Vic's Blog

Today is a national holiday in this neck of the woods, and with the temperature easing its way over 30, I decided to spend an hour or two in the coolness of my ‘office’. Last weekend I shot a photo subject which had long been on my “eager to capture” list. The building must once have had some sort of purpose, but now projects a fascinating, orderly derelict appearance.

The final image in this weeks offering was taken yesterday evening. Unfortunately I miss-timed the shooting by several minutes and the sun had already plopped silently into the river. A good reason to go back and try again perhaps?

It’s now the end of week two of my 5picsaweek project, and what a week it’s been! Pure Summer!  It’s now Saturday afternoon and I’m sitting in a shady place in the garden enjoying the hot weather and the tranquillity – strange how during the hot summer afternoons a certain stillness reigns over the village. Perhaps most people are on holiday or dozing quietly under shady trees.

The first three of this weeks photos were taken just before sunset, shadows were long and temperatures were still hot but quite bearable. The remaining four were taken this morning between about 7 and 8 o’clock, not as early as I had planned , but after all I was tucking into grilled sausages well into the wee small hours. The sun was well up but the light still had character.

Today is the start of the summer holidays in these parts, and once again I have decided to give myself something to do. The project is similar to last summers ’37 Days’ holiday project, but instead of taking at least one photograph each day, I will make my life a great deal easier and set out to take at least 5 pictures per week for the next five weeks. Thus the term ‘5picsaweek’. Quite probably I’ll end up posting several more images than the five I’ve set myself – we’ll see. The advantage is, I won’t be under any self inflicted pressure to update the blog on a daily basis and can, depending on the weather, spend an evening or two indulging in summery pursuits.

Incidentally, as was the case last year, I will be working normally during the five weeks school holiday, enjoying the half empty commuter trains and the long evenings in the garden, and with a bit of luck we may even manage an excursion or two.

To ring in the new project I am posting just a couple of photos of our new water pipes. The whole road is being treated to a new water mains and many, myself included, are having very old, crumbly pipes replaced with shiny new plastic ones – exciting stuff!  While the road is currently one long building site, the opportunity was seized to replace the old gloomy street lights with super bright LEDs, one of which can just be seen on the picture below.