Flickr Favourites #14

My favourite season, I'm already sad it's almost ending.

Flickr Favourites #13

It´s probably my Dad´s influence, but I really appreciate a good view. A nice city skyline or a misty morning in the fields surrounding our cottage; a sunrise, a sunset. I like 'em all, but especially those misty winter mornings. My wonderful friend Joanna posted photos of her Boxing Day in Norfolk, and I'm just going to sit here and wish I could be there for a little while.

orla kiely is a hit with cats

So, I have a tiny little bed linen-problem. As a tremendously lazy person, I spend a lot of time napping and watching films from the comfort of my bed, so I like to at least have it looking nice at all times. Starting out with IKEA, HEMA and discount Ralph Lauren sheets from trips abroad (15 bucks a pop, ILU Ross and Marshalls, I've now acquired a more expensive taste. One of my most favourite purchases this year has been my new Orla Kiely's signature Multi Stem Print duvet cover.









Not only is it a hit with my cat Elliot, but also with marfin's! I wonder what it is that attracts these lovelies to those bright colours..

P1050181, originally uploaded by marfin's.

Flickr Favourites #10

Autumn according to Marcinéma. Marcinéma has long been one of my favourite people on Flickr, and I particularly love this set of autumnal shots she recently posted. Her autumn looks like the setting for Jules et Jim, just perfect.

A Sleepy Saturday

originally uploaded by afeitar.

originally uploaded by i.anton.

originally uploaded by Lady Havisham.

originally uploaded by Lady Havisham.

originally uploaded by i.anton.

Wuthering, wuthering, wuthering heights

If William Wyler's 1939 production of Wuthering Heights had been in colour, it probably would have looked a bit like this.

Heather Little Moor, originally uploaded by grahamramsden52.

, originally uploaded by marcinéma.

Heather , originally uploaded by grahamramsden52.

Covered, originally uploaded by erik.drost.

IMDb claims the producers had real heather imported from England to make the California landscape used in the film make more like authentic "Brontëesque" moors. I don't know if it's true, but it does sound like one of those romantically outlandish Old Hollywood-tidbits of information.

In a departure from the novel, there is an afterlife scene in which we see Heathcliff and Cathy walking hand in hand, visiting their favorite place, Penistone Crag. Wyler hated the scene and didn't want to do it but Samuel Goldwyn vetoed him on that score. Goldwyn subsequently claimed, "I made "Wuthering Heights", Wyler only directed it."

Cathy: Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.
Heathcliff: The moors and I will never change. Don't you, Cathy.
Cathy: I can't. I can't. No matter what I ever do or say, Heathcliff, this is me now; standing on this hill with you. This is me forever.

Flickr Favourites #7

The beginning of my favourite season calls for a special post on here, so here it goes: Autumn in Asbury Park, New Jersey, shot by one of my favourite people on Flickr, Sister72, who I mentioned before.

originally uploaded by Sister72.

originally uploaded by Sister72.

originally uploaded by Sister72.

Flickr Favourites #6

originally uploaded by ohad*.

originally uploaded by leosam.

originally uploaded by EncinoMan.

originally uploaded by pictureofthisvictory.

originally uploaded by hale_popoki.

originally uploaded by Robert McCreadie.

originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

flickr favourites #5

originally uploaded by BrigitteChanson.

Le monument aux victimes civiles fusillées en 1914

Since I don't really take myself serious as a photographer (I like taking photos, but nothing more than that), I don't really take time to share my photos in the pools set up on Flickr, but yesterday I got a comment on one of my photos of a war memorial in Tourcoing, asking if I'd like to add it to a new Flickr pool dedicated to Monuments aux Morts -- French War Memorials, usually dedicated to those who died during the First World War.

There's some really striking images in this new pool, and I hate to make any generalisations as to why French memorials are so stunning, but please have a look through the photos. On the Wikipedia entry for War Memorials', you get an impression of all the different kinds of War Memorials different countries have erected over the years.

With 'On Passing the Menin Gate' by Siegfried Sassoon in mind, I have to say that those big plaques listing the names of those who died, make me feel terribly uncomfortable. I think that, in a way, those long, long lists of names do little to really focus on all of the lives lost -- the names are there, but that's it. I think the statues that really depict people, like the one in BrigitteChanson's photo, bring across a much stronger, universal image of grief and mourning, without being clichéd. It's important to honour the soldiers who died, of course, but memorials like the one in Tourcoing make you remember why it's important.

originally uploaded by stagedoorjohnny.

That memorial in Tourcoing is the most beautiful memorial I've ever seen, it reminded me of 'The Raft of the Medusa' by Théodore Géricault -- walking around the statue you go from seeing the wounded and dying soldiers at the base of the statue to the struggling, and as they get nearer to the top, the soldiers walk more upright and it ends with (I suppose) Victoria or Nike on her horse leading them to triumph. I suppose at the end of the day it's still a form of wartime propaganda, but still, it's quite immense.

flickr favourites #4

originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Dave Gorman is mostly known for his work on television, but as it turns out, he is also an avid photographer. He was one of the first people on Flickr that I added as a "contact" because what you really notice in his photos is his eye for detail. His patterns/shapes- and London details-photosets are favourites of mine - it may be the old Suede-fan in me (1 2 3), but there's few things I love more than enormous brutalist skyscrapers or decaying buildings. Focusing in on those architectural details, it's incredibly how inhuman and symmetrical those enormous buildings look.

originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Happy Birthday, Bette Davis

originally uploaded by Alan Light.

Miss Bette Davis would have been 100-years-old today. I never saw any of her films until last year, when the BBC ran a 120-minute long documentary on her life and films, followed by Now, Voyager; it was an instant attraction. I've had some difficulties tracking down her films, but with the ones I've seen, I've always been so very impressed with her acting. The American Film Institute placed Bette second behind Katharine Hepburn in the female list of their 100 Stars in 1999, and while I can see why they went for Katharine, personally I prefer Bette Davis as an actress. It may just be their vocal stylings, but Bette Davis always comes across so much more natural. Of the films I've seen so far, Now, Voyager is my favourite of hers; who can resist Paul Henreid lighting two cigarettes?

Flickr user lisaburks has a great set of photographs of Bette Davis' crypt, with some more information on the gravesite (don't worry, it's not morbid) over on her website - apparently Bette Davis chose the statue because she thought it resembled her daughter. This is my favourite photograph from that set, I love how the shadow resembles a young Bette Davis with her beautiful wild, slightly curly hair.

originally uploaded by lisaburks.

flickr favourites #3

originally uploaded by emmgee67.

When my parents and I were in Washington D.C. in 2006, visiting my brother, we were lucky enough to catch the Robert Bechtle retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. It was one of the most impressive art exhibitions I've ever seen, and Bechtle's photorealist paintings have stuck with me ever since.

Bechtle is a pretty big name when it comes to photorealism, and apparently his car "portraits" are well-known enough to spawn a (small) Flickr pool in homage. Aside from the car portraits, Bechtle used a lot of photographs of his family as inspiration for his paintings; walking around the exhibit it was a strange way of walking into someone's life - you started with him meeting his wife, went through their children's early childhood, and then it was like you were witness to the breakdown of their marriage and the subsequent remarriages.

"You can take photographs of something but you never possess it because it's too fast.. there's something very intense about the experience of sitting down and having to look at it in the way that you do in order to make a drawing of it, or to make a painting of it.. but by the time you've done that you feel that you've really understood what you were looking at and also that you've felt a little of yourself there, and somehow it becomes a way of.. possessing the experience in a way that another manner doesn't quite seem to do."

Quite heart-breaking to think that Bechtle painted his divorce, isn't it? Art critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote in the New Yorker magazine, "Life is incredibly complicated, and the proof is that when you confront any simple, stopped part of it you are stupefied."