Chez Spud

Playing along with Jane of Spain Daily, and her Corner View. This week it’s ‘A Place of Reflection’.

Controversially, I snapped this with my old Sony P&S. The Nikon is thus sulking and pretending not to care, but I can tell that she’s hurting inside. Don’t worry trusty Nikon, it was a spontaneous shot..I was pig feeding…making them talk to Extranjera re wig preferences…pig whispering if you like? Then I spotted ‘the shot’, what’s a girl to do but point & shoot? Don’t be hurt, I still love you the most…fret not..it’s me not you..kiss and make up?

This is my office. If I was remotely creative I’d call it my studio, damn I wish I was creative. But it’s definitely a place of reflection both figuratively and, because of all the glass, literally. The desk is in the corner pointing away from the fabulous view down the fields. When I sit on the sofa to ‘do some reading’ I inevitably end up doing nothing, just watching the world go by. Although that seems to involve watching foxes pick off baby bunnies at the moment, sob.

I’m off to soothe the Nikon somemore. Nikon whispering…

Edited to add more photos, none of the inside, it’s REALLY boring! Think, peach swirly wallpaper. Hmm, redecorate?

At the bottom of the garden..office to the right

On the day it was installed...looking rather bare!

Edited again…Nikon wanted to show what she can do…clearly feeling threatened by the Sony P&S. Sheesh, talk about insecure…

Nikon has the final word

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I’ve had to cheat for this week’s assignment, although I am well practiced in the art of cheating of course. I sallied forth in to the Big Town ready to snap ‘Music’, but it seems the people of Ipswich were feeling quiet and contemplative today…the music man was definitley not ‘down our way’ today.

So here is a view from my corner a few weeks ago …a very British celebration of May Day including morris dancing and maypole dancing. I absolutely LOVE morris dancing and wish I’d been born a man so I could grow a really funky beard and join in.

It’s very hard to explain morris dancing. It involves grown men dressing up with ribbons on their socks and then doing synchronised handkerchief waving (ideally clean ones)

then kind of skipping around a bit

and then beating each other with sticks

Pretty odd huh? In most normal places such activities would be considered somewhat ‘fringe’, verging on the illegal even or at least confined to dingy basement bars at the wrong end of town. Not so here and thus respectable, upstanding members of the community get to dress up and indulge in sado-masochistic beviour in full public view at the weekend. Only in England.

So the music? It tends to be folksy, of course, and generally involves a fiddle or two and an accordion. This troupe had some kind of homemade stringed instrument too – surely he knocked this up in his shed?

Also, it’s imperative that the band get all boozed up during the dancing. And it must be Real Ale, on the warm side. That is The Law.

But if you think that lot were on the eccentric side, check out the next act, the maypole dancers. Seriously, I have never EVER seen such outfits, it was like watching a road traffic accident. My eyes, my eyes…

It’s the stuff of nightmares…run for your lives!

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• A place of reflection
• Corner View – Street Fashion
• Photo 366 – Week 1
• Competition! Win a family portrait shoot courtesy wish.co.uk
• Bluebell Wood Walk

I really wanted to play along with Jane of Spain Daily’s ‘Corner View’ project – and this week it’s ‘Street Fashion’. A leetle beeeet of a challenge when you live in sleepy Suffolk and the predominant fashion du jour is, well, beige. Beige beige beige everywhere you look, not really a surprise given that our town has a gracefully aging and rather gentile feel about it. I had doubts I’d find anything remotely colourful or interesting to shoot, and decided to leave the Nikon at home in favour of the brilliant Camerabag application on my iphone.

I absolutley LOVE this app and have had a lot of fun shooting candids and street photography with it when I’m working in London. It does crash with boring frequency but it’s so cool you forgive it. Basically it applies various filters to your iphone’s camera, and lets you view the various treatments on a photo before you save it. My favourites are the helga (a kind of holga effect), lolo, instant and cinema. It’s a fun little app which helps detract you from the fact that the iphone camera is pretty rubbish – although I hear the soon to be launched new iphone will rectify this. Huzzah, I neeeeeeeeeed one. You know, for my ‘art’.

So back to street fashion. Here are a series of snaps from my archive, all taken in London, in and around Soho where fashion is already out of fashion. Look how dark they all are, black, grey, gritty, urban….kind of dirty?

Nice bag, Paul Smith? This is ’1974′

Naughty smokers…this one is ‘cinema’

This one is very cool..check out that huge sunflare! Plus union jack, ra ra ra…this is ‘instant’

Legs eleven…here come the girls…’instant’ again

And finally, from London, this cool statue…actually this was taken in the City…statues, love it. This one is ‘Helga’

So back to today and the sea of beige. I really thought I’d have to give up when all of a sudden little glimpes of COLOUR started appearing:

Oooh, another nice bag…Cath Kidson? Check out the 6th formers in the background…

Oh, yet another nice bag…spotted in the bakery…check out the cakes in the background

This is more like it! We’re on a roll now…this little girl was in full princess outfit. Her mother gave me ‘that’ look when I smiled at her. The weary ‘It wasn’t worth the argument, she can come out in her pyjamas for all I care as long as she behaves’.In the bakery again…a cake may accidentally have fallen in to my bag while I was there…

Oh, special, ankle socks and colour…and all on a grown woman…special mention for effort I think…although also a possible entrant in to the ‘crimes against fashion’ category (possibly a future Corner View theme?)

But, drumroll, the winner is….these fabulous pair of red shoes…ah, no wait, that’s me…those are my shoes…taken in a desperate moment when I thought I’d come home with only a Sea of Beige to show

No the real winner is this fabulous GUY. Oh, he was smart he was sassy he was stripes he was gold buttons he was burnished brown lace ups he was tall he was handsome he was slim he was winsome he was foppish he was dandy and, oh, he was also about 18. Damn, another Street Crush crushed by the mortifying realisation that the Object of Crush was young enough to be my son.

Well, this is as much of him as I snapped before I melted in to a puddle of crush love on the pavement. I love this photo, stripes, blue, angles..it’s all going on.

So, lovers of street photography who have an iphone, embrace Camerabag. Or, splash out, and get yourself to Photojojo and buy yourself a Spy Lens. Go on, because you’re worth it.

If you liked that, you might like this ...

• A place of reflection
• Corner View – Music
• Photo 366 – Week 1
• Competition! Win a family portrait shoot courtesy wish.co.uk
• Bluebell Wood Walk