Early wooden Carousels.
I have always loved Carousels. Not the modern fibreglass models, but the old wooden ones that were once in fairgrounds all over the world. Magnificent sculptures. From time to time I'll change the image.
The photographs can all be found in "Fairground Art" a beautiful coffee table book by Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward, published by White House editions in 1980. |
'Dirty' postcards | Most people wouldn't regard what used to be called 'dirty' postcards as an art form but they were an intrinsic part of British social life - and comment - in the Fifties and sixties. I have collected the early postcards, mostly from the Bamforth company, from time for many years. Mine are in colour, but I found this one a long time ago in a book I thought some people like to locate and buy, Benny Green's 'I lost mjy little Willie!" Published by Elm Trees Books in 1976. There are used copied available on eBay. |
Seasons in Virginia | This is a dogwood, the State Flower of Virginia. In the Springtime the hedges around where we once lived, near Orlean, were filled with pink and white dogwood; at night the fireflies flitted amid them like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree. In Fall (Autumn) the same trees and the entire landscape of the Appalachian Mountains was a sea of flaming oranges, red, and yellows; in Winter the bluest of blue skies was a startling pictoral contrast to the crisp white snow. Only the summer was a sometime drag. Hot and humid. Nevertheless I often think the years in Virginia were the happiest of my life. |
Sunrise, Sunset.
No, not the song from Fiddle on the roof. Real sunrises and sunsets. I remember a treasured one, in the souhernmost point of Western Australia, watching a whale in the bay spouting alongside his youngster. And anther sitting on top of cliff overlooking Petra in the early 1960's before tourists began pouring into the place and they built a hotel and had convoys going down the awsome path into what the poet called 'The rose red city,half as old as time.' I guess surises and sunsets are ephemeral. Once seen sometimes remembered but rarely. This picture was taken by my good friend Steven Clarke early one morning in October near Buntingford, Hertfordshire. You can see more of it via Steve at http://PdgJAvF2 |