Jazz or non-jazz photos

[A Lark Ascending]

So which one did you order? And what was the side dish?

Very nice pictures. I rarely get close enough to animials to catch them like that. They generally run off.

[alocispepraluger102]

So which one did you order? And what was the side dish?

Very nice pictures. I rarely get close enough to animials to catch them like that. They generally run off.

these are from the local wild bird sanctuary.

they are all on the mend or permanently infirmed.

they are in huge outdoor cages.

some are released back into the wild.

some days they are all hiding.

this day i was lucky.

[A Lark Ascending]

What a difference a week makes:

[Aggie87]

Pictures from St. Maarten two weeks ago:

[Aggie87]

Tuscaloosa, Alabama - 28 May 11

[alocispepraluger102]

Edited June 7, 2011 by alocispepraluger102

[Aggie87]

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada - 31 July 11

4,000 year old petroglyphs, Valley of Fire

Death Valley, California - 2 Aug 11

Billboard in Las Vegas - 3 Aug 11

Edited August 8, 2011 by Aggie87

[A Lark Ascending]

Sussex and a bit of Hampshire:

First one shows what you might have seen if you'd been a Norman on 14th October, 1066 (give or take a few trees, an landscaped hillside and a bloody great abbey built subsequently to make amends for the slaughter).

Edited August 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

First one shows what you might have seen if you'd been a Norman on 14th October, 1066 (give or take a few trees, an landscaped hillside and a bloody great abbey built subsequently to make amends for the slaughter).

Shame that they filled in some of the steep incline below the Saxon front line with soil when the B'tard built the Abbey to atone his sins ! Still a very atmospheric spot - in particular that boggy bit on the RHS where they butchered the over-eager lot who went chasing the Bretons. Still a bit boggy to this day !

If only Harold had taken his mum's advice and held off for a day. The consequences would have been huge (probably no USA for starters..)

Edited August 22, 2011 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

First one shows what you might have seen if you'd been a Norman on 14th October, 1066 (give or take a few trees, an landscaped hillside and a bloody great abbey built subsequently to make amends for the slaughter).

Shame that they filled in some of the steep incline below the Saxon front line with soil when the B'tard built the Abbey to atone his sins ! Still a very atmospheric spot - in particular that boggy bit on the RHS where they butchered the over-eager lot who went chasing the Bretons. Still a bit boggy to this day !

If only Harold had taken his mum's advice and held off for a day. The consequences would have been huge (probably no USA for starters..)

Having taught the BoH to kids for over 30 years it was fascinating to see where it happened. Much more compact than I imagined. I've drawn diagrams of Senlac Hill many times over the year - a bit weird finding myself staying at Senlac Wood campsite!

Cornwall:

Edited August 22, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[A Lark Ascending]

[BillF]

Some great atmospheric photos there!

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks, Bill.

If you point and shoot 1800 times over a couple of weeks you're eventually going to get something nice!

[alocispepraluger102]

thx!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

magnificent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i may never pick up a camera again.

i just might become a vinyl flipper.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm sure that for professionals or people with proper photography skills the good ones come up with far fewer shots and in a much broader range of contexts. I hardly touch the controls on my camera.

Actually one thing that frustrates me is depth of field. I had a Pentax camera years ago using film and you could see the effect of changing the dial on depth of field. The Olympus I use doesn't seem to do this. I find it hard to work out looking at the screen if I've achieved what I want or not.

Added to which I can never remember whether wide depth of field comes from a high fstop or a low (I can't tell left from right either!).

Edited August 25, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[Aggie87]

Either way I've truly enjoyed your photos, Bev!

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks, Aggie.

People on this board come from all over and I love seeing photos of where they live or the landscapes they cherish. Some great ones over the years from the States, Japan etc. I remember some remarkable ones from southern Russia from a poster who seems to have vanished.

[sidewinder]

a bit weird finding myself staying at Senlac Wood campsite!

That must have been pretty well the spot where Harold's army camped the night before the battle, boozing it up to recover from their Northern exertions. Spooky !

Good to hear that Hastings is still covered in some schools at least - although I suspect that a lot of schools skip over it now. I remember doing a whole term dominated by Anglo Saxon and Viking history with lots of coverage of York (Erik Bloodaxe etc.) - but that was in the an area that was once part of the 'Danelaw'. I suspect that these days it is hardly covered.

Edited August 26, 2011 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

Good to hear that Hastings is still covered in some schools at least - although I suspect that a lot of schools skip over it now. I remember doing a whole term dominated by Anglo Saxon and Viking history with lots of coverage of York (Erik Bloodaxe etc.) - but that was in the an area that was once part of the 'Danelaw'. I suspect that these days it is hardly covered.

I've been teaching a GCSE course for the past 5 years where one of the 4 units is called Raiders and Invaders (400-1100 AD roughly). So those kids have done the 'Dark Ages' quite intensively.

Sadly the course didn't fit the new governments criteria so it's being scrapped.

Fully expecting to be teaching Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston within 3 years! Interesting when you're grown up but can't hold a candle to Vikings when you're 15!

I think you'll find Hastings gets done quite widely in Year 7. It's a good topic to study causation - was William a military genius or was he just lucky (or Harold unlucky)?

Edited August 26, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

Yes, it seems to be a period that always has been given better school coverage in Northern schhols than the South. I ended up doing the move South right in the middle of the old 'O' level syllabus. Down here the Southern Universities curriculum was focused on 'modern social history' (Turnip Townsend, Jethro Tull and similar agricultural crap). I ended up doing the Northern syllabus European Political/Economic 1870-1945 paper (Bismarck, WW1 etc.) on my own by special arrangement (class of one, ended up sitting through a latin class effectively teaching myself in this stuff with occasional tutorials and got an 'A' ).

Back to the photties..

Edited August 26, 2011 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

When I first started teaching 'clever kids' studied 19thC political or 20thC Modern World; the less able did 18th/19thC socio-economic history (your Turnip Townsends etc). God knows where that idea came from - I've always found spinning jennys and turnpike roads dull as ditchwater.

The most common GCSE syllabus today is the 20th Modern World. We do the other popular one called the School's History Project - currently History of Medicine, a local study (mining) and a depth study on Weimar and Nazi Germany. But we ran the newer course parallel for the last few years doing a local study (mining again), heritage marketing (how is history 'sold' with reference to Sherwood Forest) and international terrorism alongside the Saxons to Normans.

Major upheavals are ahead. I'm envisaging the history curriculum to revert to a grammar/public school of the 1950s approach - knowing the key facts and dates of Britain's rise to greatness (and a pox upon developing historical skills)! Fortunately we've been through such silliness before - history teachers tend to be left of centre as a bunch and know how to subvert!

To be fair, at least the current government recognises the position of history. It's vanished, along with modern languages, in many state schools - too hard compared with the newer vocational courses and therefore not helping in the league table scramble. A lot of schools are suddenly finding they need to get it back on the curriculum to fit the new performance indicators and they have no staff to teach it!

Edited August 26, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

To be fair, at least the current government recognises the position of history. It's vanished, along with modern languages, in many state schools - too hard compared with the newer vocational courses and therefore not helping in the league table scramble.

Sadly, too many 'real' subjects have been sidelined as kids go for the easy options - 'PT' (or whatever they call it now), sociology and 'General Science'.

The rot started to creep in around 1974 when in maths the old, rigourous Euclidian geometry was kicked out in favour of the likes of venn diangrams and topograghy ! (I put the last one down to too much listening to Yes albums at teacher training college )

Spinning Jennys... it's all coming back to me now. James Hargreaves, Abraham Darby, Turnip Townsend, The Luddites....

Edited August 26, 2011 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

Sadly, too many 'real' subjects have been sidelined as kids go for the easy options - 'PT' (or whatever they call it now), sociology and 'General Science'.

You don't know the half of it! There is a genuine scandal, if only the wider world was interested, in how kids in state schools have been moved to supposedly 'vocational' courses with little rigour. It's been possible to do an all coursework ICT qualification that delivers 5 GCSEs!

All the stories in the papers about schools that have overnight gone from 27% A-Cs to 78% A-Cs lie there. But when you run a system of data and targets then institutions do whatever it takes to hit those targets.

There is a place for these new courses - they can provide motivation for kids who can't cope for whatever reason with the intensity of more academic learning. But I suspect we've had half-a-decade of kids in the state sector who have coasted through courses that have not really challenged them. But the school tables look good!

[sidewinder]

Sorry to hear that - I suspected as much. As an Engineer I take an interest in the quality and type of training these kids are getting before they come into industry. Unfortunately a lot of them are going to end up leaving school with worthless pieces of paper, even with 'As' etc (A* being the new A and all that so the current 'A' is really a 'B' or less). One thing I find particularly depressing is the way that 'Media Studies' has been trumpetted as the thing to get a qualification in over the last decade. Totally useless - we will end up with a nation of Jonathon Wosses.

'B Ark crew' ready to board... telephone sanitisers, estate agents, investment bankers to the left.

Edited August 26, 2011 by sidewinder

[Chuck Nessa]

Rummaging around the net I discovered this 1965 shot of my home town. I can see my grandfather's building, the bowling alley, the place I bought my first record player, etc. I sent the pic to my kids and Eric said "hasn't changed much". Forgive the sentimental ramblings.