Absences

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, both these photographs trigger a very similar, strong response for me.  The first is a glass enclosure at Marwell Zoo in Hampshire; the second is a view across Clifton Downs in Bristol, looking along a series of freshly-marked football pitches towards the water-tower on Stoke Road.  They share a sort of "populated emptiness" that reminds me of childhood, and not in an unpleasant way.  The football pitches are very reminiscent of a recreation ground I used to walk across to and from primary school each day.

The first photograph has already figured in a couple of "crow" composites.  In it (or not in it), more or less where X marks the spot, a golden tamarind monkey has just left the scene.  In the second, oddly enough, there ought to have been a rook more or less at the T-junction of the white lines, but it, too, evaded me.  It didn't have to try very hard: much as I like these Fuji cameras, the rapidity of the autofocus is not their most remarkable feature.  Nice clouds, though...