My advice is to look for such details in your own photos, in drawings and artwork in galleries, in books of paintings and photos, in maps ancient and modern and in what you see as you walk around this wonderful world. Our surroundings are full of rarely noticed beauty and detail.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.
Click thumbnails to enlarge
Like most people, I absolutely love sunsets. The colours vary between subtle and garish. The sky may be clear of clouds leading to a blue sky overhead grading evenly to pink or orange on the western horizon or it may be quite cluttered with cloud as in today’s image.
Whenever I have an opportunity to capture a picture like this I just go for it. I wonder what aspects of the scene particularly stand out for you? Leave a comment to let me know. Also, I love photography generally, and always have.
Here’s what I like in today’s photo
The gradual colour change on the far left from pure blue above to a murky orange/brown at the horizon
The tracery of the silhouetted branches of the trees.
The subtle upward rays of the sun just above the horizon on the left
The vivid glare of the sun, far left
The mixed greys and oranges of the clouds
The barely visible detail of the fields at the bottom
Exceptions
One exception is in the upper right where some little, scrappy clouds have only the merest hint of greyness, being almost entirely pink. Another exception is the only hint of animal life I can find in the photo; there are some birds perching in the highest branches of the tree in the centre. You won’t see these birds at all unless you click on the thumbnail image and then click it again.
Little exceptions like this are always worth looking for in any photo or painting. They are often the things that really bring an image to life. My advice is to look for such details in your own photos, in drawings and artwork in galleries, in books of paintings and photos, in maps ancient and modern and in what you see as you walk around this wonderful world. Our surroundings are full of rarely noticed beauty and detail. So go out and begin to notice. What is the smallest new detail you can spot today? Again, let me know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
There are exceptions to every rule, and sometimes exceptions to the exceptions. Conifers are an exception here, they stay green all year round. The exceptions to the exceptions include larch which shows autumn colour and loses its needles, swamp cypress, and the dawn redwood from China, three conifers with autumn colour.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.
Click thumbnails to enlarge
One of our favourite places to visit, at any season of the year, is Westonbirt Arboretum. My Dad used to call it ‘the tree zoo’. It’s only a 30 minute drive along the route of the old Roman road from Cirencester towards Bath. This time of year the autumn colours are fabulous. The photo focuses on some Japanese maples, Acer palmatum. Acer palmatum is one one of the finest species with cultivars in a rich variety of reds, oranges and yellows. Westonbirt has glades of mature specimens and an area of newer planting. Both were looking glorious when we visited.
Why do the leaves become so brightly coloured?
I was hoping you would ask. During the long months of summer the mature leaves on trees produce the green pigment, chlorophyll, that reflects green light and absorbs the rest. That absorbed light contains energy that the leaves use to break apart carbon dioxide from the air, attaching the carbon atoms to hydrogen from water and expelling the oxygen. In a set of chemical steps, the carbon and hydrogen are converted to sugars used as building blocks to build starch as a storage product, and cellulose as a structural material to make wood. That’s a grossly simplified version of the story, but fundamentally it is correct. In biochemistry and in botany the process is called photosynthsis.
The starch in wheat, potatoes, rice and other plants can be used by herbivores and omnivores (for example humans) as food. We combine the starch with oxygen to recreate water and carbon dioxide, releasing the energy we need to walk, breath, pump blood, and think. Human brains consume a lot of energy. This process, the reverse of photosynthesis is call respiration.
So taking plants and animals together there’s a closed loop involving water, carbon dioxide and energy. In addition to the starch we use for energy, the cellulose in wood can also be combined with oxygen to provide energy. That is called ‘fire’, it also releases water and carbon dioxide. So when you relax in January in front of a wood burning stove you’re using the sun’s heat and light trapped by trees perhaps a hundred years earlier! If you burn coal it was trapped millions of years earlier.
So that’s why plants have green leaves.
Autumn
As the days grow shorter and the weather grows colder, trapping energy by means of chlorophyll becomes less and less efficient. The leaves on trees become a liability, being battered by the wind and worth little to a tree until the weather warms again in the spring. But the leaves contain useful materials that can be recovered before the leaves are discarded. There are other coloured substances in leaves, mostly coloured yellow, and as the leaves stop producing green chlorophyll, these are unmasked and the leaves change appearance from greens to yellows.
Nutrients in the leaves are recovered and stored in the main bulk of the tree so that, when the leaves fall, these nutrients can be called upon in the spring when new leaves need to be made. Some of the bright reds and purples in autumn leaves are synthesised as the weeks go by, and they play a protective role enabling the tree to recover greater amounts of the nutrients. (Waste not, want not for trees!) Not all species of tree have this refinement, and in those that don’t the leaves remain yellow. Once the nutrients have been recovered a weak layer develops near the base of each leaf stalk, a point where wind action will cause the leaf to break away cleanly and fall to the ground. You can watch this happen on any windy autumn day, leaves fluttering down with every gust. In natural woodland the fallen leaves decay, acting as a rich mulch and forming compost where seeds can germinate and grow. In parks and gardens they are swept up for tidiness and composted in bins or heaps.
Our eyes can distinguish the changes in leaf colour and we enjoy the spectacle and joy of glorious autumn colour, then we endure winter but look forward to the lovely, fresh greens of spring.
There are exceptions to every rule, and sometimes exceptions to the exceptions. Conifers are an exception here, they stay green all year round. The exceptions to the exceptions include larch (Larix decidua) which shows autumn colour and loses its needles, swamp cypress (Taxodium distichum), and the dawn redwood from China (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), three conifers with autumn colour. Life is indeed a many-varied thing! The image shows a mature dawn redwood in autumn colour.
Closing thoughts
This website covers a range of topics, one of which is faith. I do my best to follow Jesus, not just in his teaching, but in how he lives and thinks and touches people’s hearts and minds. Sometimes people take faith and science as self excluding opposites; you can choose one or the other but you cannot have both.
In fact there are many, many scientists who also have a faith and many followers of Jesus or other teachers of faith (Mohammed, Buddha and more) who accept the process and findings of science. And we all use technology every day, all of it based on scientific foundations and principles. It makes no sense to accept the successful results while rejecting the reasoning behind them. I will throw away neither science nor faith. I need both, and I am far from alone in that. I recommend you explore both. Make a start on my Welcome page, nobody is excluded; all are welcome, all are invited.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Sunlight makes two internal reflections in a raindrop in mid air and these reflections send the light back at a fixed angle from the sun, but as a ray of sunlight enters a raindrop it is not only bent at an angle, each wavelength (or colour) is bent by a slightly different amount.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.
Click thumbnails to enlarge
On 27th October I walked to town for some shopping, coming out of Boots in Cricklade Street I found it had started raining, so went into Bishop’s Walk to find shelter. As the rain eased I moved toward the entrance and looking out saw a bright rainbow so made my way to the Market Place for a better look.
Rainbows are interesting apparitions. Sunlight makes two internal reflections in a raindrop in mid air and these reflections send the light back at a fixed angle from the sun, but as a ray of sunlight enters a raindrop it is not only bent at an angle, each wavelength (or colour) is bent by a slightly different amount. The same happens again as the light leaves the raindrop. So these rays of separated, coloured light now come back at similar but not identical angles from the sun so raindrops in exactly the right place send back a single colour to the viewer eyes. The rainbow is part of a circle, cut off where it meets the ground as there are no raindrops below that point.
Enhanced image
Furthermore, a small amount of the light is reflected three times internally in each raindrop and comes out at a wider angle. If there are enough raindrops in the air, you can then see another rainbow outside the circle of the main bow. This outer rainbow is faint and not always visible though you can just make it out in the photo. The colours in the outer rainbow are reversed because of the additional reflection inside the raindrops. In the second photo (click it to enlarge it), I’ve increased the intensity of the colours for you. You can just see the outer rainbow in both images (look above the chimneys over the yellow shop on the right (Joules). You may notice the colours are reversed in the outer bow, red on the inside and blue outside.
A closer look
Finally, took a look at the final photo where I’ve pushed things to the limit. I’ve enlarged a small part of the photo and enhanced the colours even more. Again, click the image for a closer look. Traditionally a rainbow was said to have seven colours – red, orange, yellow, green, blue (a pale blue), indigo (a deeper blue) and violet. In actual fact it’s a steady slide through the range of colours.
Do you notice anything else about this rainbow? If so, leave a comment below.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Wherever you choose to sit in this cafe’s courtyard she will be looking directly at your face! It doesn’t matter where you sit; her eyes, as they used to say, follow you across the room (or in this case across the courtyard). This happens because, although the picture is on a flat surface, our minds perceive faces to have a three-dimensional shape and we’re very sensitive to eyes that seem to be looking in our direction.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.
Click thumbnails to enlarge
Donna and I used to visit this cafe regularly a few years ago when it was called ‘Pretty and Pip’. Today, under new ownership and management it’s called ‘Hugh’s’. It’s a little more expensive these days and we normally visit Jacks, Blend, Coffee#1, Caffe Nero, or on fine days in warm weather, our local roastery, Rave.
I really admire good artists. This piece of wall art is very clever in some of its detail. Look at the eye on the left (the eye on the right is obscured by a little flag in this image. Looking at the detail in that eye you can see a yellowish iris and the depths of a dark pupil. The eyelid is well-defined, and the eye itself is shining brightly and clearly with the moisture of tear drops and blinking. You’re looking at the living face of a young woman with an intelligent mind and some private thoughts. Or are you?
The artist has fooled you, you are looking at a plain wall of concrete blocks. Look again! The iris is an arc of yellowish paint, the pupil is a carefully-placed spot of dark paint, the eye looks shiny and fluid because of a dot of white paint that suggests reflection from a shiny surface.
Another view
But it goes far deeper than that. Wherever you choose to sit in this cafe’s courtyard she will be looking directly at your face! It doesn’t matter where you sit; her eyes, as they used to say, follow you across the room (or in this case across the courtyard). This happens because, although the picture is on a flat surface, our minds perceive faces to have a three-dimensional shape and we’re very sensitive to eyes that seem to be looking in our direction.
And all of this is conveyed by carefully placed and shaped patches of colour on the surface of a rough wall! Very clever and a finely-honed skill.
The food and coffee are great too!
While I’m here. I feel I must add that the coffee at Hugh’s is excellent, and so is the menu and indeed the food. We enjoyed our visit.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Cirencester had an Abbey, St Neots had a Priory; both are long since gone, but both are remembered still. Cirencester has a lovely public park, The Abbey Grounds, St Neots has a public building called The Priory Centre for theatrical and musical performances and all sorts of local events and meetings. Donna and I have very much enjoyed living in both places.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image whenever I can.
Click thumbnails to enlarge
Before we moved to Cirencester we lived in a big old detached property in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. We could seat 10 or 11 people around the big table in our dining room, and a similar number on the patio outside. Our friends called it ‘The Party House’. When we first moved in, the house and garden both needed a lot of work; the second photo shows our housewarming party in September 1999, soon after we moved there. The mix of people includes people from work (Unilever), friends from church (Open Door, St Neots), and neighbours.
September 1999
But Cirencester house prices are far higher than in St Neots so when we moved we bought a much smaller place and extended it, turning the garage into a bedroom and en suite bathroom. We still miss the spaciousness, but we love living in Cirencester. I began my life in this lovely, old, Cotswold town and it seems fitting to complete my life here too.
Quite apart from the town of Cirencester itself, the Cotswold countryside is very special. The towns and villages are all built from the same honey-coloured Oolitic limestone. Although it’s a beautiful colour when it’s freshly quarried or pressure washed, the stone ages to a pleasant neutral grey and becomes mottled as it hosts the growth of white, yellow and black lichens. Many of the buildings have traditional anti-drip ridges above the windows and doors, the roof tiles are frequently of Cotswold stone as well, and gutters, downpipes, doors and window frames are usually painted in a sympathetic, dusky, greyish-pale-green hue as well. These old homes, farmhouses and outbuildings blend gracefully into the countryside. Some of these buildings are rightfully famous, like Bibury’s Arlington Row (pictured above right). It almost looks as if the houses have sprung out of the ground like the nearby trees and hedges!
Historical change
Historically things were very different. If you’d visited the Cotswolds in 1500, the only stone buildings would probably have been ecclesiastical or military: churches, cathedrals and castles would have been built in stone along with city walls, but all the houses and many businesses (shops, pubs, inns and so on) would have been built of heavy wooden frames with wall infill of wattle and daub, a building technique going right back to Neolithic times.
Some of the old houses in Cirencester were originally built this way, rich wool merchants replacing them with stone in Georgian times, and in some cases a stone front was built just outside the old timber frame walls giving the appearance of a stone structure at lower cost. Arlington Row in Bibury was built by a local monastery for wool storage and later divided up for use as weaver’s cottages.
Rivers
Cirencester’s River Churn is part of the headwaters of the Thames. As rivers go it’s very small, rising at Seven Springs just south of Cheltenham, high in the Cotswold hills, running through a wooded, winding valley twelve miles to Cirencester and then joining the Thames at Cricklade after a further ten miles through flatter land. From the confluence with the Thames the Churn is by far the longer of the two rivers, but both names are very old, going back to the Iron Age, and perhaps a good deal earlier. Where they meet, the Thames is wider and deeper than the Churn so would have been thought the main river.
More on St Neots
The River Great Ouse
I began this article with a photo of the patio at our old home in St Neots and I should say some more about that lovely old town before finishing. One of the main features of St Neots is the River Great Ouse, a huge and navigable river by comparison with the little Churn. Both the Thames and the Great Ouse enter the southern part of the North Sea on the east coast of England and at that point both are significant rivers.
Cirencester had an Abbey, St Neots had a Priory; both are long since gone, but both are remembered still. Cirencester has a lovely public park, The Abbey Grounds, St Neots has a public building called The Priory Centre for theatrical and musical performances and all sorts of local events and meetings. Donna and I have very much enjoyed living in both places.
St Neots is a good deal larger than Cirencester and both towns are still growing rapidly in size and population.
Being at home
As I was writing I began to see how important home is. Home can be anywhere on the land surface of this planet called ‘Earth’. But there is something special about home, this is true for all of us. The difference between St Neots and Cirencester is quite minor. English is the most spoken language in both towns. Food and drink are similar in both places, so are the customs and the public holidays and the way life is lived. I could feel at home in either place and I have friends in both places.
But the place where I currently live is special in certain ways. I know Cirencester very well, but St Neots will have changed slightly since we moved ten years ago. For all of us, home is the most familiar place in the world – quite literally.
And I began to see that the same is true in places that are not places at all. For me, heaven is a familiar ‘place’ too. Of course it’s not a physical place in the way St Neots or Cirencester are. But it’s certainly home for me, where everything is familiar and reliable. Heaven is where my heart is already, Jesus is there, his Spirit lives in me and with me day by day, hour by hour.
‘Home is where your heart is’, we are told. My heart is already in this mysterious non-place which is beyond any normal meaning of the word ‘place’. Thinking in terms of place just helps me relate the extraordinary to the ordinary of everyday life.
Perhaps in this last section I’ve lost many of my readers, but I know some of you understand what I’m trying to say. There is more mystery in this universe than we can grasp with everyday thoughts and ideas. Don’t dismiss these thoughts as the ramblings of a deluded old man, they are not that at all. Here is a hidden truth that we can all lean into; and there’s a treasure here that you do not want to miss. So take my advice – go on digging until you find the treasure. His name and his character are there for all who will look deep and long.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
