This weekend saw the first weekend in June getting the season’s ‘event’ program off to a flying start,it seems that almost everywhere local has something arranged for the coming weeks, Sturminster Newton being no exception with their ‘Big Weekend’ event held here in the Railway garden and throughout the town. The weather was a godsend, the crowds attended, much to the delight of the organisers (no doubt), the traders and other associated organisations who took space at the event. It seemed that everyone had a wonderful time, I enjoyed a field day, wandering here and there with the camera in the lovely, warm sunshine. It seemed that there was something for everyone from young to old and in between, well done to those hardy souls who spent long hours making the necessary arrangements for the benefit of us all in general, unsung heroes and heroines each and every one of you. The only downside is that you can’t possibly attend everything that’s being put on, nice to be in the position of having plenty to choose from but unfortunate that some events fall by the wayside in favour of others. That said , I shall be endeavouring to take in and enjoy as many as possible over the next few months.

Several days belatedly in fact! Having undertaken to try and write daily I find that on the odd occasion when I don’t I suffer a slightly guilty feeling. Ridiculous in as much as writing a blog was never intended for anyone else’s entertainment other than my own, maybe the sense of guilt is in not writing rather than in not posting, an undertaking not fulfilled, almost a breaking of a bond with one’s self. I haven’t written or posted because Helen and I have been away for the last couple of days and my limited technical skills won’t encompass setting up the blog on my tablet, or phone, which means that if I’m away from my computer I can’t get into my WordPress account. It’s not for the want of trying, believe me we’ve both gone through the process of attempting to achieve what appears to have become an impossibility and both failed, Helen’s far more computer savvy than I am and still we didn’t manage to set it up so I don’t feel too bad about my meagre efforts. That said , we’re back now, normal service is resumed for the time being before another break in a little over a weeks time when we jet off to sunnier climes for a short break ( more on that at a later date ).

Today we’ve visited the Somerset market town of Frome for the Independent Market, a monthly event held on the first Sunday of the month in which the independent traders in the area come together and the whole town centre is closed off to traffic and given over to pedestrian footfall for a mammoth market event. It’s always a great occasion, it brings together artisans form all walks of life, a great melting pot of individuals whose skills and talents are displayed for the delight and delectation of the visitor. A visit is much to be recommended but take your purse, wallet, credit card or whatever other form of cash takes your fancy for there are wonderful things to be bought. From food and drink to jewelery and antiques, something for everyone and then some more. It’s a great way to spend a day, browsing and buying, part of a happy, heaving, seething throng of like minded souls all intent on having a good time.

Timing is everything, so they say, and never more so than in photography. From the early morning light right through the day and into the night timing can make or break your image. Taken simply, timing may just be about having enough light to render an image, at its most complex it can capture the impact of a speeding bullet as it strikes an object, it’s all about the timing. A split second, barely perceptible to the human eye can create an image that is so powerful that it resonates with viewers around the globe, a split second later that image is gone, lost forever. Timing is everything. Sadly my timing is often lacking, nothing to do with anything technical, purely put it’s the fact that I’m often in the wrong place at the right time or in the right place at the wrong time. As Eric Morecambe once famously said to Andre Previn ‘ I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily at the right order’. Today was a prime example. I knew the weather forecast wasn’t good, rain later in the morning they said. I kept an eye on the building cloud with a view to timing things in order to capture the heaviest, rolling clouds scudding across the Blackmore Vale before they divested themselves of their damp cargo. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the clouds and by the time I’d got halfway to my proposed destination the heavens had opened and today’s deluge had begun. Timing, a blessing or a curse, no powerful images of rain laden clouds for me today. Instead I found myself back in the garden here, battling the breeze and attempting to capture the fragile beauty of Nigella Damascena, ‘Love in The Mist’ to you and me, their delicate leaves awash with tiny raindrops. Timing….I’d be awesome if I had some!

Sounds like an extract from ‘The Sound of Music’ but believe me I’m not about to burst into song, I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone, ‘The Sound of Silence’ would be far preferable. No, here in Dorset we are blessed with a plethora of windy hilltops, and all the more richer for it. Great swathes of open hilltops and summits where the view is uninterrupted for miles in all directions make for dramatic landscapes that call and beckon and then reward us for the effort made in getting there. Yesterday we took the narrow winding lanes out to Hardy’s Monument, a trip well worth making. The views are breathtaking, the monument itself extremely impressive and one’s own physical presence in the landscape rendered insignificant in the immense space that you find yourself placed in. Mind, I’m not so sure the stone masons and the labourers of the day would have felt that good about it, I would imagine that one or two might have cursed that they would have to drag all that stone to the top of that damned hill in all weathers to build said monument. I could imagine the sense of forboding on a Monday morning in the rain!

The song says ” I Don’t Like Mondays “, personally I don’t mind Mondays at all. Generally speaking my Mondays are an entirely sociable event, I meet people, have a chat with one or two, indulge in a little coffee drinking, all very civilised and a great start to the week. I don’t, however, go much on Bank Holiday Mondays. Overcrowded, over priced and well and truly over subscribed in general. There’s usually an abundance of things to do and see but unfortunately most of those things necessitate the use of the infernal combustion engine, the motor car, especially as we live landlocked and particularly rural here in North Dorset. I know, I should have known better but suggesting a trip down to the coast at Swanage seemed like a good idea at the time, I mean, setting off relatively early at about half past nine, what could go wrong? Well, nothing in the first leg of the journey, the trip along the often choked by-pass at Blandford was a breeze,as was the second leg down to Lytchett Matravers and then Lytchet Minster, it was shortly afterwards that things went downhill rapidly, well I say rapidly but mean the entire opposite. Dorset isn’t blessed with any motorways, in fact in some places it often seems that Dorset isn’t blessed with any major ‘A’ roads, the A351 being a prime example. The main road down to the popular seaside resort of Swanage, taking in the historic town of Wareham and the iconic Corfe Castle often resembles a two lane car park as every man and his dog tries to traverse a route through the pine trees and coastal bog that is Sandford! And so it was this morning, a slowly, snaking, tortuous grind, one car length at a time. I lost the will to live and retraced my steps back to Bere Regis and headed west…joining the never ending trail of motorists, at times as far as the eye could see, heading towards Dorchester and Weymouth…and then the rain came! With the Boomtown Rats anthem ringing in my ears we pressed on doggedly, slowly, as far as the Martinstown junction and then hung a left and headed into the unknown, destination Hardy’s Monument. He of Nelson’s ‘kiss me’ fame, not the other one with the pen. For the first time of the day we were no longer in a queue, which was a blessing, queue’s on Dorset’s ‘C’ class roads are an altogether different experience. Fortunately the rain had by now stopped, I can’t imagine for a moment a bleaker location than Hardy’s Monument in the rain. Stunningly spectacular in the sunshine this morning it would be an entirely different proposition on a wet and windy winter’s afternoon, little or no shelter, exposed on the hillside with views as far as the eye could see it wouldn’t be a place to be caught in inclement weather, or in a queue on a Dorset ‘C’ class road!

I’ve made much of late as to how ‘Facebook’ defines me as a ‘visual storyteller’ and I often consider myself more a ‘liar with a lens’ in as much as I rarely manage to photograph anything that doesn’t need a little TLC in the aftermath of my attempts to capture the scene. Today’s efforts have been a point in question, though in my defence I would point to the damp and dismal Bank Holiday weather as something that really warranted a helping hand in the visual stakes. After yesterday’s wonderful warmth and sunshine today has been a woeful, although entirely British, Bank Holiday Sunday and even the thought of spending time in the beautiful parkland at Stourhead paled in the miserable conditions that presented themselves on arrival there this morning. So much so that the wet conditions meant that we didn’t wander the lakeside or the parkland and restricted ourselves to the walled garden, not to mention coffee and cake ( which I often do ) as a reward for our stellar efforts. The rain wasn’t your usual full on deluge type of rain, no, it was more the insidious, cloying mist that chills and envelopes everything and everybody, lowering the temperature and covering your camera lens in droplets that you don’t notice in the viewfinder but become extremely evident in your photo. Which brings me back nicely to the title of this piece, believe me, what you are about to see is entirely a misrepresentation of the scene captured on my memory card. A little warmth and romanticism go an awfully long way in some circumstances and no artist worth his or her salt hasn’t exploited that fact to their advantage at some stage. From John Constable and his reworking of ‘The Haywain’ painting to the skillful manipulations employed by Ansel Adams, the photographic genius, in exposure, development and printing every exponent of art has sought to make the most of their subject by whatever means possible.

Living here in rural Dorset is much like living back ‘home’ in rural Herefordshire, things are relatively simple, if it’s on your doorstep you make the most of it, anything else requires or necessitates transport. There are very few ‘frills or fancies’ but all the essentials are available, food, drink and entertainment, what’s on offer is what you get and you learn to make the most of it. While some things might seem to be in short supply the one thing that is on ample offer is wide open space. The freedom to wander in wonderful countryside taking in glorious views. The ability to escape the hustle and bustle, the hustle and bustle’s there if you want it but it’s easy to escape across the fields or along the riverbank. There’s always something to be seen, or heard, the vista constantly changes due to the weather or the time of day, early mornings or late evenings being my favourite times to wander. There’s a romanticism about the sunrise and sunset that’s hard to find or emulate at any other time of the day, the soft light makes all the difference to the unfolding scenery. Whether you stay on the doorstep here in ‘Stur’ or wander a little further afield the unbridled views to the west from the ridge above Bath Road or higher still along Okeford, Ibberton and eventually Bulbarrow are amazing as the sun sets under immense skies. Views to die for, much akin to the view west from Cockcroft, back home in little old Leominster, watching the sun setting over Westhope, Garnston, Garnons and on to The Black Mountains and into Wales, my adoptive home has much in common with my birthplace it seems. Just like Leominster we’re blessed, and sometimes cursed, here with a river, the River Stour, slow, even in its quicker reaches, still and seemingly deep in its blackness in others, it makes a perfect foil to the high places I’ve already mentioned. Walking it’s banks and taking in its mirror like stillness has a sublimely calming effect. Watching the swans with their cygnets swimming past, seeing the bubbles and ripples on the surface caused by some unseen amphibian seeking a meal from the mayflies and other midges alighting on the waters surface, there’s lots to be seen and enjoyed even in the simplest of things.

After a relatively early start to the day at the fisheries where I managed to get a passable, relatively early morning picture on my phone, yesterday was taken up with the mundane but necessary. Things like cleaning, shopping, hairdressers, all the things that make life comfortable without setting the world on fire, all relatively uninspiring ( other than the hairdressers ) but entirely necessary! Starving and, or, living in a pig sty don’t come high on my ‘ must do’ list I have to admit, though I can live with a little bit of dust and clutter at times. That said, while achieving those things I must admit to keeping an eye on the weather, and as the day wore on there were some very favourable signs of cloud forming which suggested that there might be a reasonable sunset to be had. There’s nothing like a bit of good, old fashioned cloud to add a little ‘something’ to a sunset. The way the dying light reflects off the clouds and colours the evening sky makes such a difference to even the most boring of scenes. With the evening meal and ensuing carnage cleaned away I enjoyed an hour along the riverbank, listening to the wildlife and watching the sun go down over the western horizon, a perfect end to the day.

Everything has it’s time at some stage, sometimes now, some times later, some times generational and on a more regular basis in the natural world, seasonal. Currently we’re fast approaching the poppy season, the days are stretching out, daylight far outweighs the hours of darkness and the warmth of an impending summer season heralds the start of the poppy season for us flower lovers and photographers alike. Already there are signs of them appearing along the roadside verges and in the field margins where the bright oranges, reds and sometimes yellow heads bob in the breeze. Somewhere there’ll surely be a field crop in the landscape, cultivated not for their floral beauty but for their medicinal properties, nonetheless spectacular whatever the reason for them being planted. For a relatively short space of time their time will have arrived, they’ll be photographed and admired, particularly at dawn and dusk when the softer light will render them especially beautiful and social media pages will be inundated with images of them basking in sunlight and swaying on the warm breeze. I have no doubt that I’ll be one of the many seduced by them, I can’t imagine I won’t be out there somewhere trying to capture their fleeting fragility for another season before their short time is cut short. The ‘age of the poppy’ is almost upon us, long live the poppy!

We all have our ‘favourites’ or ‘favorites’, depending on where in the world you might be. From colour ( or color ) to taste, from person to person, our likes and dislikes are many and varied but we all have ‘favourites’. We have ‘favourite’ items of clothing or footwear, we have ‘favourite’ places that we gravitate to. We all ‘favour’ left or right ( as in ‘handed’ or ‘footed’ ) though I’m not sure there isn’t something genetic involved in that together with ‘ left or right eye dominant’, a concept that I hadn’t really considered until being introduced to archery some years ago. It makes a difference and often influences how I view a scene or construct a picture in my mind before translating it to the electronic wizardry that becomes a photograph. I ‘ favour’ my right side, I’m right handed, right footed and right eye dominant but I look through the viewfinder with my left eye ( work that one out ), I usually construct an image with my point of focus to the right of the frame and any active space to the left, again right side ‘favourite’. It gets complicated if you analyse it! Having said all that, my ‘favourite’ shot of yesterday is , paradoxically, left to right orientated…….awkward is my middle name!