things abstract & almost psychadelic - except it's nearly monotone

this post today is a compare and contrast of some images: 

• one a fairly typical event from my fieldwork         
•  and         
• one from something we saw in iceland (of course!).

this one is from the mud pit that the drillers use to settle and recirculate the fluids so that they can keep drilling a hole without it getting too hot and clogged up. a mundane and usually dull process, but sometimes when all the scum floats and swirls endlessly in a most fascinating way......i end up leaning over and watching the sump and not the other things that i should be paying attention to.

 
this one is of the peeling painted side of a tank in the fishing town of Grindavik. it's getting quite weathered and looks wholly fascinating and frivolous where it is located on the working-dockside of this fishing town (as is typical in iceland you can get access to practically anywhere by blundering in). 

it's rather like an endlessly frozen moment of the swirling scum from the sump:
my eye got thoroughly stuck on it, and wouldn't move.

i kind of hope they don't have to ever do any repairs.......and i wish now that i had spent an hour making photos of this, but there were soooo many other things we had yet to see......and so will you, eh? 

                   i've got more of these kind of shots, if you would like a selection for your delection?

RED in REYKJAVIK

i am working my way through the way-too-many-photos i made Ísland this year. And i haven't even got onto Nikki's yet, let alone Philip's.
and then there are all the ones from last year that still need to see the light of day........anyway as i was trawling through the most recent bunch i found that the colour RED was catching my eye, so here are some of the really red photos. They are from Reykjavik except the last one which is there so that you know that i wasn't just in Newtown pulling the wool over your eyes. 
so here we go:

wonderful corrugated iron in old part of town

you will probably get tired of my endless shots of these lovely lovely lovely textured houses that are in the older part of downtown Reykjavik. i love them. Mostly they are a little bit asymmetric which increases their appeal.....and leads to my wonky perspectives. (by the way these shots are untouched - just the original compressed for webpage display).  

red door just off Laugavegur

This one was in a archway leading off the main street Laugavegur. the red is so red. and the handle so baroque-looking. couldn't resist.

 i think this one was on Hverfisgata, the street parallel to Laugavegur on the harbour side. lots and lots of lovely shots will come from this street. it was a sunny Sunday: the main street was so busy and packed with people and this street was empty, a bit windy, and lonely feeling, but so bright and colourful. 

closeup of a house "skirt".

More wonderfulness from downtown. 20 steps off Laugavegur. The soundtrack to this one was a threesome busking 50m away.

Nice touch of colour and texture. but i can't remember where this one was from.... it might be in Miđbær.

and finally for a bit of scenic interest:

Eldborg crator at Snorrastađir

This was the view out of the side window of the farm cottage we stayed at when we left Reykjavik on our travels around the island (note red roof in keeping with the theme of this post). the crater is known for glowing red in certain light but we didn't get treated to that unfortunately. it's a symmetrical lava spatter cone, about 5000 years old.