The tenth day of Christmas; oh, to heck with it!

hawthorns

Dartmoor on New Year’s Day

Well, I suppose I could come up with some tenuous link between today’s post and Christmas, if I tried really hard.  But, instead, I thought I’d share this shot taken in Dartmoor National Park on New Year’s Day.  This is for you, Gunta. 😉

While we were away, I rented a new camera, the Sony NEX-7 from the good folk at hireacamera.com.  I need a lightweight alternative to my big brick for hiking but I want to try before I buy.  Over the next few days I will be sharing some of the images I took and my impressions of this high-end compact system camera.

The Watcher

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Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
John Keats, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

It was all yellow

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Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah, they were all yellow

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I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called ‘Yellow’

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So then I took my time
Oh what a thing to’ve done
And it was all yellow

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Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D’you know? You know I love you so
You know I love you so

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I swam across
I jumped across for you
Oh what a thing to do
‘Cause you were all yellow

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I drew a line
I drew a line for you
Oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

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Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
D’you know? For you I bleed myself dry
For you I bleed myself dry

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It’s true
Look how they shine for you
Look how they shine…

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Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And all the things that you do.
(Coldplay, ‘Yellow’)

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The devil in the dark

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Regular readers will know that I have been following the antics of some speckled bush cricket nymphs in my garden.  From cute first hatchling through inquisitive early instar stages to greedy adolescence and approaching adulthood. And what do I get as a reward for bringing them fame and adulation?  Plants with holes!  I counted at least 25 of the devils out there yesterday, nibbling away at my carefully nurtured dahlias.  Have they no gratitude?  The youth of today (sigh)!  So a suitably more sinister image of one of the little monsters today. And now I have a dilemma…

Whoever struggles with monsters might watch that he does not thereby become a monster.  And when you stare into an abyss for a long time, the abyss also stares into you.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

A moment’s monument

Dante Gabriel Rossetti famously wrote that ‘a sonnet is a moment’s monument’ (‘Introductory Sonnet’). The same could also be said, of course, of a photograph. (Hopefully I can get away with using Rossetti as my segue to this image as I am currently studying for an MA in Victorian Art and Literature!) This photograph was taken on my honeymoon in 1993. It is the sun rising over Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. Looking at it, I can recall the sounds of the African bush waking up, the slightest of breezes on my face, the feeling of warmth slowly returning after the chill of the night, and the anticipation at the start of my first Zimbabwe safari. A special memory, made even more special perhaps by the sad events in Zimbabwe since. All I have is a 6×4 print, having lost the negative. So the scan is inevitably grainy, the resolution too low to make a new print, but just about good enough to give the moment it records a new life on the net.