The River Runs Low, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, Album The Way It Is
The River Runs Low
Bruce Hornsby and the Range
Album The Way It Is
The rain held back again
Haven’t felt a drop since you went away
Outside of town, the hills are brown
I guess way out there you’d call ’em golden
Lines outside the welfare store
The clock is stopped at the bank next door
They yelled like hell when the boys left home
Now just like you, they’re all gone
The river runs low tonight
And eyes are closed on the waterline
The river runs low tonight
And you’re always drifting through my mind
The river runs low tonight
And nobody waits for the tide to rise
I’m gonna wait till you make
The river run high
Whoa-oh…Whoa, oooh…
The old man’s gettin’ on
Keeps the morning paper in his overcoat
It keeps him warm in the cold storm
And he told me today I look a little lonely
Up in the air they’re heading south
The sky is light to the west of town
With a little cash I could get around
You know I’d come out there and find you
Whoa…
The river runs low tonight
And eyes are closed on the waterline
The river runs low tonight
And you’re always drifting through my mind
The river runs low tonight
And nobody waits for the tide to rise
But I’m gonna wait till you make
The river run high
Whoa-oh…Whoa, oooh…Whoa-oh….
Up in the air they’re heading south
The sky is light to the west of town
With a little cash I could get around
You know I’d come out there and find you
Whoa…
The river runs low tonight
And eyes are closed on the waterline
The river runs low tonight
And you’re always drifting through my mind
The river runs low tonight
And nobody waits for the tide to rise
I’m gonna wait till you make
The river run high
Black and white Landscapes : The banks of the river …..
Black and White Landscapes 2018
The Banks of the river
Nikon D700
Nigel Borrington
Kilkenny Landscape Photography, Images of July 2018
Irish Landscape Images
County Kilkenny
Barley fields
July 3rd 2018
Nikon D700
Nigel Borrington
Irish Landscape Images
County Kilkenny
Barley fields
July 3rd 2018
Nikon D700
Nigel Borrington
Images without words , Evening stars above the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, County Kerry
Evening Stars above the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks
County Kerry
Ireland
Meeting of the Waters, Killarney National park and lakes , County Kerry, Ireland
As the name implies the Meeting of the waters is where Killarney’s famous lakes converge. The Upper lake, Middle Lake (also known as Muckross Lake) and Lower Lake (Lough Leane) all come together at this beautiful spot. It is a little haven of tranquility and can only be reached by foot or bicycle. Also found in this area are Dinis cottage and “The Old Weir Bridge”.
The easiest way to reach the spot is by walking along the well signposted path from Muckross House for approximately 5km or if you don’t feel that energetic then approx one mile beyond Torc Waterfall (direction Kenmare) there is a parking spot on the right hand side of the road. Dinis cottage is signposted from here and the cottage and “the meetings of the waters” is a 15 minute walk from here. Its definitely worth the walk on a fine day.
Ireland in Black and White – The River Nore, Thomastown , County Kilkenny
Ireland in Black and White
River Nore
Thomastown
County Kilkenny
Nikon D700
Nigel Borrington
Tuesday Morning on the River, Bagenalstown, River Barrow, county Carlow
Morning on the river
Bagenalstown
county Carlow
Nigel Borrington 2018
Bagenalstown, county Carlow
One of my most loved small towns located along the river Barrow as it flows through county Carlow is Bagenalstown, it is located of the side of the hills that surround the river barrow south of Carlow town. Otherwise known in its Gaelic version as Muine Bheag it is a pleasant stretch of the River Barrow and derives its name from Walter Bagenal, who, in founding the town, had visions of mirroring the city of Versailles, in northern France.
However, his efforts became frustrated due to the re-routing of the coach road away from the town. He left more than enough for visitors to enjoy with handsome stone public buildings including the impressive Courthouse, now a public library in Bagenalstown.
The arrival of the railway in 1846 rejuvenated the town, and its neo-classical railway station is one of the finest in Ireland. Attributed to William Deane Butler it is constructed of limestone and granite and is a seven bay, two-storey building in an Italianate villa style. Today Bagenalstown station still retains its charm in a largely unaltered state. This former mill town made full use of the river Barrow to transport grain, beet, coal, turf and Guinness by barge, evidence of which can be seen in its fine industrial architecture. Near the railway bridge on the R705 Borris road is an example of the Carlow fence which consists of a decorative fence made of granite pieces, laid horizontally over vertical posts and is found nowhere else in the world.
One of the finest views of Bagenalstown may be enjoyed on the approach road from Leighlinbridge and includes the spire of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church and the fine tower of St. Mary’s Church of Ireland Church. St. Andrew’s Catholic Church was built in 1820 on a site provided by the Newton family, successors to the Bagenals. The stained glass behind the altar is worthy of particular attention. Nowadays, riverside walks, picnic tables and a picturesque lock enhance this fine town which has been twinned with the French town of Pont Pean since 1999.
ATTRACTIONS: The ruins of the early 14th century Ballymoon Castle and 13th century Ballyloughan Castle are located near the town. Wells Church, situated closeby, is the preserved ruin of a church dating back to 1262. The church is surrounded by an enclosed and well-maintained graveyard which is still in use today.
ACTIVITIES: Outdoor swimming pool. The McGrath complex offers excellent sporting facilities including cricket, hurling, soccer and Gaelic football fields, tennis court and pitch and putt courses. The River Barrow in this area is renowned for coarse fishing with wheelchair friendly fishing stands located near the swimming pool. The Barrow Way long distance walking route passes through the town.
Man and the Sea – Cyril Scott, Baudelaire: The Flowers of Evil (London: Elkin Mathews, 1909)
Man and the Sea
Free man! the sea is to thee ever dear!
The sea is thy mirror, thou regardest thy soul
In its mighteous waves that unendingly roll,
And thy spirit is yet not a chasm less drear.
Thou delight’st to plunge deep in thine image down;
Thou tak’st it with eyes and with arms in embrace,
And at times thine own inward voice would’st efface
With the sound of its savage ungovernable moan.
You are both of you, sombre, secretive and deep:
Oh mortal, thy depths are foraye unexplored,
Oh sea — no one knoweth thy dazzling hoard,
You both are so jealous your secrets to keep!
And endless ages have wandered by,
Yet still without pity or mercy you fight,
So mighty in plunder and death your delight:
Oh wrestlers! so constant in enmity!
Springtime poetry , After the Winter By Claude McKay
After the Winter
By Claude McKay
Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
Monday Poetry, Ruins – LJ Chaplin Mar 2015
Kilkenny Landscape
Ruins
Nigel Borrington
Ruins
Dust and rubble settle at my feet,
A chaotic collapse
Inside myself that I could never
Have imagined,
The foundations are shaken,
The cracks began to show,
And piece by piece
It all spectacularly fell apart,
Nothing to hold on to,
Nothing to steady myself with
As it all crashed and burned,
Leaving me surrounded by the ruins
Of a place that took years to build
And seconds to destroy.
LJ Chaplin Mar 2015
The Alpine Path, by : L. M. Montgomery
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Ilford SFX 200
Black and White Negative Film
Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep
How I may upward climb
The Alpine path, so hard, so steep,
That leads to heights sublime
Film Photography, Was it as good as we think ?
Thanks to Sharon Walters Knight a fellow WordPress blogger and Facebook friend , I have in the last three weeks started to take a look again at 35mm film photography.
Over the last three years or so Film is starting to make a big come back, mainly with the help of film suppliers and film fan supporters lomography, they sell and process films along with camera bodies and offer some great new ideas as to how to use film and get some creative results from it.
I have just finished shooting my first role of 35mm black and white film supplied from Lomography Europe, using my Nikon FM2 and when I get time this week I will post this roll of film off to them and wait for the negatives and online scans to appear!
For the moment I have been looking at some of my old negatives and scanning them, the results are good I feel for these old black and white frames, My impression of how film compares to current Digital cameras is one of surprise, I love the grainy and organic feel to black and white films!
I had not realized since I stopped looking at film as my main photography medium, just how much digital has moved forward year on year! I feel that even when scanning a film frame at 10 megapixels with a good scanner, even with ISO 100 film the detail is so much less that can be found in todays digital sensors. Film grain is loved by many, yet when you look closely a lot of the image details are lost in this grain. A simple fact however when using film is that while digital cameras have kept developing all the time, film scanner have not. Another fact often lost today is that film was not designed with scanners in mind but with wet/dark room printing on light sensitive photo-papers, often designed by the film suppliers to match the film being used. Thus it could still be true that the best results when printing from film can be achieved in the dark room and not using a scanner at all!
I still love the idea of using a film camera at times when you want to use a simple process and travel light, just packing a film camera, a few lenses and rolls of film, without the need to take battery chargers and laptops with you. Another fact is that Film cameras work better when your outside and need to keep changing lenses, you never have to worry about dust and dirt getting to your sensor!
Here are some film shots I have taken over the years, at some point this week I will post more on them, including some closer looks at just how much detail is in the full sized images and just how film grain looks at 100% print size.
Ilfords Black and white film Gallery
The Cycle Of Seasons – Poem by ann rta’s
Spring, days lengthening and warming slowly
green shoots daffodils and gambolling lambs.
Summer, sunny and hot lazing in deckchairs
rambling roses blooming strawberries and cream.
Autumn, wind blustering with nights drawing in
dying leaves changing to red/gold before falling
Winter, cold and bringing frosts, snow, ice,
dark brown trees stark and bare animals hibernate.
Seasons whirling in a revolving cycle,
marking the endless passage of time.
I was once;
the Spring child
the Summer teenager
the Autumn adult,
now, I am approaching
the Winter of old age.
Oh, that I could go back and return
like the Seasons
to the Spring again.
Irish Landscape Images, Tramore Beach, County Waterford 2018
Irish landscape images Tramore beach
county Waterford Nigel Borrington
Shooting Square, Lake Windermere, Lake District, UK
One reason I love shooting Landscape images with square format prints and images in mind for the final results is that your images get closer to your subjects, you loose lots of details in the frame that you mostly do not need.
These images are taken at Lake Windermere in the Lake District and I feel that their square format helps in capturing this great place in a truly focused and closer way.
The first signs of Spring – BlackThorn
Blackthorn is the 12th letter of the Gaelic tree alphabet, representing P, yet another controversial letter. There was no P in the Gaelic alphabet until recently, so some tree has had to stand in. As Blackthorn was in the original alphabet (for St, as its old Gaelic name is Straiph, but St is no longer considered a letter in its own right). As Blackthorn’s latin name is Prunus spinosa, it fits the bill. Its modern Gaelic name is Draighneag or Airne (sloe) or Sgitheach dubh (black hawthorn).
Snippets of Lore
Blackthorn is the 12th letter of the Gaelic tree alphabet representing P, controversially, as there was no P in the alphabet until recently
For my explanation of why Blackthorn stands for P see http://mandyhaggith.worldforests.org/index.asp?pageid=359149
Blackthorn’s latin name is Prunus spinosa. In modern Gaelic, draighneag (pierce), airne (sloe) or sgitheach dubh (black hawthorn).
Blackthorn’s fruit is called sloe. They are very high in Vitamin C.
To get a taste of the bitterness of sloes, nowhere better to start than Vicki Feaver. http://www.spl.org.uk/best-poems_2006/feaver.htm
Too much sloe gin may be too much of a good thing.
Sloe gin infused with pennyroyal and valerian was the original ‘Mother’s Ruin’.
Blackthorn is the ancestor of all plum trees.
Sloe stones have been found in Neolithic cairns and crannogs.
The Ice Man was carrying a sloe, presumably to eat.
Sloes are better flavored if frosted, or dried then rehydrated.
Sloe jelly is best made with apples.
Sloes are good for the bladder, kidneys, stomach and lung complaints.
Sloe juice and bark gives indelible ink.
Sloes gives a pinky purple dye, and blackthorn bark produces a red or orange dye.
Blackthorn bark can be used to reduce fever.
Use blackthorn leaves for tea. It’s good for tonsils and larynx.
Have another sloe gin (by Seamus Heaney) http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IrelandGenWeb/2003-11/1069876152
Responding to Heaney, Tom Rawling’s Sloe Gin: http://www.xen19.dial.pipex.com/dec_2.htm
And another moody blackthorn poem, this one by Louis McKee, coming into blossom. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-blackthorn/
Blackthorn produces beautiful snow white blossoms early and before the leaves come.
Blackthorn’s leafless stems, in flower, evoke a place between death and life.
Blackthorn blossom is unlucky indoors (maybe for the same reason as hawthorn?)
A tisane of blackthorn blossom ‘purges to the depths’.
Rough weather in March is called a Blackthorn Winter.
Blackthorn is the sister of Hawthorn: Blackthorn governs Nov-April, Hawthorn governs May-Oct.
Blackthorn wood is hard and good for walking sticks and weapons. Best walking sticks are blackthorn entwined by honeysuckle.
Irish sheleilaigh sticks are made with blackthorn wood.
Blackthorn trees give good shelter for birds to nest in. It makes excellent hedges.
Blackthorn is supposed to never exceed 13 feet.
Proverb: Better the bramble than the blackthorn, but better the blackthorn than the devil.
Blackthorn helps you see beyond negatives to opportunity.
A hero fleeing from giants needs a magical blackthorn twig which will sprout into a thicket!
Blackthorns were believed to spring from the blood of Norse invaders.
A blackthorn thorn tipped with poison is a subtle weapon known as ‘a pin of slumber’.
Blackthorn is associated with Sleeping Beauty – after pricking her finger, the castle was thorn-bound until love came.
Witches stick blackthorns into wax effigies of their enemies.
Blackthorn was used for pyres when burning witches.
Blackthorn was believed to have been used for Christ’s Crown of Thorns, hence unlucky.
For fertile fields, make, wear, then burn a blackthorn crown and spread its ash.
Blackthorn represents the inevitability of death, and of dark secrets.
Evil fairy-folk stole babies – and hid them in blackthorn bushes.
‘Many sloes, many cold toes’ – presage of bad winter ahead.
Landscape Video, Underwater test shots , Kings River, Kells, Kilkenny
I have just started experimenting with some underwater video making using a Yi Action camera, here are my first two samples
Friday Poetry – River Ghosts, By: Chris Smedbakken
River Ghosts, By: Chris Smedbakken
Chris Smedbakke web site
Gazing into the Stars
Wishing for what there could never be
“All of the stars I dedicate to thee,
the spirits of the forest and the songs of the sea”
She, the River Ghost of his long lost dreams,
singing mournful songs among the silent streams
Pale, dark eyes uplit by white moonlight beams
Beware, the fate of her is not what is seems
Frozen flowers, sunset eves
Deathcold breeze in the icy leaves
Autumn goddess surrenders and then she leaves
for Lady Frost to conquer a world that grieves
Her the River gave in to and turned to ice
Restless fay gave up a scream towards the pale blue skies
Fooled by a vision of Winter in disguise,
she lies down to final sleep in the white of her despise
He, the sun, weeps silently at her lonely grave
The lost dreams did not die with the River wave
Missing, longing for the water’s song, the happiness it gave
The sun mourned the frozen River, that its warm light could not save
About Chris
I am that kind of person who would rather give you a story than an introduction. You would be hard put to find something that doesn’t inspire me. Feed me a theme and I will give you back a text, it’s almost as simple as that.
More … About Chris Smedbakke
The Fisherman – Poem by William Butler Yeats
The Fisherman – Poem by William Butler Yeats
ALTHOUGH I can see him still.
The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It’s long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.
All day I’d looked in the face
What I had hoped ‘twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.
Maybe a twelvemonth since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, ‘Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.’
William Butler Yeats
Lighthouse Poetry : “The Lighthouse Keeper” by Phil Lindsey Jun 2015
Hook head lighthouse
at dusk
County Wexford
Nigel Borrington
Phil Lindsey Jun 2015
The Lighthouse Keeper
The keeper of illumination
Aye, the keeper of the light
Safety first, his fascination
Dusk to evening through the night.
Aye, the keeper of the light,
Every season, every day
Dusk to evening, through the night
He tends the beacon, shows the way.
Every season, every day
Climbs thirteen flights of thirteen stairs
He tends the beacon, shows the way
The Fresnel lantern he prepares.
Climbs thirteen flights of thirteen stairs
Skyward, toward the landing high
The Fresnel lantern he prepares
Lighthouse beacon must not die.
Skyward, toward the landing high
Strike the match, produce the spark
Lighthouse beacon must not die.
Guides ships safely through the dark.
Strike the match, produce the spark
Safety first, his fascination
Guides ships safely through the dark
The keeper of illumination.
Phil Lindsey 6/25/15
Nigel Borrington 
County Kilkenny by cycle, Taking the high road to the Slieveardagh hills ….
County Kilkenny by cycle
This weekend on Saturday morning, 12th May 2018 and I achieved one of my cycling aims for 2018, cycling all the way up to what well could be the highest road (at some 333 meters) in county Kilkenny, in the Slieveardagh hills at Blanchfields bog, with its wind farm of Ballybay.
There are some stunning views of county Kilkenny and Tipperary from here and on Saturday the weather was perfect, It was just a great feeling after some weeks of lower level cycling, to get ready.
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May 14, 2018 | Categories: black and white, Comment, Irish Landscapes, Landscape, Mountains, Travel Locations | Tags: Cycle routes, cycling, Nigel Borrington, Taking the high road, Weekend cycling | 1 Comment