Today’s foray was away from the usual countryside and into our county town, Dorchester, where a little retail therapy was the order of the day. Blisteringly hot, blindingly sunny and with a blue sky that wouldn’t go amiss in the South of France Dorchester was resplendent. Having said that, finding anything much of note to photograph presented a challenge and despite it’s potential I struggled somewhat. Whilst light is the photographers friend it can also be his enemy, not enough of it versus too much of it, you just can’t win, it’s a bit like a farmer and the weather, and today’s bright sunlight didn’t do me any particular favours. Over bright in the main and deep shadows causing contrast that took away all the detail in shots, bleaching things out or hiding them in the darkest shadows, thank heaven I don’t rely on my photography to feed me because I might have gone hungry today. Still it was fun trying to come up with something, playing with the shapes provided by the architecture and the contrasting colours of modern day cladding against the dark blue sky. I know I shouldn’t moan, but I will ‘cos I’m British but I couldn’t half do with some cloud cover!

Well, after yesterday afternoon’s washout today has been a day of distinctly three halves! This morning began with all the promise of a glorious day, warm, sunny, everything you could want from a mid May day but as the morning wore on it looked as though the day would cave in. Cloud bubbled up and this afternoon began to look distinctly dodgy, heavy clouds scudded in though the temperature didn’t drop and the atmosphere became distinctly heavy, to the point where a good thunderstorm looked to be on the cards. With that in mind, and after yesterday’s debacle I took myself off into the Dorset countryside with the intention of visiting one new site and revisiting one I’d tried earlier last year. Several friends and acquaintances have visited and photographed the Crawford Bridge at Spetisbury where the bridge spans the river Stour, until today I’ve only driven over it once just to locate it, today I thought I’d stop and see what I could find. A short walk from a convenient parking place gave me a view up and down stream from the bridge itself and a walk through the undergrowth took me down to the riverbank in the shade of a large horse chestnut tree with a great view of the span of the bridge and it’s arches. The warmth had encouraged a small plague of mayflies, small bodies and delicate wings beating a tattoo against my head and arms in the mix of nettles and cow parsley on the riverbank and, across the clear, flowing waters of the river, a heron eyed my presence warily from underneath an overhanging bush while doing what herons do best…fishing. Several reasonably successful shots later ( in my own mind ) it was time to move on to my second location just a couple of miles downstream where the bridge at White Mill, Sturminster Marshall, crosses the river. Again, at this location, the heavy clouds threatened while I stood on the river’s edge among the long grasses and the ferocious nettles that stung through the thickness of my jeans and shirt sleeves while the sticky, muddy margins grabbed at my boots, necessitating careful footing for fear of very wet, muddy feet. The rain came, heavy ponderous spots, splattering on shirt sleeves and camera but by that time I was finished and clambering back up the bank, enough to offer slightly cooler temperatures but, thankfully, not enough to give me anywhere near a soaking as I wandered back to the car. Now as I sit here typing this the sun is shining again, I’m tempted to go up the road for the cricket as it’s so nice out again. As I said at the beginning, a day of distinctly three halves.

What lies beyond? Windows, doorways, stairs, curves in the road, all are devices, it seems, that lead us to ask the question. Psychologically the human mind is geared to be inquisitive, where, why, what, how? It seems that we’re always seeking, always searching for something, an answer, an acquisition, something, anything. We’re insatiable, moving from one thing to the next and then on again in a relentless search for the next item or answer. Is ‘ inquisitive’ indicative of development? By seeking and searching do we as a species progress through asking the question what lies beyond what we already know? There must be evidence that we do, after all, advances in medicine and technology all stem from the desire to reason or understand what happens next, one step beyond current knowledge. It’s irrefutable that our lives have been enriched by asking questions and gaining knowledge. Why then do we , as a species, often seem to make the same historical mistakes that have blighted society and mankind since the moment that we learned to walk upright and hit each other over the head. Sadly,for all our ‘inquisitive’ nature there are times when we don’t seem to have made any progress at all.

I love this new found county of Dorset, if I can call it such having lived here for over three years now. It reminds me of my home county, Herefordshire, and then some. It’s entirely manageable, east to west, north to south, albeit traveling it has it’s issues, especially if you want to get anywhere in a great hurry. Then again that’s very much like Herefordshire. At times it’s a little bit like taking a leap back in time. Despite the cosmopolitan hustle and bustle of Bournemouth and Poole and the ostentation of Sandbanks there are places that appear to have almost stood still in time. It’s almost entirely possible to close your eyes and step back a hundred years, little nooks and crannies where the motor car isn’t visible could be a portal to a bygone age where the horse and cart ruled . I’ll stop short at painting too glossy a picture, idyllic as it seems, life in the rural shires was no picnic, we are but a stones throw from Tolpuddle where the Martyrs formed their illegal tryst in protest at their meagre living conditions in 1834, barely two hundred years ago. Today I’ve visited Symondsbury, an estate just outside Bridport, standing in the quiet country lanes and in the estate yard it’s easy to be transported to the Dorset of Thomas Hardy ( I read the Mayor of Casterbridge in the 1970’s, never imagining I’d end up living on the doorstep. ) with all its charm and beauty. Today all that was missing from the scene was a horse and trap or a shire being shod in the yard.

Yesterday was a trip into the unknown, well, a suburb of Poole in reality. I visited the oft photographed Lake Pier at Hamworthy. I’ve often seen this pier photographed, usually at sunrise or sunset and a very fine photograph it makes as well. However, my visit, as is often the case, was in the middle of the afternoon, thus not ideal to capture the spectacle at its finest. The sun was high and harsh, the tide was out and there were fisherman all over the end of it. I sat on the scooter and surveyed the scene. It certainly is a grand location, Lake Pier is a little bit of a misnomer , it’s the biggest lake I’ve ever seen ( though I’m not wildly travelled and I realise there are bigger and grander stretches of water) in fact it’s not a lake at all, it’s open at one end and the sea flows in and out with reliable regularity, at least twice a day. That said I’m not knocking it, lake or no lake it’s a great location and one that I’ll look to visit at a more opportune time of day or season. I nearly didn’t take a photo at all, procrastination again, it’s hard to take something of any worth if the circumstances aren’t entirely favourable. Then again, it’s a shame not to try just in case you don’t get the chance to revisit for a while, so, half a dozen quick shots with the bridge camera and back on the scooter for the ride home in the sunshine. How good can a day get I ask myself?

Yesterday I alluded to sunset. I said I’d got my fingers crossed hoping for something spectacular. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. Though not as spectacular as the previous evening , or the one before that, it was a magical time of the day once again. We’re lucky enough to live here where the town perches on a ridge looking west as the sun drops over the vale. The slow, old river Stour runs in a curve beneath an uninterrupted view to the horizon, few buildings and almost no visible human incursion for miles, the small village of Stalbridge being the immediate exception and some light pollution from Gillingham in the distance. Other than that it’s rolling fields under huge skies. Down at the riverside with the sun dropping to the horizon it picked up the myriad of insects over the river, thousands of little wings and tiny bodies backlit in the warm,golden glow, swathes of insect life over the dark, still water. Every now and then the surface would break as a fish came to take an unfortunate specimen off the water’s surface, ripples spreading outwards, indicating the unseen life beneath. Somewhere across the river in the meadow a pheasant squawked it’s raucous song, announcing it’s presence to the evening as the darkness began to fall. Moving back up onto the ridge to watch the last of the sun’s rays disappear below the horizon the golden hour lit the feathery clouds and picked out the vapour trail of some aircraft heading west, chasing the dying sun’s last embers. Somewhere below me in the treeline a cuckoo called in the stillness, my second cuckoo of the season so far, it’s song drifting upwards in the warm, late evening air as the night became ever darker until I couldn’t pick out any details and I left to make the walk home in near darkness.

The only word that can describe today’s wonderful weather. Sunshine from the very start of the day and the cold easterly wind that’s plagued us over the weekend seems to be, very definitely, a thing of the past today. Myself I’m looking forward to a glorious sunset, already this afternoon there’s enough cloud in the sky to suggest there’ll be a glorious, golden glow to end the day with. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the biggest issue of the evening will be where exactly to go. Should I seek somewhere high up along the ridge to the south or plump for a wander along the riverbank, decisions, decisions. Why is nothing simple? Looking back through some of the photo’s taken recently at the end of the day doesn’t help much, both locations offer some great opportunities. I guess it’ll be a snap decision as and when I’m ready to go.

Yesterday’s vintage fly-in at the local airfield here at Compton Abbas attracted the crowds and offered some wonderful photographic opportunities. It also allowed me to indulge a technique I’d not used but long admired, that of capturing portrait images in broad daylight using a flash gun to give the illusion of studio work. That’s the technical stuff out of the way. Who wants to read about how the technique works, it’s the results that matter, granted that you need to appreciate the mechanics in order to anticipate, influence and achieve the end product but it’s the image that counts at the end of the day. The opportunity to capture a few portraits also tapped into a thread I’ve been considering for a while. We live in a world obsessed by fame and beauty, the rich, glamorous and beautiful people captivate us to such an extent that there is never a day that passes without images adorning magazines, papers and publications for the gratification of the public desire it seems. Spare a thought for the ordinary person in the street, the ordinary John ( and Jill ) Doe’s, those that pass almost unseen on a daily basis. Lives not necessarily graced by fame, fortune or good looks, ordinary mortals just eking out the daily grind at whatever level of society that fortune ascribes to them. I live in a rural, agricultural area where there are faces, both male and female, that illustrate the landscape quite graphically, the often hard, uncompromising conditions of life etched in the many lines on peoples hands and faces. The older the individual the more intriguing I find them. I wonder what their life stories have held. What untold tales hide behind the lines never to be told or recorded and ultimately lost with the passage of time. Coming from rural stock it has a poignancy , these are the sort of faces I have known all my life. I know it’s the same in all communities, urban or rural agricultural, there are stories scratched deep in the furrowed, lined faces that we will never know but that are just as important as those of the pampered and preening.

I’ve had today’s ‘fly-in’ at Compton Abbas on the radar for several weeks now but right up to this morning I was in two minds whether or not to go. I almost talked myself out of it right at the last minute and then decided I should get my act together and be gone, after all, the weather was as near perfect as it possibly could be for flying, wall to wall sunshine and clear skies. I guess I wasn’t the only one with the same idea. On arrival, minutes after opening time, the queue for the cafe was stretching down the car park like some demented snake….no chance of any coffee before mid morning by the look of it! That said, I have to admit, I hadn’t gone for the coffee, though it’s always welcome. Nor had I really gone for the flying, despite the promise of a good number of vintage aircraft both in the sky and on the ground, always so much more interesting than the modern cigar shaped craft of today and still flying despite being held together with wood glue and wire. No, the lure of the day was the vintage theme, the possibility of people dressed in period costume adorning vehicles of a similar vintage together with a military vehicle entourage as well, perfect fare for some interesting portraits with any luck. I wasn’t disappointed, I had my fill, not too many that it becomes overwhelming and enough good souls who were happy to accommodate me, allowing me a few minutes of their time and posing for the camera, a big thank you to you all.

This morning I surprised myself. Not something that I do very often, surprises at a certain age can be detrimental to one’s health, but this morning I definitely surprised myself. I got up early. Not only did I get up early but I actually took myself out with the camera, something I’ve been threatening to do for a while now. Having said that, from a purely photographic point of view the morning wasn’t as successful as it might have been had I ventured out a couple of hours earlier. However, a four’o’clock alarm call would have been somewhat extreme I feel. As it was the sun was already fairly high in the sky as I parked in Child Okeford and made my way through the churchyard and out onto Manor Drive. The sunlight streamed through the avenue of trees casting beams of light through the boughs and highlighting the remnants of mist in the air. A brisk walk around the meadow and up through the treeline to the base of Hambledon soon warmed away any lingering freshness in the air, though the ground remained heavy with dew.Then the climb, up, slowly, lung bustingly, upwards. One slow footstep after another, treading in the footsteps of thousands that have gone before and worn shallow, and not so shallow, steps in the chalk strewn hillside. Pause for breath and to take in the view westwards across the vale, little villages still sleeping in the early morning sunshine, then onwards once again, ever upwards towards the summit and over the top to the backside of the hill. Out of the shade afforded by the bulk of the hill and into the bright sunlight, streaming across the fields, picking out the hedgerows, the crop lines, the trees peeking through the mist in the valley across to Iwerne Minster. In sharp contrast to the silent, shaded, west side of the hill this easterly view, warmed in the sunlight, was home to a healthy helping of birdlife, all singing as the warmth warmed little wings and in the tree line below a cuckoo called loudly, the first I’d heard this year, announcing the bright new day.