Bright and Sunny

Some photographs taken whilst out for my hour of exercise a day – all in some lovely warm April sunshine.

Being stuck at home and not being allowed out is starting to feel like normal. I have settled into a routine of getting my three dogs out and walked early doors in order to start my duties as a live-in substitute teacher. I am teaching a variety of lessons for my younger brother and am doing a lot of admin work behind the scenes to manage his workload and to communicate with his various teachers and other staff that see him each week. It has been a strange transition but has also been great fun and it is really pleasing to feel rewarded at the end of a day or week.

The lockdown could be a lot worse, we got be directly affected by the pandemic or be stuck somewhere we don’t want to be. The lovely weather we’ve had over the last fortnight has been fantastic and has meant we have been able to make full use of our garden. We had a wonderful Easter weekend camping outside and cooking breakfast and dinner over a fire, talking as the nights drew in and snuggling down for warmth in our sleeping bags.

The sunshine has also meant I’ve been able to take some interesting photos as the trees begin to burst into leaf and I’ve tried to capture the sunlight filtering through the canopies and bouncing off so many different textures and surfaces. I’ve found the photography has given me one more reason to enjoy being outside each day and has allowed me to experience places I’ve been countless times before in a new and exciting way.

I have also included a couple I took for the National Trust a few years ago at Nymans as a teaser for what you can expect when the full volume is released.

Either way, here they are.

Exploring old files and holiday photo series has also kickstarted me into getting back to work on the photography element of my website. Trawling through years of old images taken on a variety of cameras and smartphones and it has been a fascinating development of maturity in terms of what I’ve chosen to capture on camera. I will continue working on this over the next few weeks and will post when I’m ready to upload the whole collection to the website in full. I am also continuing the ‘ThinkTank’ research, following on from last weeks post documenting vernacular rural dwellings and will be following on from that into a draft of what the form of those buildings represents to architecture.

I hope to use that work as a springboard to move forward from to think about what architects can do to protect the image of rural buildings and whether the form fits function or practicality in a beautiful way. The deadline for the whole project is still under consideration and I will release more information when appropriate.

Until next time,

RK