Garden
I had an amble around the garden this morning, and took a few photos of the flowers. OK, not just the flowers - vegetables as well!
...
King Alfred’s Tower
I've been to Stourhead a couple of times before, but have never got round to going to the nearby King Alfred's Tower.
It's 205 steps up to the top, so Mother decided against it and sat in the car and snoozed.
When I got up there (wheezing slightly, legs like jelly), it was cloudy and with rain clearly falling nearby.
Within about 20 minutes, it all cleared up, so I was able to take photos of dark skies and blue sky & fluffy clouds within a very short time!
...
Stourhead
Mother came to stay for a few days, and while SWMBO entertained her for most of the time (Tyntesfield and Concorde [only open until the end of September]), I felt morally obliged to take a day off work and take her somewhere.
We ended up going to Stourhead, somewhere she'd not been before, and one of the best known landscaped gardens. Fortunately, we managed to avoid the rain - the heavens opened just as we got back to the shop & tea room, which was a perfect excuse for a slice of cake.
I think this is one of the nicest views there is - it looks completely natural, but you just know that a landowner with a firm opinion of his place in history combined with a egomaniacal landscape gardener probably uprooted several small villages and converted a small hill into a substantial lake. He probably then decided that he didn't like the colour of the water and had the landscaper...
Getting all Historical
Thinking about published photos of mine, it reminded me of by far and away my most successful picture.
This is legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee being carried off the pitch in Northampton in 1988, after he'd slipped and knackered his ankle ligaments.
Basically, I scooped the world on this one. I was the only person on the ground with a camera on a fairly dull day in a match against Leicestershire.
I offered the photo to the resident journalist from the Chronicle and Echo, and they published it on the front page. It was also printed in Wisden and Cricketer magazines. I must have made all of £30-40 out of it. Mind you, to a student 22 years ago, that was a decent bit of cash!
And it's in Lillee's autobiography "Menace".
When the book came out, I just happened to see it in Borders and had a flick through. And blimey, there was one of my photos! I rang up the publishers and...
Flinty Red
Forgot to post this lot.
I've been developing the website for Flinty Red, the restaurant opened by wine merchants Dominic and Rachel from Corks of Cotham and chefs Matt and Claire (formerly of the Lido and QV), and went along in January to take photos for it.
I started with an exterior, based on the shot of the Corks frontage that the late Pete Chinn did for them - you can see the final cropped version on the "how to find us" page of the website.
It was an ideal opportunity to take the photo as the Indian restaurant over the road was closed for refurbishment, and the neon lights in their window reflected in Flinty Red's - it was impossible to get a shot without a garish purple reflection somewhere.
We then moved on to an interior shot, which took several goes to get the waitress blurred but still visible. Really pleased with this one, which appears on the front page of the...