Maybe someone is toying with me ?

Only just over a week ago I created a posting entitled I don't know much about art but I know what I like where I'd seen a framed painting of a couple of swans left next to a bench and a rubbish bin that I often walk past.

The plot seems to have thickened since then, the next time I walked down that same road I managed to get as far as the next bin before I saw the latest discarded item (or in fact items)

I wondered why someone would be out & about with a family sized jar of pickled goodness but then manage to leave them next to a roadside bin, a picnic gone wrong perhaps

But after much head scratching I decided that maybe this was all part of some bizarre ongoing installation art work either for the local population or just for me although I didn't spot any twitching curtains as I stopped to take the picture.

What will be the next item ? I hoping for a whale or perhaps a Learjet

What have you seen discarded by the side of the road ?

So Banksy doesn't do burglar alarms after all

It's always nice when a fellow blogger notices something that you've posted and links to it as their interests overlap with your own

So it was a little bit of a surprise when a blog posting I made back in August 2010 entitled
The photographers eye and a Dog Full of Money had caught the eye of the author a new blog about burglar alarms, don't worry this isn't a blog for people who go up ladders installing alarms but is more about an interest in burglar alarms almost as a form of street (or front wall) art.

Burglar Alarm Britain belongs to Vici MacDonald, ex-editor of Art World magazine, she explains her interest in Burglar alarms here. She spotted a burglar alarm in Bristol which had a sticker of a dog on it, she hoped it would turn out to be a Banksy but her investigation led to the knowledge that it was in fact a Dog Full of Money

You can read the full story here

Thanks to Vici for the interest and for trapping me into looking above the ground floor on every building I pass looking for interesting burglar alarms

I don't know much about art but I know what I like

Whether photography is art has always been a debate between photographers and artists. 

My view is that some photography is art, and that some (if not most) is merely editorial or documentary and is therefore is ephemeral, here today and gone tomorrow (or maybe a chip wrapping)

Ultimately most photographic images won't last forever, there are others that will still be around in a hundred years of course but most are only around for the month that a magazine or advert is current or perhaps for the year that a website lasts before needing a revamp.

Businesses always need new images to reflect the changes in their market, to show their new products & staff, their brand new offices or factory or perhaps to just stay one step ahead of the competition with a new exciting advertising campaign so if change & progress are happening in your business please do get in touch

I'm not sure what the ex-owner of this lovely artwork is saying to the world by dumping it next to the bin, maybe they no know something about art after all

Paul Davis photography can be contacted on contact@pauldavisphotography.co.uk and 07866 719730

Doggy Weekend

So this has turned out to be a doggy picture weekend, yesterday I suggested that it was often possible to tell what a doggy was thinking.

Most doggies are a small set of well developed instincts, a waggy tail and  a cold wet nose all wrapped up in a very hair coat (10% of which seems to fall out on a given day).

One doggy in particular seems to be taken the doggy stereotype very much to heart and has made it his. 

I give you Antonella's dog Robbie although I seem to call him Robster much more these days

He is ruled by 4 things

• His nose and what it can help him to find to put into his tummy*

• His hatred of the postman and his desire to put the postman into his tummy**

• His love of walks especially if he can try to find a skip lorry to attack (single paw'edly as the humans won't help him corner one and share the spoils contained within)***

• and his love of his family, especially his boss who gave him a loving home after rather too long in doggy prison

and yes you can read his mind too, I'm sure he's thinking "get that camera out out of my face and don't tell the boss I'm trying to sleep on the sofa"

* never leave any thing that this doggy might consider to be a comestible within about 8 feet of the floor even though said doggy is only 4 feet tall on his hind legs

** Luckily the post box is only 3 feet off the floor and so postie fingers are tempting food

*** He's on his own trying to explain that one

Sometimes you can just tell........................

.......... what a dog is thinking

"hey master, let's go in here, I've just read they do tax free goods and I need a new bone"

Well it is the weekend so I didn't want to post anything to serious

What can I say

As it's still the Christmas season and most people are still at home enjoying themselves (or at home not enjoying themselves) I thought I'd continue with some light hearted blog posts

There are often odd things to be seen in the snow, it brings out the best in people, it also brings out the worst in people (especially on the roads) but it also seems to bring out the eccentric in people or maybe it brings out eccentric people - this makes me wonder where the eccentric people are the rest of the year, maybe one of my blog readers knows the answer to that one

I spotted this chap happily walking through my very chilly home town just before Christmas, I did wonder if he was some sort of hardy northern person putting us softy southerners to shame but I hope he was really an interesting local eccentric walking back to his tricycle for the long journey home to his mansion & pet tiger

Christmas is a time of goodwill to all men, some people get close to a loved one (or a potential loved one) under the mistletoe whereas some people, despite the cold weather seem to have a more direct approach. This 2nd image did make me smile as I pondered just for a second the backstory behind this discarded packaging

Here's to a great 2011 for us all and may there be plenty of the interesting & bizarre for us to see on our daily travels

See anything unexpected this Yuletide season ? please let me know

Bridges, bridges and more bridges

No one would be surprised to hear that Great Yarmouth in Norfolk is situated at the mouth of a river although the main river is the Yare rather than the Yar (I wonder where it picked up the letter e, maybe it is the rich Norfolk accent that lead to to its inclusion)

Not surprisingly for a large town with its historically important port at the mouth of a river there have always been issues with moving people and goods from one side of the river to the other.

Until 1427 the only way across was to use one of  a number of ferries for people and cattle, but that year saw the building of the 1st bridge very close to where the current Haven bridge is sited, in fact the current bridge when it was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1930 was the 7th bridge across the Yare.

The current bridge was constructed by Sir William Arrol & Co. Ltd whose portfolio also included the Forth Rail Bridge in 1890, Tower Bridge in 1894 and the Nile Bridge at Cairo in 1908. They also built the Middlesborough Transporter bridge 19911 (made famous in on TV by Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), The Forth Road Bridge 1964 , The Severn Bridge 1966 and the Humber Bridge 1981 (and was the longest suspension bridge in the world from 1981 to 1998 and is still the 5th largest suspension bridge in the world) so these guys seem to the ones to go to if you want a great bridge built

The 650 ton lifting arms are raised electrically, although can be operated manually in the event of a power failure - blimey that'd take a long time to raise 2 times 650 tons using muscle power alone.

The last ferry stopped working in the early 1990's

In 1845 the Yarmouth Suspension Bridge disaster took place when about 80 people were drowned, mainly children. They had crowded onto the suspension bridge over the river Bure (a tributary of the Ware) to see a circus clown go down the river in a barrel pulled by geese.  The tombstone of George Beloe (aged nine) in St Nicholas' churchyard depicts the bridge collapsing.

The coming of the railways also meant that a swing railway bridge was built to take the direct line from London & Lowestoft over the river. The river traffic was given priority over the trains. The second span on the Cobholm side pivotted on its axis to allow large ships through. In strong winds it could take up to 10 minutes for the operation of the bridge. The bridge was closed to traffic in the 1950's and was demolished in 1962 so it didn't even make it as far as being axed by Dr Beeching


As road traffic around Great Yarmouth and Gorleston increased during the 1970s, the area began to suffer severe congestion problems with long queues of vehicles building up at peak periods. The construction of a new road bridge crossing Breydon Water began in 1984 as part of the Great Yarmouth A12 western bypass and the Gorleston inner relief road. The new bridge was supplied and erected by Cleveland Bridge Ltd. of County Durham and, although completed in 1985, it was not officially opened to road traffic until early in 1986 when the rest of the bypass had been finished. The bridge closely follows the line of the old rail viaduct and, during construction the original pilings were finally removed to make way for the new bridge. The lifting arm weighs around 500 tons and is raised by hydraulics, taking just 90 seconds to open fully. A standby generator was installed as a back up in case of power failure. I believe that it is still be biggest single lifting bascule bridge in the UK luckily without the need for manual backup

The bridge is operated by The Great Yarmouth Port Company

There are now proposed  plans for a third river crossing in Great Yarmouth but in the current economic climate I can't really see these coming to fruition in the foreseeable future