A selection of snapshots from around Oxford, presented in the order in which they were taken on Sunday, 4th December. Click on photos to see full size.
photography
Autumn to winter
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
Three months bade wane.
Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again.
First went my friend, in life’s mid light of noon,
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
Three months bade wane.
A herald soul before its master’s flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade, espying
A herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death’s dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
A herald soul.
One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
One went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music’s radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
One went before.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart’s pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset’s fiery goal was won
A star had set?
Autumn and Winter, by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Oh happy fair
As a resident of St Giles, I have a love-hate relationship with the fair. There’s something undeniably magnificently bonkers about the whole idea. The fair being blessed by the priests of St Giles church is extraordinary. The clean, empty street on Wednesday morning, devoid of any signs of what’s been going on for the past few days, is nothing short of miraculous. I (sort of) love all the garish lights and colours and enjoy the smell of donuts and spit roast and hot dogs and the sight of people carrying oversized stuffed animals around. But the fair is also noisy and disruptive to all normal life, bringing sleepless nights and forcing residents away. The fair also photographs very poorly – the fast moving people and the bright, flashing lights just don’t make a good combination. The rides move fast for someone who is has problems with continuous focus. Someone will be photobombing your carefully framed portraits, or the people move out of the frame. And the light on their faces will always, always be terrible.
Cottage gardens
As a city dweller (first floor, with a view of traffic lights and a cemetery), I dream of the time when I can have my own garden – berries and apples, rhubarbs under bells, neat rows of vegetables and beets and herbs, sweet peas (which smell like heaven and don’t photograph at all well) and autumn dahlias. One day.
Lavender fields
I have always wanted to photograph a lavender field – there’s something glorious about the colour, the straight lines of the bushes, the overwhelming scale of purple stretching from horizon to horizon. We got to Hitching Lavender Farm on a hot early August Sunday; the fields were full of visitors like us, and so I didn’t quite get the wide-angle shot I had hoped for. The scent was ripe and heavy, the flowers full of bees, the air buzzing with them as they flew around, drunk on the nectar. It was a good day.
All photos have been scaled to 25% from original size with a batch processing software. Click images to see full size for best quality.
Another summer, another set of arctic seascape photos
Every summer when I head home, I think this year I’ll spend lovely evenings sitting outdoors reading and sipping grapefruit soda (it’s a Finnish thing), meeting friends for outdoors dinners, and painting watercolours. Invariably, by the end of the trip I will have read 2 two out of the 5 books I brought, worn less than half of the clothes I packed, and maybe gone downtown twice. This year was not an exception. There were too many biting and stinging insects flying around in the evenings to even to consider sitting outdoors (this is quite unusual for late July/early August). I did meet friends and drink the grapefruit soda though, and even managed to swim – sort of – in the sea.
Boats are still there, laying where the storm pushed them last year. One has all but disappeared under weeds, inaccessible. It’s like meeting an old friend, seeing them, one year older, much worse for wear.
I learned this year that apparently summer is over when fireweed has bloomed. If we are to go by that, summer is very, very nearly over. Everything this year bloomed early, and by the time I arrived, mid-July, clovers were gone, red glovers (one of my favourite flowers) was gone, harebells were almost gone, and there was a distinct lack of fireweed, usually colouring roadsides dark pink this time of the year. At least tansy didn’t let me down. I used to hate it as a child, and I have no idea why. It’s the most wonderful thing – gorgeous colour, beautiful flowers, dries well. The first and the last wild flowers are yellow – dandelions in the spring, tansies and hawkweeds at the end of the summer – little spots of sun.
Butterfly in the library 