Stretched too thin, dramatic greens and goodbye Facebook

Solstice is almost upon us. Hard to believe the nights begin to draw in from later this week. I thought these photos would show you what the skies have been like lately around here. Dramatic.

Still, my sweetie and I found we had a few hours spare by ourselves today to go into the Dorset outback and climb a giant hill (not really suitable for Rubin’s little legs). We both feel called to reconnect with our spiritual places at these points of the wheel. When I suggested a trip to Hod Hill today, turns out he’d been thinking something similar.

Hod Hill was once an Iron Age Hill Fort, and before that there was supposedly a Bronze Age settlement there. And when the Romans came along, they rather took to it too. Today, it was only us. Once we’d struggled to the top, we collapsed on the grass in our own separate kinds of contemplation (mine involves playing with cameras, his involves communing with insects).

I find places like this so beautiful and powerful. But I cannot always figure out how to convey that in a photograph. There is a lack of ‘subject’ matter for the camera, just huge swathes of green. This should be interesting enough in itself but I end up taking lots of shots with my Nikon that all look rather boring. Today I’d even taken my large zoom lens to see if I could capture objects from the surrounding views, but the most interesting images were the ones I took with my iPhone.

Something about the Hipstamatic App added great drama to the greens, and the subtle vignetting round the edges made the simple tree, or path, in the middle of the image seem more purposeful, as if part of a rural narrative. The green cast of this app also turned a clever trick on the clouds, which I was losing in the Nikon lens.

Summer has wound me up to it’s peak, and I am tired, strung-out. Stretched too thin. Like butter over too much toast (think that was one of Bilbo’s lines in Lord of the Rings I). I look forward to the downturn of the wheel now, towards Equinox, when all shall be in balance again.

On a different note, I have finally quit Facebook. Hurrah. That place was becoming like a zoo. Noisy noisy – people shouting rudely about themselves or their lives. Making me feel like I need to compete. I know that’s my own flaw to deal with, but I find it’s a lot more peaceful just to get out of the ring.

Sadly, it means I’ve lost a whole bunch of blog visitors, as testified to by my insidious WordPress Stats. I shouldn’t peak, I know! Vaingloriousness shall lead to ruin. But I felt it would be even worse vanity to publicize my imminent departure from Facebook on said site. I hope some friends will find me here, if they should think to come looking.

Tagged as: 2011, Dorset, Facebook, Hipstamatic, Hod Hill