Clevedon
I'm having some time off, based in Bristol. Ah, an English summer! We visited Clevedon on the Bristol Channel on a bitterly cold, wet, and windy New Year's Day, and the only real differences this week were the lesser intensity of the rain, and the fact that I did not lose any sensation in my fingers when photographing off the pier.
Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire is a novelty for us, though. Inhabited by the same family for 900 years – you should see the state of some of the furniture – it is claimed that A Midsummer Night's Dream was written for a Berkeley wedding, which is quite a boast. As castles go, though, it is at the bijou end of the spectrum: on a visit, Princess Margaret is said to have exclaimed, "Crikey, we could fit twenty of these into Windsor!" It is also where Edward II was imprisoned and met his unpleasant demise, allegedly at the wrong end of a red-hot poker. Ouch.
Berkeley Castle
They'd be the Berkeleys that Berkeley Square, seat of Bristol University's Philosophy Dept, is named after, then, I suppose? Also the Berkeley cafe, where I wasted many an hour as an undergrad.
ReplyDeleteZouk,
ReplyDeletePossibly, though I'd always imagined it had more to do with those prog empiricists Locke, Berkeley, Hume. Certainly Berkeley Square in London was theirs (as in "A Nightingale sang...")and, improbably, Berkeley campus in California, too -- they seem to have been a canny lot, managing to juggle their fortunes over the centuries.
Mike
Come to think of it, that's what I'd previously assumed. Could be the same lot, I suppose?
ReplyDeleteZouk,
ReplyDeleteI'd assumed not, him being Irish and all, but according to Wikipedia, he was "the eldest son of William Berkeley, a cadet of the noble family of Berkeley". They're just one of those families of survivors, movers, and shakers... That's how you hang on to your council castle for 900 years, I suppose... Not to mention your corner caff.
Mike
Mike:
ReplyDeleteI think "Clevedon" is a beautiful photograph. Reminiscent of the landscapes of Hodler. Nice job!
:Gerard
Thanks, Gerard, I must admit I don't really know Hodler, but some of those turn of the century Austrian and Swiss landscape painters had something good going on (I recall Josef Stoitzner grabbed my attention a while ago). I think WW1 and Modernism rather put a stop to it...
ReplyDeleteMike
It was the horizontal bands of activity that I picked up on. Hodler had some theories concerning patterning in nature that unfortunately I'm a little hazy on right now. I'm sure you were aware of the uncanny structural organization that you recorded in your photo. Of course, it didn't happen by accident - you selected the framing. Very handsome.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at this Hodler.
https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/sothebys/94/111294/H0046-L03685130.jpg
Would really like to see a larger version of "Clevedon." Interesting that you chose to take a portrait of a landscape. It definitely works.
ReplyDeleteKent,
ReplyDelete"Portrait landscapes" is pretty much my default setting. Not sure why, probably connected to using a Fuji 645 film camera for many years.
As to image size, I'm curious how small you're seeing them (when clicked on, obviously). I size them at 20cm (~ 8") in the longest dimension at 96 dpi, saved as JPEGs at "high" quality, which seems an adequate compromise between visibility and potential piracy!
If your browser/display combo shows images in the Blogger "lightbox" too small, you could always right-click download an image, and examine it in your image editor. My lawyers will only be in touch if they start showing up elsewhere ;)
Mike
The Berkeleys also gave their name to the Old Berkeley Hunt, which hunted foxes across West Middlesex through to the early 19th century. A popular day out with Cockneys was to follow the hunt, and as their did with Barnet Fair they turned its name into rhyming slang ...
ReplyDeleteMartyn,
ReplyDeleteIn one of those curious turns, to call someone a "berk" is now a pretty inoffensive epithet (assuming there's a connection).
Mike