Amelia's photos

The building with the tower, now the tourist office, was the Custom House. It was designed by Henry Bell and built in 1683. It first opened in as a merchants' exchange in 1685, and was used as the Town's Custom House from the early 1700s. The quay leads out, through flood gates, to the Great Ouse.

Vivaldi - Spring

The Sunday Challenge: The challenge this week: ALUMINUM FOIL in whatever way you wish to use it. Have only just got home after a weekend away. For this challenge I used an ornate jar of herbs in olive oil reflected against folded kitchen foil. Golden Dreams

All eyes turn upwards In silent meditation To endless blue sky. Meditation music Walking through a pathway surrounded by clouds of clipped box, one eventually rises up a gentle slope to find a building of wood construction on stilts that has no windows on any of the four walls. Entering through two sets of doors one walks in to discover a single room approximately 8 metres square. Around the white painted wall space are benches of unpainted wood. The ceiling is a smooth surface painted white. In the centre of the ceiling is an aperture approximately 3 metres square that forms a window to what is obviously the sky above. The effect is absorbing. A buzzard flies overhead, and everything is silent. When we visited last week there were about a dozen people in the 'box', eyes towards the sky in total silence. It was an uplifting experience, and I sat with our youngest grandson for about 20 minutes, both of us totally absorbed. And yes - the sky was just blue. This is the art installation called Skyspace: Seldom Seen by James Turrell, and is one of many public artworks that can be seen at Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

All eyes turn upwards In silent meditation To endless blue sky. Meditation music Walking through a pathway surrounded by clouds of clipped box, one eventually rises up a gentle slope to find a building of wood construction on stilts that has no windows on any of the four walls. Entering through two sets of doors one walks in to discover a single room approximately 8 metres square. Around the white painted wall space are benches of unpainted wood. The ceiling is a smooth surface painted white. In the centre of the ceiling is an aperture approximately 3 metres square that forms a window to what is obviously the sky above. The effect is absorbing. A buzzard flies overhead, and everything is silent. When we visited last week there were about a dozen people in the 'box', eyes towards the sky in total silence. It was an uplifting experience, and I sat with our youngest grandson for about 20 minutes, both of us totally absorbed. And yes - the sky was just blue. This is the art installation called Skyspace: Seldom Seen by James Turrell, and is one of many public artworks that can be seen at Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

High winds were battering the Norfolk coast again, and according to one resident I talked to, much of the sandy beach had been washed away. The day improved gradually, and after lunch it was much better. Luckily I had a protective cover over the camera, which frequently blew over the lens and blocked out the best waves entirely.

Glass has the ability to refract, reflect, and transmit light following geometrical optics, and is therefore a magical substance. It can be also be ground in certain ways and used for optical instruments, spectacles, magnifying glasses, binoculars, telescopes. It can be heated and blown into decorative and intricate shapes, toughened to make windows, and coloured using various chemicals. The PiP shows the magnifying properties of glass. The thistle is etched into the base of the paperweight and is magnified by the half sphere of glass. The red line has been refracted.

The Sunday Challenge: Make an abstract picture sooc (straight out of camera) and no macro. As some folks have already guessed. this is the light and shadow from a fancy light shade. I just happened to notice the effects on Friday evening at our youngest daughter's house, and have shown the shade in the PiP.

SSC: Mirrors I've been away all week, and have house guests today and tomorrow. Will get to you all soon.

Easter bunny: "My toes are getting cold in this snow." Tortoise: "I'm staying in hibernation for a bit longer." Fish: "I can't say I've noticed much difference in the temperature." Snow on the ground this morning. These tiny little animals measure less than 2 cm.

TSC: Mirroring. An April Fools photo. This effect was achieved using PicMonkey, and is totally distorted but funny. The first Pip shows this photo changed using polar co-ordinates in Photoshop. The second PiP is another piece of nonsense using Pic Monkey The third PiP shows the original photo.

Primroses are unusual in having two almost identical, yet slightly different types of flowers. In the thrum-eyed type (seen on the left), the style reaches only halfway up the flower tube, so that the stigma is also positioned halfway up inside the tube. The anthers in this type are at the top of the flower tube and can be seen as a mass in the centre of the flower. In pin-eyed flowers (on the right), the stigma is at the top of the flower tube and can be seen in the centre of the flower looking like a small green pin head. In this type of flower, the anthers are halfway down the central flower tube, in a ring around the style. Fertilisation is usually achieved between a thrum-eye flower and a pin-eye flower; pollination from pin to pin or thrum to thrum is not generally effective. Next time you see primroses, or any other member of the primrose family, take a closer look.

Saturday Self Challenge: Long exposure. It would have been good to have a Neutral density filter in front of the lens and place the camera on a tripod! The shutter speed I used was 0.5. I converted the photo into B&W and used the ND filter in SilverEffex to darken the photo a fraction. Using a longer shutter speed, the white van disappeared totally, as did most of the rest of the photo. ;-) The PIPs show a colour version and an inverted image.

This is a fine example of a Victorian drinking fountain, which celebrates the versatility of cast-iron to decorative effect. It was cast by the Alexander Russell at the Kirkcaldy Foundry in 1824 and was one of a series placed along the length of the "Great Fife Road". The fountain is located in Newport 0n Tay in the Kingdom of Fife. It is a substantial canopied cast-iron drinking fountain of Moorish design, prominently sited just by the pavement. Concrete stone steps to dais and concrete covered plinth. There are 8 columns on chamfered bases with foliate detailing to base, capital and interior supporting 8 arches with scallop edging. Plaques in roundels above all arches decorated with herons and stags and inscribed 'KEEP THE PAVEMENT DRY'. There is a plaque on the east side inscribed 'THE GIFT OF MRS BLYTH MARTIN 1882'. (The Blyths were a Dundee family). There are stylised creatures between plaques and a ribbed domed roof of traceried metal with floral designs. The fountain is painted cream colour, the plaques and capitals painted red and creatures and roof ribs painted gold. In the background it's possible to see the River Tay road bridge linking the Kingdom of Fife to the county of Angus. I think it has been recently painted. It didn't look as posh as this when I was a child. ;-) The fountain was designated as a Category B listed building on 27/11/2002.