Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

I have a wizened plum tree in my back garden. Usually we have pigeons, tits and finches flock to its gnarled branches. This morning there's a magpie sat there, barely visible, & I just realised its colouring lends itself to sitting in a tree that's shed its leaves with the white cloud as a backdrop.

A wizened plum tree in a winter garden. It's leaves no more. An invisible magpie is sat on a gnarled branch, with white clouds as a backdrop. Perfectly camouflaged.

November 1, 2025 at 10:23 AM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

#Cornwall

The slow return of the ocean in Gunwalloe Cove, Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. The cliffs off in the distance, the unseen surfers sleeping beneath them, waiting for the perfect wave.

July 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Very much enjoyed a recent stop-off at the Green Hill Arts' Widdershins exhibition.

An interior photograph by Fleur of the Green Hills art gallery, including sculptures and paintings inspired by the folklore of Dartmoor.

July 5, 2025 at 5:10 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

I'm going down to the beach
There's someone there I need to meet
He's a lonely figure
A shoe that causes blisters
A stone that leaves blood on your feet.

A monochrome photographic image looking out into the estuary of a wide river. The sand path narrows between weather worn fences bowed like pale old teeth, like the jaws of a marooned sea monster now mostly hidden by time, sand and the coarse grasses. The ground rises each side of the fences, and the sand path eventually opens out to the mudflats. There, in the distance, an old fort stands in the calm receding tide, its purpose long forgotten by most who visit here.

February 24, 2025 at 6:40 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

The Cornfield, Constable, 1826.

When I was a small boy my grandparents had a print of this hanging in their hallway in a golden frame. I used to stare up at it in the gloom, mesmerised by the boy quenching his thirst, his impatient dog and the dark foreboding woodland.

I was there, inside it.

A lane leading from East Bergholt toward Dedham, Essex, depicts a young shepherd boy drinking from a pool as the summer heat rises, clouds mull overhead and the dark trees loom above Fen Lane. The boy's dog waits impatiently, wanting to get on and chase the sheep into the cornfield beyond the cutting. There is a gate there into the golden cornfield.

January 17, 2025 at 11:58 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Sculpture by Peter Randall-Page at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens in Cornwall.

A black & white photograph by Jim Buck of a stone sculpture by Peter Randall-Page, displayed at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens in Cornwall. There are two forms meeting one another. One could be female, a smooth round sinking depth, a place to go, somewhere to look inside or place one's hand; the other could be male, a key, a corresponding part of a whole, reaching up, waiting to join the other half of itself.

January 9, 2025 at 5:44 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

James Turrell's Tewlwolow Kernow

A photograph by Jim Buck of the skyscape by artist James Turrell. It is a curved room you enter at a single opening with simple seating around the curved walls. You sit and look up at a cutaway in the ceiling and there you watch the sky change, clouds come and go, the picture is never the same. It's dreamlike, like meditation, it's whatever you wish to conjure.

January 9, 2025 at 5:35 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Study of Puck for A Midsummer Night's Dream poster

by Jim Buck

January 3, 2025 at 4:33 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Giuseppe Tirelli 'La Miciona Supereroe Locale'

A bronze seated female figure, legs crossed and looking to her right. She is wearing a tight purple helmet with the tiniest cat ears protruding on top. A purple shawl or cape is falling from her shoulders and her green flesh is proudly exposed. She is barefooted and looks relaxed. A painting of a torn dying branch and several, what looks to be, onions hangs on the wall behind her.

January 3, 2025 at 9:05 AM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Giuseppe Tirelli 'Vir et Domina'

A bronze female figure wearing a tall regal hat and draped in a thin costume is sat on the shoulders of another figure, whose features are barely visible. Her body is ochre, her lower half green, as too is the second figure.

January 3, 2025 at 8:38 AM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Giuseppe Tirelli 'Il Ritorno di Don Chisciotte'

Bronze sculpture of a green helmeted male knight, pike and shield in hand, seated on the back of a bull, black shoulders, rich amber body, great horned head bowed, front legs curled as if charging an enemy.

January 3, 2025 at 8:25 AM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

Conisbrough Viaduct

A colour photograph of the shadow on the winter hills of the disused railway viaduct just outside Conisbrough, South Yorkshire.

January 1, 2025 at 10:03 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

The Circus (3) by Jim Buck

Abstract line drawing in pencil. Curved forms twist and turn and fold over one another rising up the page to a larger protruding form. An attempt to capture flying acrobats and trapeze artists.

December 30, 2024 at 10:51 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

'She climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as she did so she seemed to be talking to herself.' M R James

A black and white photograph looking up at a large tree with two trunks curving away from each other, twined with ivy and resembling an old giant creature of the woodlands.

December 30, 2024 at 2:23 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

We chased trees
And filled the moon
We made night
Last all afternoon

We danced with bridges
Upon the Thames
We gathered up London
And sent it to friends

We chased trees
Through the houses
We emptied Parliament
Into our trousers

We jumped the towers
And set a trend
We chased trees
Until the end.

A photograph of a woodland. A tree is in the foreground, other smaller ones behind it. Light is able to filter through. Each tree has painted white branches fixed to their trunks, like ghosts

December 30, 2024 at 2:11 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

The waters of Badequella by Jim Buck

A photograph of the calm waters of the river Wye. Black, blue and lilac coloured clouds muster around an imperfect white sun at its centre.

December 30, 2024 at 1:57 PM

Jim Buck

@jimbuck.bsky.social

'Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.'

H.G. Wells 'The Time Machine'