Rob Ralley
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robralley.bsky.social
Rob Ralley
@robralley.bsky.social
3.5K followers 840 following 5.4K posts
Historian of science and medicine. Editor for The Casebooks of Simon Forman and Richard Napier (1596-1634), now writing about Napier, slowly. And taking photos. Views my own.
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robralley.bsky.social
Yesterday, a brief break in the Weather to remind us the sun is still there.
📷 #photography
View slightly uphill towards a cream-rendered brick house with a slate roof, a red brick house beyond that, and a car parked beside it. It is a sunny day but there is a heavy-looking cloud low over the houses, surrounded by blue sky.
February 15, 2026 at 6:05 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Be Just And Fear Not: Carlisle's motto and old coat of arms at the entrance to @tulliecarlisle.bsky.social
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed 📷 #photography
A round-topped arch in red sandstone in a sort of gatehouse, with an old coat of arms for Carlisle (apparently used between 1885 and 1924) laid as a mosaic in the paving. Through the archway is visible the end of a red sandstone building (marked 'PUBLIC LIBRARY' and dated 1893) with a large white T in front of it. A tree and white buildings are further off. The summer sun is casting shadows on the ground.
February 15, 2026 at 1:28 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Posts.
#BlueskyArtShow #wood #ClassicMono 📷 #photography
Three slightly splayed round wooden fence posts together, with a wire fence running off one of them to the left and right. They are sticking out of long grass and there is a heavy sky overhead.
February 14, 2026 at 12:18 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Clearing.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed 📷 #scape #photography
A view between two evergreen trees across a clearing of yellow grass with a wavy green path across it, towards more evergreen forest. It is a grey day.
February 13, 2026 at 3:17 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Gates, Wordsworth House.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed #Thursgate 📷 #photography
A view of and through a pair of wooden gates secured with a bike lock. Through the slats in the top half is visible the main entrance (atop a flight of steps) of a moderately grand eighteenth-century house, flanked by several ground floor windows, with pots of flowers on the ends of the steps.
February 12, 2026 at 1:15 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Window view, St Ninian's Chapel, Isle of Whithorn.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed #WindowsOnWednesday 📷 #photography
A view out through the rough (glassless) window of a medieval chapel to yellow-green grass with yellow wildflowers growing in it, a drystane dyke, and the grey sea under grey clouds.
February 11, 2026 at 2:15 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Raised Faculty Building, Sidgwick Site, Cambridge.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed 📷 #photography
A view from underneath one part of the Raised Faculty Building across a lawn to another part of the same building, so that the sunlit concrete and grass are framed by shaded concrete piers and a concrete pavement and ceiling. In the distance is the figure of an Antony Gormley sculpture.
February 10, 2026 at 4:59 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Cafe window view, Cockermouth.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekFforFramed #ClassicMono 📷 #photography
A black and white view out onto a street, framed by a window frame and a shelf with a cup of coffee and a slice of cake at its end. Outside are old buildings being used as shops, a car, and people sitting and standing, talking. Strings of small lights dangle down from the top of the picture.
February 9, 2026 at 2:50 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Yesterday's beautiful, strangely coloured sunset.
📷 #photography
A view across grass and a path, towards a tree line. It is sunset and there is a streak of peachy orange sky behind the trees, then mauve cloud above with glimpses of pale blue sky beyond.
February 8, 2026 at 2:12 PM
robralley.bsky.social
#sunlight on the sea #BlueskyArtShow
📷 #photography #ClassicMono
A black and white photograph of sun breaking through dark clouds and shining on the surface of the sea. Rays are visible from the break in the clouds downwards and outwards.
February 7, 2026 at 4:20 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Sea view to Scotland from Allonby.
#Scape 📷 #photography
View across long seaside grass, with the winter stalks of a bush sticking out of it, to wet sand and the sea, and beyond that to low hills. Above there are glimpses of blue sky through cream, grey and bluish cloud.
February 6, 2026 at 2:08 PM
robralley.bsky.social
I must confess 'stoolball' was a new one on me. About June 1604 Agnes Grove of Biddlesden died; she had recently been widowed when her husband died 'with a surfet at stoolebale'; he headed off after she had given birth, 'played at Stoolebale & strayned & dyed'. #earlymodern
Manuscript image of the quoted text (NOTE2490 in the online edition).
February 5, 2026 at 5:03 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Cromwell Road
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekEforEponymous #UrbanGaze 📷 #photography
A view along a residential street, largely in shade from the late winter's afternoon sun. The houses are yellow brick and two-storey, and a row runs across the picture at the junction at the end of the road. There are parked cars down the right and there is a tall telegraph pole on the left.
February 5, 2026 at 2:47 PM
robralley.bsky.social
House shadow.
📷 #photography
The ends of two houses and the narrow gap between them (with a fence separating them and a shrub in the foreground). The house on the right has a red brick lower half and a white-rendered upper half; its roofline and chimney are cast as a shadow against the wall of the other house, which is pebbledash with a tiled roof darkening with age and a substantial red brick chimney, and has a rather oddly scattered set of white uPVC windows of varying size on its end wall.
February 4, 2026 at 3:52 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Trees, winter.
📷 #photography
A view, on a sunny winter's day with a haze of thin white cloud in the sky, across an expanse of grass streaked with the dried stalks of longer grasses. In the middle of the picture are two leafless trees catching the light, and beyond them at a distance a line of tall trees.
February 3, 2026 at 3:08 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Fuchsia.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekEforEponymous 📷 #photography
A branch of red and purple fuchsia flowers in front of a doorway in a stone wall, with gravel on the ground and green plants visible through the doorway.
February 2, 2026 at 3:34 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Palace Green sunset.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekDforDramatic 📷 #photography
View across a (dark) lawn towards a very old brick building and an orange sunset beyond that, which is visible around it and through two aligned windows at the corner of the building, and is silhouetting a tree in the foreground.
February 1, 2026 at 4:49 PM
robralley.bsky.social
#Cloud #BlueskyArtShow
📷 #photography
The bottom of a dark raincloud, with blue sky and fluffy white clouds visible below/beyond it.
January 31, 2026 at 6:34 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Dusk walk yesterday.
📷 #photography
A narrow, winding tarmac path at dusk, with grass and trees around in the foreground but further off a pair of hedges enclosing it on either side. Close to the camera bare tree branches reach into view.
January 31, 2026 at 1:25 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Aldeburgh beach.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekDforDramatic #scape 📷 #photography
A view along a single beach towards a row of seafront houses and a sky of thick bluish clouds. Bright winter sunlight is reflecting brilliantly off the sea and sparkling on the shingle, and is also catching a slight mist rising off the beach. A few people are walking around.
January 30, 2026 at 1:21 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Street view, Ely.
#UrbanGaze 📷 #photography
A sunny view along the front of a hotel, with three storeys of yellow brick and rows of sash windows, and two pink-painted doors onto the street. A woman in a pink coat is trundling a four-wheeled walker past the doors.
January 29, 2026 at 2:41 PM
robralley.bsky.social
#otd 1607
Napier's diary: 'Jan 29 I pared my cornes' #earlymodern
Manuscript image of the quoted text (NOTE3310 in the online edition).
January 29, 2026 at 1:40 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Walkway.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekDforDramatic 📷 #photography
A diagonally upwards view of the gap between two tall brick buildings (at Snape Maltings) with a walkway (incorporating a short flight of steps) running vertiginously between the upper parts of the buildings. There are also cables between the buildings. It is a bright, sunny winter's day.
January 28, 2026 at 7:17 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Trees.
#ClassicMono 📷 #photography
The gap between two two-storey sandstone houses, one with gable windows visible; in the space is a car on a driveway and two tall trees whose branches overlap, reaching upwards. One has a small group of nests in it.
January 27, 2026 at 2:02 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Storm cloud.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekDforDramatic #ClassicMono 📷 #photography
The top storey and roofline of a brick terrace of houses, with sunlit clouds in the distance and a very dark cloud overhead.
January 26, 2026 at 7:03 PM