Bookmark - Honister Eagle

Another from Honister that I overlooked the other day - really an incredible piece of art.  All made from the slate mined in the hills of the area, supposedly unique in its greenish tint and crystalline structure.  Picked up a few to take home while we were touring the place.

Bookmark - Honister Pyramid

One more from Honister.  It was chilly that day, but the fog made for some good shots...

Bookmarks - Honister Silhouettes (Silhouettes)

 

Bookmark - Honister Statues (Silhouettes)

Also captured during our trip to the Lake District in England, this one at the Honister Slate Mine.  Lots of potential for lettering here...

Bookmark - Background Pattern Series, Honister Slate

Know I've posted one or two bookmarks with background patterns, but decided to go ahead and do a series to feature the remainder of those created so far.  This was captured at the Honister slate mines of the Lake District in England.  They say the slate here is unique in that it has a greenish tint that can't be found anywhere else.  Andrew and I picked up a few of these rocks to distribute to family and friends back home.

Bookmark Project - Honister Girl with Statue (silhouettes)

Seems that silhouettes and fog shots often go hand in hand.  This is a girl taking a selfie at the Honister slate mine in the Lake District of England.

And because I was shooting with the Bigger Cahoona, was able to crop in to make a second bookmark from the same pic.  Just a little bit of fringe, but not much:

Bookmark Project - Honister Statue Pair (art) / The Shroud Line at IBP, Round 2

Made this bookmark from a picture featured in the Honister series from the UK while I was there with Andrew.

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[continued from yesterday's post; series began 10/20]

When my inability to keep up in the upper shroud position became obvious I was reassigned to the lower position, on the floor itself.  Now that the shroud had been draped over the tops of the sides where the meat hook was, workers there (guys this time) flipped up the bottom of the shroud and pinned it into place on both sides, like a diaper that tucked up the loose meat and fat hanging down.

I dove in full-bore with what I was supposed to do.  They had a system where the pins were delivered in special stainless steel wheelbarrows that had holes in the bottoms so they could be sprayed with hot water before being put back into service.  One of my jobs there was to get a big yellow hose and spray those things down with very hot water...almost boiling.  The pressure coming from the hose was pretty high, and if you didn't grab it just right it would get loose from you and wreak havoc, burning anyone that was near.

As for the pinning, I struggled to keep up, and must have looked comical to those close by.  As simple as it sounds - after all, you just bring up the bottom of the shroud and pin it into place on both sides - there was a flow, a method that you had to adopt or you would fall behind.  And I got behind a lot!  The beef was freely swinging from hooks, and if the job was not done properly would pivot and turn around, which meant I at times ended up facing my coworkers from the wrong side of the line.  This would completely throw the rhythm off, and sometimes I ended up literally chasing the sides almost to the door into refrigeration!  A time or two I had to watch forlornly as it entered those doors with the shroud still handing free, pins stuck uselessly into the dangling cloth.

In spite of these theatrics, out of curiosity I would take every opportunity possible to look into the other parts of the floor.  The shroud line was at the very end of processing on the kill floor and was situated so that it was the first part of the line you'd see after coming out of the locker room for your shift.  Everything done beforehand to the freshly-killed beef was much deeper in and off to the right, behind the wall of the knife-sharpening cage.  I nevertheless peered curiously in that direction as often as I could; to me the place was fascinating.  From my duty station I could see just a sliver of what was going on there: part of the skinning line, and parts of the tongue and head lines further in the distance, all simultaneously moving in different directions at the same speed.  I wondered, Would I ever get to go in there and just take a look around?

As it turned out, the answer to that question was a big fat Yes.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Three Figures

Am including this focus-shift example, a little more subtly shifted than yesterday's post, as the last to be posted from the slate mine series.  Next to Byland Abbey this was my favorite shoot of the trip.

Next - on to Thirsk and JAMES HERRIOT COUNTRY!

England - Honister Slate Mine, Picnic Table Again

Tighter shot from yesterday's post, with focus shifted below:

England - Honister Slate Mine, Picnic Table

Saw these chains as we were hanging around before the tour began and leapt at the opportunity to take a picture of something through something.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Cubic Sculpture

...a different perspective on the sculpture featured in the post that was published back on Christmas day.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Picnic Table

This was a scene I was hoping to get on the return trip, when the mist and fog weren't so thick.  They didn't have a snack shop or restaurant in the place, but suppose someone could bring a picnic lunch and settle down here.

More on this table later...

England - Honister Slate Mine, Eagle Sculpture

England - Honister Slate Mine, Globe Sculpture

This place was neat because of the sculptures everywhere - not just the lone and double figures featured in the last couple of posts, but everywhere you looked there was a creation made from what they took out of the mountain.  There were large ones and small ones, this being one of their bigger examples.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Double Figure with Shed / Lost on Horseback

This shot was taken the second time we went to the mine, when it was less rainy and foggy.  Since Andrew and I had more time just to bum around the place I took the opportunity to take a short walk down the mountain road, where this was captured.

One of those funny moments in life happened also, as I encountered an older English gentleman, also a tourist, who was walking down the same road looking for his wife after having lost her; she vanished while their group was in the gift shop.  He asked me if I saw a lady that looked like this and was wearing that, but I could be of no help.  He was stressed because the bus was about to leave, but chuckling at the same time because, he said, it happened all the time, and I couldn't help but laugh a little with him (not that it ever happens to me).

I got lost once, sort of, on the back of a horse.  I was five or six years old, and the family decided to rent horses for a trail ride in Oklahoma, next to Lake Texoma where we vacationed every year for a while.  Knowing that I was afraid of the big animals they arranged for me to be on the kindest, most gentle horse, whose name was Bill.  I remember clearly starting down the trail, me behind the parents and my two older brothers.

Well, we weren't even gone fifteen minutes before Bill made a decision to go back home.  True to his nature, he very gently and slowly turned around, not giving a moment's thought of the nervous kid on top of him.  And he remained very gentle through the whole trip back, going against the current of the rest of the group, even after I panicked and started screaming and crying and kicking for him to turn around and rejoin the group.  Nope, in spite of all that we loped along and made our way clear back to the corral, but not before stopping once to munch on a snack by the side of the trail.  And for a while, since we were going in the opposite direction of the others, it was just Bill and me, and mountain lions and bears and all sorts of dangerous animals in the wilderness.  I was never so glad to see the corral where we'd started from, and where Bill dutifully stopped so the handler could finally get me off of his back.

I got lost another time, in an airplane, when I was much older, but that's for another day...

England - Honister Slate Mine, Double Figure Fog Shot

At the other side of the ravine was this sculpture, supposedly of adult and child.  Cropped it down to just the fog shot to create the preliminary card below:

England - Honister Slate Mine, Fog Shot with Silhouette

...and to double our fun, let's throw in a silhouette!  An all-time favorite from the trip.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Quintessential Fog Shot

A quintessential fog shot of an isolated figure...my kind of pic.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Lone Figure

As mentioned yesterday, the first day we were there provided perfect opportunities for some great fog shots.  Don't know whether this figure was supposed to represent a person or what, but found it to be intriguing due to its form and isolation.

England - Honister Slate Mine, Front Sign

While on our initial tour of the area we stopped by this place, the Honister Slate Mine.  It was foggy and wet that day, which yielded some great shots, but we vowed to come back and explore some more hoping that the weather would be better.

And it was.  A few days later, after my driving confidence improved, we returned and I was able to duplicated many pics, this time without the fog.  Before it was all said and done, between the two trips there, this place ended up being my second-favorite next to the Abbey shoot.