Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, Sevilla
There are many wonderful photos of the Cathedral in Seville to be found in books and on the web and yet I still have the temerity to post our personal set of snaps with a particular point of view. It starts by pivoting on my heel 180 degrees from facing Ms Haversham’s abode (previous posting) in order to walk along this face of the Cathedral.
Walking round the outside, first impressions are of an extraordinary mixing of shapes and ornamentations with one amazing piece of work cheek by jowl against another.
Externally it’s v much a wedding cake of a place …
… that has attached itself to a medieval tower, begun in 1184.
La Giralda’s, first two-thirds were a minaret and it is used now as a bell tower.
And inside it is gloriously decorated.
The roof shapes, arches and buttresses are full of detailed work and shaping that we humans can barely see.
From the top of La Giralda you look down into the Cathedral courtyard, full of Seville orange trees, and across many of the roofs of the building complex.
There’s flat roof areas with supporting structures and buttresses.
And areas that echo the shaping of Cardinals’ hats.
And domes of various shapes too.
But up in La Giralda there’s the bells.
Intricate carvings, ironwork and mechanisms all amongst the brickwork. And video cameras everywhere.
Whilst inside the flights of fancy just flow…
… and the light is magnificent, with occasional strange results.
Miss Haversham strikes again
Yes, it’s wrapped in a veil
A couple of years or so ago we were in Seville – an amazing and enjoyable city. One of the buildings, right by a corner of the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede on the same side as the Giralda minaret, was a house under renovation.
I’d never seen a whole building wrapped in a net veiling until then. Everything around it had already been put to new purposes, painted up and generally renewed. So the one individual, dark, brooding, Spanish/Victorian looking and heavily veiled standing in the shining row definitely brought on thoughts of Charles Dickens and the Haversham bitter doom.
On closer inspection
The netting folds catch the light and softens the lines of decay.
You can sense the cobwebs, mice and old wedding cake from here.
Related items:
Sun and colours
A quick skive from gardening – just too hot. This is March at a latitude of 55 degrees north, in the hills and it’s not supposed to be as hot as June/July at the moment, but it is. Not a passing sun with a damp chilly breeze so jumpers have to be hand, oh, no. It’s truly as consistently hot as June usually is here. Not a complaint, just a concerned consumer and observer. Many plants are being ‘brought on’ ahead of time by the heat and the warm earth. When the weather breaks there could easily be frosts to come. New and delicate plants don’t usually get put in the ground for another 2-3 weeks or so around here.
The light is blinding and colours of the spring and late winter flowers fantastic. In handling the images, the first thing that strikes me is how the hirsute nature of bits of the plants becomes more self-evident. All very necessary but makes watching small insects navigating their way v amusing.
If you click on one of these images it will open up a gallery containing further hairy and not so hairy specimens.
Related articles
- Fun in the garden (schmidleysscribblins.wordpress.com)
- A Garden in Spite of Itself, Part 2: All the Pretty Flowers (forkinmyeye.com)
- The Colours of Spring (philhirstgardens.wordpress.com)
Old Ice
Cold image on a warm day – came across this from about the same time of year four years ago. Something very appealing about the cellophane look of the ice. You can hear the cellophane crackle sound just from the way the ice sits.
Toad Lido
Further on toads
A week or so ago, nosing over neighbours garden wall from a discreet distance, there they were. They were in groups all around the large pond, awaiting the action.
Not the best photo around but worth a giggle.
The eye and the mind
Palace of Charles V, Alhambra right way up
A place of curves and lines defying the straight. The balustrade top pieces meet and have a relationship with the ceiling panelling, as though parts of the panels have fallen to stair top and, in the fall, have opened out like parts of an old camera; from intaglio panelling to extended Brownie Box shape.
However, I do prefer this image on its side.
Here that relationship of panelling and balustrade is feels broken. The change through 90 degrees creates a totally different perspective and eye-mind observations. I look at different lines within the frame.
In the first, right way up view, my point of eye focus is access through the archway and the mind considers the design and architecture as well as what may be visible once up the steps and through the arch.
In the ‘on its back’ version, for me the view-point of eye focus becomes much more about the complexity of lines and curves in themselves. Even the depth of shades of colour seem different: the ceiling lighter in tone.
The mind considers the curve of the panelling much more and attempts to create its ‘story’. A curved floor room perhaps. I like the Escher feel of recognition of image and the impossibility of the puzzle.
Related articles
- Granada, Spain: guide to visiting the Alhambra (telegraph.co.uk)
I do like a nice reflection
Lines and reflections - love 'em
Spring Sortings
Spring has sprung - tho photo was taken whilst sneezing which is not to be recommended
Notice of arrival (partial)
Photographs of non-dolls’ house/miniature matters having taken on a life of their own, are slowly moving house for a trial run at independence.
My photos are very domestic and done as observations, investigations and records. which sometimes are worth sharing. They creep in to the photographic category by a thin whisker in the sense that we have digital cameras and we enjoy using them. However, the total mix and match in use on this site could do with a bit of an amendment.
Old Hometheinfill.wordpress.com
We’ll see how it goes.
Picking a theme for a blogFellow Worpress-ers: do all free themes on offer show a true possible end result or are some of them only achievable if payment is made for custom measures?
I’ve just spent far too long trying to get the new choice to do as it seems to say on the packet and failed miserably. Have resorted to Forum questions in the hope that help will be at hand.
Tearing hair out (what little I ever had). The category of ‘Point and squirt photos’ will disappear a little at a time as and when I get the hang of the new site. Bit like swimming with floats at the moment.
Good time of year to send the ‘kiddies’ off on their way – as they slowly arrive in their new home.
A small amount of shopping therapy
There are 3 towns within a 20 mile radius of where we live, so although we have no shop in the village, with a little effort retail therapy on the hoof is possible as opposed to online shenanigans which is nowhere near as enjoyable. All 3 towns have remarkable histories and have been photographed by many a tourist. We all have our own take on places and on this day’s wanderings, this is mine.
Today’s therapy was in a town I always think of as skylines, jumbles of roofs and the sea. On sunny days the light is truly amazing here and the town buildings are very colourful, but today was a little misty and I could feel a touch of greyscale coming on. Certainly gone very pre-1960s and earlier: must have been the weather’s influences and the nostalgia of the aging.
Skylines and roof jumbles
The next 2 shots follow on consecutively from the first, circling anti-clockwise.
I find the view is always enjoyable from the old bridge but I wanted to emphasise the silhouette of the roofline on part of the town walls, hence the negative and pencil fiddling
An over dark image of the jumble of roof planes and varying materials
Bridges and boats and buildings
High rail bridge through 'modern' road bridge taken from Jacobean bridge
On the way to try to take a shot of all 3 bridges, you go by the dock
For some reason this made me think of Popeye
Taken a mile and a bit nearer the river mouth on a misty day with an old Canon Ixus 60 - and crossed fingers
This is a salmon river
Lunch and a churchyard
I tend to park on the opposite side of the river to the main town centre – it makes me stretch my legs after the drive in – and by the time I’d got back to the car I was chilly and hungry. I was parked by the churchyard and broke out my lunch whilst warming up in the car. This church is associated with the fishing community and has a weathervane to match.
There are many interesting stones in the churchyard, but today my eye was caught by the appropriately churchyard-ish way the ivy was growing on and into this services type metal item against the churchyard wall - it felt v Victorian and so I fiddled with it to try to give the colouring and contrast you sometimes seen in plate photos
Fed and warmed I prepared to drive off to visit my friend Isla (she who started me off on the doll’s house trail) and caught this final shot for the day in my wing mirror. I liked the curves of mirror and pavement, buildings and fence.
No more therapy till next week – he-ho.
Mummified patterns of life
Bin/Trash Day Toad
(possibly not for the squeamish)
Promised myself I wouldn’t blog for a while but, instead, get on with sunny day things. I think that’s called “life”(?)
My excuse:
Was unchaining bin so man (sorry, operative) could wheel it to vehicle and there below it was a beautiful and mummified being.
The general leather texture, colours and patterns are very beautiful and seem surprisingly insect-like
Just going off to get on with my life
Miss Haversham and focus
Points of Perception
Different each day
Yesterday I shot a series of photos of the dried heads of a mallow plant. Pretty when flowering and a pain for spreading in a small garden.
I trying to choose which image I might use (if any), it became a balancing act of today’s preferred point of perception. Full field focus on the delicacy of a head, a number of heads, or varying focal interest with minute bristles showing up, unseen by my aging naked eye.
I’ve gone for the latter, with a range of soft focus and sharp detail intermixed, against a diminishing line background.
Today I like this delicate, fey looking one. Tomorrow?
Lace for Miss Haversham
Sunshine fan dance
Bright spring day
- trees around have no leaves; few buds coming.
However, in the greenhouse, there is this, looking rather like a pleated window blind.
Ah, my answer to the oft asked question: “why do you keep non-native plants when there are so many you could have?”
Orange peel dawn
Blurring mornings
Push up blind and grope for spectacles – great help: window seal has gone.
Condensation
So, in honour of today’s solar activity – a blurred vision from inside my brain
New specs or new windows? Hmmm. The window would be cheaper, I bet.
Sunny morning roof ribbing
Knitting pattern?
-
Purl 2, slip 1 onto loose needle or stitch pin, knit 1, knit slipped stitch
Sunshine on roof making a knitting poster
Some days I return to a previous vice. Fiddling with photos and turning them into a form of poster layout. The results are very variable, but the fun is in the doing.
It started in the 90s when we had a Mac. I’d scan in my mediocre paintings and drawings and try to make them look like ‘something’ that they weren’t in themselves. Sometime, when I find ‘em, I’ll flash the odd one, perhaps.
This morning’s offering was brought about by the sun on the roof. I immediately saw it as ribbing in a heavyweight yarn.
The roof slope is of old hand-made pantile construction (tip left). We had them relayed when the roof was renewed for us some years back, and it’s covered with mosses and lichens, giving it a varied and textured look.
Digital manipulation is great fun to do and, in this case, combines a love of knitting and crafts generally – so, being fun, well, why not share it?
Related articles
- The Love of Knitting (midlifemusings.com)
Tulips and droplets
A grey morning and these caught my eye
The drops seem to be in motion but are quite still
The leaves have a bit of a red lettuce look about them
Related articles
- Springtime Craft Tutorial: Felt Tulips (whileshenaps.typepad.com)
- Making droplets drop faster (sciencedaily.com)
