Sunday, November 10, 2013

Avebury - Wiltshire - 1983

7 comments:

aferrismoon said...

Is this some of your earlier photos?

The first resembles a lion in profile, left side being the profile.

Also the people in shot2 , caught motionless, become as standing stones.

Have u seen the series ' Shooting the Past ', if not u maight enjoy it

cheers

john said...

Yes, I took these in 1983 as part of the work for my A level photography, which I then went on to fail, probably as the photos had nothing to do with the exam question or something. Most of these I've never seen properly before as I just had them as contact prints, but recently I got a negative scanner and have just scanned them, about 31 in all with a row of 6 missing, lost for some reason.

I was surprised by was how bleak the landscape appears around there and also that it was much sunnier than I remember it. I looked at the people in the background of photo 2 and if you zoom in, they're actually all stones, there's no people there at all. Odd isn't it? Stones that look like people looking at stones.

In one of the photos, not shown here, I did find what appears to be my dad standing in the far background, though I'm now tempted to think it might just be a stone that really looks like him. (Including friends and family members in backgrounds is a 'joke' that I still use. I was surprised to find I was doing back then when I was 16)

Each of the stones are remarkably individual in character, and seem very carefully chosen. The angular stone in photo 4 has a hole through its lower section and many of them don't have the 'pointy' shape that we usually associate with standing stones.

Cheers and thanks Aferrismoon.

john said...

Oh and no I haven't seen the 'Shooting the Past' series. I better have a look at that, thanks.

aferrismoon said...

I just assumed they were peopele, as they look like they have light tops and dark trousers, well a couple do, and that was enough to trick me

cheers

john said...

They certainly do look like people I thought they were as well. It was interesting for me to see these photos after all this time. I hope others have some pleasure in seeing them too. It would be nice to go back to Avebury again, I doubt much has changed there.

cheers for now

reem said...

1983 ,wow it's long time ,I was a child ,just 5 years ,oh ,it seems so far ..It's interesting and useful to go back to the begining and remember the first work that we have done ,and nice to see your old photos ..Stones ,stones ,mybe they hide our thoughts someway so we imagine different shapes when we look at them carefully ..mybe .

john said...

Choukran Reem. It is a long time ago now isn't it? The years go by very quickly it seems, that's the way of it. The stones are good for seeing things in. I was reading something that was saying that the stones had female/male shapes, which appeared to alternate in the circle at Avebury. Some resemble animals, faces can be seen in them, whilst others are very angular. I still have quite a lot in common with my younger self in some ways, though times have changed.

Nice one Reem, hope all is good where you are.