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What's the view from your window?
It struck me at this time of Shuttertalk rejuvenation that I've trod these boards for a few years and still I hardly "know" anyone(though I realise the "virtual" nature of this).
As a result, I thought it may be a nice idea for us(who wish) to share the view from our window.
My idea is neither to encapsulate genius, nor to necessarily have a "good" shot or view: rather, just a wee shot of one's most immediate environs from a window.
(Jules: if you feel this should be in another section, feel free...)
I've included some 100% crops to point out a few everyday details.

Anyway, here's mine: taken from my bedroom a day or so ago. We've a mild spell here, so visibility westwards across the Severn is good and spring flowers mark the quickening of the seasons. Note the 200 yr old oak tree in the garden...as you can see I finally afforded to thin the blighter...you can see the reflection of my open window against the trunk here...

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Crop 1: Past the oak, and down the hill through the estate. This is not a big town at all but a main high street and lots of sprawled houses. You might be able to make out the industrial estate that lies on the outskirts before the 4 or 5 miles or so to the River Severn. You can make out the Forest of Dean on the opposite shore, and the Brecons in Wales far beyond. That bit of green down the estate surrounds a concrete culvert: there are numerous limestone springs around the hill and the ground was naturally marshy at one time in history, so these culverts funnel away the water. This water actually is carried along limestone strata, naturally, all the way from mid-Wales where it gathered as rainfall, to emerge as (usually) drinkable natural water here.
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Crop 2: The edge of my rickety patio. The white snowdrops are at their height...you could call them the last of the winter bulbs or the first of the spring ones. Snowdrops are not native but have "gone feral" over the centuries: it's thought that they were introduced in medieval times by and around monasteries, as their whiteness and newness in winter easily lent itself symbolically to middle-ages Christianity.
You can make out the first yellow buds of daffodils: the Welsh seem to have taken this bulb to their own hearts to mark St David's day next week. The trio of plant types here is complete as you see the mauve of the crocus. Funnily enough, "crocus" is the Latin word for yellow: the Romans used the naturally yellow-flowered variety as yellow colouring. That stick- like thing is actually a clematis: this massive beauty used to romp up the oak tree till I hacked it last year. It'll grow again.
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Crop 3: See, not a complete rural idyll! There's the Great Western main rail line with the London Paddington train, which finishes at Cheltenham which is about 11 miles away. Note that "factory" thing on the left: that is the "dairy"....all the farms round here suck the milk from the tatty, emaciated, manky Frisian cattle, then slosh it into big tankers before bottling it here at Stonehouse. Stonehouse is also a centre for engineering on the industrial estate.
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Crop 4: Facing a little more north-west here rather than west like the others, that hill on the horizon is May Hill. One of a myriad of bronze-age and iron-age hillforts around here, it is topped with an introduced copse of non-native evergreen trees that gives the hill its trademark look from many miles away. You can just make out the Brecon Becons of Wales on the horizon, some 30+ miles away. Before that, there are the other wooded slopes of the Forest of Dean that you see about 9 miles away on the opposite side of the river.
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This is a great idea, Zig. Being new to this forum, it will give me an insight into the different locations of the forum members.

I often take photos from our window, we are lucky to have a great view! So I'll see if I can find a recent one and figure out how to share it here Smile

You are lucky to have a nice tree in your view. I always think it's the trees that make a place nice to live in! Nice to see the spring bulbs coming through too.
Well at least you have a view over the rooftops.
My view was drastically altered when a new housing estate was built on a neighboring field. Sadly (for me) the ground level was raised a couple of feet leaving my garden in a sort of quarry bottom.
I used to be able to watch foxes in the fields and various bits of wildlife, with an un-interupted view of around 1mile or more.
The Lounge is the one facing that way. The kitchen and entrance door are facing the street. I will dig a shot or two out later. At the moment it is rather shabby, - winter neglect.
I can see as far as you, but only skywards. Cool
This is a recent photo from our window. I feel thankful every day to live in a place where there are lots of trees.

[Image: 6683584337_23dd980aa8_b.jpg]
Which exposure looks best? by ~ Anne ~, on Flickr
Great idea for a thread , You and Anne have such interesting views. Mine is of the houses across the street.
Wow, that's amazing Anne!

Great idea for a thread Don, and thanks for starting it. I'll see if I can find some out our front window... Big Grin
Trees? Looks like you have a ranch. ;D

Wait until you see my 30 x 20 ft garden. I'm looking for the before and after shots.
Brilliant replies(er, Julian, my name's not Don Smile )
I purposefully did not want this to be a "my view is better than yours" thing and am really glad that what is being shared is the "window into the person" rather than the photographer, if you like.
It's interesting to see the emergence here of social comment, local environmental change,personal senses of loss as people rember the fields they might once have looked at that are now meadows of concrete.
Anne...lovely to see you. Your sense of thankfulness is quite humbling: my tree,though planted a century or two ago, is one of many in an old, old hedgerow line(long since blatted away to make way for industry and people). However, as it's now "suburbia", these trees have become a coat-hanger for everyday gripes: people moaning about the leaves in their nice gardens, "their" light being lost, etc.
I myself have had numerous complaints about leaves..as though it was my fault that they fell in their garden.....they also forget they knew darn well where the tree was when they moved in! Consequently, the joy and thankfulness sometimes turns into resentment as people focus their vague angst on house-owners with tees in their garden...and they(the trees) have to be maintained at some considerable cost. I'm not allowed to trim one twig from it unless I apply for planning permission to do so.
By the way, I used the wide lens to incorporate a wide and descriptive view: its "lengthening" characteristics quite belie my garden's dimensions: that oak is within a garden-space of 19 feet 6 inches that narrows to nowt at the far right side...that tree is very, very present!

I'm glad that this thread is working, beginning to reveal a bit more about ourselves...and it's this visible view I was aiming for, merely carried on the vehicle of a photograph. Really looking forward to developments!
(Feb 27, 2012, 03:38)Zig Wrote: [ -> ]Brilliant replies(er, Julian, my name's not Don Smile )

Ah sorry, old chap, dunno what got into me! Big Grin
Another photo taken from our window this week, using my 270mm zoom. This is straight from camera, I have not altered the colour!

[Image: 6799996344_c6fbc210f5_z.jpg]
Untitled by ~ Anne ~, on Flickr
Hey Don (ha ha) I finally managed to take a photo looking out to my backyard although it's not much to look at and the weather is a bit uncooperative today. Smile

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Glad to see you have nice trees too! Smile
It sure is wet today, the rain has hardly stopped where I am!
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Our view of the backyard.
Triple beanstalks. Golden eggs and singing harps. Oh you lucky man. Wink
Not luck--skill (lol) (ok luck).
I think this is great. Don, actually including the inner view too, is original and fascinating. All these "ways of looking" too.
As a rhetorical aside, I'm wondering, is it possible to infer information about the photographer from such shots...?
I muse this, as Julian's shot could be from a million homes in the UK: a low-maintenance garden space with "screening" conifers. A busy, young professional couples, one or more of whom might be in I.T., might be almost imagined by stereotype here.
Is there a sense in any of these photographs of a natural point of focus for the photographer? What I mean is, do some shots infer that the photographer naturally "sees" that which is relatively close to them....or do they have a penchant for gazing at the long view first?(Or neither). Just an idle wonder....but noticing Anne's "farscapes" and Don's "nearscape", I wonder if these type of shots reflect their habitual and comfortable field of vision. I myself have always had clearer sight in long vision rather than close-up, a polarity that increases as I move into close-work bespectability(!), thus I do naturally look at horizons and vistas rather than that which is close up.
Ha, you've got me pegged. Busy, professional, kids, low maintenance (I only do gardening if I have to). Inner suburbia at its finest. Smile

About the style... Perhaps... Although I was just trying to show the view, or lack thereof. Smile
People have been speculating like that for as long as critical academia has been churning out MA theses. Of course you can so analyze. Some of the early experiments in personality demonstrated that traits show consistent patterns over different modalities. Heavy handwriting goes with heavy footsteps and loud voices (for instance). It's the great good fun.
The first two, are taken from scanned slides. Not very memorable as photo's, but fine as a record.
1. Around the time we bought the house. The factory landscaped the field and drained a scruffy pond.
[Image: pf1.jpg]

2. 1 -2 years later when rough grass and shrubs appeared. Little birds nested here, and foxes played a night.[Image: pf2.jpg]

3. Locals fought against plans for about 100 houses and sadly lost. It started like world war 2.[Image: pf3.jpg]

4 The house at the end of my garden, which I still feel is much too close is nearing completion.[Image: pf4.jpg]

My view has gone the way of other things in life. I cannot afford the upheaval of another move, so I will have to grin and bear it.
5. Current view (to be added shortly)

Getting there Big Grin These are the view from the rear of the house. i.e my lounge view.



Thanks Julian. Heart
(Mar 6, 2012, 19:48)NT73 Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks Julian. Heart

Welcome back, spammer!! Big Grin Big Grin Big Grin Angel
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"The Bridge Is Near" by Michael Barkowski, on Flickr
This is a fascinating thread.

MB: A good friend of mine lives in Aurora.
Awesome. My, those shots of NT's are so striking. I do think they are certainly memorable as photos, being both realistic and integral records as you say...but they convey bags and bags of personal impact, that turns a general environmental "issue" into something personal and meaningful. For example, one could spin many a fine word in an objective environmental discussion...but to then play NT's images would convey a personal impact way beyond words.Just imagine how much content would be lost here, had the photographer indulged in blankets of pp to sanitise the images...

Sorry blue, temporarily skipped over yours; my first response to your image was to imagine myself with a 36" print and a loupe, and me pretending to hang-glide around the landscape(!) As a child, growing up and watching American imported tv, I frequently wondered how and why "everyone in the US" seemed to passionately in love with a view of city towers from a hutch buried 35 floors up in one....and I wondered if everyone had vertigo or nosebleeds: darn brave bunch, these Americans, I thought... For many an indigenous Brit, "high rise" habitations are seen prejudicedly as "social" habitation, a kind of euphemism for rounding up society's perceived dodgy end, then sticking them in a ghetto; it was challenging to then to be viewing Other Lives across the Pond in which "high rise" seemed to be equated with "high end".