#Words and #PictureOfTheDay: 10/Mar/22

On By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, Nature, Photography

There are days of magic, when the light and clear air throw everything into stark focus. Such days beg commemoration, demand recording, present opportunities for spectacular creation. This was taken on such a day. The brook that tumbles in its rocky course flowed only gently into the swollen river, water levels overriding the normal obstruction of the stream’s bed and giving in its place a calm, serene surface to reflect the blue of a sky worthy of a Mediterranean spring. I love this picture. I hope it brings you joy, whatever else struggles to gain your attention this day.

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A few of my pictures appear in the Gallery.
And you’ll find many more here for use in book covers, calendars, greetings cards, jigsaws, advertising, or anything else you fancy in print or online, or as art quality prints to decorate your home or office.

17 thoughts on “#Words and #PictureOfTheDay: 10/Mar/22”

  1. Pingback: #Words and #PictureOfTheDay: 10/Mar/22 | In the Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life

    1. Thank you, Joni. The little brook is generally much lower in its rocky bed, so the reflection is an unusual event. I’m glad I was fortunate enough to be there to capture it.

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    1. Thanks, Lynette. I wish I’d had my camera, instead of the phone, as it’s a more sophisticated image maker and gives better results, but this walk was taken after a particularly tiring period, and I needed to travel light!
      It was once of the clearest days we’ve had for a while. Not a hint of mist and the air so fresh.

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        1. In my life as a photographer, Lynette, starting at age 11 with a folding roll film camera that took 8 shots on each roll of film, I’ve used a good many cameras. Everything from the basic ‘Box Brownie’ made by Kodak, through 10×8 plate/sheet film cameras with bellows, TLRs, SLRs, range-finder models, Polaroids, to the very first basic digital pocket cameras, through to my current Nikon DSLR. It’s true, modern phone cameras can produce much better results than a lot of the early machines. My current model is an iPhone 8+ that takes really quite good pictures, and even has a number of ‘effect’ settings to enhance certain subjects.
          My trouble is I’ve enlarged monochrome pictures to 20×16 inch prints from 10×8 sheet film negatives, and, as you can imagine, the quality in tonal and resolution terms was amazing. But I do love the rather odd mix of simplicity and complexity that modern digital cameras and the software give today’s photographer. And it is much more pleasant to sit at a desk to edit and print pictures than those old days of working in the dim light of the darkroom splashing about with chemicals known to be toxic in some cases and carcinogenic in others!

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          1. My mother had a Box Brownie! Yes, the improvements over the years have really been something. I used to like working in a dark room – I found it calming and relaxing (I developed film for my uni newspaper many, many moons ago). But the chemical exposures! Ugh. Not pretty. Playing around now is much safer!

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            1. That good old, simple, Box Brownie! Source of many lovely family memories, Lynette.
              As for the chemicals, we were made to use our hands (ungloved) to stir large vats of the chemicals needed for photography when I was in the RAF. Only later did I learn of the dangers!

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              1. It’s unbelievable some of the extremely unsafe things we were required to do (that hasn’t gone away; there are just different hazards now) for a job or for experience. One summer a group of friends and I painted houses. No insurance, no oversight, just a group of 17-18 year olds. We formed a business for a couple of months and then collapsed it at the end of summer before going our separate ways to various colleges and universities. We literally had no one checking on us, not even the bank where we got our start-up money. I don’t think that would happen today. We’re really lucky no one fell off a scaffold.

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                1. I recall using a lead marker at school when learning to write, it was shortly after WWII and paper was still scarce, so we used slate tiles and wrote on them with the tip of this marker. Later, I stripped lead paint off woodwork, using abrasive paper – no mask or other protection! And, one summer as a teenager, I painted an asbestos roof on a garage with red lead paint – no protection. It’s a wonder my brain still operates! Mind you, there’s some who would say it doesn’t!

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                  1. Oh my. Lead. I forgot about that one. It was everywhere. I remember playing with the lead wrappers from the heads of the wine bottles. They were so soft and malleable. I agree, Stuart, there was a lot of exposure to lead and a lot of other noxious substances. It really is a wonder our brains still work! (And yours is working fine. 🙂 )

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                    1. At least it’s no longer used for water pipes, and it’s been removed from paint.
                      There’s an urban myth that there are some 80,000 untested chemicals in use today, but that’s been debunked. However, I wonder if anyone is doing research to discover how all these chemicals (there are actually around 40,000) react with each other once they’re out there in the wild!
                      And thanks for your confidence in my brain; sometimes I’m not sure I still have one!

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    1. Thanks, Noelle. I took this on a day when I hadn’t carried my camera, so used my iPhone instead. The river was flowing fast, but the brook emptying into it was slowed by the depth of water, creating the reflection.

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