Echoes of Long Ago

The ruins of Whitby Abbey are among my earliest memories. I would have first visited in the mid-1960s, and remembered them well when we came to Australia in 1971. I have had the chance to visit again on a couple of my UK trips—now, alas, also many years ago. I took this shot on Saturday November 6^th, 2010, the day after arriving in Whitby from London. This was designated a rest day, so I was not catching a train anywhere else, just wandering around that quaint town by the North Sea. I visited the abbey and did a lengthy photo shoot in the afternoon light. I captured many studies of the stonework, long eroded by the salt wind—the abbey stands on the east headland—and one can lament the destruction of these great Medieval buildings. How amazing it would be to see this place in perfect condition, a relic of most ancient times. This pic was taken in good light, and required only the most minor adjustment—contrast and colour. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

True Antiquity

Click image to view at 800 pixels wide

It's not often you get to focus on a manmade object that is some 14000 years old. This is a carved antler artifact from late Palaeolithic times which I had the privilege of actually touching at a touch-and-tell exhibit at the British Museum in December, 2006. It i's humbling to think that human hands shaped this piece of organic material and carved in the decoration long before the world as we know it began to take form. The photograph was taken in available light on macrofocus setting, and was simply a case of framing the composition and releasing the shutter: photographically it was a no-brainer, but to see the object is to feel the gulf of time between the maker and the beholder, and it demanded to be recorded. Sharpened and colour-enhanced for publication; Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic exposure, macro range. Image by Mike.

Fangorn, By Any Other Name

Click image to view at 800 pixels wide

There is something symmetrical in the randomness of nature, paradoxical as that sounds, and the wild grizzling of the moss clinging to this tree creates an amazing texture. The photograph was a simple frame and shoot, in afternoon light, nothing clever in the technique, it's the subject matter that counts here. And the sense of antiquity it brings: it was a very old place and something of that infused the moment. This tree stands on the outer edge of the earthworks of Old Sarum Hillfort, above the town of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, UK, a place which has been fortified since the Bronze Age and was constantly held by one power or another into the Middle Ages. There are vestiges of Roman stonework, and the last king to spend a night there was Henry II, if I remember correctly. I found myself wondering how old this tree is, and what history has unfolded in sight of its gnarled limbs and roots... December 2006, Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Grey Day at the Stones

Click image to view at 800 pixels wide

The light was poor because the weather was bad: the weather report for that day said there were waterspouts along the Channel coast of England, and up in Wiltshire patchy rain was going through all morning under a solid grey Atlantic sky. The rain doesn't really copy in the image, though by the end of the shoot I couldn't protect the lens from collecting raindrops any longer. Shutter speeds were slow to catch the light so the rain blurred and disappeared, which was just as well as at times there was a 45-degree slant on it. The conditions were pretty miserable for my only visit so far to the Neolithic national monument of Stonehenge, in December 2006, but even that couldn't damped the wonder of actually being there and seeing the world-famous proto-historic astronomical site. Of course, the sun came out ten minutes after the bus left... The image has minimal enhancement and is cropped super-wide. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.