Chicks Rock ‘n Rule? or That Damn Chicken Farmer!

One of the many great features of our holiday place in Normandy is the beautiful landscape surrounding us. It is a varied and undulating scenery; crop fields and large grazing fields for the dairy herds broken up by small woods, copses and hedgerows. The local farmers manage their land very well; they cut the grass along the roads and they chop down trees on a regular basis, letting nothing go to waste. All the wood is used either for fences and similar, or for stoves like ours, at a cost of €50 per cubic metre. If you buy larger quantities you get a better price.

  

We like to think that our farmer friends look after the environment in an excellent way, although they sometimes dump all sorts of rubbish in funny places. There is a natural rhythm to the agricultural year with sound old farming practices. This time of year is particularly suited to maintenance, repairing and forestry, apart from the milking every morning at seven and every evening at six.

Then there is the EU, the European Union, and the co-ordination of, in particular, agriculture; what to grow, how much to grow, subsidies for certain crops, subsidies for NOT growing certain crops, rules about raising animals, large and small, and the space they need, i.e. their own creature comfort zone. And this is where I have an issue with the chicken farmer over the hill.

Like so many farmers he has branched out, but his main business is still fowl. He now seems to be expanding his chicken division. Not only will he be feeding up more chickens, but he needs to stick to, possibly new, EU rulings regarding the personal space each individual chick is entitled to. So his two big chicken barns with their characteristic feeding towers close to the family home will now be joined by three new barns on the other side of the road. Tons and tons of earth have been shifted in the last few months, the ground has been levelled and the foundations now bear witness to what we can expect in the future. I am not concerned with the smell or the sound because these buildings will be situated several hundred metres away from any public road.

As my regular readers know, we like to go for walks all around our little hamlet. Just up the hill from us we often stop to take in the views, just a little short of the said chicken farm. If we look over the farm we can see “for miles and miles”. If we look down to the left we have one of our absolute favourite views, that is, until now.

Even approaching this beautiful hill from the other side, like we do when we arrive on holiday, fills us with joy and anticipation. But now, he has ruined our view. Just look at it!

On the other hand, in his defence, I have to admit he should get some credit for creating this bird and fish pond by the road some years ago.

But he is ruining OUR VIEW, buuuhuuuh!

Not So Old Pictures Continued

I had a comment from Oreneta with the very appropriate and justified question whether an image in my previous post came straight out of the camera. The answer is “not quite”. I used my photo editing software “Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2” to make a small adjustment. The result is like pulling off a thin coating of grey as you can see below.

Tech spec:

(All corrections within a range of max 100)

Focus – 44 sharper

Saturation – 20 more colourful

Brightness – 19 brighter, –60 shadows and 20 more highlights

I used the software’s One Step Photo Fix, and to me it looks just like clearing it up a bit. The difference is obvious when you see them next to each other, although it is a rather subtle enhancement. I sometimes use this feature when I want to check how I have managed my camera settings, what with all the ISAs, shutter speeds, depth of field and so on. I quite like the original, but the light was disappearing and there was a change of temperature creating humidity, hence the “grey coating”.

See what you think. Original on the left.

 

How is this for being honest!

Not So Old Pictures

Nature looks fairly pale and even bleak at the moment, although snowdrops and other garden flowers have adorned the flower beds for many days now. On a walk through the forest just before sunset the other day I took a few images just out of habit. What might look like dormant or dead vegetation can actually make quite a decent photograph with its subdued and understated colours, like in this picture of some naked birches and dead bracken. Almost ghostly beauty.

 

 

 

This morning the sun was out and I took the opportunity to practise with my new long lens. Sadly my feeders are on the north side of the house, which is not ideal for photographing the poor little things, but the sun shines on the very top of some shrubs and cut-off trees nearby which serve as a waiting area for the birds where they scan the surroundings before moving in on the food. Here is one of the regular customers, a greenfinch, surveying the scene.

 

 

 

One of the regular winter guests is the brambling (Swedish: bergfink), who otherwise breeds in Scandinavia and Russia. It has got rather striking colours and marking.

 

 

 

I use my tripod for bird photography, in particular with this new lens without built-in anti-shake, but it is still a challenge to get the focus right when the little so-and-so keeps moving all the time!

Who Are These People?

I have been deep down in family history again, nostalgia. I am continuing to scan and organise my mother’s and father’s old photo albums. I have taken it upon myself to document and safeguard information which otherwise might get lost before long. There are quite a few albums, but I am nearing the end now.

Most people I recognise and identify, either through my own experience or logical thinking, deduction and a lot of staring at the same images over and over again. I look for hair styles, wedding rings and other clear indicators, who else is in the picture, which location, time of year, items in the background, notes on the back, anything printed in a corner by a professional photographer and so on. It is pure detective work most of the time.

It does not take long before you get to know somebody’s facial features, so you can recognise this person in another photo, which might be out of focus or damaged. You compare noses, eyebrows and mouths to determine relationships. Also somebody’s position in a group photo at a wedding in 1918, can determine the identity after having ticked off everybody you are sure of. Conclusion, this must be my grandmother’s only brother, for instance.

After a while I feel like I know some of these people who lived long before my time, but of course I don’t really. However, if I then come across some old letter written by one of them, suddenly this person takes on another dimension. I have found copies of letters, one of them 125 years old, regarding the death of my great great grandmother in 1885, and another from my grandparents to my grandfather's mother describing in detail what my toddler father had been up to in 1923. Quite sensational. Here he is that year on his mother’s knee.

Obviously there are many anonymous people who not even my old mother is sure of any more, some of them before her time, some before she knew my father. Then there is this very old photograph.

Who are these people? Well, they must be my relatives. My next assumption is that they most likely are in direct line, because why else would someone treasure an old photograph like that for so long? So they would then be my great great grandparents. Both sets of great great grandparents were born around 1820, and I guess they are roughly 50 years old in this picture. Then this was taken around 1870, but I could be out by 15 years easily.

Are there any clues in the way they are dressed, I ask myself? Probably not, because one of these men was a shopkeeper and the other one was a shoemaker, and one must assume they have got their Sunday bests on anyway. Does the man in the photo look six years older than his wife? If so, that would point towards the shopkeeper, whose wife was the one mentioned in the letter referred to above. My grandfather never ever met those grandparents because of the geographical distance, since they did not have a horse and cart. So did his grandparents therefore have their picture taken to send to the grandchildren? Does that sound plausible?

On the other hand, the shoemaker lived and worked in the small village of Bjellerup. My grandfather chose that to become his new surname in 1907. Is that connection why the photograph has been kept all these years. My father had it, and before he passed away five years ago, I seem to remember he told me it was the shoemaker in this picture. But I cannot be absolutely sure about it. Who can tell me? Can I phone a friend?

Macro Photography

I wrote before about my new Sigma lens (300 mm), which also has a macro function. If you set it between 200 and 300 mm you can take incredible close-ups. I tried indoors the other day because it was too cold outside to stand there and fiddle with camera equipment. One reason I also had a good go at it was that I initially feared that I had damaged the auto focus before I knew how to operate the lens. I had accidentally left it in auto focus mode, and then I tried to change the focus manually. Not good!

Luckily I had not ruined my Christmas present and it focused beautifully, albeit noisily. It is not as quiet as the standard kit lenses, but I don’t mind. Like one reviewer on Amazon said, I don’t think it will scare birds in the woods too easily.

I have three examples for you, nothing fancy or pretty, just ordinary objects. The first one is of a Swedish little wooden horse, part of a Noughts and Crosses play set. The red fella is only four or five cm long approximately, but click on the picture and see how large you can make him. It regrettably reveals the dust on top of it with ease!

The second one is a detail of a vase of ordinary size. The depth of field is very shallow, so much that the string to the right is completely out of focus.

The last object is part of a candle snuffer, the bell being approximately five cm high. Again, look at the detail when you have enlarged it.

I think I will enjoy learning to work with this new lens. It does both long distance and extremely short distance. If I then set the camera to the optimal quality image, it will be possible to magnify with great detail up to poster size. But where do I find a printer that can cope with that? Only joking…

 

Oh Dear! Me Too …

In the end I gave in, despite putting up strong resistance for several years. I did not need it, I thought. I am a blogger, although I have been far too busy of late to find time and space to both read and write.

Lately emails and phone calls have been very frequent between myself and Sweden due to events and situations in “the old country”.

On Saturday my brother said “But you are the perfect person for it, your circumstances make the ideal and optimal setting for it. If you join you will be constantly updated about what is going on. You will feel the physical distance disappear.”

So after thinking about it for half an hour, I finally set up an account and joined . Easy peasy, lätt som en plätt, as we say in Swedish. I had been advised how to find my first “friends”.

I requested to become “friends” with people I have known all my life, which sounds a bit odd actually. All of these had their own “friends”, and mutual “friends”, who in turn had other “friends”, and so it went on.

Within half an hour others had detected me and requested to become my “friend”. I started to understand how it worked. My circle of “friends” began to widen almost organically. There was an abundance of suggested “friends”, most of whom I had no knowledge of whatsoever. I recognised some faces and names, but not necessarily in combination. Names from my past appeared on the screen in front of me, and then welcome greetings started coming up on my “wall”. I also had a message from somebody with an explanation of the difference in visibility between the “wall” and my “message” box.

When I clicked on “Friends”, the whole world seemed to stream up from below onto my screen. It would not take much to get really silly and try to make everybody my “friend”. I actually thought of the old song “Everybody Is Trying To Be My Baby”, as sung by The Beatles once.

I soon realised that I had to be selective and restrict myself, not to go into overdrive and try to break some record. I really just needed another means of communication with, in the first instance, my family.

I have not explored all features of Facebook yet, only really just opened my account, but I already know so much more of what is going on in some people’s lives, all those little things you get to hear when you bump into each other at the supermarket. I believe Facebook is trying to transform the whole world into a small market square. The trick is, I suppose, to find a balance between the advantage of virtual proximity and one’s need for some privacy.

Christmas Aftermath

It is always wonderful and uplifting to visit Sweden, to see relatives and friends, in particular my two grandchildren. They give so much joy, but also unpleasant reminders. I seem to catch one cold or other every time I see them. They are used to, and possibly immune to, a wide range of germs, bugs and bacteria, but I am not. Their nurseries are like crucibles of everything contagious. The children act like little middle men, like bridges, like carrier pigeons of colds and other curses. It took me over two weeks to get rid of this last nasty cold. And this came at a time when I work more hours than I normally do.

Outside it does not look like Christmas anymore. The snow has gone and we had 12 degrees today. It is dark, wet and windy. The extra light reflected off the snow has been replaced by some dark matter, which does not lift your soul exactly.

On the other hand I have just received a belated birthday and Christmas present from my wife. I ordered it from Amazon in the UK, but since it has to go through the military sorting office in London, it normally takes another five days to get here. It is a third lens for my Nikon camera, a Sigma 300 mm lens, which is both heavy and looong. I will be needing my tripod for it when it is fully extended in order to get sharp images. This is particularly important since there is no built-in vibration reduction (anti-shake) mechanism.

I am hoping to be able to take better close-ups of for instance birds, and also to experiment with macro photography. It is possible to achieve pictures with great detail. So hopefully I can show  some examples of that once I have practised a little. I just need to hold my breath and steady my hands.

Signing off with two pictures of days now long gone.

 

Happy New Year Everybody!

Well, December was apparently the coldest in the UK since the Met Office started monitoring the weather a long time ago. But we went to Sweden to spend time with relatives and friends, and the coldest temperature the car thermometer registered was –22 degrees.

The whole country was covered in masses of snow. You needed your long-johns and thermals, that’s for sure, and woolly hats and gloves …. but it created some beautiful scenes for free…

…and some funny ones as well.

In Stockholm my grandchildren could not go on the swing …

… although some kids played outside in Malmö …

… my two little darlings had to play indoors most of the time…

 

While the snow caused some people problems …

 

… others took the opportunity …

 

… but most of all, it was beautiful!

 

 

 

 

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

 

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

See you next year

Don’t You Just Love That Hat?

My mother is still going, not strong perhaps, but she is going. Yesterday she turned 88. Sadly I could not be there, but I will see her in two weeks’ time.

I was in fact frantically scanning old photo albums so I can return them when we go for Christmas. That’s when I came across this wonderful almost 69-year-old picture of her and her best friend at teacher training college. She was still 19 years old that summer when she graduated. I believe this photo is from early spring 1942. So elegant, a real class act! (She is the one on the left by the way.) The hat might be dated, although beautiful, but the rest of her outfit would have done a modern business woman proud. What a good dresser she was!