Do The Leafdance, Baby!

Were you "leafdancing" with me on my last post? You probably thought it was all very complicated to achieve but actually many of those shots could be taken quite easily on a point and shoot camera (were, in fact,  taken on a point and shoot camera, albeit a Lumix) and only needed the kind of manipulation which can be done with a simple photofix program like Windows Photo Gallery that was supplied with Vista, or Windows Live Photo Gallery which is freely available for XP, Vista and Windows 7. Or, as they say on TV, other programs are available!

First of all take yourself and your camera to an autumn woodland - or anywhere with some colourful scenery.....

.....on a dull day your pictures will come out looking like this - dull! And if you try to photograph the leaves in close-up they'll probably be dull and blurred; the slow shutter speed has not been fast enough to stop the movement of the leaves or to eliminate camera-shake.....

Time to try something different. How about, if rather than trying to hold the camera still in a vice-like grip, you waggle it about? Round and round, side to side, up and down, backwards and forwards. It's OK, no one's watching - experiment! These are the kind of tricks we had to employ to try to get something unusual from 35mm cameras in pre-digital days. Occasionally we got something interesting, mostly we wasted lots of film. But, hey, with digital you can keep shooting till the battery runs out!

Mmmm, well, interesting. The movement of the camera has given lots of intriguing blurred effects - impressionistic, dreamy. But it's also muddied all the colours and seems to have thoroughly disorientated the light-metering system. Lets see if we can rescue something with a bit of computer tinkering....

                                                                           .....a bit more contrast might help.

                                                                                 .....and more colour saturation.

That's quite nice but for some reason the colours don't look very autumnal. Hang on, we can change the colour temperature, warm it up, more reds and browns....

                                                                                                         ....getting there!

I'd probably crop the image a bit. Like this.

Of course you can go completely crazy if you like....

                                                                                No, probably not a good idea!

But I could have made a fortune designing album covers for Jimi Hendrix!

Take care.

Leafdancing

November morn as I looked out at the same old dreary skies

Through the same old dirty window pane and the same old bleary eyes

There was silver frost on every rooftop, gold on every tree

My old friend the autumn time he's coming home to me

Winter he's a miserly chap who seldom sings a song

And the Spring is just a youthful tune that will not last for long

The Summer he's a showman - slick and brightly dressed

But the Autumn sings the old time songs that I admire the best

So here comes Autumn

Raggedy and brown

With his boots all cracked and broken down

'Cause he's been tramping twelve month round

Now he's come to call again.

Take care.

"The Answer To The Call"

Evening Rain

It had to happen of course. After the glorious, bright autumn weather of the last week or two we are now paying the price. England is grey, gloomy and dismal. It's been as Bill Bryson described it so wittily "like living inside some Tupperware". It's been a day to be indoors with the lights on. So just in case anyone was wondering what Cambridge looks like on a November evening I took my camera out for a trip in the drizzle....

the girl with the pink umbrella

mr grafton's gas lamps

on the corner of the market square

kings' college chapel

(tradesmen's entrance!)

a load of old cobbles

the university bookshop

impressions of senate house passage

passing shadows

the days of the summer have gone, my friend

three through the rain

even the undergrads were indoors studying

Take care.

Indoor Fireworks

not the real thing of couse

just computer trickery

Take care. 

With A Too-rye-ah...

The folk revival in Britain threw up all kinds of unlikely heroes, none more unlikely than a Donegal man born in 1917, Packie Manus Byrne. He'd grown up on a remote farm and had absorbed the local songs, tunes and stories from his family and neighbours. Many people played the fiddle in Donegal but Packie preferred something he could carry with him at all times and chose the tin-whistle as his lifelong companion. Probably as important as his store of  words and melodies was his jovial and likable personality; an evening spent in the company of Packie always left you with a smile.

Packie Byrne soon left the family farm and, like thousands of his countrymen, came to England to seek his fortune. Here he worked as a railwayman, sax player in a dance band, steeplejack, circus hand, actor, builder and salesman. He also took periodic trips back to Ireland  where he got involved in cattle rustling and smuggling tea across the Irish border! But Packie fell seriously ill and it was while convalescing that he once again became interested in the traditional music of Ireland. He won a ballad singing competition and sang at a folk festival where he was overwhelmed by the reception he received. For the next twenty years he became a regular fixture in many folk clubs and festivals mixing together old ballads, comic songs,whistle tunes and stories.

Now what got me thinking of Packie Byrne after all these years? Well, I titled a recent blog "As I Rode Out" and got a comment back from "Morning's Minion" (follow the link if you like fine writing and cats) asking if it was a quote from a song. I soon found myself humming a song that I'd not thought about in many a long year. A song which a friend had surreptitiously taped during a performance by Packie. I learned the song and used to sing it from time to time. It's probably changed a bit over the years; that tends to happen. Anyway this is what I remember:

The Creel

As I rode out on a moonlit night excitement for to find

Who should I meet but a pretty little girl and I asked her to be mine

With a too-rye-ah fol-de-do-a-dah

Too-rye-ah skip folly-doodle-doop

Tol-aye-do

And it's how can I get to your chamber, love, and how can I get to your bed?

"Well, my father locks the doors at night and the keys lie under his head"

With a too-rye-ah...

"But if you get you a ladder sixty feet, sixty feet and three

You could place it up to the chimerney pot, come down in a creel to me"

With a too-rye-ah...

So I got me a ladder sixty feet, sixty feet and three

And I placed it up to the chimerney pot and down in the creel comes me

With a too-rye-ah...

But no peace nor ease could the old man get till he got up to see

But as soon as he opened the bedroom door it's under the bed jumps me

With a too-rye-ah...

Then no peace nor ease could the old woman get till she's got up to see

But her foot took a shot at the chamber pot and into the creel fell she

With a too-rye-ah...

So I jumps out from beneath the bed and gived that creel a haul

Which broke six ribs in the poor woman's side and knocked a bloody great hole in the wall

With a too-rye-ah...

I rocked her up and I rocked her down, I rocked her here and there

For any old woman that refuses her daughter should be rocked to you know where!

With a too-rye-ah fol-de-do-a-dah

Too-rye-ah skip folly-doodle-doop

Tol-aye-do

I checked my memories of Packie Byrne and learned some new things too on http://rogermillington.com/index.html which has lots of further information including some of Packie's stories, check out the "tall tale" Weird Antiques.

A short snatch of Packie's singing, including the first verse of "The Creel" can be found at http://www.musicscotland.com/cd/Packie-Byrne-Donegal-Back.html

Take care.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

If you go down to the woods today you might just find some fungi. They're always fun to find and to try to identify, but unless you're an expert it's probably best to only eat the ones they sell in the shops!

Take care.