photography Archives

2023 May

May started with the Spring booster shot for Covid. It seems we are on the list for Insch for the Covid shots now. It’s not the easiest place to get to, being very rural roads – but the little cottage hospital is quite the nicest and most friendly vaccination centre we’ve been sent to.
But the vaccination shots are always a struggle for my PVS/ME. A couple of days in bed with mainly liquids and sleeping – that’s the ‘knock-out’ – followed by a week or two to get back to some level of energy, sleeping, and eating. The big challenge is to take it slowly. I feel OK for an hour or two, and then try NOT to do too much!

It has been a very slow start this year … winter has dragged on and on. It started early in the autumn, and hasn’t released it’s grip fully yet.

As May progresses the season does seem to be changing to the ‘summer’ pattern. The back rockery has really taken off, and is spilling over with colour! The temperatures are rising!

In the front garden we have our fragrant yellow hedge of Azalea Luteum spilling over with bright colour! It has taken years of careful work to reach this state, and we are quite proud with the results!

The temperature is improving, but there’s no rainfall. It looks like we will be repeating last year, when we had to get out the hosepipes and start to water round the most vulnerable plants. It was tiring, but essential to keep the garden alive!
With the return of some warmth and sunshine, we also have a chance to discover just how bad the damage is in the garden after the 8+ months of ‘winter’. There’s a lot of freezer burn on all the bushes, and quite a few of the smaller plants have perished. Not a pretty sight! And the drought that is shaping up will not make recovery easy.

But as the month progresses the rhodies and smaller azaleas bring wonderful colour back into our garden and lives! I have a yellow azalea luteum under my bedroom window. Its fragrance is so welcome.

The top layer of the front garden is full of the red, white and yellow of the azaleas and rhododendrons. The colours are so bright and cheerful.
But soon they will be past their best and the potentillas will take over!

It is time to move the geraniums and other plants that we have over-wintered in the hallway back out into the shelter of the porch, where they can catch the morning sunshine.

As the warmth, sunshine and dry conditions persist we can finally think about taking a look at the world around us, and collecting some photos along with the fresh air and exercise!

I took one of my Infrared cameras with me when we finally managed to spend a morning in Fyvie Castle gardens. The harsh winter has taken a toll, with so much of the pathways overgrown with weeds.

There are still so many signs of Storm Arwen! It devastated so many trees. But there are still some standing proud! The other sad thing is the Avian Flu which means we cannot feed to ducks!

The indoor shooting is never laid aside! Here I was determined to capture the Daphne bush with its delicate star-like pink flowers. And a Yuta Segawa Japanese miniature vase is the ideal companion!

And there is always the fascination with light and glass prisms and spheres! Here with a backdrop of a blue patterned winter scarf. The play of light, and a bit of post-processing too!

And so on to June, and the drought deepens
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2023 Elisa Liddell

2023 July

July and the weather starts to change. Southern Europe is experiencing drought and temperatures soaring into the 40+c but by the 14th we are cold, wet and windy. What a change!

And July saw the arrival of “OverEasy” our very first Mini, and our very first automatic too!
We spent several Sunday mornings in June on driving to and from Aberdeen to locate the dealership. Navigating Aberdeen and it’s ring-roads is no joke. So much has changed since we left several decades ago. Where we recognise the street names, we find they look nothing like what we remember when we moved out in the 1990s.
The hard work and false turns all paid off in the end, and Mike managed to drive us safely home with no problems! The rest of the month was a period of getting used to the car, and how it works!

Like everything these days it is all built around the computer system. And the driving seat feels like a airplane cockpit … with so many functions, so many things to learn!
And (again as usual) the manual is very little use, as every actual car seems to vary.

Learning can be scary with today’s impatient drivers and poorly maintained roads!

But we did manage to drive safely to a few our essential places, such as Fyvie loch and gardens! Seen through the lens of an infrared camera … which gives quite an alternative view of the world to the one our eyes see!

And so on to August, and
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2023 Elisa Liddell

2023 June

And so June begins … and as the month progresses the search for shade, for cool, and for relief from the growing heat is only matched by the constant need to try and help the garden to survive!
It may sound insignificant, but we have invested so much time, effort and money into creating a very special 1/3 acre here (from a bare field). And to sacrifice 25 years of work without a struggle? No!

So every drop of water we can take from the normal household usage, such as washing vegetables, is carefully collected and taken out for evening watering! and there’s the hosepipe as a supplement.

The pattern of the days is to start early and dribble a hosepipe round the most vulnerable areas where light sandy soil doesn’t hold the water as the direct sun raises the temperatures into the 30s.

And happily we even have our newest plants surviving and blooming!

Yes – the once bare small ranch-style fence is now home to some 6 clematis plants. We thought we had lost them during the long hard winter, but they have survived well, and are blooming!

So in the cool of the evening we water them carefully and enjoy their beauty!

Of course the entire turn-around in the weather is taking some adjusting to ourselves!
Our houses are not designed for coping with hot summers, as we have discovered. Only ONE pane of each 3-pane window can be opened, and not very far. Fine to maximize seals against draughts – not helpful when it is very hot! So every possible window and door has been open, trying to allow for a through-draft if there is cooler air in the evenings and overnight.
Bedding is reduced to a light cotton duvet cover for sleeping. And it’s very hard to sleep. We have no access to outdoor shade in the garden, as our trees are away from the house, and on slopes. We have to drive to Fyvie Castle grounds to find benches where we can sit in some shade by water!

Our summer visitors, the barn swallows, are struggling too. Last year it was the wet summer that affected their nests – this year the nests are crumbling from the extreme heat and dry conditions. And there is nothing we can do to help. Bowls of water are placed round the garden, and all the birds do drink and wash using them or the hosepipe – but we fear for the migrant visitors, as massive temperatures await them as they fly south to southern Africa. Next year will be the real test of how many make their way back to us then!

Turning to the more mundane, what have I been watching on TV and reading?
“Close to Vermeer” was a C4 documentary following the creation of the Exhibition bringing together as many Vermeer paintings as possible in one place.

We enjoyed the documentary, and bought the book accompanying the Exhibition. Fascinating reading ahead there. I already have some fascinating books all about colour, and the history of the paintbox we have today ….

And the other big one is by Chris Van Tulleken called “Ultra-processed People” …. “Why do we all eat stuff that isn’t food … and why can’t we stop?” I got this as a Kindle download, as the book was so expensive! An eye-opening journey through what the food “industry” has been doing to our food without our knowledge, and without any concern for our health and well-being!

And so on to July, and will the summer gets even hotter?
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2023 Elisa Liddell

2023 April

I decided to dedicate this month’s Journal to the world of technology, and how it has impacted my/our lives, especially since the pandemic – though the changes started a while before with the move from Windows XP to Windows 10.
It has been a seismic shift for so many of us, and a shift that will be permanent, I think. The speed of change that has been forced on us has been hard to keep up with.

I considered myself quite ‘tech-savvy’ before Covid hit – I’d been running websites since the mid 1990s, both personal and about the developing hand-held computers … the forerunners of mobile phones. I was interested in the personal computer dimension more than the phone aspect, as I was disabled and housebound. So I bought the very first iPod Touch.

The operating system was the same as the first iPhone, which made life easier later on! Seen here with earbuds and several iPods, crammed with music.

By the time mobile phones really took off, several operating systems were familiar to me!

I’d also had a keen interest in the technology of CDs, DVDs and their tape-based forerunners. I’d been a Walkman user since the early 1980s, and a keen user of digital music ever since …. taking music with me wherever I went.

Music, podcasts and radio recordings were loaded onto my iPods, and played through speaker ‘docks’. Of course the ‘docks’ usually needed to be plugged into a wall socket – so not really portable!

So by 2019 I was well equipped with digital machines, and quite familiar with a range of home and online services and personal players. I’d even ditched my old Nokia phone, and moved to the iPhone, starting with the iPhone 5!
We had just bought our first smart TV, and our PCs and laptops were all hooked up to the internet. I’d been posting to the photographic website Flickr since 2012 – so I guess I was quite well prepared when Covid hit us as 2020 began!

Now the world changed in ways we weren’t expecting, and the pace of change accelerated. Shopping online was something we were used to – living remotely it was always an essential for us. So we had some existing accounts we could use. But with lockdown it became essential to order everything online, even the weekly grocery shopping trips were forbidden! We were all now prisoners in our own homes.
We were luckier than most, in having a good sized garden for a little exercise. But being in the ‘shielding’ group, at least initially, we couldn’t ‘stray’ further. And the links to the outside world by phone and mainly by Wi-Fi broadband became increasingly important.
Online banking, online shopping, emailing – all had been part of our lives before – but they became the only means of conducting our lives.

Perhaps the biggest technological ‘leap’ came with the development of the smartphone Apps. There is now an app for almost everything! I didn’t expect to be conducting banking business, or paying bills by smartphone. I was used to using the computer for financial transactions … but surely not my iPhone? But yes – it has become possibly the most essential piece of technology most of us need to function in 2023!

It has been an accelerating (and very expensive) journey through the Covid years! And now, in what we call our “post-covid” year(s) I find myself fully equipped with an iPhone that can ‘talk’ to the world, read the news, alert me to the next refuse collection, or local roadworks, pay bills and play music, listen to the radio or watch TV. A watch that can monitor my health as well as tell the time, tell me the weather and alert me to emails, iMessages and so much more. Airpods that can give me all the quality of sound reproduction I could get from a speaker dock, and silently so as not to disturb Mike.
All told, 2019 seems a long time ago, and another way of life!

And so on to May, and I turn my mind to summer
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2023 Elisa Liddell

2023 March

March is so often the grey and bleak tail-end of winter. As the snow comes and goes, the slush and rain take over. And here the farmers begin to plough fields ready for Spring sowing. The trees are still bare, and the colours all so drab!
So our long winter continues. This is the 6th month when it has been so cold we need the central heating on 24/7. It is truly a bleak and brutal winter. I’ve been looking for both warmth and colour through the lenses of my camera. And I’ve chosen glass and prisms set against a bright orange scarf to offer a warm alternative to the outside world!

After so many years we have ‘discovered’ Turriff park and lake!
Although it is still colourless and cold there, I took my Lensbaby (the ‘original’ I started with in 2013) and added some lensbaby fly-away effects to the winter lake.

Looking across the howe from our garden, and using a telephoto lens to catch the sun brightening the world and revealing the winter white that still dominates our lives!

Most mornings start with scraping ice off the cars, spreading grit and salt on the slippery paths, feeding the birds as well as we can, and keeping the ice off their water dishes.
Then curling up and keeping warm indoors, wrapped up in quilts and sipping hot drinks.

With our world still dominated by winter the garden is low on photographic interest. Here dried flower heads from our blue ‘mop-head’ hydrangeas are caught as the sun melted the ice on the petals (using my oldest Helios lens)

A real snow storm in early March, caught this time with the Zeiss Makro 50mm lens. Again the dried flower heads of the hydrangea – looking so different in the background bokeh!

I move as many planters as possible indoors to overwinter – many of them my delicate pink geraniums.

And they occasionally reward me with a fresh and delicate flower to cheer the indoor world, and provide me with a lovely subject to shoot! Here with one of my newest miniature Japanese vases.

And being confined to the warm indoor world, I search through my ever growing store of photo props to celebrate each new day! I bought a large collection of marbles on eBay one year. Always a delight to shoot.

I decided to concentrate on my internal world this month, rather than the external and political events that continue to swirl around us. Together with books and music my photography forms the bedrock of my creative life. We have each other – which is the absolutely essential bedrock on which everything else is built. And we have been so lucky to be able to support each other through the long (and ongoing) pandemic experience. We do feel the impact, especially in energy terms – the stresses are always leaking energy. I suspect we are all on the edge of exhaustion as we contemplate the coming months!

And so on to April, and I turn my mind to more technical matters!
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

Flickr holds Elisa’s online Photo Gallery
© 2023 Elisa Liddell

2023 February

It ‘s not often I give a nod towards celebrating Valentine’s Day …. the commercialisation that has developed around it is not to my taste. But this year we all seem to be feeling the fragility of life, and the importance of our close relationships. So I’ve been shooting some heart-shaped images. Here using the miniature bench I found recently.

There’s something haunting about this image that appeals to me. The bench, sitting in the sunshine surrounded by nothing but shadows is poignant. And my mind made a link with the current major news event – a massive earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The complete devastation of entire towns and cities – and the plight of those homeless ‘lucky’ survivors lost in a world of rubble.

February began here with wild storms, which brought back memories of last year, when we were recovering from Storm Arwen, and counting the cost in every way, especially health. Six days with no power left a long legacy – it took many months to recover, and feel warm again. This year we have got more emergency supplies in store, but are apprehensive about a bad winter.

The other thread that runs through everything is the run-away inflation. Managing the running costs of our home, keeping warm and properly fed – these were not things we expected to be concerned about in the 21st century. But I find myself recalling my early childhood when rationing was a major part of daily life, and the everyday budget was always to the forefront of my mother’s mind!
13 years of Tory ‘austerity’ have cut the UK to the bone – there is no excess meat on the bone! Add in Brexit, and we were on our knees as a nation before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The best we can do is to keep a close eye on the finances, and try to keep a healthy and optimistic frame of mind! Plenty of rest, plenty of binge watching using our smart TV, and as much photography as possible!

Using my favourite old Helios 44-2 lens, shooting one of my newest miniature vases from Yuta Segawa with just a few wisps of last year’s hydrangeas. Set in the cool winter sunshine.

One of my fun ways to enjoy indoor (winter) shooting is to play with everyday things such as cutlery, and enjoy experimenting with their bright surfaces!

One thing that is a direct consequence of the pandemic is that I have lost touch with all my assorted cameras and lenses! I have collected so many lenses, and several makes of camera too over the 11+ years of photography. Lenses for all kinds of subjects, all kinds of weather, and all manner of optical effects.
As 2020 began we suddenly found ourselves in lockdown and ‘shielding’ too. Suddenly the extent of my photographic ‘canvas’ shrank to indoors. As the warmer weather came our favourite places to walk and shoot were closed. Activity, exercise, and photographic opportunities were virtually nil!
And over those 3+ years I have had cameras and lenses that have never (or only rarely) seen the light of day. I have begun to consciously choose a couple of ‘unused’ lenses to work with, but I am finding that it takes more than a week or two to re-familiarise with a lens! I need longer to be able to effortlessly get the kind of results I could pre-pandemic!
So my current lenses are Lensbaby optics (several optics on 2 NEX-6 bodies) and Helios 44-2 and 44-M on NEX-6 and NEX-7 bodies.

This is a Lensbaby Sweet 40 with added 8mm macro ring. Usually the Sweet 50 would be a ‘go to’ lens for walking around Leith Hall gardens or Fyvie Castle.

And this is my oldest Helios lens, a 44-2 that is frozen at F2. Here catching ice droplets on the Japanese plum tree by our gate. No buds yet, but I am beginning to get the lens outdoors once again!

The 3 cameras I have kept using all through the pandemic are my main macro camera, A Sony 77m2 with the 100mm tele-macro lens – an original Sony RX100 – a Sony RX10m3.
Yes – I am a Sony camera lover!
So the addition of the two specialised lenses has kept me busy since last Christmas. I’ve still got a lot more to explore, with the lenses and additional macro rings. But I feel I am making a start!

Here using the Lensbaby double glass optic for a landscape shot across the howe. The typical lensbaby focus and fly-away blur. Just walking along to the Kirk. Rendered in B+W.

And my ‘go to’ lens for shooting across the howe – the Sony RX10m3. Usually much used to shoot during trips up the coast, or at Leith Hall, where there are good distance shots to be had.

And my main way of recording the landscape as we drive along (mainly going shopping!) The RX100. In all kinds of weather, travelling at speed, it can capture such amazing images!

And so February has passed, with me trying to keep warm, cheerful and active. Avoiding the news is a significant positive step! There is little I can do to effect what goes on in the country or in the wider world. Luckily we have had no power cuts, so both Sky Box and smart TV streaming channels have kept us both entertained!

On to March – the indoor winter experience
Back to the 2023 Cover Page
Back to Notebooks cover

2023 Vision

And so 2023 begins.
This it the third year of my online Journal, and each year has confounded my thoughts as I sat and looked into the possible shape of the coming months. Maybe weaving plans and expectations for the year ahead is not really a wise move!
But it’s a natural, human thing to do … to make shapes of the future, and to make stories of our past. Maybe all journals should be written only in retrospect.
I confess that I have fewer ideas about what lies ahead in 2023 – fewer than I expected I’d have. The last 3 years have completely shaken up all our plans and expectations. I guess that is the nature of a pandemic – a global event that reshapes the world. All I can do is describe where I am now, where the UK is now, and where the wider world is now … as seen from this small corner of the Scottish highlands.

Personally we (Mike and I) still treat the pandemic as active, along with ‘flu and several other winter infections. So we live a quiet life of ‘shielding’ and wear masks when shopping etc. This is unusual now, as most people try to act as if the pandemic is over. But cases are still fluctuating, and the advice in Scotland has changed to mask wearing in crowded public places – ventilation and social distancing.
There is no functioning NHS. Under-funded and overstretched for 13 years it is collapsing around us. Indeed all public services are collapsing: teachers, local government workers, train drivers, social care workers … so many are striking after 13 years of ‘austerity’ which meant pay freezes all round.
The tipping point came in the final months of last year, as rocketing inflation has driven more workers to need Food Banks to even eat minimally. The UK government is doing nothing, waiting for ‘public opinion’ to turn against the strikers, and the strikers to be starved back to work.
It sounds Dickensian, doesn’t it …. and it feels Dickensian too, living through it!

January …and the journey begins with some new delights.
February …… and re-awakening some dormant cameras!
March ….. and the indoor winter experience
April …. and a look at how Covid had changed our tech. lives
May … and it is shaping up to be another drought and heatwave
June … and the drought and heatwave are both here!

Back to Notebooks cover

2022 September

A month that started with the heatwave and the drought, and then the rain came …
Saving water, and using every drop from the house to keep the garden alive … that’s how September began. It was so dry that one of the barn swallow nests collapsed. There was nothing we could do to help – the nest was just too dry, it disintegrated. The fledglings had learnt to fly, which was a relief – but we wonder if they will return next year!
Then on September 5th we had some rain! 15mm over 3 days – the first signs that maybe the hot dry season was ending!

For several months we have been organising and planning for the coming winter. Storm Arwen last November-December, and our week with no power, no connectivity and no way to keep ourselves properly warm have etched into our minds just how vulnerable we are here. It took months before we felt our body core temperature was restored – and we vowed never again to trust the electricity company (SSEN) to tell the truth and address the situation. So we have been adding to our “resilience” stores all year – and topped up our coal this month. Sadly it might be our last top-up, as coal is now becoming too expensive both to import and to buy!

Technology has also thrown up problems for me this year. My large 8TB EHD failed, and I dropped my main portable EHD that I use to connect the desktop with my laptop. Big expense and many hours retrieving data. My desktop USB ports also failed and refused to connect … so work-arounds are needed there. It seems to be a season of technology jinx. My machines are all 3 or 4 years old now – and that seems to be when the problems begin to mount up!

September also saw a few more of our pre-pandemic routines restored. Eye tests, last done over 2 years ago, were accomplished. And new specs ordered. And I had the first tooth extraction since wisdom teeth as a student. A very ‘soft’ diet for several weeks!

And of course the Queen died on September 8th.
In a jaw-dropping return to medievalism the entire country came to a grinding halt for 2 weeks of mourning! As a long-time republican I was hoping it would be time to look again at the whole question of having a monarchy … but no debate was permitted, and the whole anachronistic cavalcade rolls on. All semblance of government addressing the major problems of energy supplies and rampant inflation were abandoned, and all news coverage within the UK was restricted to the medieval pageantry.

I’m trying stop buying flowers, as they are becoming so expensive! But can’t resist gladioli!

For so long I believed “Dame Edna” the fictional creation of Barry Humphries, that gladioli were just to be sneered at! How wrong I was – they are both beautiful and extremely photogenic!

I’m bringing in a small ‘something’ to shoot each day – and have made a new Flickr album “From the garden”. Snail shells and feathers, fallen leaves, flowers and berries …

We have a large rowan tree in the garden, close to the patio – and every year a profusion of bright red berries adorn the tree, and then carpet the flagstones! I’ve never tried making rowan berry jelly … must try it!

The other fruit-bearing tree we have is a Victoria plum. And come September we are awash with plums – plenty for all the birds and insects as well as enough to make plum sauce for the freezer!

And September saw some new additions to my collection of miniature vases, created by Yuta Segawa. I find them perfect for small still-life photography. Here with some hydrangea petals from the garden.

Ways to entertain myself, to keep the creative impulse alive is always a challenge as the weather and general stamina (and Covid) keep me limited to the house and garden. So the weekly Flickr challenges always keep me looking again at the everyday things around me.

There are so many corners, doors, shelves and cupboards that are just overlooked – they become so familiar I rarely think of using them as a subject for a close look through my cameras! Here the Flickr challenge was “Libraries and Books”.

Another challenge was “I love to …..” and my non-photographic absorbing pastime is watercolour painting. I want to learn enough to paint like Cezanne! Well – to paint what I want using Cezanne as my guide to technique!

The macro lens is one of my favourites. It can (just like a microscope) take you places where the naked eye strains, or simply cannot reach. Composition plays its part in any shot – but here a pair of very small bonsai scissors becomes something special.

The kitchen is a treasure-house of subjects to shoot – especially in macro. Here sunlight falling on a humble cheese-grater transforms the metal into a dancing bokeh. Yes – inspiration is all around … though sometimes it is easy to lose sight of it.

And sometimes I just take things from my treasured collections … and make pretty pictures! This lovely perfume bottle was a charity shop find.

Along with a birthday present David Andersen brooch and some geranium flowers it makes something pleasing to my eye – and satisfying to my creative urge to seek out beauty and record it….

And so on to October, where autumn begins, and the summer heat is but a distant memory!

Back to the 2022 Cover page
Back to Notebooks cover