[This photo contains a lot of pretty photos. Just scroll down if you don't want to read stuff.]

Before your very eyes the format of this blog is shifting. Tuesday will now be, ’til the day I die, the day I forget to charge my camera battery, or the apocalypse, ‘Photogasm Day’ (I reserve the right to change the name at a later date if it no longer suits the image I am trying to project…)

Let me tell you about the new format for Tuesday!

First, I’ll link to the new installment of whatever photography project I’m working on — which is 52 Weeks at the moment.

Then I tell you how my current photographic projects are doing. 52 Weeks is going well! I think Abi and I are both surprised that we are a) actually keeping to the Monday schedule and b) still friends. There have been a few touch-and-go moments when she’s got all diva, but mostly things have been plain-sailing! For next week, I have a great homage to Halloween planned. All I can tell you now is that it’ll involve a large pumpkin and my face. It could go monumentally wrong. Those self-portraits you see at the bottom of the page may turn out to be the last known examples of what my face looked like before the Pumpkin Incident.

Next, to excite and tantalise, I’ll tell you about any upcoming photographic stuff. Which currently… is not much. I’m pushing my boundaries though. Pointing my camera at things I wouldn’t even have glanced at previously. I have promised a few local girls (I know that makes them sound like prostitutes, but they’re not — at least as far as I know) some portrait work. Or at least photos of them. Not necessarily portraiture. And I actually want to get out on the STREETS and take some photos there, the cut and thrust, the back-alleys. I suppose I should go into London to do that, or Brighton. There’s this whoooole area of photography (photojournalism, candid portraiture) just waiting to be… shot…  and I’ve not done much of it at all — and I really should do more of it! You saw some stuff in the summer (the Ray Ban Kid), and a few last week, but other than that… not much. So you might see some pretty-local-girl photos in the coming days and weeks.

Talking of local, I also want to get some more of my photos hanging  in nearby cafes and cinemas, or galleries.

And finally, in each and every Tuesday Photogasm, there will be lots of juicy photos: ones I’ve taken in the past week, or shots I’ve dug up from the archives. Enjoy!

Note: Some of these haven’t made it to Flickr yet. Consider them an ‘exclusive’. Also, in the bird photos, are those crows, or something else?

(This one came out really red for some reason… not sure why. It’s over-exposed I think, and not perfectly-sharp. Not that I’m complaining… it’s cool! The leaves in the top right are almost the right colour, incidentally.)

This last one is the first of my ‘50mm landscapes’ — an entirely new concept for me. Landscapes… but with a telephoto lens. Makes things feel more… compressed? Compact? More detail, less negative space. Incredibly hard to take too… but I think this photo proves that the concept works, so I’ll be taking some more!

And that’s this week’s Photogasm.

[As always, these photogasms contain a lot of photos. If you can't be bothered with the pesky 'reading thing', just scroll down.]

Continuing in the same vein as last week, here’s another photogasm! This week was helped along by a powercut on Sunday. For three hours. It’s amazing how little you can do when you have no electricity — but it’s also humbling to realise just how much you can do too! (How deep was that…?)

Of course I sat on my laptop for an hour, until the battery ran down. Used my mobile phone to connect to the Internet even! But when the screen finally blinked out to black, I had to do something. It is at times like these that I really love being a photographer: I just grab my camera and go outside. And below… you can find the results of the powercut photo session!

But first, yesterday’s 10 of 52, in which I balance a pumpkin on my face:

Normally I would just link you to the project’s blog but this time… well… you can probably imagine why I want to share it here on the front page of this site.

And with that out of the way — and yes, it really did hurt as much as you think it did — on with the rest of the Photogasm.

Upcoming projects: Still not much. I have some more money coming in from some clients that are finally paying (when is six months ever an OK period to settle invoices…?) — and the tech blogger writing job thingee is going to be more lucrative than I thought (I seem to be quite good at it — who woulda thunk it?) — soooo… I will have money to frame some prints! And hang them in places! And sell some more photos before Christmas! Or failing that, give everyone photos for Christmas!! My actual photographical skill (is that the right term?) is coming along at an alarming rate. It’s almost as if each photo I take is better than the last. Scary. How good will I end up…?!

Ah, yes, and one of the girls I was meant to photograph is proving elusive. More on that later.

And now… the gasm itself:

As always, each photo has some kind of note attached — hover your mouse over each one to find out more! Again, some ‘blog exclusives’. Some will turn up on Flickr, some won’t.

(I love the moss in the foreground in both of those shots)

(Which one do you prefer…?)

And to finish… because, let’s face it, I’m a big, fat narcissist… another self-portrait from my dark dining room — long exposure, but super-steady hands!

Don’t you just love the phone on the wall?

I actually have more self-portraiture to come but two is quite enough for one blog post. Keep an eye out on Flickr for the rest.

[Lots of pretty photos if you just scroll down. But there's only 400 words or so, if you fancy it.]

The last couple of months have seen me trying to use my 50mm and 100mm lenses a lot more. I don’t know why — probably because I used my landscape lens almost exclusively for the first half of the year. I guess you can get bored of one particular style of art, if you do it enough and don’t mix things up?

For those of you that aren’t photographers, a little lesson on lens ’sizes’: your natural eyesight is about equivalent to the view arc/angle of a 50mm lens — i.e. the photos that were taken with a 50mm lens look most like you would see with your own eyes. We call the 50mm the ‘normal lens‘.

If you go wider than 50mm you approach ‘wide-angle’ and ‘landscape’ lenses. At 35mm things still look fairly normal, but towards 15-20mm things become very ’stretched’ or distorted, because you are trying to focus almost 180 degrees of view onto a flat plane.

If you go narrower into the telescopic range — anything over 80mm — the field of view shrinks to just a few degrees. Telescopic photos feel very ‘condensed’, or even just ‘dense’ or ‘thick’. It’s all an effect of the light, and quite hard to explain — but just remember that depending on what kind of lens you use, you can get a very different feeling in the photo. There’s a reason portraits are taken with 50 or 80mm lenses. If you ever see a portrait that feels ‘weird’ it’s usually because they’ve been shot with a weird lens (alien-head is a classic example, if shot from above with a landscape lens)

Anyway, after shooting lots of very compressed and tight photos (at least by my standards, as I’m a landscape kiddie really) with the 50 and 100mm lenses, I whipped my landscape lens out (which is 16mm!) and headed into the countryside to take some photos. If you’ve seen yesterday’s 11 of 52, you’ve already seen one of the photos in this set, but I’ve included it for a sense of completeness. The whole set will eventually find its way to my online gallery, if you wish to buy a print (or two). In my humble opinion, I think the entire set would look rather spectacular on YOUR wall.

Without further ado: It was Autumn, the last few leaves barely clinging to the boughs. It was sunset and there were actually pretty clouds for once. I think the results speak for themselves. I bet you had no idea England could be so pretty but without being GREEN. So, with hints of orange, russet and pinky hues, I give you Tuesday’s Landscape Photogasm (#1).

Note: Titles or extra details can be found by hovering over each image.

That’s all for this week. Tomorrow… hm, I’m not sure yet. Oh, and if you’re interested in buying a print of one of these, let me know — I will be offering some kind of Christmas/Festive Season discount soon, so I might as well start it with your purchase…!

[Lots of pretty photos if you scroll down. If you fancy some ranting on photography, read on...!]

As I write this it’s 4am… so, again, excuse any mistakes I might make. I feel fairly coherent, but it’s just the silence before the storm. The sleep deprivation will catch up with me in a moment and I’ll start jibber-jabbering about useless bollocks. Oh, I might start writing chiefly in British-English too, but that won’t be a problem, a’ight? It actually takes quite conscious effort to write in universal English that everyone can understand! I don’t think I’ve written ‘bloody’ even once in the last year of blogging — that’s how dedicated I am to making my blog accessible…!

The photos this week come from the last four days — I was at a LAN party, if you didn’t already know. I had a go at photo journalism. Or simply ‘people photography’ I guess.

I’ll just come out and say it: I find it so, so hard for me to point a camera at someone. Perhaps because I hate people pointing cameras at me, and I’m a deeply sympathetic person. I’m quiet, because I hate noisy people. I don’t waste other people’s time, because I hate it when people waste mine.

So… to circumvent this… I usually try to ‘work my way into’ someone’s presence. If I want to take a photo of someone, I’ll simply hang out with them for a while. And then slowly… I’ll just fade into the background. Once people are comfortable with my presence it’s much easier to take photos. This can take some work, as I’m rather foreboding — I am very much a ‘foreground’ person, as opposed to the background-occupying grey-clothing types. It’s not through choice either. I’m just 6′5″ (197cm!!), hairy and stick out like a sore thumb.

There’s probably some ‘knack’ to taking photos of people. Getting people comfortable with you pointing a camera at them must be a large part of the trick. Me being comfortable at doing the pointing is probably the other major factor… but hey, I’ll get there. I just need to take more photos of people! Easy!

These photos should give you a rough idea of what a LAN party’s like. They tell a story, I guess.

I have some other ‘bonus’ photos (of me!!) that I will throw up later today, as I want to keep this post purely LAN-oriented.

Now time to rest the ol’ noggin so that I can write legibly tomorrow…

Love ‘n bubbles, dunked and dolloped,
-S

P.S. You can hover your mouse over each photo for my notes/observations.

(Is that a boy or girl? I am still undecided…)

You probably gathered from yesterday’s 13 of 52, that the photographic pickings are pretty slim at the moment.

It’s grey, windy, horrible — there’s about two hours of good daylight if I’m lucky, which makes photo-shootin’ pretty hard. I’m reduced to internal and low-light stuff now, unless the clouds clear and we get some nice, clear, wintry afternoons in the following weeks. But that’s OK — I haven’t done any night-time photography in ages, and trying to get the most out of overcast afternoons is my forte! (By virtue of living in overcast England…) That doesn’t mean the results are very good mind you — it just means that you get something rather than nothing. But you can see the photos in a little bit and decide for yourself.

Today, just to ram a nail in the coffin no doubt, it pissed down. Real rain — not the horizontal kind that we usually get. Just WHOOMPF, bouncing off roofs and roads and cars. The thundering pitter-patter that drowns out music and scares the cat. But who cares! Vertical rain meant I could get my camera and umbrella and go for a walk!

So in the name of art, and wanting to stretch myself a little, I give you ‘Catching Rain’. A series of images depicting England under the veil of cloud and assault of rain. If I’ve done my job right, you should feel like you’re being gently hit by soft, snow-like rain as you look at the following photos.

As always, hover over a photo to see my notes.

(That table is where I shot the pumpkin-on-face photos, incidentally)

(Look at the red and green droplets of water clinging to the branch! Depends what’s in the background. Cute!)

Which one looks better…? I’m actually torn between them. Both look great. Let’s just pretend there are two Vespas and this here is a diptych of them both…!

Photos! Of PEOPLE!

They, the victims, probably didn’t know at the time that they were going to end up on my blog, but, well… I’m not going to give you their names, and they’re all pretty people, so… it should be OK! One of them will likely be a celebrity in a year or two, so hopefully, when that occurs, I’ll be able to make a little money from the photos…

This week’s been pretty crazy. Again, the weather has been shit, so the photography has been hard work. Yesterday’s ‘Mad Mexican‘ had to be done with studio lights and reflectors, something I’m not very comfortable with. But I have to learn, so perhaps it’s good that England is currently the Land of Eternal Twilight. (Seriously, I woke up at 11am yesterday and it was actually DARK… ugh.)

But yeah, crazy: money is starting to roll in. Photography and writing work is continuing its slow but incessant dribble. Job offers and the like. Out-reaches from the tech and games sectors. It’s still early days, and I did think this would happen, but I didn’t think it would happen quite so quickly. Oh well. Certainly not going to complain…

This week’s photos come from a crazy school fair. Unlike most school fairs that occur at the peak of summer, this one’s in the winter. I don’t know why. Probably so that you can partake in the delight of roasted chestnuts and listen to the deep, throbbing lull of the tuba around the camp fire (really). My mother lured me to it by promising that people would be prancing around in weird outfits and there would be mad-sights a-plenty. But… alas… there weren’t. Just normal-looking people going about doing normal things, like… talking… and eating food.

There was a fun little event however, where literally hundreds of children made gingerbread houses. You paid a few pounds and got given a bag of gingerbread slices, a pot of white icing and a cup of candies. You then had 20 minutes to fashion a house of gingerbread and tacky, ’structural’ icing before you were man-handled out by harried-looking staff. The rooms (there were 3!) were then prepared for the next batch of keen gingerbread architects extraordinaire.

So I took photos of the gingerbread houses, the making of, and the frivolity that ensued. And I also snuck in a photo of a really cute child. Here we go:

All natural light/straight out of the camera, incidentally. The opposing windows made it rather hard to get a good photo actually. Lots and lots of reflected red/yellow light from the furniture/curtains/cakes — fun!

(I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have ’shooting’ and ‘gasm’ in the same sentence. I can’t really call it a ‘meteorgasm’ for obvious reasons. Say it out loud… go on… Loud enough for anyone nearby to overhear you.)

Bit of a smorgasbord of photos this week. It’s winter, so everything happens really quickly — when the sun’s out, it’s beautiful, but five minutes later it can be dismal and grey and rainy. The sun is setting at 3:50pm or something crazy — when you wake up between 12 and 1pm, that makes the apparent length of days very short. Fortunately I have these blog-writing sessions to add structure to my life, otherwise I might hibernate or something…

I’ve been listening to Marvin Gaye again, almost non-stop. I think it’s turning into some kind of addiction, some kind of need – I haven’t put a song on ‘repeat’ since I was 16, but I must’ve listened to ‘Please Stay‘ 25 times in the last few days. It has only avoided tonight’s playlist because I’ve discovered another great album by Gaye called Here, My Dear. But I digress…  as I alluded to yesterday, I should have a (dare I say it) photo shoot with a cute girl at the end of the week. Little does she know just how easy these photos are going to be, because she’s stupendously beautiful and photogenic. But hey, I need the confidence-boost, the ego-stroking, so that in the future I can take photos of ugly people!

Big mish-mash of photos today then: the meteor shower of December 12-14 (Geminids), an ‘out-take’ from 52 weeks, and a couple of ‘geometric experiments’.  I’ve been trying to catch meteors for a few years now, but it’s hard here in south England. Lots of light pollution (I have an airport very close by). Then there’s the matter of clouds and full moons and all that jazz — this year was meant to be the best ever for Geminid sightings, but I was still hampered by cloud and sub-zero temperatures.

Yes, I stood outside for about three hours, and all I got was three photos. I couldn’t feel my toes for about two hours after I came back inside (it was the coldest night of the year so far… brr! ice on my boots!) They’re not even that great photos, but I’ve included a couple in today’s Shooting Stargasm.

The geometric photos are just… experiments. I liked the light, and I’m fast learning that I should just TAKE PHOTOS when there’s any kind of light to be had, otherwise I might not get another chance before another Tuesday Photogasm comes around. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I might be a very good ‘available light’ photographer. It’s dawning on me that this may indeed be the case… (buy my photos, because I have a nagging sensation that they’ll double in price by this time next year).

Enjoy the photos! Think of me freezing my rapidly-gangrenous nuts outside just for the art.

As always, hover over each image for specific notes.

(Admire Canis Major on the far left! Two stars of Orion’s Belt are just visible)

Phew! That was a rather eclectic mix. Now I’m going to shave off my Hitler beard and think of something disturbing for Thursday.

I think this week I’ve taken more photos than any other period in my life — other than when I’m travelling of course, but it’s not really comparative. When I travel, my camera’s nearly always out — this week was my first taste of what being a working photographer might actually feel like.

The whole ooh-I’ll-just-grab-my-camera thing was obviously aided in the most part by the snow we’re currently experiencing. And the winter sun… my God, the winter sun. I assume the spectacle of the low-angle sun has something to do with our latitude — we’re fairly far north here, so in the winter, when it’s late, the sun hits the sky at a very slight angle. The colours, the pastel hue, the glorious gorgeousness that results… well, just wait and see.

Then, after that, we have the pretty girl that I’ve mentioned a couple of times. I finally turned my hand to available light portraiture, and God it’s fun, and really, really hard. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to try it! (Photography’s a bit easy, y’see, so I yearn for anything that can spice it up a little!) I’ve taken a few photos of people in situ over the years, mostly family and very close friends, but never a proper session — just me, my camera, and her. When I arrived she hadn’t even got dressed, or done her make-up. So we chatted. I had some idea of how the patter would go. I’m good with people; charismatic, good at instilling reassurance, safety. But this was my first time, so I really had no idea what the frack to do. I kind of knew what was expected of me, a bit like sex in that regard, but I had no idea what she would do, or how it would actually play out. How about this? ‘Er, yeah! More of that!’ How about if I do something like…? <click> Props? Shall we try props? Smoking? <snap> Change of outfit? ‘Sure, I’ll just make some tea…’

And so it went. If I was using my film camera, I would’ve churned through quite a few reels. 2 hours passed way too quickly; and not once did I say ‘yeah baby, yeah!’ despite the temptation. I think I got very lucky with the model; I’ve been thinking about making her my muse. Every artist needs a muse, right?

An eclectic mix of photos follows, but I believe you will find every single one of them both delicious and easy on the eye. Each image has some notes attached; just hover over them.

(Yes, the pink you see on the horizon was even more beautiful in real life. Are you jealous?)

(I’ve been working on my black/white conversion, as you can see.)

* * *

This is just a small sample — I surprised myself with just how many good photos there were from just two hours of chatting, faffing and photographing. There’s a couple more (my favourites) up on Facebook, and I’ll probably throw some up on Flickr over the rest of the week.

I guess the obvious question is: who wants to pay me for a PHOTO SESSION?! In the comfort of your own home! You make the pretty (?) while I make the tea!

No, not crocs like the ones in my full-frontal photo… crocs, like… Crocodile Dundee! This post references yesterday’s post on The 2010 Tour.

The next few weeks will probably see a flurry of posts about Africa and Asia. You’ll have to forgive me if that kind of thing doesn’t interest you — but this blog’s about what interests me! I’m sure I’ll throw in a few delicious curve balls to keep you on your toes anyway.

Unlike the Faroe Islands, a grand tour to either Asia or Africa requires a lot of planning. The Faroes, by virtue of their Danish owners, are one of the most developed nations in the world. The Asian countries rank higher on the ‘Quality-of-life’ index, but that might simply be because most of Africa hasn’t been ranked yet. I have a nagging feeling that Asia is probably safer… if it wasn’t for the earthquakes and tsnuamis and suicide bombings…

Only Mozambique and Tanzania are on the ‘least developed countries’ list (and Malawi and Madagascar, if I visit those) — and even then they’re doing better than the central African countries, with regard to GDP per capita and disease and genocidal maniacs. Malawi and Tanzania are both meant to be very safe. Madagascar has some really funky rules/customs incidentally, called ‘fady’ — in some towns you’re not allowed to wear specific colours, or eat certain foods. They’re handed down from the ancestors, or something like that.

Language-wise, most of east Africa speaks English. It’s not the ‘common’ language — more the stuff reserved to those that have been to college, or work in a modern sector. Short of learning Swahili, there isn’t really a better option though. I imagine most touristy folk speak English too. Over in Asia, the islands (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and I think Singapore) speak very good English. Not so great in Korea, Thailand, Cambodia — but if you wave some cash around, you can probably get most things simply by pointing. Including women (incidentally, you can get jailed for a looong time if you sleep with the wrong girls in most of Asia — not such a problem in Africa, but they’ve got HIV instead.)

Now, because I’m a photographer, I should probably highlight one ‘beautiful vista’ each time I make a post like this — first, so that you can whet your appetite; second, so that I can plan how best to photograph the landscapes of Africa… or Asia!

Because it’s easy, I’m going to start with Tanzania and their world-famous, omg-it’s-the-prettiest-place-in-the-world, Ngorongoro Crater — aka The Cradle of Civilization (hominid remains from 3 million years ago have been found there). With a name like that, it better deliver, right? Well… it does:

(Click for larger)

Within the crater there are zebra, gazelles, wildebeest (never understood why it’s spelt ‘beest’…) — even some rhinos and hippopotamuses!

The crater is a caldera, (102 square miles), created by a giant volcano that exploded and then collapsed in on itself. A pretty frackin’ big volcano. The fact that the crater is so ‘closed in’ apparently causes problems for some of the animals there — the lion colonies there are inbred! It’s just like the deep south…

There are tons more photos over on the Wiki page, and I’m sure on Flickr too — go have a look, if you can’t wait for my TOUR. I almost want to go purely because it’s called Ngorongoro — get this, the name comes from the sound of the drums used by a group of Masai warriors called ilkorongoro. They conquered the crater back in 1800, apparently.

* * *

Anyway, with all the research (and some really pissy-grey weather that needs to stop already), I haven’t had a chance to take any pretty pictures this week. Unless you think a knife-wielding psycho is pretty (what were the chances?) — in which case you’re in luck!

(Black and white version over on Flickr. I like my eyelashes in the B&W one…)

(Stick a knife in me, I’m dun…)

(I’m holding a knife up! But you can’t see it, so this just looks like a stressed profile shot. Don’t think I’ve shown you my profile before, so… ta’da!)

Now to plan some kind of African safari slash/fan-fiction for TMI Thursday…

I was a little bit torn when titling (heehee) this post. Originally, I had planned to paint my face brown, make myself one of those conical rice-farmer hats and take some self-portraits in my garden. But Abi told me I couldn’t: ‘That’s just plain wrong, Seb. Think of the children.’ — and she’s right, it would’ve been completely insensitive and political suicide… but it would’ve been really damn funny. Ah well. Maybe I can still get a shot of myself in a conical rice-farmer hat when I visit ASIA!

Last week I looked at Africa, this week it’s Asia’s turn.

As a reminder, if you haven’t read about my Grand 2010 Tour, the plan is to cover south-east Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines — you get the idea. The more I think about it, I’m pretty sure South Korea and Japan (and China?) will have to wait for another trip. I could however hop down to New Zealand, stay there for a few weeks, and then over to Los Angeles (there’s a big ‘around America’ tour I’ve been thinking about for years, I’m just not sure when to do it!)

Anyway, Asia, after a little more research, is a lot more affluent than Africa — probably because of the secular, capitalistic powerhouses of Korea, Japan and Singapore. It’s a little rougher up on the mainland: if I go to Cambodia or Vietnam life is dirtier and more dangerous — but they have ELEPHANTS (so does Thailand, mind you… so I could probably just skip over potential-death-by-land-mine and head for the transsexuals of Bangkok.)

Re: Thailand, there probably isn’t much you don’t already know through the wonders of the modern media. It’s a melting pot of everything and anything, where east and west culture collides and something not wholly human emerges in the aftermath. Thailand appeals to my hedonistic streak because I get the feeling you can ‘find’ anything there: salvation and debauchery, food and drink — but also beautiful vistas and remnants of ancient civilisations. I guess it’s a ‘gateway’ country, much like Greece or Turkey — the multitudinous influences from every other culture in the vicinity have surely left their mark on Thailand.

For some reason (I’m going to research it more, but if anyone has the answer, let me know), the entirety of east Asia is really populated. Thailand with 63 million people has the same population as the UK, Vietnam has 85 million, the Philippines 92 million — and Indonesia has a stonking 231 million! At least Malaysia and Cambodia are fairly sparsely populated, so I’ll have a chance to spread my legs there. Is it simply because they’re really big countries? And I know less-developed nations tend to have more children for lots of reasons… maybe they grew big in the last 100 years, and now they’re slowing down as their ‘development index‘ increases? Oh, incidentally, Singapore is the third most-dense place in the world… more so than Hong Kong. It’s going to be a tight squeeze to get me in. 19,000 people per square mile, in Singapore — 12,000 per square mile in London, and 5,500 in urban New York City, by comparison. (They also speak Singlish in Singapore… which I am quite eager to hear! The other south-east Asia islands have similar pidgin languages right? Indo-English, Malay-English?)

Did you know that Russia has 11 time zones? And you thought scheduling in the US was hard! They go all the way from UTC+2 to UTC+12… which means Russia runs almost half the circumference of Earth… eep. Just threw that one in there, sorry. (Seriously, the amount of random shit in my head…)

It’s now time for this week’s ’site of photographic interest’, this week… Sumatra!

Sumatra

The first thing that caught my eye was the name: ‘Coffee!!’ Sumatra, along with Java (the main Indonesian island) are two of the most recognisable names when it comes to coffee. It’s no surprise tho’, considering all of the world’s coffee is grown within a narrow band around the equator — coffee beans come from trees that do best in hot-and-wet rainforests (and incidentally, the coffee infographic/comic by Oatmeal is very, very good).

So, it’s rainy, quite heavily forested and also right smack-bang on a fault line. The west ridge of the island is one long line of volcanoes! And there are elephants! (I’d really like to ride an elephant — I can’t think of a more apt mount for my gargantuan self.) Just look at this photo by Hank Hammatt (I don’t know who he is, but he takes nice photos it seems):

That’s Sumatra. I don’t even know how such a landscape is possible. It looks like a painting. God knows, really, but I want to find out!

* * *

Anyway, this week you get some totally unrelated photos. We had a light snow a few days ago which started to look really pretty when the sun eventually came out. They’re just assorted photos from around my garden and estate, and all using a 50mm lens in the hope of getting a little better at using it!

(In another photo you can see the number of rings… it was only about 60 or 70 years old. Quite young for a fallen tree!)

(I like the streaks of snow-free grass, from where sun has shone from between tall trees to the right)

(Look! A little… blob of snow!)

Now to brainstorm a disgusting story involving Vietcong rice-farmers and Japanese school girls…