177th Arran Farmers Society Show

Overhead Winner

I've been to many a farmers show, from small villages up to the the huge events held in Yorkshire and Lancashire.  I much prefer the smaller ones as I can see everything and not feel like I've stumbled into a large car boot sale!

Sheep pose for a photo

Arran's event is held every year on the first Wednesday in August.  Last year was a bit of a wash out but this year after an early morning shower it stayed dry and actually sunny in the afternoon.

One of the fine bulls on show

Marvin Elliott was sculpting with his chainsaw (see previous blog), COAST had a touchy feely tank full of sea creatures, the Forestry Commission and rangers were there along with the food stalls, beer tents, and the Douglas Cocktail bar!

Vintage tractor parade

 Vintage tractors paraded, the Arran pipe band played and there was a fantastic display by Duncan and Ali of the Clan cycle stunt team.

One of the birds from Arran bird of prey centre

Meanwhile the competitors vied for position showing off livestock, horsemanship and dog obedience! For those who wanted a dog agility course was available to try - you could even borrow a dog!  The overall winner was a Holstein cow, from Stewart Reid in Lamlash.

Sheep riding - not a competitive sport!

Butter churning, spinning & weaving and birds of prey were other attractions, not to mention sampling some of the local food and of course whisky!

The Clan cycle stunt team

But for me its the livestock that make the show, all the time that it takes to present the animals in tip top condition, coats groomed, horns and hooves oiled, and cattle trained to harness (although some made the odd bid for freedom).

One of the many horse competitors

More pictures can be seen here for The Clan Cycle Stunt Team and here for the Farmers Show.

Walking stick carving

Delightfully deadly digitalis

Foxgloves are probably one of the most easily recognisable plants and are currently in full bloom around the island.  

These colourful spikes of flowers can grow up to 2.5 meters tall and vary in colour from deep purple through shades of pink and even pure white. They are particularly fond of acidic soil, which is probably why they do well on Arran.

The name foxglove can be traced back to the 1300’s and maybe even further.  The Latin name Digitalis purpurea refers to its shape which can be fitted over a human digit (fingertip). In the south of Scotland it is sometimes called ‘bloody fingers’ and in the north ‘deadman’s bells’.

The tubular flowers, seen between June and September attract a range of insects, but are mostly popular with bees.  

The insects enter into the flower and become covered in pollen.  Once the flower falls away a pod of brown rectangular seeds can be found. A plant can produce over 2 million seeds in its lifetime!

The foxglove has been used for medicinal purposes for over 200 years and is best known for its production of digoxin – a drug used as a stimulant to treat the heart.  As it is rich in digoxin it can also be poisonous if taken unawares and although poisoning is rate it can be confused with harmless plants such as comfrey which can be made into tea.

To and from photographs

A few weeks ago I posted an article on photographing smoke not realising how this would go on to influence a totally new experience that I was going to undertake.  I regularly try to do something new, just for fun so I had booked a weekend with Brodick Castle rangers to have a go at wood carving. Never having picked up a wood chisel before it could be amusing (if not dangerous!).

The beginning 

The two day course was run by Marvin  Elliott who lives and works on Arran and has work in both public and private collections around the world.  His little studio sits opposite the harbour in the lovely village of Corrie.

Marvin's studio

The weekend started with a short talk before heading off into the forest, chainsaw in hand (that’s the professional hand of a ranger!) to pick a piece of wood to carve. And this is where the influence of the previous photography started to take effect.  In the wood I looked at, I could envisage the wonderful swirls of smoke and hidden patterns and had a perfect picture in my head of a finished wood carving!

 

Work in progress

Needless to say my skill lacked sadly behind.  I had never tried to carve wood before and I happened to pick a well seasoned piece of beech – a piece of concrete would have been easier to chip at! But I did persevere with pictures of smoke roses, periwinkles, hands and general swirls in my head.  These were modified as the day went on and I envisaged drafts destroying my smoke images as the chisel when where it wanted and wood split and refused to bend to my will.

The end result was not quite how I had imagined it but undeterred I went on to carve a sea serpent, on a slightly softer green piece of wood, which now sits proudly in my garden.

 

Sea serpent in the making

Now resident in my garden

Whereas my inspiration came directly from taking a photograph, I found it fascinating to listen to Alex Boyd this week, whose inspiration led to a whole series of photographs.  Alex is an internationally recognised photography, most known for his Sonnets series see some on this link which features a character called Henning who features in all the images, wearing a white shirt and braces, in remote / iconic locations around Scotland.  Alex was on Arran and gave us an interesting talk on how he developed the idea to take this series, along with the trials and tribulations along the way!  His love of photographic and art history, and influenced by people such as Caspar David Friedrich and Anselm Kiefer, motivated him to take a fresh look at locations around Scotland.  The resulting enigmatic photographs often have a dark hidden message.   Alex is currently exhibiting at the Douglas Hotel – worth popping in for a look. 

Sign outside Marvin's studio

A Carbon Suspension

Swirlpool

As I've mentioned in previous blogs I like a photographic challenge and this one fired my imagination after I’d seen a couple of interesting pictures in an article and I couldn't work out how they’d been taken.  So despite the article repeatedly mentioning ‘patience’ as being a key element for the task, I had an hour to spare (actually I was distracted away from what I should have been doing) and my carbon suspension was burning merrily in the corner of the room.

Who's watching over you?

Now it is fair to say that my suspension probably contained a lot of other particulate material as it was a fairly obnoxious incense stick, but it burned slowly and with a consistent stream of pale grey smoke.

 

Rose Garden

Smoke is a fairly complex substance and even Leonardo Da Vinci (c1480) made comment and compared black smoke (carbon based), with white smoke (water based).  I can only presume my grey smoke was a combination of the two.

Periwinkle

And so the challenge began with choice of background, lighting methods and the best camera settings to use.  It was a surprise as to just how fast the smoke moved and there were several obstacles to overcome, not least getting the pattern of smoke where I wanted it, to achieve anything like a good result.

Tubular

Ventilating the room (a total must) created drafts and eddies and allowed excess light in through the doorway; focus points moved and I abandoned the tripod quite quickly; and then there was the need to light the smoke trails. 

The proposal

But a quick hour resulted in a couple of nice piccies – but maybe this is one challenge I will only task my more advanced students with!

Chaos

Bluebells in the Bronze Age!

 These little blue gems which appear around April and May, carpeting woodland floors, have an amazing history in the UK, where it is though around 50% of the world’s bluebells grow.

The flowers tend to lie on one side of the stem and droop once they are open.  As the name describes they are bell shaped and range from blue to violet.  Occasional white flowers can be found and may be genetic mutations. Most striking is the fabulous scent that they produce which adds to the delight of wandering though bluebell carpets.

Bluebells are native to the UK, although there are some Spanish ones around and these have mixed with the native variety.  The Spanish ones can be white or pink, but the most obvious difference is that they have very little or no scent.

Arran is steeped in history from the Bronze Age and it is likely that glue made from bluebells was used to attach feather to hunting arrows.  In more recent times Bluebell glue was also used to bind books.

Bluebell roots were also used to make starch to stiffen clothing, particularly collars and ruffs in the Victorian era.

Like many native wild flowers, bluebells are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, and it is illegal to dig up the bulbs for sale or profit.  In all cases removing the plant, even for preservation reasons requires permission from the landowner (as most bluebells are found in woodlands there is always a 

landowner). 

Beachcombing on Arran

1. Sannox beach

Beachcombing and rock pooling are great to pass an hour or two regardless of the weather.  It goes without saying the Arran has some beautiful beaches and plenty of them - being an Island! But not having an hour or two and in need of something for my blog, I challenged myself to photograph 10 different things, on the beach, in 15 minutes.  Setting photographic challenges for myself are good practice and loads of fun.

2. Driftwood

Beautiful sandy beaches can be found at Kildonan, Machrie, Sannox, Brodick, Blackwaterfoot and Kilmory (to name a few) but predominantly the beaches are pebble. Sannox just happened to be my port of call for these photo's - possibly not my best choice (sand and cameras are not very compatible) but that was my location so off I set, parking in the lay-by and using the stepping stones to access the beach (3 minutes gone already!)

3. Bivalve seashell (unknown type)

Sand or pebble all have tides which leave debris on the high tide mark, perfect for a bit of extra scrutiny. It's easy just to walk along the tide line and not really see what's under our feet - or maybe we're distracted by the sea birds and scenery?

4. Periwinkle

The day was really quite pleasant, a little breezy with the sun poking out every now and again.  The beach was deserted - not unusual for Arran! Most of the debris looked fairly routine, limpets, razor clam and mussel shells, seaweed, nylon fishing net and bits of drift wood. And I have to say, not a lot of plastic.

5. Whelks and limpets

But then the bright yellow periwinkles caught my eye and some whelks. Periwinkles come in a range of colours from white to orange with red stripes.

6. Seaweed, probably a type of wrack.

On picking through a patch of seaweed I noticed the fine detail on the leaf, which I think are called 'blades'.  Seaweed is a fascinating plant, it can survive extremely saltly water, being submerged for hours in freezing temperatures, drying out in baking sunshine, being battered by storms and feet and manages to survive! The seaweed on the shore varies and the ones found nearer the upper and middle shore have longer blades and often have 'bubbles' or floats.  Those nearer the lower shore have broader blades, but this is a big generalisation! The seaweed I looked at was a type of wrack, but I don't know which one.

7. Worm casts on shell

A bit more digging and I found the remains of a crab.

8. Eye socket of crab shell

Then a dried out starfish with only 4 legs left.

9. Remains of a starfish

And it was back to the seaweed.  This is part of the root system known as a hold fast.  But I'm not duplicating a photo of seaweed here.  I draw your attention to the fine white bone like chains entwined within.  I've no idea what they are but that was photo 10. Challenge complete and within the 15 minutes! Even though I got distracted with some duplicates (see more below).

10. Fine bone like structure entwined in seaweed holdfast.

3a. The beautiful shiny inside of the shell

4a. A white periwinkle

8a.  A crabs claw