Taking a break 2

In a week when i re-adjust to life generally in 2012 as an armchair photographer, I am sitting here at my kitchen / dining table dreaming about nostalgic times in the past and a few pre planned trips that I hope to fulfil this year. My Mother is now back home and there are different concerns to worry about but I am mainly assisted by a professional team who are supervising her three times a day. I visit her most nights I can for about an hour and then return home to a regular rotational e-mail list to report on the progress. Contrary to what followers think, I haven't abandoned or stopped blogging but it's been difficult trying to fit everything in. Just as I wanted to publish something in February, I will endeavour to comment on blogs over the next week, sorry for my absence to your works.

In a parallel journey, my internet problems this year have led me to explore issues of watermarking and although I have moved on in life from the previous post, hence why I need to post something new ... the Hotel who were not directly profit making from the photo, apologised, removed the image and offered me a free cream tea !! ... probably worth around £5 !!

.... it's a nice thought but not the easiest of places to get to, 370 miles in the car, possibly 2 or 3 nights Bed and Breakfast ... in The Sidmouth Harbour Hotel ... moving on to the next paragraph...

The first step in my editing journey was the complex issue of Photoshop elements 10. It seemed like a great idea to sign up for the free 30 day trial. I have come to the conclusion like anything to do with computers ... "it is easy if you know how". My journey began with the difficulty of trying to access the beast. Personally I think 30 days is not long enough as it is more important to gain an understanding of how the system works during the period rather than perform advanced editing.

I managed to create some brushes thanks to a YouTube link from Petra and a Seeing to pictures post from Adrian. However I had difficulty creating a standard size brush for both cropped and uncropped images which Adrian answered personally but I couldn't understand why this didn't work. I asked a question in a Forum to which it took several replies to ascertain that my elements page had been corrupted in some way and it was unfortunate that he spoke a different computer language to me !! As I had spent too much of the month on this issue, I had a desire to sample other features of Elements ...

 ... next on the list was the other hot topic on my page of eliminating distorted verticals on buildings. As an introduction, all my photographic life, I have used standard lenses with the option of moving up to zoom lenses on a variety of cameras. With my lack of knowledge on the wide angle lens ... of 24mm from December 2010, the temptation was too great to push it to the limit in an area that I was unfamiliar with.

This process of correction was difficult at first but with two YouTube clips I found a complex and detailed link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpAiIVWA5t4

followed by a simpler one who sounds like one of my Yorkshire friends ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h6mQ_D4zm8

Unfortunately the file was 70MB and wouldn't load through my photo storage supplier. I found by accident a short and unusually swift presentation of how to reduce the MB size of an image or rather "Get as many hits to the link as you can because there's no way you are going to understand this after 4 plays " !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMgY22pyoNc

Unfortunately, I may not have been looking at the correct video because after the file of specific images were reduced to 3.8MB or even 1.5MB, loading was still an error.

I discovered by accident that I could copy from the Facebook note page but would not load the initial file of 70MB, however after re sizing it did. Yeah, that nasty website meant that you are looking at the next four images.

"Computers are easy if you know how" !!

I was overwhelmed by support and ideas in the comments section of the previous post. All these ideas and programs need time to explore. Wind ... you have gone way beyond the call of duty, I appreciate your input and your comments have been noted. As a tribute to Wind, here's my take using some past images...

I dream of escaping ...

My door ... in Summer

My Car ... stuck

My door ...  in Winter

My dinner .... lol

My next trip !!

Ah well, best go and get the milk out of the fridge and make another cup of tea !! ..........

Weston Super Mare, North Somerset

I have moved back up into Somerset to the third and last of a trio of south west English sea side towns (First image 21 June 2009 and all others 8 August 2009). Weston Super Mare was a small village from Iron Age times until the arrival of the railway in 1841 and the subsequent Victorian tourist boom.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who I talked about in an earlier post ("Bristol Maritime History..."), lived with his family on the street shown above while he supervised the extension of his railway south from Bristol.

Weston Super Mare became so popular that Birnbeck pier was built behind the original area of holiday activity shown in the title image. Sadly the listed building that originally hosted the arrival of miners and their families on vacation to the town from South Wales, which was opened to the public in 1867, finally closed due to safety concerns in 1994.
However due to the distant position of these facilities, the trade of town centre shopkeepers was not as great as what it could be.... a second and more central pier was planned and finally opened in 1904...

A second pier closed to the public... empty pier

In more recent times (28 July 2008), it was thought that one of the English seaside "delicacies"... a bag of chips may have had something to do with an extensive fire that destroyed the historic building at the end of the pier within 2 hours. However a chip pan fire was ruled out and it was an electrical fault with similar equipment. It was said that by the time 11 fire engines and 80 firefighters arrived on the scene, the heat was so intense that they were unable to get to within 60 metres of the early morning fire.

Due to the fluctuating tides of the Bristol Channel and the levelness of the sand, the seafront and beach is extensive at a distance of about 1 mile out to sea at low tide.

At the end of an extensive promenade lawned area, Pier square connects the Grand Pier to the town centre and has in itself a small but maybe not insignificant history in the development of the town. At the birth of the tourist industry in Weston, a project was conceived to turn wild sand dunes in this area (difficult to believe when you see the beach now !!) into lawns and parkland. Opposition to this plan held out for 40 years until approval was given for the 3 miles of sea wall and promenade gardens. Originally the area was for the private use of the residents of this street but was eventually opened to the general public in 1910. The Boy and Serpent fountain from the Coalbrookdale Iron company in Shropshire was donated 3 years later by a little known or documented Thomas MacFarlane. It seems that Mr MacFarlane had an interest in promoting trade by improving the town.
2010 was another milestone in turning back the clock in trying to revive the fortunes of an ailing seaside town when the great grand daughter of Mr MacFarlane unveiled the restored fountain in the same year that the £3.9 million "GRAND PIER" . The pier was re-opened on 23rd October 2010 to 52,000 visitors.

My many visits over the previous few years were unusual in that I didn't follow the afore mentioned town planners ideals by visiting both the sea and the town centre on the same day. On this, my last occasion, I only visited both to visually document the empty pier whilst purchasing some essential shopping supplies.... only to discover something more interesting described later in the post. The High street is a fairly standard affair where the shoppers can be occasionally entertained by other means than the chain stores.

The most expensive bus stop you've ever seen

In order to revitalise the fortunes of the town centre, a piece of public art was constructed in 2006 called Silica. The 26 metre structure costing £280,000 was a source of confusion to residents as they didn't know exactly what it was meant to be.... a carrot, a spaceship. It was actually supposed to be man's harmony with the sea ... I think I'll stick with the spaceship idea and send the planners up in it !!
I only mentioned this building once to the people I knew in the area who paid their council tax to this authority, the very thought of it annoyed them as they said project was funded with public money.

2009/2010 grand pier substitute attraction.... view of the seafront construction work.

Although the town has suffered as a tourist destination along with all other British seaside resorts since the 1970's thanks to the cheap European budget holiday, business as you can see from this post is ticking over thanks to innovations that keep the place alive even if the majority seem to be local weekend or  daytrippers.

An amazing seafront attraction is the sand sculpture exhibition that seems to be open for most of the summer ...

WSM seafront

sand copy, originals in the background

Exploring the exhibition !!

Deja Vu ......   familiar ?? !

maintenance in progress... over use or trying to get comfortable

sand bound

Virtual donkey rides

2009 fish theme

err... it wasn't to be for me though

Lastly this man and all this walking and talking has tempted me to do the ultimate seaside thing of finishing off with an ice cream. Oh I've just been reminded, it's March... ahh well, the summer will soon be here.