Sunday 10 January 2021

Ways of Seeing

There's still snow on the ground. For once, I'm not worried how I'm going to get around. I've nowhere to go. I said in an earlier post how I thought being 'snowed in' was like being locked down but I've come to think it goes deeper than that. Snow creates a 'new normal' all of its own. Sometimes you can still make out the shape of things under the snow, like furniture in an empty house, covered in dust-sheets. Beyond that, all the elements of the outside world have been blanked out and reduced to memory.   Roads have become impassable. 

In some countries, white is the colour of mourning. They say this is because it represents purity and rebirth. I keep telling myself this.

Look at it closely though, as we all know, and snow becomes a mass of countless unique crystals. So, white emptiness or crystal garden, what you see depends on how you look. And here, looking out of the window, I can either stare at the blankness or fall back on my inner resources, such as they are.

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Mrs C's wildlife camera has produced some intriguing shots of tits flying. Birds stood on the ground or holding on to branches and feeders can look cute. But this is not how they spend most of their time. When they move around, in the air, they do so so fast we can only glimpse them. Capture them with a camera and we begin to see the fantastic world they inhabit.  It's a bit like the snow: it depends on how you look.





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29 comments:

  1. Like many things, it's not what happens, but how we choose to see it.

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    1. True. Although a lot of the time I think we're not aware that we ARE choosing - we just think we're seeing what's there!

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  2. Replies
    1. It seems to be. We were pleasantly surprised.

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  3. You remind me how much I love the quiet after snow. The white hush of the world. Beautiful action shots of the birds.

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    1. Thanks for that. The action shots astonished us, too, when we went through what the camera had 'caught'.

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  4. Agree that one views snow so differently when one has not got to go out in it. I have enjoyed your today's UTube about the Essex filter beds - - I really felt I was on that walk with him. Loved the replica Viking Longboat.

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    1. Good, isn't it? There are hundreds of his films on YouTube.

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  5. Ways of Seeing. The great work of John Berger. Are you familiar with it? It was a set text when I was an art student.

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    1. Yes. That's what I nicked the title from!

      Great bloke.

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  6. I was disappointed to see the snow was all gone here, when I woke this morning, but at least it meant I could get out for a run.

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    1. It's a long time since I ran in the snow. I always used to find it could mess with joints, tendons and things, all the having to move at funny angles to avoid slipping.

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  7. Your post made me think. How I see things. Still thinking!

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  8. Yep. So many ways of seeing. That was my second walk with John Rogers. Thank you for bringing him to my attention again. Love the music that accompanies his walks. Music and walking and snowy days and birds. Thank you so much.

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    1. Great, going for walks with John Rogers. I think I counted there were at least 300 such videos on his YouTube channel!

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  9. I love your descriptions of the snow and the birds in flight. It is in how we look. I always enjoy the way snow turns the world into a magical place. Those pictures of the birds are excellent!

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    1. Thank you. It must be great to be able to move about in the air like that. Seeing how they move through the air is like seeing how dolphins move through the sea.

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  10. Those tiny glimpses of the bigger picture can change everything, can't it? Pictures of snowcovered vistas are lovely, but a tiny glimpse of a single snowflake before it melts is pure magic.

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    1. It is. I've not tried magnifying a snowflake for a long, long time. Perhaps I should, before it all melts.

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  11. I have always been fascinated by birds and I think I would love to get to spy on them
    as you are. Thanks for sharing. Perhaps a wildlife camera is in my future.

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    1. I think you can get something like that and an SD card to go with it for around 50 quid.

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  12. yes snow looks very different from different perspectives.

    Lovely photos of the blue tits too,

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    1. There are different words for different kinds and various icy manifestations. My favourite is sastrugi.

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  13. We had good fun with ours last year on infra-red in the night watching cats, mice and hedgehogs.

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    1. Interesting. We've not tried it at night yet.

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  14. I love a proper blanketing of snow, it simplifies and refreshes the landscape. A different matter for those who have to go out and work in it!
    Wonderful to capture the birds if flight. I'm tempted to buy a wildlife camera. What make is Mrs C's?

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    1. It's a Campark. They cost just under 50 quid. You have to buy an SD card and some batteries too.

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  15. There have been wonderful snow pictures of Yorkshire on the net, but the most beautiful were not snow but hoar frost on the Marlborough Downs. A photo captures the beauty but it never captures the cold felt...

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