Rob Ralley
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robralley.bsky.social
Rob Ralley
@robralley.bsky.social
3.4K followers 830 following 5.1K 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
Ely Cathedral west door, dusk.
#AdoorableThursday 📷 #photography
Angled view of a wall of gothic architecture, at it centre a large double arch with orangey light spilling out of it into a blue-grey dusk.
November 20, 2025 at 2:11 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Winter by the Great Ouse.
📷 #photography
A view across a river showing the water and the far bank, with low vegetation, much of it brown, and trees in the far distance. There is a darkening blue cloud-flecked sky that is reflected in the water.
November 19, 2025 at 1:57 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Late afternoon field view.
📷 #photography
Long grasses in autumn near the corner of a field, with a line of trees in the distance and an evening sky of cloudy sky with patches of blue visible.
November 18, 2025 at 7:48 PM
robralley.bsky.social
1620: seeking predictions from an angel, Richard Napier asks whether one of his clients will 'live long & prosp[er]' #earlymodern 🖖
Manuscript image showing part of a paragraph that reads: 'wheather Mr John Monson hayre to Sir Th shall live long & prosp[er] & attayne to honour & good & a happy mariage', then, added later in a darker ink (but not shown in the image): 'he shall'. (NOTE6839 in the online edition.)
November 17, 2025 at 3:36 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Sextry House, Ely.
#BlueskyMonday 📷 #photography
The curved corner and doorway of a yellow-brick building with 'SEXTRY HOUSE' written above the door; it is a bright day but a dark shadow of a building with a large chimney is partly darkening the front. The sky is bright and blue.
November 17, 2025 at 2:11 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Ely path.
📷 #photography
A tarmac path between hedges. It is a bright autumn day, with a blue sky behind a thin veil of wispy cloud; most of the left hedge is greenish yellow or bare; most of the right hedge is orange-brown. Trees growing out of each hedge are bare-branched. The path runs a short way forward then heads off right.
November 16, 2025 at 9:21 AM
robralley.bsky.social
Last rays of summer sun.
#bright #BlueskyArtShow
A patch of slightly hilly grass at dusk, with grasses flowering in the foreground and silhouetted trees either side and ahead. The sun is about to set but is shining strongly around the edges of clouds.
November 15, 2025 at 1:10 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Fenland treeline.
#scape #ClassicMono 📷 #photography
A view across a flat landscape on a clear day, with a single, short row of tall trees far off at the horizon against a background of low-level fluffy clouds.
November 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Autumnal #ThursdayBins
📷 #photography
A tarmac path in a park turns a corner past a tree and a bin. There is a hedge on its far side and houses beyond that. The whole scene is lit in gold tones by a low sun (picking out gold trim on the bin), and the tree, the hedge and the scattering of leaves on the grass are all autumnal oranges and browns.
November 13, 2025 at 9:53 AM
robralley.bsky.social
West End/Chiefs Street, Ely.
📷 #photography
A view across a road down one side of a side-road, showing the road markings and the end of the pub on the corner, made of white-painted brick with windows of white frames and bright red surrounds; it has one full storey and a dormer window in its roof. Down the road ahead is a series of two-story buildings, largely of yellow brick. The sky is obscured by thick cloud.
November 12, 2025 at 2:14 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Houses, autumn afternoon.
📷 #photography
A row of three three-storey houses, so identical with small first-floor balconies. The middle house has a solar panel on the roof. In front are low hedges and grass, and blue sky is partly concealed by a dark cloud. Although the blue is bright, the scenery is gloomy.
November 11, 2025 at 2:06 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Passing shower.
📷 #photography
An autumn view of a field (brown with a thin covering of new grass after the harvesting of the crop), lines across it and a pole in the middle, a tree on the right and more along the hedgerow in the distance. The horizon is visible beyond that. Above and far off, a curtain of rain is falling from the raincloud overhead.
November 10, 2025 at 1:04 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Under the trees.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows 📷 #photography
A view along a pavement between an old brown-brick building (two-storeys with a low roof) on the left and a line of trees (bare-branched) on the right. Sun from behind the trees is casting a series of shadows across the pavement.
November 9, 2025 at 12:53 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Signpost shadow.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows 📷 #photography
A stretch of yellow-brick wall with a band of moss near the top and paving in front of it; across the wall are the shadows of a lamppost and a signpost.
November 8, 2025 at 5:12 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Autumn #evening in the park.
#BlueskyArtShow 📷 #photography
View across grass to layers of cloud above the horizon bathed from below in gold light. On either side of the picture are trees and shrubs with bare branches and autumnal leaves, and there is a scattering of bright leaves across the dark grass.
November 8, 2025 at 12:34 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Ely view: a bus shelter, the end wall of Oliver Cromwell's House (with tree shadow), and the steeple of St Mary's church.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows and #scape 📷 #photography
The end of an old half-timbered house, with yellow bricks on its end wall and lower storey, and a tree beside it casting a shadow across the end wall. Next to it is a wall and in front of that a bus shelter. Someone is about to walk past. In the background is the steeple of a church whose stonework matches in colour the bricks. It is sunlit from one side.
November 7, 2025 at 1:49 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Thursday 2 November 1620, 9:38 AM, and Napier is having child-wrangling problems: 'my boyes would not goe to schoole'. #earlymodern
Manuscript image of the quoted text (NOTE7139 on the Casebooks site).
November 6, 2025 at 5:09 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Railway bridge.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows #UrbanGaze 📷 #photography
A view across the road running under Ely's railway bridge, which has a gap down the centre through which sunlight is casting shadows of railings onto the pavement and wall.
November 6, 2025 at 12:46 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Urban tree.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows and #WallsOnWednesday 📷 #photography
An expanse of modern red brick wall, with several columns of aligned brick-edges suggesting a walled-up opening of some kind, and a broad white stripe painted across near the top; above that, at the very top left of the frame, is the bottom of a multi-coloured sign. In the top right corner is a branch of a tree growing in front of the wall, and the shadow of the whole tree is clearly delineated across the wall.
November 5, 2025 at 1:16 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Moonrise this evening over the railway line and Cathedral Marina, Ely.
📷 #photography
A view across a marina with boats, cars and trees all visible; above and beyond them a train is running past, and above that, gentle sunset colours in the sky and a bright moon.
November 4, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Rob Ralley
hjm.bsky.social
HERE IT IS!!!!!
H Is For Hawk - Official Trailer
YouTube video by LionsgateFilmsUK
youtu.be
November 4, 2025 at 6:32 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Picture frames.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows 📷 #photography
The edges of two picture frames side by side against a white wall, with sunlight shining at a low angle on their lower halves - casting a wide shadow at the outer edge of one frame, a narrow shadow at the inner edge of the other, and a diagonal shadow across the top half of the image where the top of the window has obscured the sunlight.
November 4, 2025 at 12:42 PM
robralley.bsky.social
Chimney.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforShadows #BlueSkyMonday 📷 #photography
Two house roofs, the more distant one with a television aerial mounted at the far gable end, the closer with a television aerial mounted on a chimney. The (brown-brick) chimney has three pots and the shadow of an identically shaped chimney and pots on its side. The sky behind is clear and blue.
November 3, 2025 at 10:49 AM
robralley.bsky.social
Sea and rock.
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekRforRock 📷 #photography
Grey sea under a grey sky, but sparkling with rejected sunlight. One spit of jagged rock intrudes into the picture from the left, then further off another thinner one intrudes from the right.
November 2, 2025 at 10:30 AM
robralley.bsky.social
#Autumn among the pines.
#BlueskyArtShow 📷 #photography
A view between rows of trees in a pine plantation, with orange-brown bracken across the ground and loose piles of tree branches.
November 1, 2025 at 11:54 AM