Wabi-Sabi

Appreciating the aesthetics of brokenness and decay in suburban Yorkshire.

Decrepit Warburton's lorry

Decrepit Warburton’s lorry

 

Flaking paint textures

Flaking paint textures

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese concept, an appreciation of beauty in imperfection, seen for example in reconstructing tea cups from broken crockery fragments, contrasting with Western ideals of unblemished perfection.

What It Looks Like

Two views of Portpatrick from the middle of the harbour; one taken on the mobile and processed as usual with snapseed:

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and the other on the Sony NEX-7 with an ND1000 filter to give a long exposure brushed silver water and hint of movement in the clouds, processed with Photivo and Darktable (amongst other things):

Portpatrick Harbour under a mackerel sky

Portpatrick Harbour under a mackerel sky

A Democracy

For the past month or so, my Facebook and Twitter streams have been fairly awash with politics – several positions represented from `at least do something’ to more specific suggestions. And so one’s braincell has been suitably spinning with big ideas of economy and nation-states, social equality, whether proportional representation is the right model for governance, whether one can apply `reduce,reuse,recycle’ to politicians, and all sorts of things.

What you actually get is the local defence budget blown on no fewer than 8 A4 printed direction signs guiding you 20yd into the village hall, finishing with “Queue Here” taped down a table-leg.

A Democracy

A Democracy

“I’m being a queue.”

Ten seconds later the two elderly ladies gave up personning the stall and came out to talk to Dog instead.

A Bit Spooky

I’ve taken a few photos of these small waterfalls since the start of the year. This time, I went for the context of the surrounding caves as well, and just for a change, shot it using the new mobile phone camera before processing as an HDR panorama.
Port Mora, along the Southern Upland Way from Portpatrick.

Waterfall and Caves

An Invasion of Silver Boxes

An Invasion of Silver Boxes

It’s a bright sunny bank-holiday weekend, which means only one thing.

Of five approaching cars at which I waved, only one young yet surprisingly dour-looking passenger waved back.

Visiting vehicles are easily identified by how caravans clog-up the roads, how cars perform 3-point turns in the mouths of T-junctions.

Avoiding eye-contact becomes the norm, as does the body-language of shying-away from Dog when passing on the pavement. Instead, out come the silver insulated food bags that bring their suburban life to us, their chilled packet contents probably bought from the perceived safety of a generic supermarket en route rather than in one of the local shops.

It speaks of an indifference to the existing social networks within the village being invaded, a separation of us versus the self-centred them.

I do not see merit in the argument that tourism is good for the local economy. It might seem to be, in a short-sighted fashion; but when all visitors see is each other and perceive landscape as pretty, its shallowness does not compare to the depth and quality of soul that comes from involving oneself in committing one’s life and work to a place.

Flame On!

A couple of days ago the shed door started coming off its hinges altogether in ordinary use – the wood underlying the screws had rotten away.

This afternoon, we burned the whole thing – and a great bonfire it made, too, with the roofing felt melting, burning, exuding a thick black smoke (fortunately not for too long).

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Proto-Spuds

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Having installed raspberries in January, today saw the second significant planting of the year: an old flower bed given a sense of purpose, dug over and mounds filled with planted potatoes (Harlequin variety, since we preferred it to the purple things last year, and it claims to be good for everything from salads to boiling to mashing).