Anne Caldwell (1828-1905) was the sister of my great grandfather. When their father died aged 45 he left his widow with 8 children. Anne was the eldest and she did not marry until late in life, I think she had been unable to marry as she had been busy helping her mother support her younger siblings. Joseph may have had a special affection for Anne as he named his eldest daughter Anne whereas technically her name should have been Helen (after his mother) however his wife's (Janet Wilson's) mother was Anne Lorimer and Anne would normally have been the second daughter's name. Perhaps there might even have been an earlier infant death. These naming "rules" were not set in concrete but the family seems to have followed them for generations. Excepting Joseph himself - I do not know whom he was named after.

Either the side-cabinet is on fire or there is a reflection of a warming fire on it. I think the latter is a more reasonable explanation :)

Behind the photograph and on the back my great aunt Jean (Anne's niece) left some information. Some of it is puzzling so I made my own deduction.

It is not clear where the photograph was taken. I don't think Anne was well off. Her brother Joseph became modestly wealthy and bought Riverbank House. They had an Aerated Water Factory attached to it and after the business was closed Jean (Joseph's unmarried daughter) lived there in the house for the rest of her life. The writing is apparently by Jean and added in 1934 whilst she was at "Riverbank" (note that Anne died in 1905). The plates may have been Anne's or they may have belonged to Joseph and his wife if the picture was taken at Riverbank House.

I do not know the type of pottery that is exhibited. It might be Scottish. Some Scottish manufacturers were:

"Delftfield and West Pans pottery. Having previously been highly localised and intermittent, ceramic production emerged in the late eighteenth century as an industry of mass production and diversification for a rapidly growing market. Concentrated in areas of abundant natural or readily importable resources, in the Forth and Clyde Basins, Wemyss Ware from Kirkcaldy and transfer-printed earthenware by J & M P Bell & Co of Glasgow represent production in the two main areas by the late nineteenth century."

"Potteries include: Alloa, Anfield, Barrowfield, Belfied, Bo'ness, Bridgeness, Britannia, Buchan's, Caledonian, Campbellfield, Clyde, Cumnock, Delftfield, Drongan, Dunmore, Eagle, Elgin & Mile End, Fife, Glasgow, Govancroft, Hyde Park, Industrial & West Lothian, Links, Midlothian, Newbigging, North British, Port Dundas, Possil Pottery, Auld Kirk, Rosslyn, Seaton, Sinclairtown, Star, Verreville, Victoria, Wellington & West Pans."

Any help on identifying the manufacturers of any of the pottery items would be appreciated. The two plates on the left may also be J&MP Bell. The "Hen Tureen" is quite distinctive and seems to match some of the other jugs, plates and the container it is sitting on.

Barf file - serious researchers see: "Albigensian Crusades"

Coffs Harbour 23 April 2005

"The nineteenth century saw a dramatic fall in the number of people in Ireland who could speak Irish and, as surnames were anglicised, translated or given pseudo-translations, the memory of ancestral connection was often lost.

...

The Carrolls or O'Carrolls of Dromore almost all changed their name to Cardwell."

Reference: "A History of Ulster" by Jonathon Bardon : The Blackstaff Press reprinted 1997 ISBN 0-85640-476-4 (page 401)

I also recollect from memory reading in another book that I think was titled "Irish Surnames" or somthing similar by Wolfe:

Caldwell was a name brought to Ireland but some native Irish names were also anglicised to Caldwell - "McAughwell" because it was similar and "Horisky" because it meant "Cold-water"

Horish : The anglicisation of O hUarghais in Tyrone. Connected to Caldwell

"Irish Identity"
http://www.hoganstand.com/general/identity/index.htm

Caldwell : A Scottish surname of territorial origin from Renfrewshire.
Also an English surname of territorial origin from the many places so called meaning ‘A cold spring or stream’.
An anglicised form of ó hUarghuis, or ó hUairisce (Horish, Houriskey) in Tyrone, and Mac Conluain (Cullivan, Colavin) in Cavan.
In 1890 the surname was principally found in Antrim, Derry and Tyrone, and the estimated number of bearers was 1,880.
In the United States it is the 272nd most numerous surname with an estimated 107,250 bearers.

"Cead Mile Failte"
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~irishancestors/Surnames/Surnames%20in%20Ireland/ByrneMcCready/Caldwell.html

CALDWELL: Ulster Caldwells can be of English, Scottish or Irish descent.
The name itself is territorial in origin: if Scottish, from the lands of
the name in Renfrewshire; if English, from any one of a number of places
so called. It means 'cold spring' or 'cold stream', from the Old English
ceald wielle. The name was common in Edinburgh in the 17th century.

But Caldwell was also used as an anglicisation for Ulster Gaelic names.
The Horish or Houriskey family of Tyrone, Gaelic 'O'hUaruisce',
anglicised their name to Caldwell in the mistaken notion that the Gaelic
word for 'water', uisce, was part of the name (see Watters). The
Colavins and Cullivans of Co. Cavan, Gaelic 'Mac Conluain', also adopted
the name Caldwell.

Castle Caldwell, the home of the Caldwells of Fermanagh, was purchased
from the Blennerhassets in 1670 by Sir James Caldwell, son of the
Enniskillen merchant John Caldwell (originally of Ayrshire). The family
took a prominent part in the Williamite defence of Erne and Donegal in
1689 and 1690.
The name is now common in counties Antrim Derry and Tyrone.

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/IRELAND/2000-03/0954532288

Nice bike!

Some people get their kicks in different ways. Consider the construction site - there is a lot more to this image than first meets the eye:

People running aound a sports field might be just about as interesting but some get a lot of fun out of watching it. I bet this is a real hit at the formworker's pub though. Did you realise that:

The bloke on the welding was capped 22 times for Australia in welding dynamics - and you can see his latest cap sitting beside him. The bloke in the red shirt is rated #1 in Concrete Pours Australia mag and commands a transfer fee of (AUD) M$1! Hows that!

Also voted the best hairy chest in elastic sided steel capped boots by the girls down at the Walla Walla Club.

I suppose excitement is in the eyes of the beholder :)

... and the other two blokes - well they are just working up from the blue-shirt reserves to try and become the red-shirts ..

Sometimes ones sense of humour has to be of the form that states something but leaves it very much up to the viewer to work out what is the point in the image. In this image I am trying to point out that this very much shut up store is brightly lit to add to its visibility and candidly proclaiming that it is a "convenience store". Hardly convenient in its shuttered state and perhaps one might think the owners might be a little less lighting-vocal in proclaiming its inconvenient state.

On the other hand the same bright lights have obviously made it very convenient for the graffiti artist and the inconveniently closed shutter is, in fact, very convenient for this form of artistic expression.

The shop next door is operated by "The Language People" who might take some amusement from the fact that the convenience store is in fact not very convenient. Certainly they don't hold out to be convenient themselves. Moreover they don't conveniently light up their frontage to help the graffiti artist who has accordingly left their shutter alone.

One is left musing on whether the graffiti artist was frustrated because of the lack of convenience in the convenience store or perhaps he thought that the good lighting actually made his trade that much more convenient. Consequently in the mixed up mind of those that specialise in the useless trade of graffiti is this convenince or frustration for lack of convenience?

I had thought of leaving out the shop on the left but I think it important in this image because of the "langauge" comment on "convenience". I also think that its clean exterior and relative lack of strong lighting contrast well with the strongly lit graffiti bill board next door. I also think that the reflected light on the street outside the shop is essential to the overall image. The darkness over the facades shows that it is indeed in the middle of the night and perhaps the "Convenience Store" has some excuse for not currently being convenient.

Sure I would like to get someone in the picture in the act of being inconvenienced, but there was nobody about to volunteer. I would really have liked it to be the graffti artist in full flight!

All this I saw in a fleeting split second and it took even less time to capture. A good number of words to explain my meaning - I had hoped that a viewer might work out the message by themselves. I do think the image has a point.

Please note that others have won acclaim for pictures of vacant store fronts. In particular I have seen pictures of shop fronts in rural Australia that have a charm of their own. Eugene Atget is now famous for documenting the Paris of his day by taking (amongst other things) many pictures of shop fronts. This shopfront is not glamorous or architecturallly noteable but it is typical of an older poorer-area style that is disappearing in these days of shopping malls. Perhaps it is the last gasp of the walk-to neighbourhood convenience outlet that is disappearing in these days of vast mechanical store-barns and mammoth parking lots. If this is the case then there is a case for documenting a remnnant of a shopping culture that still exists in 2004.

The other, less obvious, comment that would only be known to "locals" is the fact that these shops look a little seedy and run down but are only a block away from one of the trendier "Cafe Society" areas of Brisbane : "the West End". This is a wry comment to "Brisbanites" only.

I hope that this is a thinking picture with a slightly ironic twist. I didn't mean it to be a "pretty" picture.

More and more I see potential "comment photographs" on interesting things that otherwise go unseen.

I think the subconscious takes in more than the conscious mind will admit. Consequently I often take pictures of things because somehow "it seems interesting". It is only after I retrieve the picture from the camera that I realise just what had been interesting.

Digital has the beauty of allowing "hunch" pictures in great quantities and if they don't work, just shrug the shoulders and move on.

Cameras and human eyes do see things differently - the human eye is closer to a camcorder without the tape and the memory brings back a series of short clips and stills. In real life the brain filters out what it deems are irrelevancies and it only in photographs that the brain takes time to look at detail otherwise filtered out.

The trick of a photographer is to pick up on these nuances instantly in order to capture the image. What it is telling me is that the subconscious always sees everything but there is a very big filter there blocking out all but the most essential information from the conscious. If the conscious “got the lot” you would certainly go mad. Following on the same theory I suppose the faster you go the less detail is transmitted and this is easily seen in the simple process of driving a car. As the human brain has adapted to suppress more and more detail as life gets faster then the process of adapting ones brain to photography may well be in letting more detail through that filter between the limited conscious thought and the vast amount of data processed instantaneously by the subconscious.

In other words: the brain must see and sends a quick message "this looks good" but doesn't explain why unless it gets a message back - "have another look" or, simply, "why?". If you are busy you move on and the rest of the message is not transmitted.

A photograph will always show more in the picture than the eye has transmitted but perhaps a good deal of what has been seen has already been absorbed and filtered by the brain without visualising the detail.