Rainbow Journeyman’s diary

One of the cheeriest ways we know of brightening up a room is colour, contrasting pictures, and using framed decor. (No, thats not the demented cry of a crow, trying to tell an apple eater what to do with the remains!)

Serious for a second. A very good friend of ours who is a frame maker in Penzance tells many a tale of people who come to him with a superb pictures/prints to be framed. Then against better judgement and advice, choose from his incredible collection an absolutely naff frame as a surround. (And wait, there’s more!) Then they add value to the insult by picking out a mount that shouldn’t be seen in a funeral parlour with the lights out. The frame detracts from the mount which detracts from the picture and so on.

In a word YUK! Now its not up to us to tell you what goes with what. We are not part of the nanny state. But look around you at what nature does and you will get some good ideas of what blends with what. And if you are really stuck, go to your local B & Q and borrow one of their colour charts. You know it makes sense.

Then if you care to look seriously at our WEB site at www.rjsw.co.uk. Go on I dare you! Choose a picture that you like. There are one or two there. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it and study it for a while. Seriously, look at it. Go on don’t be fright.

Looking’s free.

Now imagine it as a big centre piece in your Lounge or Dining Area. Something that’s there to attract your eye and to give you something to enjoy on those long winter evenings when the rain is trying to beat out your windows. Its beautiful and it allows you to dream of summers to come.

Now take a second look. (Double dare you!!) Pick something that themes the room itself, (the one you are in!! Not mine).
Large pictures of gloriously evolving sunsets really enhance the darker colours of furniture. The room glows with the warmth of the picture.

To give you a few ideas and opinions. Landscapes, suit Browns Tans and Yellow (Pine) furniture and tend to match all pastel shades.
Now look deeply at the artistic depth of the picture feel the quality of the subject to capture and take your focal viewing out towards the horizon. Live the picture a little. As your eye follows into it, looking at detail, you lose yourself into another world. It gives your room a feeling of grandure and dimension. In some ways its a bit like looking out of a window onto a beautiful country scene. It has a wow factor.

“Statement prints” also work to capture your moods. So whats a statement print? Well. Hm, what we mean by this are abtracts, patterns or solitary flower pictures. Try placing them mentally in toilets, (not in the bowl stupid!) and bathrooms, they make the room seem to smell sweeter. Don’t believe me? Try it. Experts will tell you that the brain is often fooled by a experience of seeing a flower in full colour; enough to help you remember the fragrance or perfume of the flower, or if you have chosen it the fresh ambience and salty smell of an Atlantic Sea Scape. Still unsure. Then think back to when you were a kid. Do you remember the smell of a newly cut hedge, or lawn? Most of us do.

No, not you high rise flat dwellers. An Albatross is probably more your mark. Regrettably, yours is probably a memory of a Hyacinth in a window box. And in our opinion all the more reason for you to bring the countryside or a seascape into your living area. Never mind the spray from the beach or the odd touch of hay fever. Its worth it for the effect that it adds to your life style. That is until you can get down here and join us next year!!

Now, if you are Hypertense. That’s the bit where you find yourself digging your fingernails into the palms of your hands without realsing it. Or your shoulder muscles get cramped because you appear no to be able to relax. (No no you Greg. You bite your fingernails and you are so laid back so it may not work.) Anyway as I was saying. A picture can help relieve stress. Just as simple as using them like the window I said about earlier.

Hey, so now lets add to that, good pictures can do more if you want them to. Remember the SAD syndrome. (Seasonally Adjusted Disorder.) It is caused by lack of sunlight and experts say…………… drab colours. You can believe that can’t you? Summer sunshine brings out the flowers and trees which add colour to our lives and we gain the “feel good” factor.
No, don’t get it wrong. That’s not the one that the Chancellor expects of all good citizens. Just because he has told you that since being in power he has dumped you with buckets of money to spend and halved all taxation!! Hang about. What’s that noise? Cuckoo, cuckoo! Must be spring already. I’ve just heard another Government sponsored Cuckoo.
No, no, put that thought aside for a moment. “Feel good” I said not “feel depressed”.

Let’s take a look at a lot of pictures. Pictures make you feel good.

Little known fact. Very soon you can from our site get the benefit of owning your own relaxation aid in the form of sixty to seventy pictures burned onto a DVD, complete with relaxing music. (Or not, if you want it silent) You can play the sequence on your PC or TV and you can capture the moods of the West Country from the warmth of your home..

Lets try that inside your head . Imagine. You are in your favourite chair, good book to hand, with a glass of your favourite tipple placed within easy reach. Tense from your day in the office , or the farm…or the……..you can fill in the occupation…you know where you work, or don’t as the case may be.
So what’s missing? Book’s good. Wine’s fine! Ah, but add to this scene your own favourite choice of DVD, replaying a series of quality pictures displayed in full living colour of Seascapes, Landscapes, and Beautiful views including the many deserted beaches for you to feel wistful over. That does it. That’s what you needed.
In essense you are following a Rainbow Journeyman round a camera shoot. Not any old bunch of pictures. But the West Country of Devon and Cornwall. Simply a wonderful way to relax. Each picture quietly fading and blending with the next, showing some of the best of the West Country…………… all from the comfort of your living room. Try it.

All for now.
More again soon

Mike Tyrrell

We are often asked, when we appear on-site at some obscure location, what we are doing? With camera at the ready gripped tightly but lightly, legs akimbo, one eye shut, t’other glued to the viewfinder; the face screwed into a grimace, (which my daughter assures me improves my image no end) it might have been considered to be a trite statement. But then, on reflection, I suppose in some ways it’s a bit like asking a golfer, as he is about to swing the ball, what he is doing. When you get the answer “playing golf”, or in our case “taking photographs”, people tend to look a bit nonplussed. But to be kind, what they are really asking is, “What are you doing that for?.”

So my conscience says in hindsight that a bit more of an answer is needed. Of course you have to be careful when you do this, when you reach the point that their eyes start to glaze over you know that you’ve gone too far.
Our Job? Ok, just for you I will tell all!!

It’s all part of the process of recording some of life’s most beautiful images and publishing them so that others can, from their boring office desk, enjoy them. But it’s not just a case of popping off down the road and banging away with a camera.
The job demands (John insists) that we try to achieve a fair mix of images that most people will enjoy.

To begin. Picking a site to start your photographic session takes a fair amount of planning. Following the previous paragraphs thoughts, it would be to all too easy to follow the local tourist routes and end up at some of the set places that have been designed like pre processed cheese. Places that have been set up and decorated to fit the palate of the people (Not you discerning reader) who expect to see Devon and Cornwall people going, “Oohar!” , chewing straw, or chasing pirates and troughing Oggies! A sort of sanitised Walt Disney mixture that struts between Witchcraft, Pixies, Pirates, Worzels, mud like glue, and Wellies. Stop there. I am beginning to feel sick.

Nothing we do could be further from the truth. Let me explain.

Cornwall and Devon, have some very unique features that make them two of the the most beautiful places in England. (And before every Yorkshire man, Scots man, Welshman, etc, etc, drag their heavy verbal artilleries from their lexicography cupboards, pick up their pens and comes looking. I will add, hastily, in my opinion.

Perhaps part of the truth on this lays in the fact that most of the heavy industry, in the days of the industrial revolution, that could have destroyed the landscape, existed in underground pits and mines, had something to do with it. (Forgive St Austell, that really is the pits.)

Engine Houses, Counting Houses, Lime Kilns and Mine buildings had workings that are today left showing. Fine crafted structures of granite, brick, and steel. They had a sort of poignancy about them. An ageless architecture that in itself was timeless, but very thought provoking. Looking today through a lens, focuses the mind keenly on the history from Iron age to present day life. And, when you research the photographs you have taken, you feel for those people that were trapped in this mind numbing poverty. Because the owners owned all.

If uoi go to Chip Shop in Devon. No, no, not the Chip shop. But Chip shop. Its a mining area where the owners paid the workers in scrip, called chips. Now it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this was not the coin of the realm. You couldn’t nip off to London for a naughty night out evenif you could manage to make a few savings from the pittance that you were paid. It was scrip. The only place you could change it was in the company owned store. And the food that you bought at the company inflated prices had to be taken home to your company owned hovel. Get the idea.
But hey, life has moved on, lets not get too maudling, and the rose coloured glasses have now slipped into place. Aftre all there are many famous books on the subject that will tell you about this, so you don’t need my waffle to add to it. Rainbowjourneymen try to bring you the images that show the area. The true area, not the tinsel and manufactured attractions. So, as said, planning is very important. And we do plan.

You have got to admit that even some of the nasty places. Not nasty by design, but nasty by mans purpose, like Bodmin Gaol, have something about them. But even today when you go and look at this superb structure of the granite block workings that form the main structure of the Gaol, you have to stand back from your admiration of design and have a quiet shudder to yourself when you think of the poor souls that were incarcerated there over the past centuries. Often, locked up for the theft of a few pence and for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Before being chucked aboard some prison ship to be sent on Holiday to the Southern Antipodes. (Australia) Hang about I am wandering again.

Today, Devon and Cornwall have become a sort of hallowed area built of several of these base factions. Ancient visible History, plus hills, valleys, rivers and moors, have come together as a kind of idyllic dream. And History. Yes I know. I said that. But you cannot turn a corner, if you stay off the tourist synthetic routes, without bumping into history.
From Iron Age dwellings just below Dartmoor Prison. The Hurlers stone figures High on the Moor. To stone age workings down a River Valley Cleave, near Par. All examples that excite the photographer. Especially the Rainbow Journeyman.

Then, on the way to these fabulous examples of history, a sunset happens. The sea boils crystalline white, foaming surf leaps into the lenses eye. A surfer digs his toenails into the very edge of his board to ride the experience. Or further up the valley water falls cascade their way down from great heights onto the beach, diamonds of spinning water catching the sun in each prismatic leaping droplet. At Lands End, or to be precise Sennen Cove, on the way to Lands End: Fishermen’s Net, straddle the heathers, its tangled web of threads jumping from clump to clump embroidering the moor with inticate strands of colour.

When you work the moors. Stolidly, the ponies munch on, moving at their will, meandering across the slopes in timeless patterns, dictated by the clumps of edible grasses that exist among the bracken.

Thats all for now. More soon
Mike Tyrrell for Rainbow Journeyman South West.

Recently, I was fortunate to be able to go to one of the studios of a very professional photographer who is a houshold name. (No name dropping here) It was encouraging to see that although he has risen to fame on the back of one or two named images, he, like us, never throws away images from his previous life prior to his climb to fame. No matter how bad they look at first.

Now we can ask. Do we at Rainbow take bad images? Nope, not ever!
Hm, dosen’t sound honest does it. The truth is……………… Yup, tons of them. (Slight deviation of truth here for dramatic effect) In reality quite a lot.
Now I don’t mean that they are not printable. They are. It’s just that they are not quite right. Trying to acheive the impossible effects from an obscure scene and so on, rabbit rabbit.

But, one of the funny things that you learn when you tote your pictures around after a shoot is that not everybody sees your bad (your opinion) pictures as bad. (Are they being polite. No…………… some of them don’t even like me, and would welcome the chance to have a pot.)

Now, this leads me the point where I say… let me ask you a question…why? Deep thinking caps on here. Pearls of wisdom follow.

It’s not rocket science really. Over the years of taking digital photographs, I have noticed a tendency of mine to go back through the archives, review pictures that I have previously discarded and crop sections from some of the less likely pictures. I then create new pictures that have captured the interest of the few followers that we have. As we have always used high pixel rated cameras this has always been possible.

Nothing clever there then. But here’s the thought. Did the people who liked them, before I cropped them, “see” the part of the picture that I had cropped as being “the” picture. Perhaps they were more aware of the value of the picture by seeing what was there and what in fact I had blindly seen but missed in my conscious awareness when I first framed up the picture and pressed the button. Sort of looking for a picture, recognising it, but not really seeing it. (Ouch, my brain hurts!)

Anyway, we got a bit deep there into the psychosis of the Rainbow mind. Yea, yea, I know what that means. It means that we as photographers are some kind of nerd when it comes to looking at an object to photograph. So, (hang about a minute there’s more.) I did a blind census of as many prople that I know without them knowing my reasons why I was asking as to what they did with there old slides/prints/images. Less than one percent threw them away. And if you asked them why? In their funny little human ways they all said the same thing. “There’s something there that I liked about this particular print/slide/digital image. Now, take it further and ask about cropping the pictures and give them a moment or two of reflection they all say that they would cut this of hack that. Ureeka. That we are not all nuts here at Rainbow Journeyman. Almost everybody does see something in an image. Not just in those images that you know are WOW!, but other lesser mortal images where there is a much softer wow factor.

Ok, I hear you say what is he rambling on about now. Well in my own indecisive way I have arrived at the point that says. If you are an artist or a photographer keep your scrap items and treasure them. You may want to steal from them later. And Hey, that tiny corner of a big picture could make your fortune.

Just remember you heard it here first

More soon

Mike T
www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

You can never tell, when you take a camera out to do a shoot, if you are going to find some interesting subjects. After all, being qualified nurds, we always carry our cameras in our cars, don’t we?.
Now, here, you may have seen through my unsubtle subterfuge and noticed that I am telling you Porkies. What I should really have said is: we always try to carry our cameras in our cars. You know and I know if you don’t, sods law says that there will be a dream of a picture that you are guaranteed to miss. And I did!

It was one of those routine daily journeys when we were travelling the back ways into Holsworthy, Devon. Always a pleasure as the countryside aroud here is as it should be, unspoilt. In itself a very pretty route but, hey, we have done it a million time (More porkies! Probabley a couple of hundred.) “Get on with the yarn!” I hear you say. Ok, Ok, give a fella a break.

As we rounded the bend at the hill that leads down from upper lane to the river we had to stop for one of those delights that you can always find if you live in the country. Animals. Well sheep really. I think that they qualify don’t they? Fifty or sixty sheep to say the least. “So what, you say, sheep is a sheep is a sheep, in’t it?” Well, yes, normally. But this time it was one of those occasions where the sun hadn’t climbed too high and was slanting though the trees back up the lane that we were travelling down.
The sheep filled the road; wall to wall, like a wandering persian carpet. (And not a drop of Mint Jelly in sight.) Basically wooley white, black nosed with ripples of colour from their farm owners markings, interlaced by the blue where the Ram had had a “chat” (Talkative fellas these Rams) with them at some time. These were your conventional, low mileage, farmyard sheep. Oh, and a couple of sheep dogs. Bless. Working their black and white socks off, keeping the animals on the move, as only they know how!
But the incredible part wasn’t just the coloured patterns of their bodies, it was the effect the dappled sunlight was making shining through their ears. Ears, I hear you say. Is there an echo? Ears I said. Their ears were sun coloured like ripe grains of corn. Yellow browny gold and translucent, with the back light that was shining from the Autumn sun turning them to a a living montage of colour.. And……you don’t need me to tell you the rest. You do. OK!
It’s a picture that I cannot show you, ever. It would have been a picture in a million. Ask any fisherman. The one that got away. Why can’t you have the picture? You know the answer. No camera!

I would say a rude word here but I am not into that…. other than a few weeks back when I got “flashed” by an undercover PC hiding inside a covert police van doing people for speeding. (Or was it another agency employed by the Police?)
Now, first lets be completely honest about this. It was my fault. Honest Cop Govenor, banged to rights and all that old twaddle.

My excuse? Very feeble. We had been using a hired Camper Van for a long journey and having taken it back I got into my own car. After the weight of the camper it was like a ballerina on ice. Oh incidentally do you want to know our average speed on this journey from Devon to Lytham St Ann’s recorded by sat NV was 13.7MPH. Wonderful!! Anyway I slid past the speed limit signs covertly covered by aforsaid PC or Agency’s undercover bobby, by 12 mph and got booked!

But…..and there’s always a but, I can’t help feeling that the fine is just an excuse to gather money. There was no admonition in the paper work. No words that….. Thou naughty fella, thou didst travel on Her Majesty’s Highway in a contravention of Highway Code, rule No xx in a manner unbecoming of a stupid easily fleeced motorist.
No mention of a motorist (me) ignoring said temporary rule NO xxxx of the highways traffic control that tells of the need for a red flag to be carried at all times by said pedestrian person walking in front of the vehicle. And that I might be guilty after they had carefully studied my response. No…………you are guilty………..pay up or else we will issue a warrant.
And of course there’s more. If…you were stupid enough to believe that you may have a case based on circustances beyond your control, and took it to court…”The Judge has a right to increase your fine and add to your points.” No mention here about a fair hearing.

No wonder the motorist is up in arms about getting ripped off. When you live in the West Country cars are an essential part of life. There are no buses to compensate. Enough said!

Anyway, I digress, lost opportunities with the camera. It nearly happened again a few days ago.

For those of you that know Widmouth Bay near Bude (See the pictures on our WEB site) you will know about the Black Rock Beach. It’s famous for its surf and for its changing moods. The sand itself is special and is like a wandering nomad, drifting as it does from one end of the beach to the other in the span of the season. Tis true, honest. No two days the same.

This day in mention was a “long dog walk day”. Poppy, our New Zealand cattle collie insisted. Teddy, the Sheltie, popked his long nose in and agreed.
Poppy, looking me straight in the eye gave me one of those “or else” stares that dog owners are all too familiar with. Followed by a playfull tug on my hand towards the car keys.

The weather. Lousy. Wet and windy with a little peaks of sunshine bravely trying to show its face through the cloud bursts. And the rain was playing catch up. “So you think that I have stopped. Huh, how about this lot then.” Over all, pretty miserable. Not a day for cameras.
But, hey, I learned my lesson with the sheep. And I thought Ba, I’m not getting caught twice. So, dogs and cameras went into the car. Dogs into the boot cameras into the foot well.

Now I have got to talk about our dogs and cars so you understand a bit more about Journeymen. Do you remember those brilliant TV films were they showed you lava boiling out of an under sea vent. (Fumerroles, is it?) Well Poppy and Teddy both get a bit hyped when they get within striking distance of Widmouth Beach. We don’t know what it is.
Try driving near the beach, with no intention of going onto it, and they sleep in the back. Snoring quietly to themselves, and all within our earshot.
Go, with the intention of going to the beach and they start to bubble just like a volcano ready for the big bang. And that is what it is like when we get to the beach. The moment you open the tailgate they are both off like a tidle wave of boiling lava.
They travel with us on most Rainbow journeys. Mostly, on the principle that if we run out of fuel I will have someone to talk too whilst my wife sulks. (She doesn’t really. That’s another porky)

(This year we think that she will qualify for her own Rainbow Jouneywomans badge (Bit like Blue Peter, without the TV backing) and a womans section on the site. No doubt she and Helen will have a hand in that process.

Dogs went walkabout, left us buttoning up against the weather; intemittent rain and then sunshine, and wind.
We hoiked the camera bag over our shoulders and followed the footprinted destruction of what had been a pristine tide washed beach; led on by the rapidly disappearing tails of two dogs as they dwindled in the distance, obviously believing that this was to be their last walk…………. ever.

Gradually the sunshine prevailed and lit the beach in what can only be described as ethereal light. That’s the posh stuff that comes from everywhere at once.
The silica in the sand lit by this effect glowed warmly and changed colours to suit the amount of sunshine that tripped through the cloud strewn sky. Surrounded now by the remainder of the tide wash each mound of sand looked like coloured islands.

By this time the dogs were bombing us, running in circles seeking attention, but we were busy trying to capture the moods of the moment. So whilst they were distracted by large lumps of flotsam hurled down wind, with arm wrecking efficiency, I managed to set up between thirty or forty images that you should soon see on our site. Some of them are quite dramatic. The effect was like moonlight in the middle of the day. The sea too was wind whipped and glowing with an early winter light. Magic in the making.

Hey, whilst we are talking about whips. my friend Greg thinks that this is a family site. (He is an ex London Firefighter, Git Biker and a Great pal to have. And a really loyal friend. But, hey, you’ve got to have a pot hav’nt you?) Greg and my other reader are becoming like family so I suppose that he may be almost right. Except on the odd occasion I happen to have feed back coming from some lass in Canada and other parts of the world. Hey ho. That’s the life of the Journeyman. Fame at last!

Anyway, if you have been reading this, thanks and that’s yer lot for now as supper calls. Got to keep my sylph like figure in trim.

More soon.

Mike T
www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

Twas at the crack of midnight clear; we wandered far we wandered near. The sun was bright the sky was clear.

Well not exactly. We managed to drag ourselves from the warmth of the Duvet around seven thirty and by eightish we were on the Bay at Widmouth with cameras at the ready. Ah ha you asked yourselves what prompted this little Rainbow expedition. Were there midnight ‘phone calls advising that an important deadline had to be met?
Nope!
Did the Prime minister place another order for a picture to grace the lounge at No 10. (He hasn’t managed to order the first one yet. But that’s because no one has told him where the site is. www.rjsw.co.uk)
No, no, she cried.
Sorry, wrong story!
No, the logic was based on last nights weather forecast. Twas simple really. The little man with the seaweed told us that is was to be sort of grottical day this PM, with some nice bits of cloud and that shiny stuff, sun, around earlier. But with the horizontal wet stuff to follow.
Now if your grey stuff follows itself in thinking the way I do, you think, Hm we’re on the Atlantic coast. Rain coming in. Should be a good cloud base with some good light to follow or preceed itself.

And it twas.
You’ll see the pictures in good time. Some of the beach shots, mainly because of the defraction of water through the cloud base has made the sand look like moonlight. Clever really.

Winter is a time when lots of us hang up our cameras in the cupboard or poke them under the bed until the first spring budgie pokes his head over the horizon and tweets in our ear; puntuated by the cry of the lesser spotted daffodil singing to its self, Tr la, I wandered lonely as a cloud!

My Question here is, why! No, not the daffy dill bit or the budgie. The Camera.

Cameras benefit from being used. And with the flat winter light that washes everything in interesting tonal shades you can get some spectacular shots that will make your friends go wow with envy.
(Mostly at the ijeot with the Camera.) But Hey, seriously, nothing ventured nothing gained. Some of the best shots that come from Rainbow Journeying are done in the winter. You’d be amazed at what is still active and how the light treats the landscape to different effects. Sometimes, more dramatic than summer time.
Try Dartmoor for example. The Moors moods are wonderful. (Try saying that after a pint of scrumpy) Ask Lucy. No, not about the scrumpy. About the Moor. She wandered her way all over the lower moor below Foggingtaw Quarry looking for ways to cross the river and get up onto the Tor.
It was only after a boggy piece of what looked like firm grass et her welly did she decide that the moor has some bad habits. Some of which involve the process of not giving wellies back even when you plead on bended sock. We had to laugh. But to be fair. Dartmoor does yield some dramatic scenery. Long flowing idyllic hills with craggy piles of scree punctuating the downward slopes. Under cut water ways. (Dangerous for the unwary.)
Then you will find a crag or a Tor where nature and the weather have contrived together to stack a pile of stones cleverly on each other, so, looking at them you think, they didn’t oughter be there like that. But they are.

Oh and before I cease my rambling. Just one point that may be of of interest, don’t forget to increase the ISO setting on your camera. 200 should do it. On the nice days you can probably drop it back to 100 if the weathers offering to show sunshine and promises. If you are a film user you can do the same but with more difficulty especially if you want to change mid roll, as you have to count the film back into the container and then change it for a faster speed.

Now to one of my Fans. One of two. No Greg. That doesn’t mean that you have to take the digital CCD out of your camera and sandpaper it to make the grain finer. Poor chap, still hasn’t got his eyebrows back since I mentioned to him about flash Photography. The black powder wasn’t easy to get either. Cost him his eyebrows and spent ages up the chimney did our Greg.

Another day…closes and it’s time for supper. The breads gone a bit hard and the mice have had the cheese. The water company cut us off years ago. All say Ahh!

Oh and a message for Shirly and Tony.

Give Patch his bone back. Neither of you is that hungry!

See you all around

Mike Tyrrel for www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

Now, as I was saying, or perhaps I wasn’t but meant to, Shirley and Tony deserted us last year to go and live in some foreign climes. A place where there is a load of Bull and Culture and hot weather. Tony never could stand the cold. He reckoned his ex, army surplus, camouflaged thermals used to itch like crazy during the winter months. As the boss… after Shirley, he decided that they should desert our little community; lock stock and Patch.
Now Patch is worth a mention. He is an enigma among dogs. Patch does not think that he is a dog. He’s a dogman with a wicked sense of humour and a love of life. A bit cranky to look at. God in his wisdom had a few spare dog bits over and he gave them to Patch to play with. And somehow they work. With his winning ways, he is adorable; with true devotion to his master and the boss. When he found they were leaving: with a more than his usual dogmatic attitude he packed his bikini, dog bowl and throwing bone (Don’t ask) and left with the family to a far flung place where they deal in weird currencies and talk odd like Manuel from Fawlty Towers. (No offence, we are all fond of Manuel) They, of course, seem to be enjoying it. Which is our loss. But Shirley, I am asked to pass this on. They tell me that the local nudist leap frog team will never be the same.
Now, the point of mentioning this is simple. In the early days of picture taking for Rainbow Journeymen (See Bedruthan Steps) we had the pleasure of Shirley and Tony for what was to be almost, I think, their last supper with us. The odd rusk and a bottle of some evil brew that was donated from whence I know not. (Schluck I think) Anyway as she was leaving Shirley saw one of our digital cameras and, to cut a long discussion short, was talked into taking a picture of a bowl of fruit. Nice picture Shirley!!

Now we can’t go making a woman a Rainbow Journeyman can we? The gender bit is wrong. Sorry Shirley I peeped. But I have to admit, if there was to be a title that deserved to be given, Shirley would have the first bite. Talented at that.

To continue.
Recently T & S went onto an even stranger holiday journey…. foreign, foreign….Bulgaria, Balham, Cambodia or Wandsworth Common or something. (Patch stayed at home) In her latest e-mail highlighting their decadence, Shirley admitted that she and Tony had taken over 1,000 pictures. We had samples. Magic. Which proves my point in other blogs. From smaller starts we can all go on and take stunning pictures making history as we go. Little acorns and all that.

That of course brings me to the point of Rainbowjourneymen. History is in the making take a good browse through our site. Look at Boscastle. The white buiding with the funny roof was washed away. (Now being rebuilt) The town devastated. And, more to the point, some stunning pictures that you cannot buy elswhere to grace the walls of your cave. We can print these for you to nearly a metre square. Breathtaking.

Last year we went to Padstow to do a shoot (see www.rjsw.co.uk) Padstow, out of season, is magic. The whole place comes alive with real characters of the first order. People who are more relaxed now that they are not playing to the tourist trade. Proper job people. Fishermen, shop keepers, tradesmen (Women too). But the point is, if you take a serious look at the harbour in my last sets of pictures you will see that it was frozen. Yup, the seagulls did not have “walk on water boots.” That was real ICE!! But the light was incredible!
This year we were back again. You’ll see these picture when we have caught up with our new web design.

Now lets change the subject. Gone are the days when, as the film wrap told you, you put the sun over your shoulder….faced the subject square on and….. (At this point your subject squints like Lez Dawson used to. He was wonderful wasn’t he?) then let the sun light your subject. Under the glare of this big fiery orb your subject looked like it was competing for and winning the raisin of the year award. The eyes are none existent. The rictus grin complete with the sun dried teeth. Don’t beleive me? Dig out some of your earlier holiday photographs. We have. Nine times out of ten we prevail. Most look like the munsters. The tenth? OK, Cecil Beaton so you were one of the exceptions.
Now equipped with modern lenses, digital cameras, and light meters, (And thirty years experience) we shoot into the sun, with the sun, and under the sun; on our backs and hanging by our fingernails. The results we believe are special.

Reflected light is also a gift that many ignore. Its effect can be surreal. Shoot a subject twice at different times of day and you get completely differing results. One picture will have a wow factor the other will be, just that, a picture. So planning comes into our journeys as well. As does a map and a compass. Oh and that invaluable aid to navigation….. a tide table. God alone knows in his wisdon how they work that out, but they do.

Of course here at our Rainbow offices, we get pictures from all over the word. My lovable sister in Canada is always surprising us with cracking shots of an Oohmagooleybird, or a doowhat, doing what it does as it has its photo taken; or a picture of some such other species that we have no hope of seeing… although with global warming…who knows. And sunsets, sunsets that leave you mesmerised. Bless, she’s good but far away and she does have a disability that prevents her from becoming a Rainbow Journeyman. She’s a girl. Wrong gender. No kicking now…it’s only humour!!

That’s yer lot for today. More later this week once I have done my tax returns… ouch!!

Mike Tyrrell for www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

As journeymen we have many a discussion about resolution and pixels. Pixels are the dots that make up the basis of all digital pictures today.
Pixel comes from the word pixelated meaning crazy. If you look at the screen on a detuned television you will know what I mean. The dots fly every which way and back again. Now I don’t propose to get to technical about all this guff. Interpolation and the likes, as it gets boring past the first few words. Suffice to say, it’s as always the end results that I am interested in. The picture.
It is also politic to say that the purists are right and that digital has not caught up, yet, with film. Films equivalent resolution, and I think that I am right in saying this, is about 30million pixels. So, we still have a little way to go. But it’s happening

But hold on. Revelation here! (Big light glowing) Its a bit like the audio response of Hi Fi. Top class amplifiers can and do produce sounds that dogs and bats find interesting; but humans don’t have the audio range to hear. And, wait for it, it the same with our eyes. Beyond a certain pixilation even bats can’t tell the difference. And for those of you who haven’t caught on. (Blind as bats!! Yeah yea!)

But I am serious about what we can and cannot see. Up to a point that is. When you look at a picture on a postcard. It’s a picture. Might even be a nice picture. Sort of, Hoom har , Mmnn that’s nice, type of picture. Followed by a big yawn if you attempt to extract the rest of the pack from your pocket.
But stop for a minute. Take a moment or two and enlarge it to a metre and quarter long, by three quarters of a metre deep; then you have a b e a u t i f u l picture. It lives, it has life, and it extracts the WOW factor from the once bored audience. The effect is pure magic. Trust us, we have done it again and again.

Time out! Time out!

I have to add a clause here!! You’ll never make a bad picture a good picture no matter how hard you try. Unless you crop to creases for abstracts or something equally weird. (We do quite a lot of that on the odd occasion; does that tell you something about Journeymen? Weird bunch I hear you say. Yup, you could be right) Any way back to pixels.

Here’s the revelation. If the pixel count is too low it starts to show.
As it expands through A4, A3, A2, A1, and so on up the grain starts to count.. …. literally. But, if the picture is upwards of eight mega-pixels when it leaves the camera you’ll begin to see the magic. At last the AO picture appears and then some and then the WOW factor cuts in. It’s a picture that you can’t take your eyes off.

A whole new talking point.

“Where’s that too. (Devon talk) Look you there’s pretty (Wales) Way I lar, there’s brae. (No idea!!) But take our word for it. They are superb works of art. Ask our Helen. We had to send her off to have her jaw lifted back into place, after looking at the boat on Padstow Harbour, enlarged to AO size. And as our Helen never stops yacking you’ll understand the misery she went through until the quack could see her. Although I am told from a reliable source that it was her husband, not some anonymous caller, that kept cancelling her appontments!!

Then there’s a second point. Add a frame to suit your décor. Every picture should be framed properly or not at all.

Frameless is good!

Pictures really do help you relax. You don’t need stare at them all daylong. But after a hard day they are as welcome as spring rain on a parched lawn. You sit and you look and you dream yourself into the picture. It’s your mini holiday whilst you are still at home. And hey, next year you could go and see it for real. After all they are all pictures of the West country that you know.

More soon

Mike Tyrrell a Rainbow Journeyman on his travels - www.rainbowjourneyman-southwest.co.uk

As I said when I was last on my soap box ; we are getting close to a release of our new site. but hey, if they can delay the Air Bus for another year, what’s a week among friends!

Cameras are interesting when it comes to taking pictures that look good. People often say to us, “Ah, but look at the camera you have got, its a super digi two tone whatsit with a Kleb attached”.
Whilst a nice camera does help from the point of view that it reduces the numbers of failures, especially when you are clinging by your teeth to get a shot, it is not the whole argument.
Now here I have a confession to make. I don’t begin to understand half of what makes a camera tick. Especially in the area of focal planes and specialist lenses. It’s too much overload for a simple lad lilke me to get my head round.
Now that doesn’t mean to say that I dont know how my cameras work. (I do, I do, he said forcefully.) Its more of a case that I know what I want from a camera and more important, I live within the expectations of the lenses that I have chosen for the effects that I want.
Ok so your confused. So am I. So lets add meat to that statement. (Sorry vegetarians)

Experience has taught me that framing a picture properly is half the argument to making a good photograph. Logic really and it sounds easy. It is if you follow the rules. When I look at a possible picture my head calculator does a series of checks.

No 1. Whats in the picture that I like. (a) Abstract (b) Pretty (as in wow!) (c) Architectural or Historic. (Interesting) There are other bits of mental dross too, saturation of colour and contrasting light effects, but I wont bore you with too much trivia, trivia.

No 2. “What’s the llight meter doing, flashing or steady”. Then, what do I want from the picture. Now this is often a difficult one as pictures can happen too fast for the subject to sit there whilst you analyse the outcome. But hey, lets not be shy. The fact I am holding the camera to my head suggests to any audience that I may have the intention of taking a photograph!! So I do. In the days of film I doubt if I would. You know the argument, 35 shots on a roll and the cost of deveoping them!!
So, what else.
No 3. Is the back ground interesting? If its not, I will adjust the camera to blurr the backgound (If I can) i.e. Faster the shutter speed less depth of field. Slower , vice versa etc.
Now this is where the serious part takes over. Composition. Now lets not have any friviolity. This is not a place where you dump your kitchen waste. As an experienced Rainbow Journeyman I will run my eye around the periphery of the picture in the viewfinder looking for No, no’s. Bits that distract from the main theme. I try to focus these out or move to compensate for them. I then look for theme lines. Here at this point may I suggest that you will need to look at the Widmouth Beach pictures where the wind was streaming the sky up and over the cliff edge. The cliff edge rock styrations are matching the cloud movement. Now that’s what I would call a neat shot. Or look at the couple on the Trebarwith Strand in Cornwall. The picture is hauntingly simple. But it’s the light effect which took my eye. The reflections from the sun making the beach look like a golden pavement. Now to me that’s a wow factor. And talking of WOW factors if you really want to impress your friend try buying one of these picture printed in AO size. It will stop them in their tracks. The visual effects are stunning. But I digress so back to the soap box.

One big unwritten rule, get over the problem of nerves before you take the camera into the field to do your shots. Practice shooting pictures around the garden or house, trying out different setting as you do so. Then erase the bad ones and start again. (Rembering what settings you used for each failed picture helps here…) With that type of familiarity you wont find yourself fumble fingered when you are the centre of attention taking shot after shot and switching settings as you do so to gain the best result. Think of your camera as the Kama Sutra of cameras. There’s always a new position to be tried!!!

One of the Camera’s I use (Canon Pro 1) has a twisting LCD screen so I can take odd angles without cricking my neck in the process.

Finally batteries and odd add on’s.
At a club meet recently one member arrived with several thousand pounds worth of super camera and all the gismos that would make Lord Lichfields efforts look box brownyish. Except, his battery was flat. No spare so no photographs. He had paid good money to come of a trip to a special locatiion (Invitation only) to find that he couldn’t take a single shot.

Odd add on’s? If it’s summer time remember insect repellant. Horse flies don’t give a damn if you are not horse shaped. They just love the flavour. Same for midges and mosquitos. And in the bottom of my gunny bag I carry Wasp eaze. Not for wasps but for stinging plants which have a distinct liking for bare arms and legs. And in winter, keep your camera warm. You may be clinging to your thermals but your camera can’t. Keep it away until you need it for a shot or two. Then put it away after the event. A dangling camera on a cold morning not only invites misting of the lense but chills the batteries into a nonperformance peak. All good exciting stuff and enough for today.

To see more of our portfolio of stunning images of South West England see www.rjsw.co.uk

More soon.

Although shown in our photographs as the main road, this picture we show is probably not the original road from Docton Mill to Speke Mill. The original road was always believed to follow the older drover’s tracks. This was used by the steel wheeled wagons heavily laden with grain drawn by shire horses of grand stature. Often bred for their strength and stamina these gentle giants could sense the wagons feel on the muddy road and transported grain and workers with ease.

At Harvest time all able villagers would assist in the gathering of the grain. The fields were worked systematically, edge to the middle, with scythes. ( Scythe - a long curved pole with a shear razor sharp blade clamped to the bottom edge which was used to crop the grain at ground level.) This method was applied to catch the secondary harvest “Rabbits”. A welcome addition to the cook pots of these practical country workers.

The villagers gathered the cut corn by hand making it into stooks. The stooks were stacked laden corn heads uppermost. These in turn were gathered by “pitch forking” onto wagons into stack then taken to a clear ground and winnowed. The retained straw was used for thatch and bedding. In the later half of the mills life a static steam engine would be linked to a thresher to complete the task. During harvesting the whole village would gather into the spirit of teamwork. The “maids” prepared hampers of food and scrumpy to ease the needs of the dusty worlers as they toiled.

The resulting grain “harvest” was collected and shovelled into high sided horse drawn carts which threaded their way through the winding narrow Devon lanes to the local miller. The grain was dumped into a collection pit where it was shovelled into a lift hoist to be raised to the top of the mill where it began its decent to the ground through the rumbling stone dressed wheels whose job was to grind the corn and turn the rough grain into feed for villagers and livestock.

History shows that Wagons in different counties were painted in local colours. The livery colours for Devon’s Wagons were mid blue. At harvest the wagons had to haul heavy loads through narrow lanes which soon became rutted and slippery. To counter the wheel slip on a laden wagon as they negotiated the steep hills around the mill, wooden wedges, called slippers, were attached to the wagon’s wooden chassis by chains. These were placed by the carter, under the rear, non steering wheels, of the wagon if slip was detected. The horses, as mentioned were probably Welsh stock shires. These were well adapted to the movement and control of these heavily laden wagons. Sensing the weight shift on hills they would have leaned and held the forward motion of the wagon against the down thrust of the hills. The Waggoner’s brake comprised little more than curved blocks sometimes steel shod held against the wheel to control the rotation. Horses also needed re-shoeing every three to six months and cart wheels repaired.

There was a support industry of Black Smiths and Wheelwrights in virtually every village.

History of Devon

Devon was one of the first areas of England to be uncovered following the end of the last ice age. Dartmoor was home to Mesolithic hunter gatherers, from about 6000 BC; they later cleared much of the oak, which regenerated the area as moorland.

In the Neolithic times, from about 3500 BC, there is evidence of farming on the moor, also buildings and the erection of monuments, using the large granite that is readily to hand; Dartmoor still contains the remains of the oldest known buildings in England.

There are over 500 known Neolithic icons on the moor, in the form of burial mounds, stone rows, stone circles and ancient settlements such as the one at Grimspound and Roughtor. Stone rows are a particularly striking feature, ranging in length from a few metres to over 3Km. Their ends are often marked by a cairn, a stone circle, or a standing stone . Because most of Dartmoor was not ploughed during the historic period, the archaeology trails are relatively easy to trace.

The name “Devon” derives from the Celtic who inhabited the south western peninsula of Britain at the time of the Roman, the Dumoni. These were Germanic peoples who settled England from the fifth century but did not conquer Devon until relatively late. The Saxons are believed to have reached Devon in small numbers in the seventh century, and there was an incursion by the King of Wessex in 614.

Over the next 100 years there was repeated fighting between Dumnonia and Wessex, resulting in the effective conquest of Devon by Wessex by 715 and its formal annexation. In 805 the Dumnonian Kings continued to be able to maintain (nominal) influence for some time thereafter. In the 823 Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the men of Devonshire were recorded as fighting against the “Welsh in Cornwall”.! But later, in 927, William of Malmesbury claimed “that the Britons and Saxons inhabited Exeter “aequo jure” (as equals”) and the notion of two nations within the city at that time was confirmed by E A Freeman in his History of the Norman Conquest.

Nineteenth century studies suggested that a significant ethnic Celtic element remains in the local population, and this has been confirmed by modern DNA analysis in the late twentieth century. More obvious signs of remaining Celtic culture, such as place names, are scarce; however some common Devon name components, such as the ending “- combe” or “tor”, are of Celtic origin (compare) cwm and twr, (Welsh) pronounced almost identically). Devon also retained a number of Celtic customs (such as its own form of Celtic wrestling. As recently as the nineteenth century a crowd of 17,000, collected at Devonport, and attended a match between the champions of Devon and Cornwall).
By the ninth century, however, the major threat to Saxon domination of Devon came not from the Cornish but from Vikings, and their sporadic incursions continued until the Norman Conquest. A few Norse names remain as a result, for example Lundy. Though, the Vikings’ most lasting legacy is probably the move of the Devon’s Cathedral from Crediton to Exeter. Where it remains today.

Devon has featured in most of the civil conflicts in England since the army of the Norman Conquest besieged Exeter for eighteen days. Both Exeter and Plympton were held against King Stephen in 1140; there were also local skirmishes during the War of the Roses: Perkins Warbeck, Exeter in 1497; the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 (largely a Devon affair); and Exeter and Dartmouth both were both besieged during the English Civil War. Perhaps most notably, the last successful military invasion of Britain was the arrival of William of Orange launching the Glorious Revolution1688, which took place at Torquay. Now known as the English Riviera.

Devon has produced tin, copper arsenic, uranium and other metals from ancient times. Tin was found largely on Dartmoor’s granite heights, and copper in the areas around it. In the eighteenth century Devon’s Great Consol mine (near Tavistock) was believed to be the largest copper mine in the world.

Home Rule.
Devon’s tin miners enjoyed a substantial degree of independence through Devon’s stannary parliament, which dates back to the twelfth century. Stannary authority exceeded English law, and because this authority applied to part time miners (eg tin streamers) as well as full time miners, the stannary parliament weilded significant power.
The stannary parliament often met as an open air parliament at Crockern Tor (Dartmoor) with stannators appointed to it from each stannary town. The parliament maintained its own gaol (at Lydford) and had a brutal and ‘bloody’ reputation for justice, and once even gaoled an English MP during the reign of Henry VIII.
The last recorded sitting was in 1748, and it is believed and recorded they then adjourned to a pub in Tavistock.

Devon is also known for its mariners, such as Sir Francis Drake, Gilbert, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Walter Raleigh.
Plymouth Hoe is famous as the location where Drake was recorded as continuing to play bowls after hearing that the Spanish Armada had been sighted. The fact has been questioned by many historeans.

It is therefore small wonder that Rainbowjourneyman’s travels should take him/her to so many places of historic note and picturesque intrest. Every corner and every roas leads on. And as we reshape our site to make it more interesting to you. Remember the history of Devon took a little longer than six months.

If oyu have been readin. Thank you.

Mike Tyrrell for Rainbow Journeys