View allAll Photos Tagged exploremore
Lavenham Guildhall is a timber-framed municipal building in Lavenham in Suffolk.
The Guildhall is a Grade I listed building has been called one of the finest timber-framed buildings in Britain.
It was built around 1530 by the Guild of Corpus Christi, a religious organisation of local merchants. It was used by the Guild as a meeting place until the organisation was dissolved in 1560.
It was originally built as a religious meeting place for merchants who grew wealthy as the cloth trade boomed, over the centuries the Guildhall has also been used as a prison, workhouse, chapel, inn, school and social club for US troops stationed nearby during the Second World War.
The streets of Lavenham were used as a background for the scenes in Godric's Hollow in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Lavenham Guildhall was transformed into Harry Potter's parents' derelict house and in the film, Harry visits his parents' graves and their house in Godric's Hollow.
I have to tell you about Dave. Not my brother Dave - you know about him already if you've been reading these adventures and keeping notes. I'm referring of course to the other Dave - the one who procures a wadge of tickets for rugby internationals in exchange for spending half his spare time volunteering at his local club and tells me to stand outside my house and wait to be collected on the evening before the game. On such evenings we will head just past Plymouth to Gareth's house where we will always have a Chinese takeaway before heading to Twickenham the next morning. Dave and Gareth have been doing this in metronome like fashion since they were teenagers in 1972. Greater quantities of beer than I'm used to or are good for me are generally involved. It's a routine I always look forward to, even though I'm a lifelong football nut and only have the vaguest grasp on what's going on in between those strange H shaped posts during the big match. Somehow I've been inveigled into their gang by stealth. I feel like the slightly younger clueless looking one on "Last of the Summer Wine." Apologies if you're not from the UK or you're under 45 as that last statement isn't going to mean anything to you.
Dave likes music as well. Because he's twelve years older than me he's seen all the bands I love the most. He was there to see the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon and John Bonham before they succumbed to their excesses. Just recently he shared with me a poster from the Bath Blues and Rock festival of 1970 where he saw among others, Led Zeppelin, Santana and Pink Floyd. Gareth usually went with him to events such as this so I tend to get the stories in stereo to make me even more envious of their superior vintages. Sometimes I wish he just wouldn't tell me stuff like this. I was only 4 and my parents wouldn't have let me go anyway. Besides which I hadn't fully familiarised myself with all of their albums at that stage. I was still busy getting to grips with Bill and Ben.
Dave is a useful person to know, but at the same time I've become accustomed to knowing that his call will result in substantial amounts of open wallet surgery, in exchange for which I will be entertained. One day he told me to book a long weekend because we were off to see the Foo Fighters at the Olympic Stadium in London. Flights, accommodation, river trips and a Billy Idol concert the following night in Brixton cost me the price of a decent second hand L lens, but it was three days I won't forget in a hurry.
Two days later, with a head full of tunes and a soul full of memories from as fantastic weekend as it's possible to achieve with two men in their mid 60's, I looked outside the window as the plane came in to land at Newquay. The sky was doing beautiful things and I was stuck in the air. I sighed as I gazed at an intense orange sunset through the plate glass window.
So the following evening, Lee, Dave - my brother Dave this time - and I headed to Bedruthan and watched the sun disappear behind a bank of cloud in an unpromising sky. We looked at each other doubtfully and groaned about having missed the previous evening. But as in the song, just as you think it's all over and you're about to head for the pub, something happens in the sky and suddenly it was all worthwhile. Well those aren't the exact words to the song but, you know.....
“Grandad look. The stream, the stream!” There was always a pause for effect. “And then he fell in.” We could never pass that spot in the lane without my Grandad telling me about the moment my cousin Mark, on a visit from Ireland got over excited and ended up going headlong into the freezing cold water. It was part of the ritual in a place where for a few years at least, time stood still and the summers were seemingly endless. Each August we came to the edge of the village where my Great Grandmother had spent most of her life and stayed in the cottage at the end of the lane next to the big barn where the swallows swooped and dived with unmatched elegance across the farmyard all summer long. I just about remember her, not much bigger than me, sitting in the parlour, her skin almost translucent, her white hair in a bun. “Are you a hundred yet Great Granny?” “Not quite yet. Nearly.” Born when Victoria was still on the throne she seemed impossibly old to my childish eyes. Most of the time now she lived in London with her youngest son, Great Uncle Bill, the rich one who’d done rather well in the antiques trade.
On the day of arrival I’d race across the yard and into the fields as soon as I could be excused from unpacking, running towards the brook to explore and paddle, dodging cow pats as I went. Often I’d venture further to the lower fields where the River Tavy would pour across the landscape loudly, sliding down over mossy boulders and spilling into quiet slowly moving stretches of deeper water where we’d swim on hot afternoons. I'd see how far along its course I could go without treading onto either bank, leaping from one partially submerged boulder to another in a game of daredevil hopscotch in an attempt to beat last year's record. Rarely did I return without at least one soaking wet sock and shoe, and very often the ever present herd of bullocks would thwart my progress. In true Mexican stand-off style, they’d fix me with thirty or more pairs of staring brown eyes, blinking silently, never budging an inch, and I’d stare back at them in a state of soft alarm. If I was coming back from the fields I’d be trapped, and more than once I’d traipse around the long way and walk through the village back to the lane, one foot squelching loudly as I went. If Grandad was with me, he’d cry “Get away with you,” in his unmistakable Cork lilt, and wave his walking stick at them, at which point they’d silently part and allow us through.
The summer of ’76 is the one we still talk about in Britain nearly fifty years later. That long hot dry spell brought a glut of enormous blackberries to the hedgerows of Dartmoor, so much so that I overdid it and was sent to bed with an upset stomach, which was by now probably full of all sorts of interesting invertebrate life. So clearly during my convalescence I remember watching through the bedroom window as those first gentle rains finally arrived to repair the cracked earth and revive the walled garden that the neighbour, Mr Edwards tended with such love and care. Apparently the garden belonged to us rather than him, although you’d never have guessed it. With my Great Grandmother mostly away in London, he’d taken command and we were only allowed in by special invitation and firmly instructed not to touch anything. Outside his realm he was far more affable; we’d often take Trixie, his Cocker Spaniel on our adventures across the fields, and he once invited me and my little brother David around to watch the athletics on the television. Brendan Foster was running – he’d got a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Montreal a few weeks earlier. My parents had allowed me to stay up late that evening to watch it.
A regular treat was to venture up the slopes along the side of the stream to the Combe, to spend the day at the Mill Pond, where we’d swim and hardly ever see another soul. My parents began to make sailing boats by lashing together bits of fallen wood, ripping up old sheets to make sails so that we could race them across the Mill Pond, naming the fastest of their craft the “Ra” and the “Kon-Tiki” in deference to Thor Heyerdahl’s exploits on the Atlantic. And then we invented the sport of Weeble racing. Remember “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down?” We’d each drop our favoured Weeble into the water from a starting point together, and see whose charge made it to the finishing line first. Often the sport would be marred by shameful cheating on all of our parts as our entrants were dislodged from a fallen branch or a rocky impasse and “helped” a few yards along the water when nobody else was watching, and tragically we would regularly lose members of our Weeble population. In the great Weeble disaster of August 1978, Farmer Weeble, Wendy Weeble , Fireman Weeble and Sailor Weeble were all lost in a single afternoon. You would have thought at least that Sailor Weeble might have found his way down into the Mill Pond, but he’s surely still up there, wedged under a rock, taunted by trout. Each time a Weeble was lost, a solemn service would be held and Mum would offer a heartfelt eulogy on the loss of yet another unwitting lump of plastic with a lead weight inside. We often wondered how many of them might find their way down to Plymouth and pop up under the Tamar Bridge on their lonely way to the English Channel. Sir David Attenborough soon crossed us off his Christmas card list when he heard what we’d been doing to the environment.
On the way back, we’d sometimes stop at the pub garden where my parents would drink Theakston’s Old Peculiar and Mum would soon start giggling a lot. If I were lucky, I might be allowed a sip from her glass. Sometimes we might have a pasty too. I’d been teaching David how to do the triple jump in the fields, and one evening he decided to try his technique in that pub garden, landing with both feet very neatly into a cow pat the size of a small dustbin lid. Annoyed at having his Old Peculiar interrupted, Dad frogmarched him back to the cottage by his ear while the rest of us tried to contain our laughter.
When the old lady died, my Grandparents, who lived fifty odd miles away in North Devon kept the cottage and each summer we would arrive for two weeks to rediscover the old haunts and roam across the fields, dodging cow pats and keeping away from the bullocks. I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere else; I had everything I needed here. And then in 1982 I was told that my Grandmother had decided to sell, despite pleading from the family to keep it. We’d hoped she might let it to visitors, but ignoring the evidence of our own love for the place, she was convinced everyone wanted to go to the seaside for their holidays. A buyer was found, and that October Mum took us out of school for a final two week stay at the place that held nothing but the best and happiest memories. In the last days of that wistful autumn sojourn I’d open my bedroom window over the paddock and watch the swallows flitting in and out of their nests under the eaves of the barn as they made their final preparations for the long journey south to a warmer winter. While the lucky ones would return, for us it was the last time we’d wander over those fields and down to where the River Tavy hid countless Weebles. Never again would we go to the village shop for sweeties, and hold running races along the lane back to the cottage. Never again would Dad fall into the river and lie midstream on his back after three pints of Old Peculiar on a boiling August afternoon, my four year old sister who he was carrying sitting on his chest with a bemused expression, while the rest of the family hooted with laughter. Nor would Mum suddenly cry out “Orange sunset!” and go chasing across the yard towards the fields with her Instamatic, parting the watching herd of bullocks in her wake. Never again would Grandad tell me about when Mark fell into the stream with that old Irish twinkle in his eye. Every year when we came home I felt terribly sad at leaving the moors behind us, but when we finally left on that late October afternoon, the journey back felt like a funeral cortege; the end of an era we'd never be able to return to. It was a loss we never really came to terms with.
But all that time I hadn’t really noticed that a deep and lasting love had crept up and encircled me in its web for the rest of my life. The green fields and the ever rustling trees filled with birdsong; the rush of ice cold water over slippery rocks; the graceful acrobatics of the swallows and even those wretched staring bullocks. The sense of being out there alone, surrounded by Mother Nature’s unmatched beauty. Nothing material could ever match what the natural world offered, and all of the passion the landscape now holds for me was forged in that handful of fields over forty years ago. Everywhere I went in later life would be measured against the benchmark of bucolic bliss that those six childhood summers at the edge of the village had brought. No greater accolade could be made than that of making a favourable comparison to the place where we’d always gone on holiday without giving anywhere else a thought. Dartmoor is still only ninety minutes away on a good day; wild, untamed and unconditionally beautiful, although the village I usually now avoid. Now and again we find our way back to the open moors where the mist creeps over you without warning and then just as suddenly breaks to reveal the landscape in the distance. Just like it did on top of Great Staple Tor when we took our first tentative steps out into the world in the campervan last summer. For a moment we were completely shrouded, lost to the world up there on our own with a flock of grazing sheep, while somewhere down in the folds of the land below us a young boy walked in perfect sunshine along a quiet lane past a blackberry laden bramble hedgerow, one shoe full of river water as he watched the dancing swallows race low over his head and wondered whether just one more search for Sailor Weeble might be worth a try.
One of the best places I visited this year and I am grateful to hike up to this alpine wilderness of Colorado＇s San Juan Mountains
Exploring what you have seen a thousand times before...
I am actually doing exactly that here in Lacanau-Océan, Aquitaine, France.
Shot with the Sony Deutschland A7R3, 100-400 GM lens, Rollei C5i tripod.
New photographic workshop online on my web page!
Prints for sale!
Cheers
Michael
.
.
.
.
.
#Frankreich #France #sony #nature #outdoor #exploremore #wonderful_places #travelawesome #followmefaraway #welivetoexplore #lonelyplanet #thattravelblog #traveltheworld #chasinglight #justgoshoot #toldwithexposure #ontheblog #landscape #MichaelSchaake #sonyalpha #sonyphotogallery #rollei
Taken through a window of a restaurant in Chinatown, a chef is preparing meals for their customers. Taken with a Canon r5 and a 50mm lens.
We had finally made it to Steptoe Butte. After driving up the winding hills and recovering from dizziness, we were welcome by some extreme wind! Thinking it would die down, I walked around the area looking at wildflowers and soaking in the views, and bugs. The wind had never really gave in, so I just shot handheld with my 200-500mm. After a short while I found a spot that gave me some good cover from the wind. I set up my tripod and was able to pop off a series of shots as the sky decided to blow up! The colors lasted for a good half hour and then it was dark across the land. After catching my breath we packed up and descended down the mountain. I am already aching to return, to catch that golden light!
Palouse, Washington
photomanm.com/personal-photography-project-architecture-t...
Architecture the light #23
Hong Kong, 2022
.
When you are in a dense building, you can often see the rooftop of the buildings.
.
.
works by photomanm
discover more at photomanm.com/
Pico do Areeiro | Madeira
This really looked like Odin & Thor would wave "Hello" every second... this was a viewpoint in the "Paul do Serra" area, where, with a bit luck and the right weather, you can catch this awesome sight of the mountain-tips breaking through the clouds.
Photographed on the River Stour near Dedham early one misty morning. The calm water, golden morning light, and the elegant swan created a dreamlike scene. Recently reprocessed using the latest Camera Raw and Photoshop to bring out more detail and atmosphere.
(EXIF: ƒ/9.0 | 32mm | 1/60s | ISO 400 | EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM)
Strolling through the historic streets of Wil, soaking up the timeless charm and golden sunrise. The Rathaus and its vibrant flags add a touch of history to this picturesque scene. 🇨🇭✨
---
Visit me on www.patrikseiler.com
www.artheroes.ch/de/shop-bilder/Patrik-Seiler/202120
---
A son and his dad walking along a creek at Watkins Mill State Park. Taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Waterfalls and Summer go hand in hand! Don’t you agree?
Beautiful and famous Sol Duc Falls from my trip to Olympic National Park…
It was quite a challenge to capture this turbulent flow of water and doing a long exposure to catch the smooth flow of water and also there was a lot of haze with the light (which helped in my edit though) and the water particles as a result a beautiful partial rainbow in the making..
Somewhere in the middle of Wednesday morning I peered through a mild headache at the list of half term jobs I'd jotted down in my notebook. I was feeling tired and bored to the end of my wits with the banality of work and endless deadlines. November is possibly the most intense few weeks of the entire year for me, and though it's the last time I have to go through it before half a lifetime of spreadsheets comes to an end, I'm not looking the slightest bit forward to it. Seriously, if you're considering accountancy for a living, I urge you to think again. If you're thinking of taking your accountancy skills into the world of education - just don't do it. Or at least don't stay forever like I have. Maybe I'm just suffering from burnout after more than thirty years of endless nine to five, but it is exceptionally tedious almost all of the time. I tried to talk my son into doing something more interesting for a living, but he ignored my advice and followed me into this world. I tried anyway.
What cheered me though was that there were ticks beside most of the items on this list. I read the entries one more time and noted that the scariest items were all marked as either complete or as far underway as possible. "At least when term resumes I've got a head start," I reasoned to myself, and with that came a rare moment of spontaneity. "Can you manage if I take a couple of days off?" I asked Katie, my wonderful deputy. "Of course. You need a rest." After all she has to look at me every day so she can tell better than just about everyone else when I need a break.
And so here I am, sitting at home with a small vat of coffee after a delightful Thursday adventure with Lee, which included an all day breakfast with what must surely be the best view from a supermarket cafe in Britain (Sainsbury's in Penzance if you need to ask) and a wander to a predictably people packed Land's End to make some test shots for Longships lighthouse, to which we'll return in more suitable conditions later in the winter. We certainly won't be returning while they try to charge us seven quid to park for an hour there anyway. We drove back down a road for half a mile and parked along a side road before walking back.
We'd planned to finish here at Sennen Cove in the knowledge that the high tide would bring some drama to the breakwater. It's always worth an outing when the sea is in a bad mood. What we weren't prepared for as we drove down the big hill into the cove was the sight of three figures leaping from the breakwater into the protected harbour area as a huge wave hit it. Surely we'd imagined it. Who'd do a crazy thing like that a day after a storm that had brought thirty foot high waves to the Cornish coast?
We hadn't imagined it. Four local lads, none of them older than about fifteen, spent the next hour clambering onto the narrow wall and leaping into the water beneath them at the moment each roller hit the breakwater in front of a large number of onlookers. It struck me that if any of them somehow ended up on the western side of the breakwater they'd be in terrible trouble, possibly with fatal results, but this thought didn't appear to have occurred to them. Maybe I'm just getting old - I suspect they do this a lot at high tide and they probably wait for days like this. I won't be trying it myself in any case.
Later on, when to my relief I'd counted all four of them leaving the scene and heading for home they were replaced by an enormous seal at the water's edge drawn here by a lone angler bracing his rod against the ever energetic flow beneath him. If there were any fish to be had, my money was on the seal. The light faded, the onlookers moved on, and with more than enough raw files to try and choose one from our work was done. It had been so much more fun than eight hours of staring at a computer in confusion. I've decided that once the worst of the next few weeks is done I'm going to have another long weekend too.
Happy Friday everyone - enjoy your weekends.