poppies and other (dry) things

Image | May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 | andy townend

People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I have neglected my photography (and writing), and you my readers (those who may still be here) for a while.

So, on a hot (thirty degrees) late Spring day, I took off along the local track that always has a story to tell, each season offering a new and different tale.

Today that tale was of desiccated vegetation, and poppies, just past their prime.

*all images made with Nikon D850 and AF-S Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8E ED VR lens*

misty meanderings

Image | December 17, 2023 | andy townend

Flowers scattering –
The water we thirst for
Far off, in the mist

– Kobayashi Issa

*images made with Nikon D850 and AF-S Nikon 35mm 1.4G lens*

out (again) in the midday sun

Image | October 3, 2023December 30, 2023 | andy townend

You always own the option of having no opinion.
There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control.
These things are not asking to be judged by you.
Leave them alone

– Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

It has been a long time since I posted here actively, or at all, and I do keep promising to remedy that.

For several years these pages, and others, have sustained and inspired me through difficult times.

So, with no promises, I’m back for a moment, perhaps longer.

The images which follow were captured on a walk on Saturday, 30 September. The skies were a deep blue, the temperature was around 33C and some, who saw my related posts on Facebook, asked where I was. The answer was not Australia, or somewhere in Africa, as some reasonably surmised. No, I was a short walk away from home in the province of Salamanca, on the last day in September. The dusty red paths a testament to the reality of climate change.

There is no particular theme or message in my photos.

They are simply what caught me attention (again) on a well trodden path…

There are, of course some (unintended) themes, notably barbed wire, and an impaled coke can which seems to have developed a life of its own.

It is good to write and shoot again.

Be seeing you.

*all images made with my fujifilm x100f and its fixed 23mm f/2 lens, minimally edited in Lightroom with Fujifilm’s luscious velvia profile*

Under these skies…

Image | December 23, 2022December 30, 2023 | andy townend

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Images from a well travelled path, each season something different, and yet the song remains the same.

Under these cloud splattered big blue skies, in this place, there is plenty of time (and space) to think.

About what would make things right (because, they aren’t).

Images made with Nikon D850 with AF-S Nikon 14-24mm 1:2.8G ED lens.

autumnal thoughts

Image | October 25, 2021February 27, 2022 | andy townend

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house
– Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

Continue reading →

Ominous Fade

Image | January 30, 2021February 27, 2022 | andy townend

Is there any phrase more ominous than “you need to see exactly what you’ve done”?

– Stephen King, 11/22/63

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GARGABETE

Image | January 24, 2021February 27, 2022 | andy townend

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.
― Jack Kerouac

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In the middle of winter

Image | January 9, 2021February 27, 2022 | andy townend

“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate.
This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now.
In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus, L’été