George Munday Creative

El Tornillo

Just one of the many geological creations found in El Torcal de Antequera, a nature reserve in the Sierra del Torcal mountain range near the city of Antequera in Spain’s province of Málaga.

Neoclassical Colonnade

Nine of the sixteen fluted Corinthian columns fronting the Neoclassical St George’s Hall.

Standing opposite Lime Street railway station in the centre of Liverpool, England, the impressive hall was designed by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, who oversaw its construction until he died of consumption in 1847. In 1851 another architect, Sir Robert Charles Cockerell, was asked to complete the interior decoration and the hall finally opened in 1854.

Running the Storm

One running man and two flying seagulls in Nerja

Silver Water Droplets

Low winter sunlight cutting through the trees pierces the water droplets over the fountain in the Millenium Park in Lismore in County Waterford, Ireland. The town is renowned for its early ecclesiastical history and the imposing Lismore Castle overlooking the town and the Blackwater valley.

Trompe l’oeil

Trompe l’oeil is French for ‘deceive the eye’; an artistic technique using realistic imagery to create an optical illusion in which the depicted objects appear to exist in three dimensions.

Pub Culture

Pub culture – or bar culture, it’s not the same everywhere …

The Celtic Sea

The gleaming Celtic Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean located off of the southern coast of Ireland was named by an English marine biologist (no less) in 1921 during a meeting of fisheries experts. Nearby Celtic regions have their own names for it; in Irish it’s “An Mhuir Cheilteach”, in Welsh “Y Môr Celtaidd”, Cornish: An Mor Keltek and Breton: Ar Mor Keltiek.

Angel of the North

The Angel of the North, believed to be the largest sculpture of an angel in the world, reduces its solitary visitor to a Lilliputian scale.

The Prettiest Urinals – Ever!

Falling into the category of “Looscapes” or bathroom photography, these splendid floral creations are to be found in the gentleman’s toilet of a garden centre (where else!) in Ireland’s County Carlow.

Yellow Road

A twisty yellow farm road in the hinterland of Spain’s Andalusia. A disappearing track, the golden cornfields and slightly ominous skies, elements that reminded me of the painting, ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, by Vincent Van Gogh.

According to the Van Gogh Museum, “the painting (left) is often claimed to be his last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the approaching end of his life, but apparently it’s a myth, because he went on to make several other works after this one.

“Although Van Gogh wanted his wheatfields under stormy skies to express sadness and extreme loneliness,” some experts think he also wanted to show a healthy and fortifying countryside.

Balance of Nature

“On the old door creepers spring,
And a stillness reigns in the air unstirred by the beat of a wild bird’s wing.
Those who see believe the old house grieves with the grief of a sentient thing.”
Paraphrased from The Deserted Homestead By Edward Dyson

Edwardian Elegance

A rest from retail therapy on a quiet Saturday afternoon in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Neptune and the River Suir

The peaceful early morning River Suir, belies the enormous ship-building yard that built the world’s first fleet of iron steam ships in the 19th century.

Rocca Calascio

Rocca Calascio, a mountaintop fortress at 1,460 metres (4,790 ft) is the highest fortress in the Italian Apennines, overlooking the Plain of Navelli at one of the highest points in the ancient Barony of Carapelle.

Wild Swimming

A lone figure on the Embalse de los Bermejelas, near Arenas del Rey, Granada Province in Spain’s Andalucia.

The Atlantic

From Ireland’s County Clare Coast…sea area Shannon…shipping forecast…visibility “good”

Eighty One Year Ago…

A recent look through the images scanned for my book, revealed one I’d forgotten about; it was a piece of calligraphy created by my father in 1940.

Le Petit Café

The delightful Art Nouveau facade of Le Petit Café de Collioure in the south of France.

Harvest Seeker

The “Harvest Seeker”, drifting in the ethereal early morning light while collecting Mariner’s Mussels from baskets moored on the sea bed of Waterford Harbour, a natural harbour at the mouth of three rivers.

Minerve and the Cathars

A decorative wrought iron cross next to the Marie’s (mayor’s) office in Minerve, a village in the Hérault department of southern France; in which a group of refugees sought shelter in the village after the massacre of kinfolk at nearby Béziers in 1210.

Followers of Catharism – a Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries – they were considered to be good Christians, but still underwent prolonged religious persecution by the Catholic Church, which did not recognize their unorthodox Christianity.

The village was besieged by the army of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester for six weeks before it surrendered. Four catapults or trebuchets were set up, three to attack the village itself and the largest, to destroy the town’s well. With the town’s only water supply cut off, the Commander of the 200-strong garrison, Viscount Guilhem of Minerve, gave in and negotiated a surrender in order to have the villagers and himself spared from death.

However, the 140 Cathars refused to give up their faith and convert, and were burned to death at the stake. The victims of yet another religious schism are commemorated by a dove, roughly hewn in the peace sculpture just visible below the wall light on the right.