I would call myself a journeyman photographer. I thoroughly enjoy taking pictures and feel naked if I go anywhere without a camera - you just never know what you will come across.
I call myself a journeyman because I am not technically a professional photographer and am in awe of some of the photos I have seen from other people during lockdown. I look upon what I do as rather a chronicler than a photographer. I like to record images of things as they are as a small historical record.
For many years I was a member of Wymondham and District Camera Club and they had some really top notch photographers. It did teach me a bit about composition etc. I tend to like keeping my photos as they were taken. By that I mean showing them as they were when I took them and not "tarting" them up using software or filters. To me that might make the photograph look better but it is almost like "telling a lie."
Having said that I have been changing a few images as an experiment and I recently turned one of my photographs of Elm Hill in Norwich into sepia and was really pleased with the result. I've also set-up my own You Tube channel for picture galleries of my images taken during lockdown. I will eventually extend this to more historic work. At the moment I am using pre-recorded music with no copyright as background to the slides. Eventually I would like to buy a midi keyboard to produce my own music to go with the images.
I think lockdown has helped with the artistic side of my photography. When you are restricted to a particular place you have to find different angles to the same subjects. I have made several trips for walks round Norwich and taken photos of all the obvious landmarks. Now I'm hunting out things that are different and different angles to the photos. That's how I came across the ruins of St Benedict's Church last week. I had no idea that the tower existed until I came across it quite by accident. I am now putting together a book of photographs and essays on Norwich history which I hope to have completed by the end of the year and which I will be quite happy to e-mail to anyone who wants a copy.
I said earlier in this piece that I am not a professional photographer but that depends how you define the term professional as I do take photographs for the local Media on a freelance basis and my images have been reproduced in the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News.
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Sometimes people ask me questions relating to Hethersett and I try my best to either answer them or find out the answers.
I was intrigued to receive a photograph from Stephen Sheens of a road sign he has come across. This is pictured above. Stephen wanted to know if I had any information about Hill House Hotel and where it was located.
So on the off chance that somebody had already written about it I Googled "Hill House Hotel, Hethersett" and guess what? It came up with an article from my own website. This happens to me a lot. I decide I am going to write about something, Google it and come up with my own websites which proves that I have already written about that particular subject.
This building stood on the rising ground opposite Church Farm and was pulled down when the main road past the Station Road crossroads was straightened in 1969.
John Browne of Hill House took an active part in civic affairs in the city of Norwich. He was an ironmonger, iron founder and dealer in paints in the city, but had a country house in Hethersett where "his mode of life was different". He was a country gentleman and county magistrate and was mayor of Norwich in 1798. He probably moved with his family to Hethersett in 1786 at the age of 39 and took an interest in gardening matters. Not only did he grow apples in his orchard but also grew interesting trees, according to James Grigor, the writer of The Eastern Arboretum of 1841.
John had died by the time Grigor visited the house but the writer notes that "the gardens of the Miss Brownes are especially worthy of notice, as a beautifully kept place, abounding in sylvan ornaments which have gained for it a name throughout England. Here is the original willow, Salix alba caerulea, from which all the others in the county have been propagated".
This particular tree was planted by John Browne in 1786 and was, after just 55 years, 70 feet tall. Today this willow is known as the cricket-bat willow and it is interesting to speculate that this planting by John Browne may have been the start of the cultivation of the species for cricket bat manufacture.
Hill House, the Browne family home for many years, was occupied from 1924 until 1933 by the Backs, and was an hotel in the late 1930s.
The Eastern Arboretum was first issued in shilling bi-monthly parts from 1 June 1840 and was described as "a new botanical work on the trees of Norfolk" written by James Grigor and illustrated by T. Ninham, an artist of the Norwich School.
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I hope you enjoy a few photographs taken yesterday from a Steward Stroll around Wymondham. They include some photos of work being undertaken on the River Tiffey to improve the fishing runs.
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