to a beloved | qui riposa
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 18 June 2024].
dog rose
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 June 2024].
I captured this rosa canina, commonly known as dog rose, and bearing the fruit, rose hip (though not fruiting when I photographed it) on my walk past Grove Park Nature Reserve to Hither Green Cemetery earlier in the month.
There are various theories for the origins of the plant's name. As you might imagine, my favoured one (though likely not scientifically proven) is that the plant can cure the bite of a mad or rabid dog.
As with many flowers and plants, it's the county flower in one country (Hampshire, England) and an invasive weed in others (NZ and Australia).
But it is pretty.
angelic youth
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 June 2024].
haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 May 2024].
quit you like men | i have fought a good fight
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 May 2024].
After digging around on Google, I believe the inscriptions on either side of this grave for (I presume) brothers in Hitchin Cemetery are from Bible verses.
From 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8 in the King James version specifically.
A Wesleyan Minister and a World War I soldier buried alongside the wife of the Minister. I didn't check the other side, so there may also have been the wife of the soldier commemorated in this plot.
This inscription style appeared a few times in the cemetery, although sometimes with different fonts.
marguerite in bud
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 May 2024].
jesus and jules
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 14 May 2024].
purity and innocence
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 May 2024].
let me hold your heart like a flower
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 April 2024].
memorial to heroes of the marine engine room
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 May 2024].
I let the team down.
This monument and some flowers attached to a railing near the Isle of Man ferry terminal were the closest I came to photographing a grave while visiting Liverpool last week.
Nostalgia was heavily represented: tributes in various forms to The Beatles, Billy Fury and others. And my memories of Pier Head swirling around my head.
But my time in the city was too short to allow time to seek out a cemetery.
There may have been graves in the Our Lady and St Nicholas Church Garden, but I only paused briefly to capture the church before moving on.
And even when I photographed this monument, I had forgotten seeing it on the map.
Google Maps records it as the Titanic Memorial. Wikipedia tells me that was the original intent of the monument. However, it took on a broader recognition of the heroes of the marine engine room after World War I.
From Wikipedia: The memorial was intended originally to commemorate all 32 engineers who died in the sinking of Titanic on 15 April 1912. Liverpool was the Titanic port of registry, as well as the home of the ship's owner, White Star Line. Construction was funded by international public subscription.
Spaces were left on the monument to record the names of other engineers. However, due to the heavy loss of life throughout World War I, its dedication was broadened to include all maritime engine room fatalities incurred during the performance of duty. Shrapnel damage from bombs that fell during the Second World War can be clearly seen on the monument.
The shrapnel damage mentioned is apparent in the photo I took. However, I was so conscious of time (and the weight of my luggage on my shoulders) that I didn't stop to inspect the monument more closely and take more photos. I only looked up this information after editing. I realised I should have spent more time capturing it.
allium giganteum
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 May 2024].
Some allium giganteum, or giant onions, I photographed in Helmingham Hall's gardens in June 2017, the last time my parents visited the UK.
Not the edible kind of onions. But the bees like them, and they're pretty.
past his bedtime
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 April 2024].
One of the first graves I came across in the Glasgow Necropolis was that of poet William Miller, who "appears to have popularised a pre-existing nursery rhyme, [Wee Willie Winkie,] adding additional verses to make up a five stanza poem" and publishing the same in 1841.
I didn't know there was a monument to him there, and to be honest, I couldn't have named him, though I grew up learning at least the poem's first stanza. The monument stood out because of the detailed profile of him.
He died destitute, and his remains are interred in an unmarked grave in Tollcross Cemetery.
Though I've read enough Irvine Welsh novels to understand a reasonable amount, I don't know enough Scots to understand Miller's original without the paraphrased version in English alongside it.
Despite that, I love reading it, and I share the complete poem below, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon,
Up stairs an' doon stairs in his nicht-gown,
Tirlin' at the window, crying at the lock,
"Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"
"Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye comin' ben?
The cat's singin grey thrums to the sleepin hen,
The dog's speldert on the floor and disna gie a cheep,
But here's a waukrife laddie, that wunna fa' asleep."
Onything but sleep, you rogue, glow'ring like the moon,
Rattlin' in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon,
Rumblin', tumblin' roon about, crawin' like a cock,
Skirlin like a kenna-what, waukenin' sleepin' fock.
"Hey Willie Winkie, the wean's in a creel,
Wamblin' aff a bodie's knee like a verra eel,
Ruggin' at the cat's lug and raveling a' her thrums-
Hey Willie Winkie – see there he comes."
Wearit is the mither that has a stoorie wean,
A wee, stumpie, stousie, that canna rin his lane,
That has a battle aye wi' sleep afore he'll close an e'e-
But a kiss frae aff his rosy lips gies strength anew to me.
camellia japonica
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 20 April 2024].
leo/poldo ii
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 April 2024].
I captured these photographs of the equestrian statue of Leopold II in Place du Trône in Brussels during my visit to Belgium with my parents and then-partner, Kyle, in September 2014.
According to Wikipedia, Leopold II was the second King of the Belgians. Although he still holds the title of the longest-reigning Belgian monarch, by all accounts, Leopold II was a nasty piece of work.
See, in particular, his reign over the Congo Free State (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
I won't use the words 'founder' and 'owner', as we know there were already people there when he claimed those titles who had more right to claim ownership than he did.
I usually avoid capturing people in my photographs of monuments, architecture, street scenes, etc., but I quite like the moment I captured with these particular folks in the second image.
great orme cemetery
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 April 2024].
With all the to-ing and fro-ing between my trips to Llandudno, Delamere and Glasgow (and pet-sittings in between), I got ahead of myself by posting a photograph of St Peter's Church in Delamere last Sunday when I should have rounded out the week with a #SepulchralSunday entry for Llandudno first.
No harm done, though.
Here's one of my photographs of the Great Orme Cemetery Chapel. The cemetery sits just outside the churchyard walls of St Tudno's Church, down the hill from the summit.
blossoms against bricks
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 April 2024].
pause for thought
I thought I'd look through my archives of unedited self-portraits to find something from ten years ago that I may like to edit and share to celebrate my birthday.
In doing so, I found quite a number from a shoot I did in my bedroom in June 2014 that caught my eye after all this time.
I had previously edited a handful of photographs from the shoot, but ten years later, I'm drawn to other images.
As I don't share NSFW content at my lowest tier and can't share NSFW images on most social platforms, I decided to edit a photograph I could share publicly and one I could share early access to my patrons at 'the perfect 10' tier and above.
It's been a while since I added work to my interior/exterior series (coming up to three years), but I feel the image I shared on my Patreon in the wee hours of the morning, i fall in love too easily, fits into that series.
Maybe this one does, too.
I edited another NSFW image from this shoot that I'll share with my patrons at 'the perfect 10' tier and above in future.
I also shared a new self-portrait from my wallflowers series, let me hold your heart like a flower, with my patrons early access this morning. That will become public in a month.
death in technicolour
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 April 2024].
A couple of flowering Camellia japonica trees brighten up the churchyard of St Peter's Church in Delamere.
Life and death side by side.
pyrus communis
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 April 2024].
Flowers of the common pear tree, captured on my photo walk from Delamere to Kelsall last month.