Atmospherics

This week I have taken some photographs of mainly St Jame's Park that have come out far better than I expected. Yes my Canon camera has a 25x optical zoom , which goes up to 100x when using the digital zoom, though that is almost impossible to use without a tripod. This is similar to the Sydney Opera House Effect of the Wallsend Cranes from Fenham Hall Drive which you can see here .

St Jame's Park - Newcastle United

Effectively if the atmospherics are right you can actually get a great picture. But you do need a clear ideally sunny or cloudless day and we haven't had too many of those this year, but it is really satisfying when you get images like the one on the right.

I often remark that if you want to take a picture involving atmospherics you have to get it there and then otherwise whatever you are trying to capture will disappear forever.

That has happened so many times to me and sometimes even the time it takes to get your phone out of your pocket means that you lose the moment.

For the first time in my life I have noticed the "Sphere" part of the word "Atmosphere" , basically "Atmos" is from the Greek for vapour and "Sphere" is the ball shape of our planet. "Atmos" is also a Dolby sound system which until today I was unaware of.

I've had at least two time where I have caught "flying saucers" , one being a cloud , the other the sun reflecting off shaped building rooves. , while they are on my Instagram Feed Instagram doesn't allow you to search your own feed for hashtags.

I will update the links if I find the pictures but will leave you with another excuse for this post , one of my favourite Tom Robinson songs "Atmospherics:Listen To The Radio" which I didn't realise was co written by Peter Gabriel..

Sydney Opera House (Again) - #FruitfulSeptember #5

 Walking down Fenham Hall Drive I noticed the cranes at Wallsend seemed very close. This is one of many examples I have seen of the Sydney Opera House Effect , but its certainly the most impressive one that I have seen . I first tried taking photos with my phone but they didn't come out very well, then tried yesterday with my Canon camera but it was a bit grey and then today the light was a bit better and the pictures came out better with the 25x optical zoom. I can go up to 50x but that is digital enhancement and you really need and tripod to keep the camera still and given that many of the photos are done dodging traffic , it;s not really an option. You can see the photos on my Instagram channel here.

Due to one thing and another and the task above I have walked nearly seventeen miles this weekend without really trying. I suppose that's good for me and show that I can actually walk. It's amazing the number of times that because I am diabetic and have high blood pressure that people ask me if I'm able to work, and do gentle exercise. Sometimes I do get tired but you cannot let health things get the better of you , you have a life to live.

I feel slightly guilty that have binged on series four of Bosch and am now on the second episode of series five. It is excellent and highly watchable and I do know that when I hit the end of series six in a few weeks I have plenty of other things to watch. It becomes so easy to watch the start of the next episode , then you are thirty minutes through and then you think I may as well finish this one and then you are onto the next one.

I finish and enjoyed "Venus on the Half Shell" by Philip Jose Farmer writing as Kurt Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout and it was enjoyable but am now revisiting "Spear of Destiny" by Daniel Easterman and even though it's not really started I am eighty pages in and completely rehooked. How he has not had any of his books made into films I haven't a clue, although you can see the Easterman / Aycliffe styles criss crossing. 

So for #FruitfulSeptember we will continue with "Apples and Oranges" a single from Pink Floyd when they were still led by Syd Barrett.

The Sydney Opera House Illusion

I'm still coming to terms with "The Sydney Opera House Illusion", seeing it out of every window in my office, with the realisation that this is not just what my eye / brain combination is doing, but it can be caprured by camera, so it is real, but I'm still at a loss to understand how it happens. Yes I understand he effect of frams and angles but surely they should dot cause items to appear nearer the further you move from the frame. You don't even have to try, and the thing is, because you see it every day you become immune to it until you actually notice it.

Most people don't notice it, but I am not most people, as you know I often go off on tangents and lots of my thinking is very lateral, so I am the sort of person who will notice things like this. The thing is I am 60 and this is the first time that I have actually noticed this. Sometimes it means you see things that you normally wouldn't see because it magnifies small details (though you don't actually realise this is happening). When you are next in a room with a view you should try it.

I think "Just An Illusion" by Imagination is a pertinent accompaniment for this post.

Flash O' Fire

Last night as I got into bed I thought I saw a flash of fire across the room. I didn't, of course, but thought I did. This happened twice. One of the things is that our our eyes only see bits of what we actually see, and our brains fill in the rest, so it's no wonder that that we get optical illusions and hallucinations.

This is probably the reason why people see ghosts, apparitions and UFOs and aliens, sometimes you see what you want to see rather than what is actually there. I often see things which I know cannot logically exist where I see them. It's always and instantaneous thing, that I see for a split second, though I am not sure what I would do if the apparition became persistent to the point of me believing that it was actually real, but some people are less fussy.

Another optical effect I've come across is that way objects that are further away seem nearer the further away from them you are when you view them though a window. It is a real mind bender when you first notice it and even when it is explained to you, which makes perfect sense, your mind still rails against the actual effect. Here is my Instagram post about it. Here is the Sydney Opera House Illusion explained.

Again this gets me to those 3D Magic Eye drawing images which  were big in th e1980s, though most of the time I really couldn't be bothered to concentrate to see the images. Then we go to th emind bending art of MC Escher which again bend reality for you and did inspire a scene in "Labyrinth" which bring David Bowie into play for this post.