Lyme Regis

The lab took a day off to visit Lyme Regis and Charmouth in Dorset. Let's just say I will be going back. And its only partly because I miss the sea.

Fossil hunting

Erica gets the fossil of the day award

Ammonite pavement

I keep ending up in Cornwall somehow

Meet Your Neighbours: Niall Benvie and Clay Bolt's call for a worldwide documentation of species

Here is something interesting for you, especially if you are a local wildlife photographer like I was. I quote directly from Benvie's article on the Nature photographers website:

"Common neighbourhood plants and animals are usually overlooked and undervalued, yet they are most people’s first, sometimes only, point of contact with wild nature. They matter for that reason if no other. They can make us feel better, let us see ourselves in perspective.

We want people to sit up and take notice of these wild neighbours by presenting them as celebrities: photographed in the white field studio, in exquisite detail under beautiful lighting. And we need photographers around the world to partner with us in this effort."

Here's a link to the website: Go there and have a look at and then join in the effort!

City folk

Less than half an hours walk away from my house in Bristol, there is this. It's taken me months to get there. May tell you something of what things are like. I won't complain about good fortune though. For those that this is news (and care), pending a few formalities, I have a fellowship and will be starting my first formal post-doc here in a few months. Yea!

Red deer in Ashton court, Bristol

Nick Veasey: X-ray photographer

Nick Veasey is my next unusual wildlife photographer. If you don't quibble that is, about him not really taking 'photographs' of 'wildlife'. He sure has an unusual and beautiful vision. Its his work on the Adobe boxes. Find out about his working methods in this TED talk which is how I stumbled on him.

 

I was a photographer once

And that long time ago I made some pictures that were made into a book. This is a preview of that book, should you want to see it and pass it on to friends who have not seen the book or the pictures.

I'm sorry I don't update the blog anymore. I really don't feel like a photographer anymore. I take photographs but its not the same thing really. If I do begin again, you'll be among the first to know. Until then enjoy the preview or the review whichever it is for you.

N

Work

Work is something I've been thinking about for a little while. I had no insights at all to be entirely honest. I have a few vague notions about how to approach it. I didn't have any questions clearly formulated so no good digging. Then I heard Alain de Botton was going to talk about work at the festival of ideas in Brizzle. I thought I would go and then predictably forgot. Ever since if I stumble on an article or talk video I watch it. This one was worth sharing.

It articulates so clearly why I hate the word 'loser'. And so many other things. Listen to him. Now I need to pick up the book.

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

Secret Lives: floating around the net

Hey there,

A few people have told me recently that a pdf of the entire book has been passed around the net. Be nice guys, that was a lot of work and is important to me. It's not meant to be viewed as a pdf on a screen, which is most likely uncalibrated and far too small to do the images justice.

Besides passing a copy around like that means someone, somewhere, can poach my images and use them without permission or payment. I'm assuming that most of you that read this wouldn't want that to happen to me. So if you have a copy or know who has one and is passing it around, delete it, ask the person to delete it. If you know the source of the leak plug it and let me know who it was, and I'll offer the person a good piece of my mind. And then get a copy of the book!

Thanks,
Natasha

At the top of the world, everything is falling down.

Gomuranjan in Zanskar

What can I tell you about the Himalayas that you don't already know? The Himalayas are falling down. At an astonishing rate. In the time we were there we saw 5 or 6 avalanches and landslides. We heard a few more at night from the illusory safety of our tents. If the mountains continue to grow, they grow faster than they fall down, which you imagine is an astonishing feat when you see the rubble that litters the Zanskar valley.

We walked into the Zanskar valley over the Shingo-La pass after having started from Palamo, near Darcha. When we reached Kargiyak a tiny village in the valley, we stopped, stayed a day and then we walked back. It was all accomplished in 9 days. No part of the walk was lower than 4000 m above sea-level and the pass was just over 5000m. It took a while to get used to so little oxygen, it took even longer to get used to the weight of the packs. I never did get used to it, I got helped a lot. The dust made me stumble all the time. The dust got everywhere. I've decided I hate snow, particularly sun-melted, soft snow, but really all snow.

But the pain was always forgotten when we pitched camp and when I looked around. I forgot a lot, my mind stopped whirring. I was tempted, no matter how briefly, to go live in Kargiyak and teach in the Sun school there. I found myself partial to mountain men. I fell in love a few times, facilely. I laughed at myself what I hoped was enough. A lot of things that would normally have been mundane, felt magical. Although I was exhausted with the traveling and the contingent living by the end, I would gladly resume now. Eat, walk, pitch camp, eat, relax, eat, sleep, resume- it's a pleasant rhythm to live by. It helps that where I am now feels equally adrift and contingent.

Lots of things happened, exciting, strange, bizarre, even mundane, as they do when you walk through strange places that are almost inaccessible to the world outside. I'll might tell you sometime. Here are a few images in place of the words.

Zho/Dzo in Kargiyak

A lake at the top of the Shingo-La pass

Walking to Khi

Walking to Khi

Gompa in Kargiyak

Come here, Sunshine

We went for a walk in Leigh woods again yesterday. The flowers are different ones now, bramble and honey-suckle. The copper beeches were the colour of old clotted blood. We saw a roe deer and swung on our swing which was new and improved this time. The rain had beaten the garlic down and the woods still smelt of it from the broken stems. But we were happiest and staring like little children in wonderment when we saw Sunshine.

Here is Sunshine, and you might see why we were so pleased.

What a beautiful bird! What an amazing sight to see this bird flying behind this gent's car down a road through the woods. It landed on the car which went up and down that stretch giving it a nice flying session a few times.

I am no fan of exotic pets. The wildlife trade is very destructive and kills a lot of animals. But apparently there are many parrots that are bred at the country of destination and are not imported which is the major cause of mortality and morbidity in such pets. I hope this is one of those. It surely was a beautiful and healthy looking bird. And much more surprising than the peacocks I heard in Cornwall.

I kept hoping to see the parrot and owner as a pirate at the Combustion club, but sadly no.

Someday

Some day if I get really good, or lucky, or some combination thereof, I will be able to say this about one of my pictures: "But I'm not at all bored of talking about it."

Leigh woods

Bluebells in Leigh woods

I went walking in Bristol's Leigh woods this last weekend. Quite the beautiful English woods. Hazel, Hawthorn, Sticky willy, Beech, Yew, Laurel, Oaks and Ivy, Nick, my flatmate told me the names of the trees and plants we saw because I lamented not knowing their names. Then he ruthlessly quizzed me on them and tut-tutted at my poor recall. Pointed out a badger hole, no badger though. Freshly hatched flies swarming over water. The ferns were unfurling from the ground. There were buttercups here and there. I saw for the first time the ground under the trees carpeted with bluebells.

And with garlic! The woods even smelled of garlic!

Garlic in Leigh woods

Enthusiasms

Bristol's not full of graffiti or street art, or at least no more or rather less than other European cities that I have seen (few that I have seen). But it does boast one rather famous artist, Banksy. I have seen a few of his, one at the end of the post, but here's just a few others from around home and work.

This one from a closed pub down the street I live on.
It resonated a lot with how I feel right now.

On the wall of the Highbury Vaults, an old and lovely little pub with a garden full of
metal statues of animals, that we used to go to often. Reputedly the place where
some criminals who were to be hanged went for their last meal.

And the famous Banksy on Park street, on the walls of a sexual health clinic.

One rainy day in Bristol

I looked out my kitchen window and this was what I saw. (Go on click on the image to see it full size.) (I feel like I am breaking a nice little rule or two here.) It's a good portion of the Clifton end of the city of Bristol. And a big red thing, red and gray thing, that looks a bit like a missile, sticking out of the top of a building.

That building is the Royal West of England Academy and it's hosting Crimes of Passion, a street art show. I finally couldn't wait any longer (sorry, V) and went and saw it. Here's a few favourites from the show (Urban wildlife included.)

There are a few that there is no use reproducing here, cause they have to either be seen at that size or up close, or are very very Bristol. You have to see them for yourself, like the Bristol city dinosaur and associated map and the red, black and yellow Bristol images.

Glorify and Persecute

First lessons(?)
The Helpful Panda
The things I miss the most right now
Bacchanal (The things I don't) Rings a bell somehow

Escheresque?
And here come the beasties: Bag lady
The chav
The can eater
And finally, the drunk (!) cans: the prey species