Saturday, October 16, 2004

An idyllic peek

How many times in your life have you come upon a scene and kicked yourself for not having a camera to capture it for posterity? If I had a nickel for every time that happened to me, I'd be able to retire now.

My ability to overcome this obstacle is somewhat limited by my usual mode of transportation: my bike. Somehow, the concept of carrying around my old-but-precious Nikon 35mm SLR just doesn't feel right. Sure, if I'm taking a short ride to a specific place to take specific pictures, fine. But if I'm taking my usual high-speed, pedal-to-the-metal ride, I want something a little smaller, and a little tougher to drop into my bike bag.

Enter the little digital camera that my wife graciously lets me borrow. I know I bought it for her birthday, but she kindly indulges my photographic weirdness. That weirdness took me to the fields just north and west of our home in London after dinner last weekend. I took the bike out and stopped every few hundred metres - pretty much whenever the spirit moved me. I discovered there's a lot of visually fascinating subject matter in our immediate neighborhood, including this deceptively simple sunset vista.

In the process, I unintentionally panicked a few drivers, who slowed down as they passed me to ensure I was OK. I guess the sight of a cyclist sprawled on the side of the road to get a decent low-angle shot would freak out anyone who's never been struck by the insane desire to follow the light.

The cows living at the farm that's slated to be paved over by a Home Depot were, unfortunately, not out when I passed by. I'll have to take another trip over to get them on film before it's too late.

3 comments:

Kate said...

Show us the cows, show us the cows!
Do Canadian cows look different than Texas cows?

carmilevy said...

I'll try to get a picture of them later this week. I'm not sure what Texas cows look like, so I can't be sure. But these are black and white, sort of like dalmatians rendered in a very large, caricature-like manner.

They're quite cute!

Kate said...

Sorry, I was just being silly. We have longhorns here, and there are different kinds of cows, Holstein, Guernsey, Jersey, Angus and so on, but I'm pretty sure they all look pretty much the same.
But I would like to see the pictures of the cows.