As Fine as a Beeswing

Richard Thompson, OBE
Folk Musician and Songwriter
For services to Music

enjoy :-)

Wooden Sheep

Holga days

The foundations for my 2011 project have now been laid - 'Stornoway the Holga Way' - 12 months of life in Stornoway viewed through the lens of a Holga.

By coincidence, mine was the lucky name to be drawn from the hat in a seasonal giveaway on 'filmwasters.com' and a Holga 120TLR should soon be on it's way to me (thanks Phil) - so I will no longer need to squat (on my dodgy knee) to line up those low, waist high shots ;-)

Spiral Staircase

The Criterion Bar

Harry

A regular 'wandering' companion :-)

Rotten Hand Rail, Stornoway

Over The Hills and Far Away

My mood whilst walking home from work was much the same as it was when I headed in. Thawing snow had given the town a grey, miserable look and I felt the same - until I walked over the top of Goathill, turned into my home street and the view of the mainland - more than 30 miles away - opened up before me.

Took this from an upstairs window - two photos merged to a panorama in photoshop - and another Zeppelin song comes to mind :-)

Ah Aah Aaah Ah!!!!!!

'We come from the land of the ice and snow.........'

The weather changed yesterday. The wind and rain returned and most of the snow is now gone. What's left behind is a gritty, horrible mess, with piles of dirty snow everywhere. Not the nicest of sights while strolling into work this morning.

Took this photo during a lunch time walk last week when everywhere was white. The words and music of Led Zeppelin's immigrant song went through my mind at the time :-)

Christmas Present

Santa brought me a new Zuiko 25mm/f2.8 pancake lens for my E620 :-)

Old Alarm, Lews Castle College

War Memorial, Stornoway

Merry Christmas

I may not get chance to post for a few days. Merry Christmas to you all, hope it's a good one.

A couple of videos for the blues and bluegrass fans amongst you

Oh the weather outside is frightful............

but with all the snow and ice and the sun shining it looks 'delightful'.

It dropped to about -6C here last night, not the coldest place in the UK, but cold enough for me. Anyway, last on-call before xmas done (and no late call outs)and no more work until Monday :-)


Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Solstice Moonlight, Broadbay

I missed the eclipse yesterday morning, but this was the view across Broadbay when I left the lab last night. With a clear sky, the temperature dropped below zero again. I had to scrape the ice off the car at 1.30am when I was called in to the lab, and with no gritting after 6pm the previous evening the roads were a bit dodgy :-(

However, it's my last working day before xmas. On-call again tonight then nothing until Monday :-)

Sledging, Stornoway Golf Course

Finally getting the feeling back into the digital digits after a 5 month sabbatical following the damage to the E510 :-)

This photo was taken yesterday, along with the previous tree pic, during a late afternoon walk on the castle grounds. The light was failing and I had the 40-150 lens on the camera. I cranked up the ISO setting to get a decent shutter speed (and lots of lovely grain), and got far enough downhill from the subject to get rid of the skyline clutter. I gave the pic a square crop and added vignette (to both pics) in Picnik

Tree, Stornoway Golf Course

Holga Pack

A selection of my 'holga' snaps from the recent Rat Pack evening. Mr Fish, The trumpet player, the trombone player, and a rat in the pack.

The last from the RP evening, I promise

Waiting in the snow

Thursday saw the arrival of more snow. Deanne was in the hairdressers yesterday and I arranged to meet her afterwards. Took a walk around town with the DSLR whilst waiting.

All Quiet on the Western Front?

Unfortunately, for the local coastguard, it's not.

From the BBC (16/12):

The Government have announced plans to 'close 10 of the UK's 18 round-the-clock coastguard stations as part of planned cuts to the service. Five remaining sites will operate just during daylight, with the only 24-hour centres planned for Aberdeen, Dover and the Southampton/Portsmouth area...............

There are currently 18 round-the-clock Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres (MRCC), grouped into nine pairs, as well as a smaller London centre covering the Thames that is not staffed 24 hours a day.

Replacing these will be the three 24-hour centres and five sub-centres open only during daylight hours in Swansea, Falmouth in Cornwall, Humber, either Belfast or Liverpool, and either Stornoway or Shetland. The London centre will be unaffected by the changes..........

The coastguard centres at Clyde and Forth look set to close under the plans'.

Scotland, then, will be left with one 24 hour station (Aberdeen) plus another daylight station (in either Shetland or Stornoway). The 'south coast' however, will be covered by two 24 hour stations (as close together as Dover and Southampton) and 3 daylight stations (Swansea, Falmouth and London - which 'remains unaffected'). A nice and fair north/south balance :-(

What hope is there for west coast maritime safety? With neither the Tory nor the Lib Dem vote strong in the Western Isles, a decision to close the Stornoway centre is unlikely to affect the government's Whitehall majority - not so for the strong Lib Dem Northern Isles.

Personally, before any decision is made, I think we should stick the Coalition MPs on the 'Monaco', tow them out to Rockall on a stormy sea, and leave them there to get back by their own devices.

comhairle nan eilean siar

You can't always get what you want...

but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get something.

The first - a christmas ghost at the rat pack evening, or too much 80/- affecting the film winding mechanism?

The second - an over exposed and over developed Criterion Bar, or the after effect of the previous night's 80/- on the exposure meter and shutter speed?

Both were taken using the holga, and although not the intended results, win-win outcomes for both operator and holga were achieved.

Whilst on the subject of holga, this picture by Kapitan77, that I found whilst browsing flickr earlier, pretty much sums up the way I felt at 5am. It was the stimulus for my first smile (laugh even) of the day. Mirth (I should add), being an unusual emotion to be displayed by this particular individual following a call out to the lab (on 2 occasions) after midnight.

Jon 'Tuba'

OK, so it's a trombone! However, when I first met Jon back in 2006, at the Butt of Lewis lighthouse, he was doing a tour of the Western Isles under the 'guise of 'Innertuba', visiting schools, providing a musical show and preaching the 'green' gospel. What was outstanding was the fact he was doing the trip on a recumbent trice, towing a 70kg trailer loaded with props, camping gear and a tuba!

Unfortunately he didn't complete the trip at that time - crossing the 'Clisham' a few days later, a gust of wind took him, the trice and the trailer off the road, smashing the trailer against a rock and scattering his spare vest and Y-fronts across the moorland. The tour was aborted.

6 months later I had a phonecall from Jon. He was back on the road, finishing the Western Isles tour and would I meet him somewhere between Stornoway and Scalpay and accompany him back to Stornoway on his final day and take some photos. I gladly accepted and we've been friends ever since.

Jon now lives on Lewis and works as an OT at the hospital - he was also a member of the band at the recent 'Rat Pack' evening where this shot (with trombone) was taken.

There may be trouble ahead........

but while there's moonlight and music and......



love and romance........



let's face the music and dance!



More pics from the recent 'Rat Pack' evening.

Rat Pack

Stornoway British Legion had an homage to the music of the Rat Pack last night. The show kicked off with a youth band, followed by an adults band and even a bit of acapella thrown in somewhere in the middle. Many classics from the era were performed. Some folk even dressed up for the occasion too (including me) and it was a lot of fun.

Eve and Andrea were there too.

These are from the E620, I took the Holga too, but you'll have to wait for those pics until the films are developed and scanned.

Trees, Brampton

The weather finally changed yesterday and snow gave way to rain. Most of the snow has now melted leaving only a few icy compacted patches. Not so in Brampton tho', where I believe, at minus 20C, the oil supply to my sister's aga froze leaving them without a cooker :-(

Holga in Colour

Did a first run of colour through the Holga and these are some of the results. I was a bit disappointed at first, but they've grown on me. I'm even tempted by the idea of a second Holga, so that I can run colour and B&W simultaneously for next years project - watch this space ;-)

Anyhow, I've a few more colour films to be developed (from my snowy trip south) and another film still to use - so more colour is on the way.

These pics were taken at the Lewis War Memorial some time in November.

Long Train Running

So I made it home - Woke at about 4.45am and headed out to the airport. The runways were closed and at around 6.30 the announcement was made that all Flybe planes due to take off before 11.00am were cancelled. So I queued at the desk and got booked onto a flight at 7.00am for tomorrow, then took the shuttle bus back to Waverley.

I really didn't think I could handle another 5.00am start (with the possibility of another cancellation) so after getting off the bus I headed into the station and bought a ticket and got on a train for Inverness.

After a long (16hr) day on train, bus and ferry (but a far better way to travel than a plane - IMO) I eventually arrived home at 9pm.

I haven't mentioned that my 2nd son (Josh) broke his arm sledging on Sunday (recreation on the Sabbath!) and Deanne and himself travelled to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness today for his operation. I did manage to catch 10 minutes with Deanne at the bus station before leaving for Ullapool - Josh had just gone to theatre for a 2 1/2 hr op. He's now back on the ward and hopefully everything's been mended.

Pictures taken during the train journey - 1. Murrayfield, 2. Aviemore Station, 3,4. Carrbridge station.