Whitesheet PhotoMontageMovie

Just found this lovely sequence from my summer 2008 mediascape on Whitesheet Hill - 'Something More' and thought I'd put it up here as a reminder of things past and things to come...

I like this photo-montage-movie technique as a way to capture movement and snippets of attention within a panoramic landscape.

(No audio - make your own accompaniment!)

smoke

This is this view from our kitchen window on a December morning.

This morning there was woodsmoke coming up from the valley and failing to rise in the cold still air.

It's not a place I've seen smoke before. There's no house there but there are some very old coke ovens by two ponds  which were once associated with a small coal mine. I suppose someone is coppicing and clearing and keeping warm with a fire.

I want to add smoke in the landscape as another sightline. Smoke is people, a fire, a focus. 

If we are aligning journeys by topographical features, then smoke would once have indicated the way between the hilltops and landmarks : hearths, warmth, welcome.

In a sparsely populated and wooded landscape, imagine the spicy smell of a bright blackthorn or hazel fire, smelt, seen, heard: refuge and company.

cursus

I drove across Cranborne Chase and back yesterday on a frosty misty day. The  December yew trees are dense  black and the old mans' beard fluffy and white.

It's definitely the sunset behind the cursus, I saw it smearing the sky with an apricot and yellow splodge. The firs of Down Farm were standing in misty shrouds.

Interestingly, the ritual landscape looked more powerful and obvious heading west (home) in the evening than it did entering it from the west in the morning. - a vast spread of undulating countryside, falling away towards the winter evening. Sightlines all mapped out, crescent moon, venus, jupiter.

Only 17 days to the darkest night.

Thought of the Day

We need to really think about how we can make sense of the link between ancient and modern technologies.

And journeys too. 

I remember seeing my first ever satellite, out on a winter night walk with my Dad. We used to go out every night and walk in the dark lanes, stargazing - learning the names of stars and constellations. The first satellite was pretty exciting, a smart new thing nipping between the hoary ancient stars. 

In 3300 BC a journey would be led by star nav rather than sat nav! Or a combination of sun and topography - time and place . 

The cursus on Down Farm demarks the point of midwinter sunrise

Sightline

Star line

Sunrise

Season

Midheaven

Moonrise

Occultation

Movement of planets

Look up!