I’m off to Norway in three days! Wheee!

I’ve now obtained a warm jacket (actually a snowboarding jacket — I’m so cool) and some very warm wool socks (again, snowboarding/skiing socks). Ostensibly, I will be walking — not a lot, but more than usual (i.e. more than none) — so the socks make a lot of sense. I actually need to get some new boots too — my current Timberland boots are 7 or 8 years old, but when a new pair cost something like £150 ($230), it’s hard to bite the bullet.

I have a scarf and hat (a deerstalker — still not sure about wearing it in public). The guys at the snowboarding shop said I should get a ‘buff’ — seriously, like a muff, but… buff. One of those neck warmer things. I don’t think it’ll be that cold or bitter in Norway though.

All that remains… is pants. I have none.

(Click for larger… though I can’t imagine why you’d want to…)

Both kinds of pant, British and American. I must buy some in the next couple of days (so that I have time to break them in). Do I go for the full, ‘long’ variety… or do I stick to boxer shorts? Do I wear denim and cotton (I don’t own jeans), or is there such thing as ‘warm’ trousers? I don’t want to wear plastic waterproof pants or trousers (for similar reasons). I have an old pair of wool trousers I think.

I mean, I have boxer shorts… not many, but some. A couple of pairs. And pants — trousers — I have… well, nominally two pairs, but I only really wear one.

This is the problem when I don’t go out much. It’s very easy to just whack on some underwear, slap on some trousers and a t-shirt, plonk myself down in front of my computers and while away 16 hours before reversing the process. Now that Norway is only a few days away and I’ll be spending three weeks in the presence of other human beings, I better get some more clothing for my lower half. (Incidentally, I recently bought an eight-pack of socks, they went through the wash once, and now only three out of sixteen socks remain — how lame is that?)

Anyway, other than that little dilemma, I’m all ready for Norway! I’ll be spending seven days in Bergen and eleven in Trondheim. There will be many fjords. And Nordic beauties — it’s about time a British emissary was sent to reclaim what was unlawfully stolen away by the Vikings! And… er… well, there isn’t a whole lot else to do in Norway. Their primary exports are fuels, machinery… and fish. They also love their woollen goods — so basically this is going to be like the Faroe Islands, but without the fuel or machinery. And without the dried sheep and whale.

I actually don’t know what we’re going to do, except walk and carouse. I’m staying with students in Trondheim, so I imagine that’ll be quite rowdy. But even then, I’m very curious to find out what people actually do in Norway. They’re not a standard ‘Western’ nation that deals mainly in services. There isn’t going to be a ‘downtown’ Trondheim. I guess it’s a more social lifestyle there? When 50% of the country’s income is from exporting fuel, life has to be pretty easy, surely?

The weather’s looking good, too. Bergen is a balmy 3C (37F) during the day, while Trondheim is a little bit nippier — freezing during the day, down to -5 (23F) or -6 at night. (Of course, if you figure wind chill into the equation it drops to about -15C, but who’s counting…)

As for the blog, I need to spend the next few days finishing preparations, and shifting obligations to other hapless victims/helpful friends. As before, I’ll put the blog into its ‘resting state’. It’s like cryogenic suspension, stasis, but not as cool. A new header will appear at the top of the blog to remind you where I am, and that for a month posts will be both sporadic^[1] and erratic. I’ll likely stick to early-morning updates, but it’ll depend on just how debauched and drunk I get. I needn’t remind you of what happened in Poland…

Oh, and if you want to buy some photos, I’ll try to get them onto Etsy in a timely fashion. I actually want to enable sales right here on this site, but that’ll have to wait until after Norway.

Bon voyage, or as they say in Norwegian: god reise — or, if the going gets really tough, luftputefartøyet mitt er fullt av ål!

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1. Did you know that ’sporadic’ comes from the same Greek root as ’spores’? As in, scattered far and wide.

This week sees the continuation of my ‘Things you’ve always wanted to know about men but were too afraid to ask’ series of videos. I’m still trying to come up with a shorter and punchier title — if anyone can come up with anything, let me know; I’ll credit you!

After unearthing the true reason behind why men pick their nose, I now turn my attention to a wholly more juicy subject — showering. More specifically, why some men take a really long time in the shower. Now, you can probably all guess, now that I’ve brought it up, but watch the video and hear it right from the horse’s mouth. I might even surprise you with some of the things that men get up to in the shower — and of course, for the sake of journalistic integrity, I actually recorded the video while standing in the shower.

I know, now that I’ve taken my clothes off — for Lilu’s TMI Thursday, no less — you think I’ve gone and jumped the shark — but not so! Just you wait; there’s a lot more weird stuff that men get up to.

Incidentally, the video was entirely unscripted, and all in one take. I dropped my towel, got into the shower and… this is what came out. I have no idea why I started singing, or where the penis-play ‘outro’ came from. I must be a little crazy in the head.

Oh come on, it’s almost as if they were named for the sole purpose of creating mirth and uncontrollable bouts of the giggles. Why oh why are they called TITS? The derivation would suggest it comes from some old meaning of ‘tit’ that means small, or perhaps similar to ‘tip for tap’ (tit for tat). Anyway, here in Sussex, we have lots of tits. Every year we seem to have more, probably because they tell tales of our house during their long and boring migrations: ‘Yeah, there’s this place… lots of tall trees… a pond… a fat woman that puts lots of seed out… it’s great! Come visit next season!

With it now being spring — despite occasional flurries of sub-zero temperature – we also have all of the baby birds. Just a few days ago, my mum saw some little fluff ball jump from its nest and land head first in a big bush with a small thud. I can only assume that the birds that star in today’s video are also young, or simply a little retarded. These long-tailed tits just kept flying into the window! Maybe they could see their reflection, or maybe they just didn’t know better; thud, scratch, scratch… thud. For more than an hour!

You probably saw my dramatic video of two robins fighting for seed the other day, but in my opinion a couple of birds buzzing about like window-licking bumble bees is far more exciting. Did I mention this video has my cat Monaco in it, trying to catch birds through double glazing? Yeah, now you want to watch it! Go on, click!

I know the aspect is all wrong. I only realised afterwards that it would be the wrong way around. I’m a photographer through and through! It’s OK if you watch it full screen though. I was going to upload a ’sideways’ version, but you’d just end up tilting your head and looking stupid for four minutes.

Anyway, for those of you resolutely not watching the video, here’s a couple of photos, of the tit and of the cat; of Tweety and Sylvester.

(I’m not sure what she’s perching on… a tiny strip of wood? She didn’t hang about though, as you can see in the video.)

(Sorry… cat picture… I know… lowest common denominator and all that…)

Many years ago, I used to rant. Before this blog, and a few years before my stint on LiveJournal, I used to write rants. In fact, that was all I would write, for some reason. I don’t remember being a particularly angst-ridden teenager; I think it was more about being smart. ‘Ooh, he has such passionate and informed opinions!’ — who cares if I swore a lot and used viscerally-tinged analogy like a foamingly rabid dog, eh?

Somewhere along the line, probably at university, I learnt how to vocalize my thoughts in a more intelligent fashion. I think it’s because I was suddenly surrounded by thousands of people that I’d never argued with. That’s not to say I was particularly challenged at university, but after 16 years of same-old-same-old it was refreshing. The main thing, for me, is differing view points and opinions. Part of me (the scientist) hopes that ‘absolute knowledge’ is attainable; but the realist knows that there is just the world – and myriad interpretations thereof. We all see the world differently, and machines and measuring devices see the world in yet other unfathomable ways.

It has become my job (or purpose) to gather up all of those views and opinions to create a valid representation or model of the world we live in. After all, what good is science if human nature doesn’t agree with it? There might be some joyous, divine apotheosis of science and the amalgamation of views in the future — but that’s the future. For now, I will try to understand humankind’s interpretation of the universe we occupy. It’ll take a while, and it’ll involve a lot of travel, but fortunately I’m a patient man that likes taking photos — that’s three birds with one stone!

But back to the topic at hand. Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, I lost my anger. I have buckets of aggression, but no anger. Unbridled passion, but no anger. I haven’t a clue where it’s gone. Most of you have never experienced me when I ‘get going’ in real life — it’s pretty odd, I get louder, I speak faster and with more intent… but I smile as I do it! Get this: I can’t grimace or frown. I’ve tried to frown many times, but it just doesn’t work. I don’t actually have the muscles for it.

I wonder if this is what the Buddhist idea of Nirvana feels like. (I’m not going to flesh that idea out any further… at least not today…)

I don’t know where this is going. It was meant to be something about why I’m so calm, and seemingly rather wise. I think this post stems from the fact that someone recently misconstrued my aggression for anger, which irked me because they’re very different emotions. I’ve never hit anyone, for example; nor have I ever been in a fight. You only need to look at the differing derivations: anger comes from Ancient Greek ‘to choke or squeeze’; aggression comes from Latin ‘to approach, address, attack’. Anger is all about sadness, sorrow and a rage that doesn’t abate. Aggression is about meeting the world head on, sometimes with a resounding clash.

Why strangle someone when you can just address the situation instead?

That makes me sound rather boring and sensible.

I recently bought a new digital camera. Unlike the last, this one has video capabilities. As you can imagine, I’ve spent the last few days filming just about everything: birds, cats, my crippled sister, the undergrowth outside… and even myself. I’ve been brainstorming, trying to come up with some kind of video series that’s both interesting, and a good test of my ability. The video below is the result — it’s quick, it’s dirty (in one take!), but I think I could be on to something.

It’s entitled ‘Things you’ve always wanted to know about men but were too afraid to ask’, and the first episode is ‘Why men pick their nose’. Yes, I’m aware that the series could do with a shorter, catchier name… but I can’t think of one. TYAWTKAMBWTATA? No. ‘… too afraid to ask’ perhaps? Or perhaps I could just embrace my uselessly anecdotal nature and turn it into ‘Things you’ve always wanted to know’. We’ll see.

Enjoy the video. Let me know if you like it, or not. It’ll be educational at the very least!

(If you can’t see the video above, you’ll need to visit my blog — and as always, I am a proud sponsor of Lilu’s TMI Thursday!)

Last week I said that if no one else wrote a review, I would — and as it turns out, there’s still just a bunch of previews but nothing substantive. Yes, it has 1080p HD video recording capabilities, yes it has a shiny-almost-Canon-7D-18-megapixel sensor… but no one’s commented on what it feels like. Specs are only a tiny portion of the story — so here’s a hands-on review of the new Canon 550D.

Note: Don’t expect a highly-technical review. No doubt professional sites like DPReview will get to that in due course. This is all subjective. There are no chromatic aberration graphs, or side-by-side comparisons. Just some test shots, some video, and my (fairly) expert opinion. I’ve also never done this before, so the format might be a bit weird. Stick with me though, I should cover most of the important stuff!

You can skip directly to the sample photos, if you want to see some evidence of the new CMOS sensor and metering system, or the gains in high-ISO performance.

Gear Used

Camera: Canon 550D (also known as the Digital Rebel T2i in America, or the Kiss X4 Digital in Japan). Costs about £700, body-only, or £800 with the kit lens. Due to imports/exchange rates, it’s a lot cheaper to buy in the US (about $800 for the body only).

Lenses: Sigma 50mm f1.4 (around £400), and the Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 (also around £400). I’m actually a bit of a prime lens snob, but I’m still waiting for an APS-C sensor 10mm prime lens… you hear me, Canon, Sigma? Anyway, both lenses are best-in-class… as long as you get a good sample (I’m not going to go into the variety of Sigma’s output here…)

Initial Impressions

Before the 550D, I used a 450D for my ‘every day’ and on-the-move photography (travel, mostly). The 550D is identical to the 450D — weight, shape, balance, etc. The body seems to have a slightly different finish, and the grip is a little ‘grippier’. In more detail:

(500D on the left, 550D on the right)

The trigger: The button itself is a little harder to depress; slightly more ‘clicky’. Not ‘hard’ to operate though, just a little more… affirmative.

The buttons in general: No doubt the change to the trigger is due to an overhaul of all the buttons on the camera. The buttons on the back of the camera are now flat, making them quite a lot easier to use (though they take some getting used to!) There’s also a new ‘record’ button up by the eyepiece, to go with the camera’s video capabilities. Personally I still have a few issues hitting the depth-of-field-test button, but I think that’s due to my huge hands.

Other bits: In all other ways, it’s identical to the 450D (and 500D, I believe). There’s a new HDMI output, below the USB output, and an audio input (mic) above — and also a microphone on the front; for the video capabilities. Oh, it uses a new kind of battery too, the LP-E8 — so you’ll need new batteries, and a new grip too (lame!)

Photos

[Sample images are at the end]

The most important bit! (Unless you’re buying it for the 1080p HD video thing, anyway — that’s a bit further down the page). Does the 550D take good photos? ‘Hell yes’ would be the easy answer, but let me break it down a bit.

Resolution: Yup, more megapixels — up to 18 million effective pixels now, or 5134 x 3456. The RAW files are about 25MB, so you might need to get a new memory card!

Image quality (IQ): Better than the 450D, but I can’t compare it to the ‘identical’ sensor of the 7D. There are reports of it producing very, very similar photos to the 7D, despite Canon saying that the sensor is ‘not the same’. Of course you don’t get the weather sealing, but at half the price and half the weight… who am I to complain. The 550D uses ‘gapless micro lenses’ infront of the CMOS sensor, increasing the quality and sensitivity of every pixel. This in turn opens up ‘extended ultra-high ISO’ settings (more on that in a second).

Shooting: Continuous frames-per-second seems about the same as the 450D, despite the new DIGIC 4 processor — the listed speed is 3.7FPS, but if you shoot in RAW-only mode it will reach 6FPS! There’s all the standard options — RAW, JPEG, RAW + JPEG, etc. — but there’s currently no RAW support for Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop. The Canon Digital Photo Professional RAW processing tools are OK, but lack the depth of Adobe’s Camera RAW.

Metering, auto focus, and exposure compensation & bracketing: While we still only get the 9-point auto-focus (damnit!), there is a new ‘iCFL’ metering system in use, inherited from the Canon 7D. Basically, each of the 9 focus points collect a lot more information that’s then used to more-accurately expose your photos. From my tests, it does seem to be better and more reliable  than the 450D — but it’s pretty hard to test empirically. The AEB (exposure compensation/bracketing) now lets you go from -5 to +5, in steps of 1/2 or 1/3 — pretty neat, if you shoot into bright lights a lot (stage/theatre photography, in my case).

Custom functions: Some of the juicy high-end custom functions make their Rebel debut:  ’ISO expansion’ and ‘noise reduction’. With more pixels rammed every closer together, noise increases and image quality generally degrades — enter TECHNOLOGY! How better to counter technology issues with yet more technology? First, there’s ‘ISO expansion’ that lets you shoot at up to 12800 ISO speed, i.e. almost complete darkness with a large-aperture prime. There’s also on-camera noise reduction that seems to perform a lot better than the on-computer equivalent — you can enable noise reduction for all high-ISO shots, or just for long exposures. If you’ve used a digital camera in the dark, you’ve probably noticed the noise that creeps in — these new functions go a long way to making digital cameras better for night-time photography.

THE DAMN SHUTTER: The shutter is still loud enough to scare children from 100 meters. It’s a bit quieter than the 450D but not by much. Why does Canon give us such a noisy mirror mechanism when they’re capable of so much better? Lame.

Video

No doubt you’ve heard about the Canon 550D’s video capabilities. It was only a matter of time before the functionality dripped down from the 5D, to the 7D, and ultimately the 550D — you can now get a full-HD 1080p digital camera for just £700… crazy! And it’s pretty damn good at it too. Check out this little video clip:

Excuse the bed hair, but still — did you try it at 1080p? Full screen? (If your computer will even render it…) Anyway, the video functionality, in more detail:

HD, 1080p, 720p, etc: You can shoot video in all sorts of ways, with the 550D. Canon have learnt their mistake from the earlier video-shooting SLRs and given the 550D a full array of options: 1080p at 24/25fps (NTSC/PAL), 720p at 50/60FPS, and even a ‘digital zoom’ 640×480 resolution (which is kinda fun). Video clips are capped at 29 minutes and 59 seconds, which is 4GB at full 1080p.

Video quality (VQ?): I’m nothing more than an avid, amateur film maker, but the reaction of those that have seen my test 550D videos have been universally great. It’s simply flawless, 1920 x 1080 video. Just like usual film-making, the lens matters a lot. I’m not sure how else I can rate the video quality… it does exactly what it says on the box; that’s it.

Audio quality: The 550D has a forward-facing monaural microphone. It’s surprisingly good, though I haven’t tried it ‘at a distance’ — I can’t imagine it’s particularly directional. You can also hear a lot of noise from the wind in one my other videos. It was really, really windy though. Anyway, it’s more than enough for indoors and self-documenting work. There’s also an input for an external microphone (3.5mm jack).

Other bits: Video recording on an SLR is definitely a two-person thing. There’s no auto-focus, you see — well, there is, before you start shooting, but not once you press ‘record’. So you need a tripod, and depending on how bright it is, you might be trying to stay in a very shallow focus plane (look at my other test video to see how shallow the f1.4 focus is!) By default video recording is in ‘full auto’ mode, which basically chooses the ISO/aperture to match your framerate (24, 25, 50 or 60 FPS). You can switch it to ‘manual’, if you need to force a particularly wide/shallow depth of field.

Everything Else (appendix)

There are a few things that don’t really impact your use of the camera but are still worth noting, if only for a sake of completeness.

There’s a new LCD screen: It’s very nice, with lots of pixels and less glare than the 450 or 500D. It’s also the first 3:2 screen — i.e. wide-screen — so your images aren’t shrunk-to-fit any more! The new LCD screen is a real joy.

The digital menus have been enhanced: You can now access more ‘buttons’ through software — hit the new ‘Q’ button and you can change things via the LCD screen. Overall the menus are unchanged (though very busy, with all of the new video recording options), but with the new screen there’s some more real estate that is well-utilized.

Embed copyright info into your images: One of the smaller features to find its way from the higher-end Canon cameras is the ability to add your name and a custom copyright notification/message to every image your camera produces. It’s stored in the EXIF data for each image. Pretty neat!

Sample Images

I’ve only had the camera for a few days, so I haven’t had a chance to try every kind of condition yet. I’ll try to add more to this little gallery over the next few days and weeks. The various improvements to the sensor and the addition of some custom functions to the 550D are generally tailored towards more extreme use — low-light, especially. There’s also ‘Highlight Tone Priority’ (another custom function), but I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet — 7D users are reporting great results though, especially for candid/external portrait photography (weddings), so the 550D is probably just as good in that regard.

These photos are all taken on either the Sigma 50mm f1.4, or 10-20mm f4-5.6 lenses, and are straight out of the camera. Click for larger versions.

(Simulated fire, 50mm @ f/1.4, ISO-6400. Close up on the right)

Wide-angle night-time, City of London (The Royal Exchange), 12mm @ f/5, ISO-1600.

Just standard overcast light, 50mm, ISO-100, large aperture. Metering looking good.

Photo on the left looks a bit bright (but it’s accurate). Metering on the right looks pretty spot on, with dark/bright elements!

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If you have any questions about the camera, feel free to leave a comment — I’ll reply.

It’s funny how things go. I was reading something ‘on miracles’ recently — the general gist: we forget every moment that isn’t miraculous. Take this weekend for example — no less than five of my friends were in London, all for completely different reasons. We just… ended up there. All roads lead to London, or something. Most people would say ‘oh, what’re the chances?!?!’ but… think about it — think about all the times we haven’t all ended up in London. Are those miracles too? How about all the times we brushed our teeth at the same time, or watched a TV show?

It’s only special when observed. Miracles seem unlikely, but they’re just unexpected.

Sorry, that sounded a lot deeper in my head… it looks a bit trite down on paper. Ah well.

Wild weekend, anyway! Lots of walking, eating, and laying in bed. No sleeping though; I’m still not sleeping very well. Recently I replaced most of my bedding with really expensive Egyptian ‘300 thread count, long yarn’ cotton. I’d hoped it was something like that causing my quasi-insomnia… guess not. Turns out I didn’t sleep very well on a five-star super-deluxe mattress with an ‘OMG-this-is-so-lush’ (not my words) duvet. The breakfast though… the breakfast made up for the poor sleep. Seriously, check out a picture of the sitting room…

But it gets better — look at the ceiling above the sitting room…

Yeah… that ceiling is some 50 feet (15m) above you. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I love tall ceilings. There’s something about doors that are 15 feet high and fireplaces that you can walk under. Maybe it’s the being dwarfed that so appeals to me — a bit like the sensation when I see someone taller than me (very refreshing… and nice to not stick out quite so much…)

So I guess I owe you some bullet points, instead of some rambling thoughts from the weekend. Here goes.

• I finally got to wander around central London. Yeah… I live 30 minutes from the center of London, but I’ve never really got lost there. I used to traipse around it a bit when I was younger, with friends, but it’s not the same thing! I checked out all the monuments, and finally worked out how all the streets and parks connect around Leicester Square and Buckingham Palace. I had someone with me though, so I couldn’t get REALLY lost in the wending backstreets of old London… I must do that… soon.
• Finally, a five-star hotel… in LONDON! It’s not so impressive when almost every hotel in London is four- or five- star, but STILL! It was very, very posh. There was classical music genteelly oozing its way into the room when we entered. A card, written by hand by the manager, welcomed me to the hotel. There was even a little pouch of business cards with my name on them ‘Mr Sebastian Anthony, in residence, Threadneedles Hotel, direct dial number…’ – it was in the City of London, i.e. banking central. (Check the Google Maps imagery, so you get some idea of what the area looks like). As I said, I love big buildings.
• I saw Wicked… for the fourth time… Did you know there are now ‘premium tickets’? Or ‘more money than sense’ tickets, as the woman at the box office called them. £85! $130! Crazy shit, seriously. When I saw my first musical in the West End — ah, how fondly I remember thee! — it was only £40 for the top-top-top-mega-special tickets. That was only 10 years ago… — Wicked was great though. A black girl played Elphaba (Alexia Khadime) and she was awesome. Elphaba is classically a very souly part, kinda rocky (to contrast Glinda’s squeaky annoyingness), and damn did Alexia nail it. No one belts like a black woman, eh? The wizard aaaaan-aan-aand… I!
• The National Portrait Gallery is still very good. There are a lot of very good, free museums/galleries in the UK — the power of socialism, I guess — and the National Gallery (and its offspring) is probably the finest. The portrait gallery has some magnificent paintings, but more interestingly (at least for me), it also has some good photos. Only… I didn’t think the photographs were all that great… I was hoping to find inspiration, to improve my own portrait-shooting skills. No cigar. The paintings were probably more interesting and informative!

Darn, this was meant to be a short entry so I could catch up with other things. I have some photos (including a nice one of me naked, on a bed) coming up later today (52 Weeks), and tomorrow.

As I alluded to elsewhere, I’m now the owner of a very-hard-to-get-your-hands-on Canon 550D (Digital Rebel T2i). I think there’s only about 20 in the UK at the moment, so I should probably write a full review — but I just don’t have time. Perhaps after the weekend, if there are still no reviews up on the Internet.

In the mean time, here’s a test of the video/film functionality. This is recorded at 1080p ‘full HD’, but I messed it up somewhere between the camera and YouTube — thus the bad audio sync, and maybe some dropped frames.

(If you can’t see the video below, you need to view this on my blog.)

… and orated dramatically by me.

Slash fiction, or ’slash fan fiction’, is a dark and worrisome genre of literature. If fan fiction wasn’t bad enough — really, who cares what Snape does on his day off? — slash fiction usually involves the destruction of an entire fictional universe for the sole purpose of the writer (and, sadly, the readers) getting their jollies. Harry Potter, being the most successful series of all time, has attracted more than its fair share of slash fic: seriously, almost any ‘combo’ you can think of has been done: Ron and Harry, Harry and Snape, lots of Harry and Malfoy… Dumbledore and Hagrid… dragons and Hagrid…

You get the idea. Slash fic is nasty… which is why I’ve included a few quotes from my favourite Harry Potter flash fiction in this week’s soundboard. The five buttons on the right definitely class as ‘too much information’, and I wouldn’t click them at work. You should also check out Lilu’s blog for more TMI — again, when you get home.

So, as with last week’s Pillow Talk Soundboard, the instructions are as follows: click the buttons. You can click multiple buttons at the same time, but it’ll probably just be confusing. I’m particularly proud of the last few spells; maybe a future of voice acting awaits… or not.

If you can’t see the soundboard below, you need to visit my blog.

P.S. most of the slash fan fiction quotes came from an entry at Topless Robot. It’s quite the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read, and highly recommend you read it… if you like that kind of thing.

I’m still way behind on things, after being away for the weekend, so I’m simply going to wow you with lots of pretty photos — and a vaguely interesting breadcrumb of information.

First, the anecdote, about horses. I was talking to a cute Welsh birdie about horses, as one does, and the talk quickly shifted to the topic of herds. There were lots and lots of horses in the New Forest, but all in small groups of two or three. If you saw the horsie photo yesterday, you’ll get what I mean — why are they alone, in the middle of nowhere? The mare on the left is pregnant — ’so is that her mate on the right?’ I ask. Apparently not — female horses hang out together! The men only get called in to do the dirty when the mares are in season, otherwise… they have to go and sit alone somewhere, probably under a tree. Sucks to be them. The small clumps of horses come together at night, when they’re cold, to form a herd! Herds are led by the the most matronly mare — usually the one that kicks and bites the most.

And with that truly awesome bit of info to kick off your day, let’s get to the photos!

I’ve been experimenting with the 50mm landscape again, and — I hope you’ll agree — with quite pleasing results.

(My favourite of the day. 50mm lens, boo-ya!)

(I like how the horse on the right almost looks like a unicorn…)

(Looks a bit like a book cover or something…!)

(After the apocalypse… there will just be horses. This one’s a bit Wuthering Heights.)

(Bit boring this photo… but thought you might like to see just how few trees there are in the New Forest!)

(See, England can look expansive! They’re right there, in the middle. A rare glimpse at the sky too!)