Fish Out of Water

A fish forever leaping on the flower banking of Grange Over Sands promenade caught in April when the spring flowers were in bloom.. There was also a flat fish nearby always associated with Morecambe Bay,

the fluke (possibly more commonly known as flounders).  I don't know if people still go fluke treading in the bay but it was a method of catching them by feeling for them with ones feet and then grabbing hold of them by head, gills and tail.  I've never fished in my life but have in the past waded across the silty channels of Morecambe Bay and suddenly felt something stir under my feet which made me and it move a whole lot faster, a very strange experience, and I'm never sure who is panicking more me, or the fish.

Here flying into view is one of our feathered friends. 

These wooden sculptures along the promenade are relatively recent and I wonder what they look now amongst the summer planting rather than the rather restricted cover of spring  They are all the creation of Andy Levy wood sculptor who works with both traditional tools and chainsaw carving.


A fondness for fish in the artistic sense has also just appeared locally as mosaics on the Haverigg foreshore but the sunlight was in the wrong direction for photography.  No problem, I'm just grateful that the sun is making an appearance after a less than stellar summer.  I contented myself with taking an image of this rather charming 

fishy embellishment on the new Haverigg information board.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at F here

 

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Electricity

On the intertidal flats of the Duddon Estuary at ebb tide the lone pylon stands sentinel by the Lakeland fells in the distance.  The cycles of erosion and deposition means the estuary is always changing and yet its quiet understated character remains the same.

Of course I cannot resist a potter along the channel to get a reflection of the pylon and the bright sunlight has wiped away almost all trace of the electricity lines. Wintering and passage birds also enjoy this quiet corner of Cumbria and its tasty treats beneath the mud and sands.  

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at E here

Razzle Dazzle

Here is the Mersey ferry 'Snowdrop' crossing the river heading for Seacombe and decked out in Dazzle, or to be more precise it is called "Everybody Razzle Dazzle" and the design is by Sir Peter Blake, a pioneer of pop art with a impish sense of humour.  I imagine he enjoyed this project.  I'm rather fond of his collages, of which the most famous is the cover of the Beatle's Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band album.

The Dazzle project was part of the Liverpool biennial but also to mark World War One which was when the artist Norman Wilkinson (1878-1971) came up with this idea to protect naval ships. Unlike normal camouflage whose objective is to hide,  this camouflage's idea was to mislead by making it difficult to estimate speed and bearing.  Every ship design was different, for the full dazzling differences feast your eyes here  (HMS Argus is confusing enough on a photo goodness only knows what it looked like on the high seas).  The connection with Liverpool is that the Dazzle ships of WW1 were mostly painted there.  When not serving in the navy and inventing Dazzle Norman Wilkinson was a fine maritime painter.  My first introduction to his work was the LMS railways travel posters of the 1920s and 1930s, today highly collectable items but for those without deep pockets available on postcards. I could have gone with a Liverpool view but as a contrast show a scene nearer in distance to where I live,  a dazzling day of

gentle sailing on Windermere.

Time to return to the Liverpool waterfront and the pilot ship Edmund Gardner in Canning Dry Dock with its Dazzle stripes.  Unfortunately all the area was padlocked and barricaded off so this was the best angle I could get, although the following day I did take some pictures from the rain splattered windows of the Maritime Museum, none of them very good, but the next photo at least shows more of the stripes

The Dazzle is by the artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence pour l'Edmund Gardner Ship, Liverpool, Paris 2014).

Lastly to complete the trio of Dazzle ships here is one I had no difficulty photographing from every angle because it was moored near Blackfriars Bridge in London and I merrily clicked my way along both banks of the Thames.

This is HMS President one of the three present day surviving Royal Naval ships of World War One (its date of 1918 may be a clue to one of the reasons it survived). This time the artist is Tobias Rehberger. When I took this photograph in May it was due to be officially 'launched ' in June so I wonder if the men at the front by the tug were putting some finishing touches or cleaning it.

Here is the ship's stern giving a closer view of the design and taken from the Victoria Embankment where she is moored.

All three ships were part of the  "14-18-NOW" WW1 Centenary Arts Commission.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week moored at D here