Monday, December 01, 2008

If winter comes...










22 comments:

Kim said...

so lovely :)

Rosie said...

gorgeous colours concealed in the grey

Catalyst said...

Some very interesting photos. I'm unable to identify the fruits (?) in pictures 3, 5 and 6 though.

Unknown said...

Who cares with such though provoking photos!

Anonymous said...

Fabulous photos! The second one really intrigues me with what looks like a prehistoric sunstone, a great image I could use in my print series :-)

jzr said...

Lovely, Lucy! I especially love the first photo of the nest with that wonderful blue-green thread!

Lucas said...

I understand what you mean in your list of treats in the previous post - juxtaposing walks with/ and without camera. However, one of my favourite treats is seeing the result of your walks with your camera

Crafty Green Poet said...

lovely series of photos

Granny J said...

If winter comes? but it will and with it yet another feast for the photographer...

herhimnbryn said...

Shelley?

Beautiful images L. I am missing Autumn/Winter now.

Lee said...

Lovely photos. Winter can't be far away.

Lucy said...

Thanks all.

ML - just the end of a sawn post, you can have it if you like, I'll e-mail.

It's interesting which things aren't very well-known outside Europe. The fruits:3 - unripened blackberries, seems sad to me thay made it that far then winter closed in; 5 - I think is bittersweet(I'll check), a kind of mildly poisonous nightshade that becomes really ruby red in winter, oftne providing a welcome splash of colour, here it's twining round the last of the summer/autumn hydrangeas, which are still bravely showing colour too; 6 - a very new hazel catkin, things of early spring which appear at the end of the year, before the last of the autumn leaves are gone from the tree.

I like the way the seasons merge and mix like this.

Yes, Percy Bysshe. Bit corny.

I think I do focus a little more carefully when I consciously set out with the camera, and I think the photos hang together better when taken at the same time, even if the subjects are quite disparate. and it is good to use them fresh...

Jan said...

When are you going to publish a book of your wonderful pictures? Please say!
And your previous post was pretty wonderful too..

green ink said...

These are stunning.

My favourite is the berries, that lovely contrast of burnished amber leaves and ruby red fruit, still budding and waiting to ripen.

Roderick Robinson said...

I'm more concerned with the unfinished quote, so here's another. "The wish was father to the thought." I think it's a bit infra dig to start pondering Spring before we've had Christmas. And now I realise I've no idea what the Latin tag means, I've looked it up and I've got it completely wrong. Education via humiliation: the principle by which Gradgrind facts were stuffed into the unwilling heads of pupils at Bradford Grammar School.

Jean said...

Like Marja-Leena, I particularly like the second one. Had to look at it hard to see what it was. The rings are so attention-grabbing that there can be an optical illusion effect that removes the perspective and looks like two contrasting flat surfaces, if you see what I mean...

Lucy said...

Thanks again.

Jan - but there's so much lovely stuff being done all over the place, there isn't room for books of all of it, but thanks for the compliment!

Philippa - lovely to see you. I don't think the berries will ripen now, alas!

BB - 'I think it's a bit infra dig to start pondering Spring before we've had Christmas', ok, but try telling the catkins that!(ockerd old curmudgeon;~), I shall parse out your Latin tag/Hard Times reference later, Bear of Little Brain that I am it has left me non-plussed...)

Jean - I do see what you mean, though it's difficult to reset one's eyes when you know what it is. I did like the shapes and mossy colours though...

Jen said...

Brrrrrr, I'm shivering just looking at those photos. Those red berries are almost riotous against the bleakness of bare branches.

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

I've been catching up on some of my favorite blogs, yours included! Such a lovely time I always have here. What is the bit of blue in the bird nest?

Dave King said...

I'll have to say to you what I have just said to Acornmoon: I need a Dicyionary of Superlatives - or I shall have to invent some for myeself - the ones I have left just do not do it.

Roderick Robinson said...

Awkward old salaud indeed, guilty of severe over-compression. Vestigial link with first quote, none at all with second. The point I was trying to make was that in publicly humiliating myself by getting the tag wrong I was continuing a tradition established at my almer mater where humiliation combined with excessive corporal punishment (I was once beaten because my feet were bigger than those of the geography master) was thought to be the royal road to enlightenment. What's more I should have recognised the pussy-willows since they are one of the seven growing type things I am aware of. A bad day all round.

In compensation may I offer an opportunity to rectify your surprising admission (to Marja-Leena) that you're not too well versed in opera. At my funeral (Humanist, so no hymn singing)the trio from Cosi will be played together with the list song from Don Giovanni. I'm sure you know both but have you heard them while eating Glasgow mutton pies and drinking Vosne-Romanée? Il vaudra le voyage. Many apologies.

Lucy said...

And again thanks.

Spiral, aren't they a jolly red! Quite a lot of colour in winter really...

Pamela - good! I meant to mention that, it is blue bailer twine, used for bailing hay and straw, of course, but for all kinds of improvisational agricultural uses, so there are always bits of it floating around the fields and hedgerows, and de rigueur decorative item of choice for finches building their nests! This one is perhaps a greenfinch's or chaffinch's, a gardener friend who has many goldfinches nesting in his hedges confirmed something I'd heard long ago, that goldfinches, who like to eat forget-me-not seeds, frequently weave the blue flowers into their nests, which leads one almost to conclude they have an aesthetic sense. I'm sure the bailer twine catches their eye for its blueness...

Dave - you're a dear!

BB - does this constitute an invitation to your funeral? I rather hope we might manage the curry and champagne lunch first. I feel terribly guilty at laughing aloud about your being punished for feet being bigger than your geog teacher, as such things are not funny at all, especially as we last night watched a particularly bleak Dalgliesh mystery involving a small boy's suicide under such a brutal prep school regime.

I regret to tell you that hazel catkins and pussy willow are not at all the same thing, the former being the flowers of hazel and the latter of sallow or goat willow. However, they are commonly conflated, possibly because of their frequent presence together on infant school nature tables, which cosy and pleasant thing was probably absent from your grim early years. I am very saddened to think of this. But a little cheered to think of mutton pies...