January 2nd – Still feeling my way. In a late evening bible after the rain cleared I pottered up the Black Path and along through Newtown to see how the camera reacted to the low light in the first instance and the streetlights in the other.
The shots seem a bit dark. I’m wondering if I’ve broken an exposure setting since Monday, which is a huge possibility.
They aren’t bad pictures, though for handheld on a dark night.
Puzzling.
January 2nd – I’ll start this with a note about time, and the passing thereof; long time readers will know I started this journal on 1st April 2011after being egged on to do 30daysofbiking by ace cyclist and top Dutchperson Renee Van Baar. Sadly, I was very ill with food poisoning the following New Year, so never rode a bike on 31st December 2011, and 1st January 2012. But I carried on, and I never missed a day since. Every day from 2nd January 2012 I have got on a bike and ridden somewhere. From 100 mile plus rides in one day, to trundles to the shop, I have recorded my daily life as a cyclist, in all it’s ups and downs. That’s 6 years, or 2192 successive days (including 2 leap years), and about 55,000 miles.
I love keeping this journal, I love writing it, and finding the photos.
I welcome feedback. If you have something to say – that I should stop, continue or do something differently, please get in touch by commenting or mailing me – BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com.
I’ve done this to show that it’s possible to be normal, and on a bike. That a podgy, middle aged man who’s not a lycra fiend can ride to work, shops, for fun, to explore, keep healthy, be happy, enthusiastic, jaded, sad or depressed, and continue rolling down the road.
In the six years, I’ve had at least 10 different cameras to use, maybe more, actually. Some I’ve adored, some I hated. The Canon GX 7 Mark II I’m using at the moment is like Jekyl and Hyde. It was really good in the night shots of the last couple of journeys, but tonight’s attempt – a simple shot of Morris – it seemed to fudge a bit.
On the camera, the jury is still out.
I’ll need to ride and use it a bit more to find out…
January 1st – Something odd has happened and I haven’t really register why.
As I passed the canal overflow at CLayhanger Bridge in the darkness, I noticed it was very noisy indeed, and that the canal was really full and overtopping considerably.
I find this puzzling – we’ve had a fair bit of rain, but not that much, surely? Or have I missed it all?
When the overflow is running at full blast it’s a lovely noise and a fascinating thing, almost hypnotic to watch.
I just can’t see where all the water’s come from…
January 1st – Oh hi 2018, where did you spring from? Not yet back at work and sunset already past 4pm. You can stay, new year, you can stay.
Well, the Canon GX7 is a remarkable bit of kit if I’m honest. I’d been home all day with guests and family stuff to do, and nipped out in the evening on an errand. I found Brownhills and Clayhanger somnambulant, deserted and desolate. It had been raining. It was very windy. I was feeling, if I’m honest, low.
Then I got to playing with this camera. My goodness, I think I’m in love. Some familiar muses here, from the otherworldly portal of Silver Court and it’s ethereal cashpoint glow to the dystopian Ravens Court, I’m going to have some fun with this one. Oh yes.
Unexpected clarity on what could have been a really low evening.
December 31st – At last, a decent if rain-sodden ride. Going stir crazy on a wet New Year’s eve, I slipped out at 3pm determined to test the loan cameras on something decent. Instinct had me head for Hopwas Hays Wood near Tamworth.
Both cameras are excellent. At the moment, the GX7 has the edge but the user interface is bizarre to me. I’ve never had much joy with Canon kit before, but this was a revelation.
I didn’t use flash once, just the bike headlight. I’m quite pleased with these.
Oh, and happy new year!
December 30th – While ferreting around the canal and Clayhanger Common for a decent night shot (and failing to find anything at all) I noticed this lovely, sedate and peaceful waterside retreat: At the canalised behind the houses of Lindon View, a bench, table and light, right by the canal.
How lovely is that?
December 30th – I was in Brownhills at dusk again, sorting out questions for the annual quiz on my main blog, and also fiddling with a new camera I have on loan – a Panasonic TZ100. This is a one-inch sensor compact that I’ve been curious to try.
I haven’t read the manual; I popped in a card, charged it up and off I went. So far, it’s very much like the TZ90 but with less zoom and a more strident low-light response, which is warm and pleasant.
Hopefully, the weather will improve soon and I’ll be able to get out and try this, and the Canon GX7 Mark II I also have been loaned side by side.
I’m ready for a more flexible camera in low light. I wonder if these will be the answer?
December 29th – I had to pop up Walsall Wood, late. A curious thing about Walsall Wood is looking back up the High Street towards Streets Corner, it always looks like it might be Christmas, even on a midsummer night, such are the many lights that make it such a charming view.
Walsall Wood is a place people pass through without studying. It really is worthy of closer study; it’s a lovely place.
December 29th – Winter is a normalisation process for me. I enter it, kicking and screaming and resistant, headlong into the darkness; I fight my way through the suck, the suck that is the autumn commute, and by the time I emerge blinking and dazed from Christmas, I’m sort of used to it.
I’ve got used to the absence of light – which is OK now as it’s returning; I’ve acclimatised to the cold; and I’ve learned once more to look for oddities and interesting images in low-light urbanity.
Silver Court in Brownhills does Architecture and Morality. Peter Saville has nothing to fear.
Meanwhile, I trundle towards new year still nursing a bad shoulder and dreaming of warmer days…
December 28th – It’s rare I’ve seen roads this hazardous.
Many of the backlanes as I returned at sunset, where gritters can never be expected to reach were thick with lurking black ice. On the ice stud tyres with lower air pressure I was sure-footed but careful; in a car or on a motorbike, hitting this at even moderate speed and braking would have you in the hedge.
Fine on the bike, when dismounting several times I slipped on foot.
This is of course the kind of weather we used to get every winter, but in recent years have been relieved of, so take care folks, particularly if on two wheels.
I know the forecast was to warm up overnight with rain, but this is dense, thick ice that will be well lubricated with meltwater in the following 24 hours.
Take care folks.
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