In many ways the highlight of the recent little European sojourn has been taking care of three young grandsons in their home for 2 weeks while their parents are away. The delights of total immersion in the world of primary school boys. Boredom, P.E. gear, overexcitement, homework, high decibel noise, lunch boxes, aggression, clean school uniforms, frustration, hugs, boundless joy, seldom clean surfaces anywhere. And precious little sleep. Awoke about 3 am the other morning to find a third person in the bed. Eventual outcome OK. We have the necessary sense of humour.

While they are at school there is sometimes time for us grown-ups to play and go shopping. Part of my play has been to do some doodling with Photoshop. In Scotland we visited a photographer, Paul Woodburn, on an open studio day. His thing is manipulation of lighting effects rather than architectural manipulation. His technique involves fiddling with up to 27 layers for one image. He does produce a wide variety of interesting effects. My skill and patience only extends to a max of 3 layers, and my little macbook Air only has photoshop elements. However I did enjoy the pastime and a few of the results appear below. Personally I am not sure what to make of them. The pics no longer represent the places where they were taken, in colours or in mood. I hope they are just little fantasies.

The pic above and the one below are from the streets of Berlin.

Below, the gateway is at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, and the city square is in Potsdam. For obvious reasons, the building in the centre is called “the lemon squeezer”. Destroyed in the war, in the Russian sector, it has only relatively recently been rebuilt. The lemon squeezer dome is glass, the original also being glass, quite spectacular & advanced for pre-war.

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And finally a couple of shots of the famous Bath Cathedral. In the news recently because the buskers in the square outside the cathedral have been audible inside the cathedral during services. Quite a conflict of interest. In our experience the busker music has been conservative and high standard. Seems that of late some of the players have gone a bit high tech and increased the decibels. Last time we were there the public was not allowed in the tower because the bell ringers were attempting a “true Grandsire doubles” which is  a sequence comprising 5040 changes. The process was expected to take about three hours. Alas, just short of two hours, someone made a mistake. In the resultant atmosphere of gloom the public was still not allowed in the bell tower. It is a beautiful church.

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You can find some of Paul’s spectacular pics at his web site: eastlightphotography.com