardens takes us along the end of the gardens and through the fields past more Moore sculptures.

Henry Moore sculpture. Large Upright Internal/External Form.

Another right turn takes us back along the field behind the Henry Moore Gardens and views of some more sculptures.

Sheep figure a lot in Henry Moore’s artwork and there are many in the surrounding fields.

The life of a Street photographer during lockdown.

Another day of restricting ourselves of travel. Another walk locally.

We are able thankfully to walk in areas of open space at the edge of our estate and keep ourselves away from others. This walk through the tracks and lanes of the countryside has become my new ‘Street’.

Around the turn of the 15th Century, Thorley Manor acquired one of its most illustrious Lords, Sir Richard Whittington. As the legendary Dick Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London, he made most of his fortune lending money in the City of London. His name, however, now lives on at Richard Whittington School and on Whittington Way. Popular folk lore likes to adopt the successive cats that frequent the church as the local descendant of Dick’s famous cat!

Our walk starts at the local church of St. James the Great, Thorley Church.

Originating in the 13th Century the church gained it’s most prominent feature, in the 15th century. The the church tower, built in the Perpendicular style. The evidence that church towers were still thought of as defensive locations is shown by the ornamental battlements and the extra heigh provided by successive storeys. Thorley’s design of tower with a thin eight sided spire or spike rising direct from the tower is a church feature peculiar to Hertfordshire.

The use of the top of the tower as a vantage point has a modern significance. It was used in the Second World War as a look-out place to watch for the night-flying Lysander aircraft returning to Sawbridgeworth airfield at Allen’s Green less than two miles away.

Moving on down into the valley our ‘Street’ takes us past some old barns, now used by industry.

Down into the valley with the weather closing in!

Down the valley and looking back to the church and the industrial buildings.

On over a small bridge over a stream to follow the valley floor.

Back across the fields to the church and home again.

Istanbul Day 1 and 2

Day 1 – March 5th

Each year on my birthday month I tend to go somewhere for a short city break. This year I chose Istanbul in Turkey. It seemed like too good an offer to pass over with 6 nights including flights and transfers from the airport for a little over £400.

The journey from Sabiha Gokcen International Airport, 30 miles South-East of Istanbul, to our hotel in Istanbul took around 1 1/2 hours including our driver getting into a scrap at a busy junction with a yellow cab driver. The timely arrival of a policeman on a motorbike broke up the two characters rolling around on a bonnet of the yellow cab throwing punches at each other. Fortunately the policeman didn’t arrest the cabbies and cart them off so we could continue our journey.

Eminonu where the boats depart along the Bosphorous

With all it’s mix of cultures and the changes throughout the ages to it’s architecture I thought it would be an interesting place to visit, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The area known as the Hippodrome, once a gigantic stadium which stood at the heart of the Byzantine city of Constantinople. It is now an elongated garden and an area where people can promenade.

Istanbul wasn’t at that time showing any cases of the virus but we were scanned at the airport when we arrived by a thermal camera which should show anyone with a temperature.

Across the Hippodrome with the German Fountain. Built to commemorate the visit of the German Emperor Wilhelm II visit.

Formerly known as Byzantium and Constantinople and with over 15 million inhabitants, the city stands in a position between Europe and Asia. The city is split by the Bosphorous Strait which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. As the only sea route between the oil-rich Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosphorus is one of the busiest waterways in the world.

Strolling up the street from the Hipodrome to our hotel at the end of the day.

We had a small but very comfortable hotel, The Hotel Perula, just a few minutes walk up a street from the Hipodrome and ideally located for all the tourist attractions.

Located in the Hippodrome is the Egyptian Obelisk which was built in 1500 BC and stood outside Luxor. It was brought to Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine.

We spent the rest of the first day on a short walk around the Hippodrome and the surroundings to get our bearings.

Day 2 – March 6th.

we decided to visit firstly the underground water reservoir called the Basilica Cistern followed by the two local mosques. The Basilica Cistern dates from the reign of Justinian in the 6th century. It consists of a vast underground cavern used to store the water which runs down from the nearby mountains in the vast underground where the roof is held up by 336 columns, each over 8 metres tall.

Following our visit to the Cistern we firstly visited the Haghia Sophia mosque, then Suleymaniye, commonly known as the Blue Mosque.

There were plenty of people posing for shots with the Haghia Sophia in the background.

After wandering round the Hippodrome we vsited the Haghia Sophia mosque. The security here at the entrance is very stringent and I had my mini tripod taken from me. I should have had it in my bag rather than attached to the camera.

The interior of Haghia Sophia was a little disappointing as they are obviously doing some serious refurbishment and there is a lot of scaffolding up but then at over 1,400 years old I guess it’s not surprising.

Our second visit was to Suleymaniye mosque, commonly known as the Blue Mosque.

A view of the blue mosque from the Hippodrome.

Built between 1609 and 1616 the blue mosque is known as such because of it’s blue iznik tiling on the interior. As the Haghia Sophia, this mosque is a little disappointing as it has quite a lot of restoration going on. I think I still managed to get some good shots using my fisheye lens.

Interior of the blue mosque. The amount of scaffolding on the right hand side and the rectangular covering of the columns is a little disappointing.

The Streets of Istanbul

Istanbul March 2020 – Beyoglu.

I am in the process of doing the Magnum The Art of Street Photography course. I thought when I started that I would be able go through it quite quickly but it has proved a bit more difficult than I thought. Winter in the UK meant that there weren’t many events happening and then just when I thought I could visit some events in London the corona virus outbreak put paid to that.

Episode 6 is about photographing people, which is one of the difficulties you have to get over if you want to do Street Photography, and not everyone is comfortable with taking candid shots of people. Peter van Agtmael however was correct in his assesment as to why we want to photograph people, in that their expressions and gestures are infinite and interesting.

I couldn’t complete the two assignments exactly. One being to take Street Portraits set by Peter van Agtmael and the other set by Carolyn Drake which is to get to know your subjects of portraits. That we would require me to probably spend more time getting to know the subjects than I was prepared to do on a limited time visit.

Location

On a 7 day city break though I could address some of the issues of getting close to the subjects and making photographs of people doing real things and putting them in place in that rectangle we call the viewfinder. Istanbul being a busy, multi-cultural city proved to be an ideal location.

Obviously the old fellas seat down by the Bazaar.

Equipment

I used my Panasonic Lumix GX8 with either a 25mm f1.4 (50mm equiv) or my 17mm f1.8 (34mm equiv) lenses. The fully articulated screen on the GX8 proved useful for some low level portrait format shots where people were unaware that I was photographing them, especially as I had turned it to ‘quiet’ mode. I also had my 7.5mm fisheye lens but that is for another blog post on the subject of mosque interiors.

Although some areas of Istanbul were a bit quiet, the quayside at Eminonu which is the gateway to the Golden Horn, a flooded river valley which flows south west into the Bosphorous, was a great place for people and Street Photography.

Two girls enjoying a selfie on the quayside.

A family on the quayside. This is where the articulated screen and the silent mode come in handy as people just think you’re looking down at the photos in your camera.

The other area was a walk down from Taksim Square along Istikal Cadessi in an area known as Beyoglu which is a pedestrianised street of modern shops and embassy buildings along where the funicular runs. It is a great place for close-up photography as it’s so busy you hardly get noticed.

The many cats were also a feature of Istanbul.

The street drops down to the Galata Tower.

Istanbul is a great place for Street Photography and a place I would like to return to. The people are very friendly and don’t mind being photographed and there are some great characters in the bazaars, maybe a subject of another blog!

Decaying France

One thing I love about France is that they seem to be quite happy about just allowing buildings to weather and decay. All these photos taken in aix en Provence in January 2020.

Rather than spending money on repairing facades and making everything look new they allow the fabric of their buildings to atain a certain aged quality which I find very interesting.

I often say to people I’m with to look up about the shop fronts and study the faces above. That is where the history of the building is.

A rainy day in Provence

So, here we are at day 3 of our trip to Aix en Provence. Today proves to be rather wet. A good opportunity for us photographers however to get some photographs with reflections.

Puddles are always good for some atmospheric shooting.

Umbrellas add an additional dimensions to photos.

The dark days mean lights come on in the shops and the contrast and colours are enhanced.

A few days in Provence. Day 1

Day 1 Friday

Up at 5 this morning. Taxi booked for 06:30. A chilly morning. Caught the 06.49 from Bishops Stortford to Tottenham Hale.

Bloody silly ticket doesn’t work. This happens so much these days with the automatic barriers. I got told off by a rail man for just using my body weight to force through one of the barriers.

07:40 and sitting in St Pancras station at a Pret having coffee. Still got nearly 2 hours before we depart.

12:40 and just arriving in Paris. Reading the news it seems the French rail workers are on strike in some areas. Just hoping it doesn’t affect our journey through Paris to Gare de Lyon for our onward journey.

Disembarked Eurostar and found our way to line D metro in the direction of Melun. It would seem that the strikes have hit this line as there is a 44 minute wait for the next train.

We eventually get to gare du Lyon after a 7 minute metro ride. Our tickets still don’t let us out through the barriers. I’m wondering if we should have validated them somewhere. Haven’t seen a machine though. Liz panicked us by looking at the out of date information which had us departing at 14:19 which only gave us a couple of minutes. Panic over though when we looked at the actual tickets which show we still have an hour and half before we depart.

It turns out that was the wrong location. We had to go upstairs to Hall 2 for the departure.

Hall 2 at gare de Lyon waiting for the TGV train.

19:30 and we’ve arrived at the Best Western Galice. We tried looking for the bus stop at the station but could only see a bus to the airport and not one for the Aix old town in the dark. It had been a long day and we decided to splash out €40 on a cab to the hotel.

That’s it. Were settled in. Time for a beer or two!

A day in Elsecar and another film camera purchase.

Elsecar Heritage Centre is a collection of buildings in Barnsley which are now of listed building status of historical architectural heritage. Now a collection of shops and craft workshops, they were originally built to support the adjacent mine workings, ironworks and railway. Built in 1850, they were reopened in 1987 in their present guise.

The mine workings in this area were some of the deepest in the area. To access the deep workings required the installation of this beam engine to extract the water. It ran from 1795 to 1923 and is now the oldest example of a beam engine in the country that is still situated in it’s original position. It can now only be operated with the assistance of a hydraulic pump due to the dilapidated state of its steam powered engine.

I did consider getting a new phone but thought I probably wouldn’t be able to get social media on this one 😅

I saw this box pushed up the corner of one of the areas of the antique shop and with some excitement opened it up and found a very nice little film camera in almost perfect condition, complete with its manual.

Voigtlander Vito C. Hardly any marks on it and the case looked like it hadn’t been used. Not a bad buy for £15. Can’t wait to try it out!

Africa 2019 Part 3

Day 5 and 6.

Day 5. Today we are leaving Karatu and heading to the Serengeti National Park.

Skirting the edge of the Ngorongoro crater we were able to stop at a vantage point to look back to the landscape we had visited.

We started to drive down from the high ground around the crater and descended to the flat lands of the Serengeti plains. On the way we passed some more Maasai villages.

The monument called ‘The Cradle of Man’ which commemorates the work done by Louis and Mary Leakey in discovering fossils of early mankind in this area.

Keith posing by the entrance to the Serengeti.

Our tented camp for the next three nights.

We arrived at our next accommodation which is a tent on the Serengeti plains. A very luxurious tent though with an en-suite toilet and shower. The shower though was a bag hoisted up a pole behind the tent. You had to ask for the water to be delivered as it had to be heated over the fire first. We also had to have a shower whilst it was still light as no one was allowed to wander through the camp after dark as there were many wild animals around.

Having a welcome beer after a dusty day driving to the camp.

Day 6. Start of our early morning game drives.

We stopped at this point to watch a pride of lions. They had a wildebeest kill and they were guarding it from the prowling hyenas in the background that wanted to steal it from them.