Dockyard/Estuary Dreck
Art and LifePosted by Dave Wise Thu, September 02, 2010 19:02A film to compliment, and advertise, my forthcoming book launch.
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Clouds over the River
Canoe JourneysPosted by Dave Wise Mon, August 30, 2010 09:28It's been a pretty bad August weather wise, and this last weekend was no different, but we tried to make the best of it and got out in the canoe, first on the River Medway estuary, where Mel and I made an overnight trip to Burntwick Island. We went via the German Sub; I had fixed 2 solargraph/pinhole cameras to it's capstan a month ago to take images of the sunrise and sunset over a period of time, and I wanted to collect them. It was a hard 3 hour paddle in heavy, choppy seas, and this is one of the images, you can see the prow of the sub in the foreground, grain powerstation in the middle, and of course a months' worth of the arc of the sun from sunrise to midday...
Then we went to our campspot and relaxed for the night, I made a pretty good dinner - stilon, pear and walnut creme sauce over tagliatelle with chocolate pudding for afters, washed down with red wine, then scotch and ginger and a nice sunset...
We woke to a fine day, had a nice bit of beachcombing and then a hard paddle back as the wind was up, about 35mph I'd say, so the waves were mostly white and a bit scary - we took in a bit of water. Then yesterday, after a night's rest, I went out on the River Stour for the day, which started very overcast but brightened towards the evening.
And keeping to a nautical theme, I've got an event coming up, the launch of a new book featuring my pinhole photos and the paintings of Billy Childish on the subject of dockyard and estuary. It's going to be held on HMS Cavalier in the Chatham Dockyard, a Saturday in mid September, in a part of the boat not normally open to the public. It'll be free to get in (you usually pay £15 to get into the dockyard), you just got to contact me to get an invite.
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Pinholing the Lake District
Art and LifePosted by Dave Wise Tue, August 17, 2010 19:34I went to the Lake District last year in the autumn and whilst doing the usual sightseeing and hiking I shot a small bit of video. Here it is, complete with a few pinhole photos I took with my Box Brownie and Mousetrap cameras.
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Philosophy and the Canoe
Canoe JourneysPosted by Dave Wise Mon, August 16, 2010 10:28I made a short canoe trip last Saturday, in between spells of rain, on the River Stour. The highlight for me was coming upon the lakes, as the sun glinted off them into our faces. It looked like this...
They were full of birds, and very peaceful. There are more photos of the trip that you can see via the link on the website front page. When I got home I started to read a book called 'The Philosopher and the Wolf' that'd been recomended to me. A few pages in I started to skip pages, because it just wasn't satisfying and I was searching for reasons to stay with it. It would have been ok a few years ago, when I was trying to impress people with my perceived smartness, but now I think that philosophy is like many other things invented by city-bound man, just there to take our minds off the fact that if we're city bound we're detached from what makes us us. Floating on the water, feeling the wind and sun, having birds swim next to you, unafraid, if you're like that you've no need to ask what you are doing here, or why we die or why the earth turns, or indeed, any of the other questions that philosophers attempt to resolve. It's the same when you sit on a mountain top. All answers lie before you. And there aren't that many, because in reality there aren't that many questions.
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Sunrise...
Canoe JourneysPosted by Dave Wise Thu, August 12, 2010 16:40A peaceful few minutes watching the sunrise over the Isle of Grain and London Thamsport, as seen from my tent one July morning whilst camped in the River Medway estuary, on Alfred Korte Island. No need for special effects, fast edits or any other device when nature shows itself like this.
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A Pinhole Film
Canoe JourneysPosted by Dave Wise Wed, August 11, 2010 10:59Here's a short film of me pinholing the German Sub on the River Medway Estuary
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Among the Mountains of Mali
Travel StuffPosted by Dave Wise Fri, August 06, 2010 08:54Another film I have knocked up from footage I took just over 10 years ago whilst hiking in West Africa. Could be a useful resource for hikers, you never read about the Dyounde Massif on the web, or in books.
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Hythe Military Canal
Canoe JourneysPosted by Dave Wise Tue, August 03, 2010 19:48My friends and I canoed part of the Hythe Military Canal today. The sky was just full of enough clouds to make the scene look pretty much perfect...
We stopped a couple of times, for a stretch of our backs and food...
...and luckily we saw a few Kingfishers, and for once I got a half decent photograph (it's not that great, but sitting in a canoe, I can't hope for too much better)...
It's only 30 minutes or so from my house so I hope to see a bit more of the canal before the summer is out. I'm thinking of running canoe tours there, as well as to the Medway Estuary, starting next year so I need to get to know it better.
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