Artistic slant - Skywatch

Alternative viewpoint

Been a few weeks since my last Skywatch. Going for something a little different. Call it bored on the beach and looking for inspiration before that cloud which had been following me dropped it's heavy load. It did. Not before I got a range of from the ground images. Who would like to live here then? Those flats/apartments really do overlook the Irish Sea, over to England, Scotland and Wales based on Mooragh Promenade. Sure more Mooragh images will pop up along the bottom of the post for you to check out. Just behind this block of flats you will find more of my my favourite photography haunts Mooragh Park, Mooragh Lake and of course the rugby pitch. I did promise you I would lay off the rugby images on the blog for a while, but they are so hard to resist posting. I may have to drop another one on for skywatch soon, without the moody clouds above.


Leave you with the moody shot and looking into something I found out we used to have here.... a carnival and a campaign to bring it back. Now everyone loves a carnival and I could really do with that to photograph. Save that one for next week when I have more info. You know me and a campaign....and this time I am not a lone voice. More Skywatch images can be found here after 8pm GMT.

Ramsey Daily Photo now has a shiny new Facebook page where you can see more photos here. Exciting eh! I should also say as it is Thursday I will be in the pub.

Almost heavenly rays

Almost a sunny day

Skywatch

This is going to be the last image for a while from the point and shoot Olympus stylus 300. I was aksed what camera it was so there you go. The sun is shines and while we still have a few weeks left of what is supposed to be the back of summer, the Nikon will be back out. It's been fun and I will keep the point and shoot handy in the handbag for a sneaky shot, but there is nothing like holding a bigger camera for shots like this. Saying that, the little camera does the job well enough. It's not so good with low light and rain like this, but then again you can get a sweeping glassy reflection of those clouds across the lake, a softening of the buildings in the distance and a moody blue colour naturally. That'll do for this week. Not as flash an image as usual, but a Skywatch image nonetheless. As you can see I'm still on the quiet side of blogging, but I did get a great quote from a visitor to these shores, and no it wasn't nice, but she did have a point. Put it this way. It always happens at the cinema.

For more of those wonderful skies around the globe click below

here

Silver folied - monochrome

Grey is the new silver, Dahlinks!

I know I'm all out of kilter again and blog posts are popping up willy nilly(always loved that saying or nolens volens if you prefer to be more cerebal today) at random times and days. Sorry about that. Also note this is a straight forward Mononchrome. Wouldn't want to mislead the odd odd shoter(?) thinking this is a perfectly normal image and trying in vain to find oddiness(I really am making up a new language today.) What colour do you see though? Is it grey or silver?



Image is an empty(who keeps letting the plug out?) lake I've shown you before up the Mooragh(sounds slightly risque like that) the park that is. I know some of you have no idea what I'm on about now. As I was saying. Well I grabbed one of those images from that week of pure blah di blah images with no manipulation as a monochrome, greyscale. Reminds me of a new roll of tin foil when the light catches it and you get that funnel of white light. As it shimmers I see silver. If this was a matt image I would say grey. Think of it this way all you folks out there with a few grey hairs, try calling them silver highlights. Now how precious do they sound? Silver linings you see, even cynics note grey clouds have those.

Mooragh Lake - My World

Who let the water out again!

Mooragh Park contains conveniently Mooragh Lake, otherwise known as the boating lake. I know it's hard to believe as it's so shallow but normally you can see canoeists and very small sail boats on the lake. If you have read any of my earlier posts you will also know I am one of the locals of that have actually swam in this lake. Not by choice may I add. Capsizing out of a canoe fully clothed taking a swim in the blackness of the water below and climbing back into the canoe fully sized and sopping wet is well no fun. I hasten to add it was most definitely unintentional and in much deeper water than this. You can see why we need a lot of rainfall here.


Can you believe at one time this area was a 200 acre tidal swamp. In 1881 the Ramsey Town Commissioners purchased the land for the princely sum of £1,200 with the idea of creating a pleasure park. Now we are not talking Disney World or Central Park, but 6 years later the park was opened. We still have the boating lake, two cafes, crazy golf, crown green bowling, wooded area, grassy area, skateboard park, kiddies playground and tennis court. The lake is the dominant part if the park being viewed from any part of the park. As you can see I have actually taken this image close on the edge of the lake looking towards Ramsey Town with North Barrule Mountain in the background on a very sunny day. As much as I hate to say this as it's so lovely to have the sunshine we could do with one very heavy downpour just to top up that lake. After all I might need to go swimming again when I fall out of a canoe. It's dark too when it's full. Can't see a thing. No sharks though, well only the financial ones. I dedicate this post to Jim and Sally who very kindly(OK nagged me so much by email) to " show the lake we used to canoe on as kids" again please. There you are then. A wide shot as requested. You never did say if you two fell in,... er I mean went for a well intentioned swim in the Lake? Let me know.

PATHS & PASSAGEWAYS THEME- MOORAGH CROSSROADS

Which Path would you choose?

Mooragh Park has many paths as you would expect. This though is the only place where two paths converge and the choice is made. The one on the left(looking onto the image) leads you out of the park into suburbia and further choices of twists and turns. The one on the right leads deeper into and around the park. To add a little mystery to the image The right hand pand path is shot in soft focus(manual setting) leaving the left hand crystal clear. This is no indication of the path I chose though. Coincidentally if you follow either path and follow them to their conclusion eventually you could arrive at the same destination at the end of the promenade and beach leaving Ramsey. How often do we have two choices leading to the same conclusion? I will leave you to ponder which path you would choose.

 Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Many cities participate in Theme Day. It is just for fun, not a photography contest.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

B.

Jaded Solid Air - Skywatch

Sad reflections

For those that don't know this week has been pure reflections. One camera, one woman, no alterations. Images captured as see all refelctions. I have just stopped by to upload this, but then I will be off again. Many thanks to all for the Birthday congratulations. In brief this is Mooragh Park overlooking the lake conveiniently named Mooragh too. You can see Snaefell mountain in the background surrounded by peachy sunglow. The sky reflected in the lake has a slight jade tinge meeting the peach tinged sun. As you can see my the week's worth of reflections, we have had some interesting results. Again I have left the pebbles in the image and not removed to leave a smooth surface.

This was an experiment this week to show you what can be achieved with just a camera, and no digital alterations.

Had a great day thanks. Gary is just offered another Illustration commission and it's a biggy. Only sad news is one of the artist's, a UK musician, who was big influence on Gary called John Martyn(click here) died today. He was a close friend of someone who was a great influence on me Nick Drake. Hence the Jaded. So may we never raise our glasses for better reasons than birthdays and passings into solid air under a saturday sun. It makes sense if you know the music.

Gone for a Bailey's or several.

SANTA PAUSE!

Still no snow!

Season's Greetings

No Santa Claus was not on Ramsey Beach, Mooragh Beach having a rest, it was I who was AWOL leave from by blog, internet, outside world. I had intended to post for skywatch but Christmas, drinkies and food rendered me incapable of posting, using a camera or just about anything. No instead Gary and I lazed around as much as possible with the screen projector on and a selection of Chritsmas veiwing. Life for one day was postponed just to pause and relax. I'm sure many of you did the same. 

So did you all have a good Christmas? Did you have any nice pressies, boring pressies, or perhaps something really unusual. Me what did I have? Well I will not divulge all but the oddest has to be a slinky. What do you mean it's a kids toy. Have you no sense of fun? Do you remember them? Needless to say I have had an enormous amount of fun with it. Who needs stress balls get a slinky. The slinky has been needed to relieve the stress of the Isle Of Man postal service failing to deliver Christmas post to some our friends and relatives in the UK and elsewhere. So the job of tracking the items starts next week. Remember how those cards Gary designed had been opened and soaked in water too. Isle of Man postal service shame on you. Now where's my slinky...

As you can see by the image of Ramsey beach, still no snow. Not so much as a flake. Kept it simple today no fancy arty shots just a very wide angled crop of the beach, and no it isn't Skywatch just a normal day's image.  Gary and have been watching the web cam on Nice Beach France. No snow there either, but I wouldn't want there to be, but I would want Gary and I to be there. See Angela's Nice blog here for why.

(Dear Santa Claus thank you for my slinky, but can Barker and Babooshka find work in the South of France now please?)

Thank you

RADIOACTIVE RAMSEY?

Luminous pebbles

Look what on found on the beach along the Mooragh, Ramsey.... Radioactive pebbles. Scary huh!
Ok you got me. I think we can all safely assume I manipulated the image somewhat, well a quite lot. To me this is what digital software is for. Not to tidy up an image, but to add a novel element
like say a Martian landscape with orange an lilac luminescent pebbles. As you can see my photos are still be held hostage by my laptop and I can't upload new ones until next week. So in the meantime an old stock image that I have had some fun with. I like it I will have to do more over the top stuff like this, just for fun. Amazing the images you forget about. Amazing too to think someone has this image on a mug. Going off at a tangent below.



As you know Gary was relinquished from his Political Cartoonist Job at the BBC this week. Well it seems a lot of people were quite upset about this and contacted the BBC.
We knew Gary had a following but the feedback he has had has been incredible. The upshot of all this is the BBC has confirmed with Gary that they don't want to lose him altogether, but due to the credit crunch cuts had to be made. What to do. The Barker Gallery for now has finished, the last cartoon went on yesterday. The old Galleries will stay on the website, that's 4 of them, for anyone to see at anytime. From time to time Gary will be called upon to do the odd piece of artwork ad hoc and one day hopefully when the recession has passed... well that's the future. The website he built for his illustrations will now be the first point of hire.



One request if I may? The BBC, well Gavin Allen, Editor - The Politics Show have actually written a lovely piece about the Barker Gallery and with a feedback form for comment. If you click HERE you can have a read for yourselves. Gary can't read it. Too modest about his talent. Well I'm not, about his. I'm an excellent photographer, but the best Political Cartoonist, and I know from your emails how many of you agree. Thank you.

RAMSEY SWING BRIDGE AND POO, POOP, DE POOP

Ramsey swing bridge 10/100

Here we go again! You know the story by now, but for the unitiniated(shame on you where have you been?) I posted saying how I must have hundreds of images of this bridge and was told it wasn't possible to photograph one subject in a hundred different ways. Ta da! Number 10 is today's offering.

This is the middle section, apex, right hand side, harbour side. The gull of course is an optional extra. Please note he doesn't come with the bridge and isn't caged behind the metal rods poking up and was free to depart at any time. I am not sure whether he was responsible for the inordinate amount of bird poo on this side of the bridge compared to the other, so we won't chastise him unjustly. Innocent until proven guilty still applies. Even the Isle of Man abides by this ruling. I know I could have spent half the day cloning out the offensive poop, but what you see is what you get around this blog and it does add a certain "je ne sais quoi" don't you think? No, Ok just me then.

I should also point out, as promised to do so when applicable, that this image was my trusty little point and shoot no frills Olympus and not my all singing dancing Nikon. I should also have posted on the Mooragh Park image yesterday that was also shot on my Olympus. Sometimes it's good just to leave the Nikon and see what I can get from the little Olympus. After all, the one thing the camera still can't do without you is frame the shot, so now and again it's just good to get back to basics. It also gives you an idea what can be achieved with the point and shoot, for those who don't have the big camera and loads of lenses. It's also a much better way to practise photography, makes you work harder by using your grey matter and eye to produce the shot.

So, would you have preferred a clean no poo poop de poop, or do you prefer the real deal image.
As always can't wait to hear your thoughts.

ABC WEDNESDAY - R IS FOR RAMSEY RUGBY

R then is for Ramsey Rugby. Well you knew I had to have Ramsey, but thought I'd add the twist and go for the double whammy R with the Rugby. Ramsey are the team pushing forward in the blue shirts. Fortunately I captured them in full flight en route to scoring much needed points. Unfortunately they were yet again the losing team. The camera never lies, so they say. It seems in the world of sport it can create the illusion, albeit for a fleeting moment, of a triumph, rather than disaster. Nevermind lads, always next season.

Good news for me, the cable has arrived and my laptop and I can renew our relationship. Wasn't quite the same using other peoples, although I am eternally grateful.

If you'd like to join ABC Wednesday please got to this link MRS NESBITT'S PLACE
Mrs Nesbitt is the host for ABC Wednesday, where you can find details for joining, her own odd shot to comment on and a list of fellow bloggers who are playing today, who you can also comment on.

PINK BLUSH

Yesterday kept me quite busy with the photography uploads, emails and pc crashing. Island life for you. When things go wrong they do so in tremendous style. Why crash one pc when you can take out an island! The crash was a server issue. Those of you out there who reside on a island will understand my predicament. You really don't want to be around me when I can't get my decent coffee. Cabin Fever!

As everyone knows who reads my other blog, the island has a make- over every April in readines for those TT visitors. The island, much to my consternation, has an infestation of cones. Not tree dwelling cones, but those horrid orange and white pointy plastic ones that guard manhole covers. Single line traffic is the norm through Laxey, Governers Hill closed off completely and Douglas Marina tantalizingly out of reach. Not really what an island photogrpaher needs, no go areas.

So a quick flora photo frm Mooragh Park. It is wait for it, a red "Australian Bottle Brush Plant" (latin - callistemon citrinus splendens). Many thanks Joanne, my gardening expert friend for the correct name.

I will be uploading links to my photo sites as soon as I am assured everything is up and running smoothly(or as smoothly as it can be) again.

My sales sites are

JK HARDS PHOTOGRAPHY

BABOOSHKA 'S PHOTOGRAPHS IMAGEKIND