Once again, it seemed that the weather would disrupt my tradition of taking at least one outdoors photograph on January 1st – it was pissing down outside, and dark as doomsday. It wasn't just the weather, either. Is organic red wine more prone to creating hangovers than the regular stuff? It certainly seems so. That's my head in the picture above, that is – out of focus, square on the inside yet oddly pentagonal on the outside. Thanks a lot, Chateau de Caraguilhes. Oh well, I thought, it's a stupid tradition anyway, and I have no idea why I started it in the first place. Time for strong coffee with a paracetamol chaser.
By contrast, New Year's Eve was a lovely day until about 3 p.m., and in the morning we went for a stroll on St. Catherine's Hill, along with every dog-walker and jogger in Winchester, it seemed. Idiotically, I'd forgotten that I'd emptied the boot of the car before Christmas, so we found ourselves without walking boots or wellingtons, and ended up picking our way through the mud and puddles in our street shoes like a couple of city slickers in a farmyard. I actually found several slopes too slippery to negotiate with my gripless footwear, and had to take a wild flailing run at them like a cartoon character. Embarrassing...
But, around mid-afternoon, the rain halted long enough for a quick walk around the block, taking in the local allotments, where I pulled out a camera and fired off a couple of perfunctory frames through the hedge. Well, it's been a while since we featured any plastic barrier netting, after all. But ... windfall apples? In January? Beneath a leafless tree? Not sure what's been going on there...
4 comments:
A lovely set of pictures...very soothing to look at and in quintessential Chisholm style (rather mundane subject matter made interesting, great use of colors and layering, every element nicely balanced in that familiar square format). The third one made me smile-- love the way the sheep are positioned either perfectly parallel or perpendicular to one another. I I think my favorite, though, is #4, which has all of the characteristics I associate with your style and viewpoint. Hope your head is feeling back to its normal proportions!
Elisabeth S
Hi Elisabeth, good to know you're still dropping by! Glad you noticed the sheep -- it took me ages to talk them into standing like that...
Head shape substantially re-established. Best wishes for 2016!
Mike
Best wishes to you, too! And I forgot to thank you for tipping me off to Andrew Molitor's blog via your Dec 11 "Workshops" post. I know Andrew comments regularly on T.O.P., but I didn't look up his blog until you mentioned it in your post. His writing is original, thought-provoking, unapologetic and frequently hilarious (especially his dis-robing of many of the Emperors across the web).
Yes, I wish I understood his obsession with those guys, who seem merely the modern equivalent of camera club nerds, given the wealth of worthwhile stuff on the Web -- I'd never visited Ming Thein's site until I followed one of his links! -- but it can be hilarious, as you say. I came across him as an astute commenter on Daniel Milnor's old site.
Mike
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