by John Drinkwater

 

Seven days he travelled

Down the roads of England,

Out of leafy Warwick lanes

Into London Town.

Grey and very wrinkled

Was Dreaming John of Grafton,

But seven days he walked to see

A king put on his crown.

 

Down the streets of London

He asked the crowded people

Where would be the crowning

And when would it begin.

He said he'd got a shilling,

A shining silver shilling,

But when he came to Westminster

They wouldn't let him in.

 

Dreaming John of Grafton

Looked upon the people,

Laughed a little laugh, and then

Whistled and was gone.

Out along the long roads,

The twisting roads of England,

Back into the Warwick lanes

Wandered Dreaming John.

 

As twilight touched with her ghostly fingers

All the meadows and mellow hills,

And the great sun swept in his robes of glory

Woven of petals of daffodils

And jewelled and fringed with leaves of the roses

Down the plains of the western way,

Among the rows of the scented clover

Dreaming John in his dreaming lay.

 

Since dawn had folded the stars of heaven

He'd counted a score of miles and five,

And now, with a vagabond heart untroubled

And proud as the properest man alive,

He sat him down with a limber spirit

That all men covet and few may keep,

And he watched the summer draw round her beauty

The shadow that fell from the wings of sleep.

 

And up from the valleys and shining rivers,

And out of the shadowy wood-ways wild,

And down from the secret hills, and streaming

Out of the shimmering undefiled

Wonder of sky that arched him over,

Came a company shod in gold

And girt in gowns of a thousand blossoms,

Laughing and rainbow-aureoled.

 

Wrinkled and grey and with eyes a-wonder

And soul beatified, Dreaming John

Watched the marvellous company gather

While over the clover a glory shone;

They bore on their brows the hues of heaven,

Their limbs were sweet with flowers of the fields,

And their feet were bright with the gleaming treasure

That prodigal earth to her children yields.

 

They stood before him, and John was laughing

As they were laughing; he knew them all,

Spirits of trees and pools and meadows,

Mountain and windy waterfall,

Spirits of clouds and skies and rivers,

Leaves and shadows and rain and sun,

A crowded, jostling, laughing army,

And Dreaming John knew every one.

 

Among them then was a sound of singing

And chiming music, as one came down

The level rows of the scented clover,

Bearing aloft a flashing crown;

No word of a man's desert was spoken,

Nor any word of a man's un worth,

But there on the wrinkled brow it rested,

And Dreaming John was king of the earth.

 

Dreaming John of Grafton

Went away to London,

Saw the coloured banners fly,

Heard the great bells ring,

But though his tongue was civil

And he had a silver shilling,

They wouldn't let him in to see

The crowning of the King.

So back along the long roads,

 

The leafy roads of England,

Dreaming John went carolling

Travelling alone,

And in a summer evening,

Among the scented clover,

He held before a shouting throng

A crowning of his own.

Sometimes two reasonably ok pictures work better together.

#1 'Wow, great photo....you must have a good camera'...

I have been abroad, not overseas, but yomping across the land; across Anglesey and the Lake District I have, this merry May, been favoured with the finest of views. On my way I have found the means by which the little people light the forest, using Dandelion puffs to capture the waning sunlight. I have stumbled upon the remenents of bygone industry, tools downed and people vanished. On mountainsides seams of light filter down into a quarry where it is seemingly harvested. Geographicum lichen, a map of the natural world...or is that a natural map of the world?  Finally home/heima, the little valley I see when I close my eyes.

Just some clean-living Saturday fun, getting back to the garden some...

I posted these shots the other day and people seemed to quite like them, pointing out that my photography was starting to look a lot better. I'd had a similar comment on another site where I post images, and whilst it was really lovely that friends like these images, it rather irked me that these images would be seen as better than my previous shots.

What these shots are is rather pedestrian, they're basic macros that required very little cerebral activity to process: a quick set of sharpening and saturating curves, some multiply blending with masking of the focal point to make it stand out. They're 'stockphoto' shots, examples of millions of easy-viewing images out there. They are the photographic equivalent of a quick-read novel or a Hollywood big flick; plenty of pleasing colour, but very little substance. They're pretty, I do like them, but to my mind they don't represent better photos, they're just easier on the eye.

In many of my images I am actually aiming for the equivalent of a good foreign flick, a Cinema Paradiso, or a book you have to think about. If an image seems gritty, then I intended it to be gritty. If the colour looks washed out, then I intended the colour to look washed out. If there is a solar flare, then I intend there to be one; and if the image contrast is very high, it is because I wanted it high.

This raises the question of what a good capture is. I look at a lot of photography; I am familiar with many styles, and I can see where various images of mine fit into these genres. To someone not familiar with some styles of photography, they may not see what I'm trying to achieve; but this raises the question - should they have to? I mean, a good photograph should be inherently interesting to anyone, regardless of there exposure (or ignorance) of photographic art, shouldn't it? Or, do we create photographs that people need to aspire to understand, to raise their level of photographic literacy?

Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself. Maybe I'm being too bloody artsy by remonstrating with people who are, at the end of the day, just saying that they like my shots. If that's the style of photography they like, then there's no doubt a market there, but it's not one I'll be feeding; I leave that to the millions of other people out there taking identical shots. At the moment I am building my confidence and technical competence behind the lens, and creating new material that challenges me in the digital darkroom.

My year of taking pictures of people is going reasonably well, and I'm working up to bigger, better and (hopefully) edgier photography. This, to my mind, will be the better photography I want people to notice.

A walk over the tops in Wharfdale, North Yorkshire.

In Iceland my friend Ottar and I paid a fateful visit to Thor's own back yard by tramping up a big hill, Raudafell (above), which we approached via the little nipple you can see under the rainbow (top). As we walked along, discussing our imminent tea with the goddess Freyja, we looked to our destination and found that it had been framed by not one, but two rainbows (the upper of which is only barely visible), a portent of things to come - our dalliance with the lady Frejya may well have resulted in one of her lover's blowing his top (see Eyjafjallajökull), which blew some 15 minutes after my plane departed Iceland.

 

 

Italy is a strange and puzzling place, beautiful countryside, irreplaceable ancient monuments, and a real problem with graffiti covering everything. Now viewers of many of my images will know that I don't mind a bit of wall art - it can be dark, sassy, politically motivated, and well placed. The graffiti you see adourning 1st century Roman monuments in Verona has all the intellectual gravitas of a labotomised turtle. Nary a tag, just kids writing their names on everything. Sad. You won't see any of it in these shots though.

I headed over to see my good friend Pietro in his current hunting ground of Brescia. From there we made forays, if one can make 'forays' these days, into the surrounds of Lombardy and Veneta, namely Lago d'Iseo, Verona and Venice. Fantastically hot and sunny, making some of the photography a little tricky, but fantastic for mottled light down the back alleyways of old Italian cities.