Token heads seen through a display cabinet: 1986

During the interval of a Sunday afternoon concert in Birkenhead's Williamson Art Gallery, I could not resist this positioning.

Sean

Tree lined road in mid France: 1976

During a journey to Switzerland to obtain a large tablet of stone (a gift for the city of Liverpool) my attention was drawn to the missing tree on the horizon...

Sean

parasol and hat

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pinhole parasol

Feathery Moth Antennae

pheromone-biochemical signal

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An Antennae Parasol reminds me of Sean's Transpire Tower

an aquatic organism

from Pavilion to Hat

Where's the hat from, to where it goes?

Hat-Parasol-Pavilion

The Bonsai men of Cologne

This photograph has amused me since I made it over twenty years ago in Germany. The weather was very overcast, which merged the tonality of the table tennis table with that of the footpath... Aware of this strange illusion, I noticed these men who were deep in conversation as they strolled alongside the Rhine. I then took up a position where I might snap them as it were 'on the table'. This was long before I'd heard of Photoshop... 

Sean

silkworm

Bombyx mori's foreordination

silk butterflies of mulberry leaf

Pavilions as hats? Hats as pavilions?

I am inspired by this idea, that every person becomes capable of transforming their head into a world expo site that everyone else can explore in a conference of pavilions/hats!


This is the Liverpool Pavilion! A difficult hat to wear?


Posted by Philip Courtenay

A41 - Through Road

suburbia bonsai II

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Yingbin Dadao

Rollercoaster: Southport

Florid Canopy CV20

Bidston Hill: Miscellaneous

The digital compact camera came in handy and these are three of those twenty or so that I took thereabouts. There were what looked to me like 'post holes' (about 20 cm in diameter) filled with rainwater and/or mud that I couldn't recall from previous visits. Could these have held the signaling masts as depicted on the old illustration?

Sean

Bidston Observatory pinhole photo

I was up there yesterday afternoon (Sunday) primarily to make some pinhole photographs. I ended up making four such exposures before the dusk drew in, lengthening the exposure times from 5 minutes for the first, to 20 minutes for the final exposure of the old Observatory, which I present here. 

Sean

Tianma Quarry Sink

since 1950, Andesite

Green Hotel, Songjiang

Following on the quarry theme, I discovered this new development of a 'Green Hotel' in Songjiang, developed by Atkins architects (Shanghai and Bristol, UK). And then a new town! Thames Town, also by Atkins. 

Amazing.

Sean

Seagull 4-A

These are two pages from the original user's manual. Is that bridge near Shanghai?

Sean

Lingzhi

Hua Gai

"herb of spiritual potency"

"mushroom of immortality"

Common name: Ganoderma, Reishi Mushroom, Ling Zhi

Traditional Chinese Medicine values Ling zhi as the highest ranked herb. Among hundreds of species of roots, grass, woods, furs, animals and stones classified in Seng Nong's Herbal Classic regarded as the cornerstone of TCM, it is ranked number one.

Reishi was acclaimed as a divine herb that could bestow longevity. It was also deemed as an elixir of life and that it could augment good health and well- being. This might be the case when certain mushrooms were treated as objects of worship or as objects of mysteries describing them as celestial herbs possessing panacea properties.

Originally, Ganoderma was a herbal medicine used in China. 

Lingzhi, long considered an elixir, was an ancient times and was therefore much treasured and sought-after. When found it made for a fitting present for the Emperor. It was said that this was the illusive herb that was sought after by the first emperor of China in his quest for longevity.

Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, Brazil

Oscar Niemeyer

The saucer-shaped modernist structure, which has been likened to a UFO, is set on a cliffside, at the bottom of which is a beach.

...Showy Building often Turreted or Domed for Pleasure Purposes

When in Liverpool why not visit this fine building?

Final pinhole image of 2008

25 December 2008 / Gallo f.295 / 20 minutes exposure / Oriental Seagull Grade 3

Pier Head Mersey Ferry Pavilion

Just visible at the top of the Pier Head passenger ramp (which leads down to the Ferry landing stage) can be seen conical a 'tent-like structure'. This taught canopy gave the otherwise nondescript building the look of a small pavilion. It housed the visitors' centre which dispensed Ferry Across the Mersey tickets and replaced an earlier prefabricated ferry complex which had dated from the 1960's. This small 'pavilion' was dismantled within the last year or so prior to the excavation of a brand new section of canal beneath the 'Three Graces'. Other major construction is still in progress there. The following post is a pinhole photograph I made on Christmas Day 2008. Evidence that a new ferry building is under construction can be seen to the right.

Photograph: Looking up river from the old (now dismantled) Princes landing stage. April 1991.

Sean

Ming Stone

when i first viewing the stone insicions on the Bidston Hill (the negative cut into the stone) reminds me quickly the Yang Shan Bei Cai, or the Yangshan tablet stone, in Nanjing city, which i visited the first time went to Nanjing. It is such a man made, there's a long story behind, which will bring the whole Ming history or the Chinese history back. But the point here is the abandoned project just leave a perfect character of "明" Ming! A positive cut.

Bidston Hill: Mystery Horse Carving

To me this has the look of a 19th century depiction of a horse. They were the main means of transport in the early part of that century and I imagine that they were in most people's consciousness for most of the time because they were so depended upon; the way perhaps that cars are now for most of us (except me perhaps). There's even the inclusion of genitalia! It is not merely drawn it's carved into the stone fault. Someone had picked it out with chalk at some point before I found it. I find it interesting that the position of the eye coincides with the deep fissure. 

Sean

Bidston Hill: Sandstone Incisions

These cuts into the timeworn bedrock have fascinated me since I discovered them in the 1980's. I wonder if they have anything to do with the signaling structures that were once on that site. N.B. the framework of a windmill sail can be seen reflected in the water. 

Sean

Butterfly Tent: Arab Culture Paves the Way

Pavilion: Tents & Butterflys

Expo Shanghai

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panoram of the west site

poet's hat

Gu Cheng

People say his hat is made out of a trouser leg

a tree and two bowler hats

Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett

A Dash One Hat

Here is that photo portrait of Tony Dash wearing one of his precious hats. On his desk is a letter that had arrived that morning from my cousin Peter, who was living in America at the time. I had taken a book I of my own writings 'Drawing From This', which had been hand  bound by a friend of mine Donato Cinicolo, and which I had received in the post from St Albans, a few days before. It can also be seen on the desk to the left of the typewriter. Reflected in the mirror is Barney, Tony's son, who will now be in his early thirties. On the wall there is a photo reproduction of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett, who was still alive then but died the following year. 'Waiting for Godot', arguably Beckett's most famous play, features a single stark, almost leafless tree for a set...

Self Portrait as Occidental Oak Tree

courtesy of www john-constable.org

Malvern Hall from the South-West, 1809

John Constable

Suburbia Bonsai

Botanic Darwinism

Neo-express Green

Forced Ecology

Shanghai Mentality

>T Serials 1<