Life Observed

Crops are grown with great precision these days.  Sometimes they are sown, sprayed and harvested by machines with identical widths. So, it makes sense to have fixed tram lines down the field where each machine drives in turn. These thin sections of crop are sacrificed, but the result is that the field is processed from seed to harvest with no missing parts. It's probably all done with GPS satellite control I expect. In my day the fields were intersected with tractor marks at random angles and bits of the field would be yellow while the rest was lush and green. Another unintended consequence is the local wildlife has multiple parallel motorways intersecting their narrow world. These Pheasants looked distinctly worried, as they should be - a monster sprayer was lurking just over the brow of the hill.

Everything needs a name these days: I grew up in the countryside, living on farms until I left home to start work. As a result I have a deep love of countryside.  We keep our children indoors these days in case something bad happens to them I suppose. So they spend their lives on the Internet or playing War Games where clearly nothing bad ever happens. Apparently this breeds a generation with something new, called NDD, or Nature Defecit Disorder So, here's some Cognitive Flower Therapy for your Nature Defecit Disorder, delivered to you via the Internet, so now you don't need to go outside...

So many of the views in North Hampshire are blighted by high voltage electricity transmission towers. Some say the alternative would be to cover the landscape with wind turbines, but does not appeal either.  Here's a radical thought. Perhaps we should all just use less electricity.

Backlit and apparently in hiding, these heralds of Spring lurk at the end of the horse exercise yard adding a nice splash of colour to an almost monochrome scene. "If you see it, snap it"  - that's what I say...

Here's an exercise in minimalism. I spotted this back lit blossom yesterday, backed with a shaded wall.  This required some fancy footwork with the camera to get the exposure correct:  I used spot meter for the blossom combined with +1EV compensation to get the right range of tones while keeping the background nice and black. Quite often, less is indeed more:

One of the composition tricks in a photographer's aresenal should be the leading line. Something about the picture that draws you into the shot. A corner to peek round, a path that you want to follow. Well, in that frame of mind, there are some pictures that just demand to be taken... OK, so there was more to this than frame and click. I had to place the footpath through the new crop in the right part of the frame, and then I had to wait for the cloud to do exactly the right thing to the field below.  They say all things come to he that waits.

What do you do while you hang around outside the ladies changing rooms in a department store?  I am assuming you are a bloke and you are waiting for your wife to try new clothes on: If you hang about outside ladies changing rooms for other reasons, then maybe this post isn't for you... Personally, I spend my time on those occasions observing the retail shop dressings and I am particularly interested in these strange mannequins.  If you think back, these would once have to be reasonably lifelike with painted eyes and lips, and the more they tried the less lifelike they seemed. So, over the years they have become more and more abstract . Our local store introduced featureless models in shiny white last year, but now I see they come in black and even chrome. This would be a downright disturbing presence in our home or down the pub....  So why do we accept a chrome humanoid with no face as acceptable store dressing?  Why don't I get out...