I'm back!

My predicted few weeks absence turned into several months, largely because I moved to a different part of England! But, now that I'm settled, and all those time-consuming, but necessary jobs connected with moving house have been done, I'm ready to hit the blogging road again.

However, I'm resurrecting PhotoReflect, so there'll be no more posts at PhotoQuoto. My first post of 2008 is imminent at http://photoreflect.blogspot.com/ . I hope to see you there!

Regards, Tony

No new posts for a while

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I will be "otherwise engaged" for a while, so there will be no posts on PhotoQuoto for a few weeks. My last post is an image from my garden featuring flowers. In the background is sage and forget-me-nots. However, the white petalled shrub in the foreground is a species I an unable to name. If anyone can enlighten me I would be delighted!

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" Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding."
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Russian-born French painter

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Two of a kind

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A pair of venerable rowing boats on the River Nidd at Knares borough, North Yorkshire, their glowing, varnished wood starting to show the effects of use and weather.

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"A lot of people go through life like they are rowing a boat. They look at where they have been rather than where they are going."
Anonymous

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

61, 65, and more

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Green and red rowing boats lined up on the River Nidd at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, wait patiently for the first customers of the day.

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"Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat."
Jean-Paul Satre (1905-1980), French existentialist philosopher and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Cruising

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Cruising along the sun-dappled Lancaster Canal near Ellel Grange looks idyllic. But is this kind of linear boating a past-time that soon loses its charms?

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"There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Kenneth Graham (1859-1932), Scottish-born writer (from "The Wind in the Willows")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Homeward bound

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The wood-built fishing boat, "Helen Mona", constructed in Denmark in 1973, showing a Ballantrae (Scotland) identification code, but fishing out of Fleetwood, Lancashire, rides the tide up the Wyre Channel in the evening sunlight, heading for its berth, followed by some optimistic gulls.

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"In the morning be first up, and in the evening the last to go to bed, for they that sleep catch no fish."
English proverb

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

After the rain

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A holiday-maker on Blackpool's central promenade looks at the clearing sky, from beneath an ornate shelter, after the rain has passed.

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"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist (from "Venus and Adonis")

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

The Wyre Channel

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The Wyre Channel snakes out to sea, marking the course of the River Wyre as it flows into Morecambe Bay. It is the deep water route taken by the ferries as they enter the port of Fleetwood, Lancashire. Here, a few holiday-makers walk along its banks, overshadowed by a dramatic sky recently cleared of rain, and the distant Cumbrian Mountains.

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"The sea washes all man's ills away."
Euripides (484?-406B.C.), Greek dramatist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Tame calves, wild processing

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Taking photographs when the sun is at its highest isn't recommended: nor, usually, is placing your subject in the centre of the composition. And as for wild processing - well, make up your own mind!

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"The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk"
Ogden Nash (1902-1971), US poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Beach tractors

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Old tractors are used in the Ribble estuary at Lytham, Lancashire for catching shrimps and for launching small boats. I caught this vehicle and its distant companion against a threatening sky.

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"The winkle ship sank and the shrimp ship swam."
Anonymous, a Tongue Twister

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Holes

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I was in Blackpool looking at an exhibition today. The subject was worthy, but the presentation was dull. However, the pierced metal supports of the exhibition stands were very interesting!

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"Black holes are where God divided by zero"
Steven Wright (1955- ), US comedian, actor and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Big shell, little shell

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Two shells - both, I am told, varieties of the species Murex - laid on a mirror in front of a black background, with natural lighting.

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"I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world...perhaps you've seen it."
Steven Wright (1955 - ), US comedian, actor and writer

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

Beached hulks

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I don't know how many years these wrecks have been stranded on the banks of the Wyre estuary at Fleetwood, Lancashire. But time and tide are certainly taking their toll.

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"A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy."
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish novelist and poet

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

I DO photograph birds!

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But only herons! It seems that herons are like buses - you wait for ages for one to come along, and then a few turn up all together! This one was stalking in the estuary at Arnside, Cumbria.

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"The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it."
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), English novelist

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photograph (c) T. Boughen

I don't photograph birds

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I don't photograph birds. I haven't got the lenses or the inclination. But when I come across one that is big, and lets you get quite close without flying off, like this grey heron by the Lancaster Canal, I sometimes point and shoot.

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"Craiget heron near the hill
Plenty water for the mill;
Craiget heron to the sea,
Fine weather it will be."
from "Spectator" (1st June 1895), herons as weather forecasters

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photograph (c) T. Boughen