A blustery day

It was an enjoyable evening at book club last night, discussing the war in Ukraine, the royal family and the Queen's health, and of course the book that we read. A late night so I was tired when I woke up this morning, earlier than my alarm was set for, as the wind was howling outside causing doors to bang as the wind gusted through the open windows.

It was so windy in the woods I did wonder if it was safe walking under those huge trees that were swaying about wildly - gusts of 45 miles per hour today. The gorse is looking very colourful in the woods at the moment.

I phoned Gavin when I woke up as I have hardly seen him this week, he has been at the office every day and coming home late at night after work meetings/dinners. He sounded a bit hoarse and when he said his throat was sore I told him to take a LFT test...which was positive. So he came home from the office - it was still early so he had not seen anyone there yet - and is now working from home. He has tested nearly every day this week as with dinners and work events they always test before meeting - but today there was a faint red line. He is feeling fine. I am hoping I will be okay as I have hardly seen him and because of his late nights he has been sleeping in the spare room. I almost expected one of us to get Covid as we have tickets to the opera on Saturday night, our first return to the Royal Opera House in almost 3 years, so it was sod's law that we would not be able to go. La Traviata with the outstanding soprano we met last week....now it won't happen.

I have spent most of today choosing images for the final two camera club print competitions of the year, I really am utterly useless at choosing images for competitions. I also have to choose 12 images for our annual exhibition, that is going to take me forever to decide! (Only 6 will be selected of the 12 images)

I was reading an interview with a young photographer who won the Landscape Photographer of the Year in 2016. He was saying how people always ask him what’s next? He says he is trying to move away from traditional landscapes – how photographers routinely go for big, wide landscapes with everything in focus, or full frame portraits of wildlife taken on long lenses with blown out backgrounds – he is now looking at textures and fractals, landscapes within landscapes. I think his view is true of the general trend today, in photography competitions traditional landscapes are not very popular today, the judges want something more, something different. The problem is if I am going to print and frame something, it must be something I like looking at, and I want to see big, wide landscapes rather than abstract, or conceptual images which I soon get bored with. I suppose art is always subject to personal preferences and at the moment it is a pity that traditional landscapes are out of fashion, which is certainly reflected in camera club competitions too.