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Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people.
Today’s picture is of a section of bank, or Henge, at Avebury in Wiltshire. A single cloud hangs in the air over an empty chalk path, there are no people, only solitude.
Look closer though and are we alone? Are we ever alone? Questions are posed, but answers are less than forthcoming;
Who made this structure? Why? How? What happened to them?
How many people must have walked along the top of this bank throughout thousands of years in order to have eroded that path?
What did they see in their time, how has the landscape changed and did they wonder the same thoughts as me?
Most of these questions have no answer, but one question remains; does this picture show people or is it devoid of human interaction?
The answer, for me at least, is yes.
It shows an insight into people of neolithic times and perhaps a glimpse of their belief structure. To have built a structure this vast must have taken hierarchy, planning, manpower and amazing skills.
The construction has changed the landscape, the visitors who flock here daily erode the landscape; the people who settled here and made a village have carved paths for travel and grazed animals.
All of these actions have left their mark, look hard enough and you can almost see the thousands of people walking along the path, stopping and looking, perhaps even taking photographs from a similar angle. Solitude is at best an illusion as we always carry the memories of the past with us.
Technical Bits:
Olympus E500 with 40-150 Zuiko at 96mm, 1/30th, ISO 100, f22
Single RAW file processed in Adobe Lightroom, graduated filter used to highten contrast and reduce exposure on sky, localised darkening with brush tool.
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Really terrific work here, Chris. Absolutely profound my friend, it’s a glimpse into our own mortality and the human condition as a whole. Love it, my friend, really wonderful.
Thanks Scott my friend. I didn’t set out to make a commentary on the human psyche but I guess that’s what it became in the end. It’s funny how what we see in an image can be different when we look at it after time with a critical eye.
It’s a thought provoking image and your writing adds so much. We are, in general, very superficial people often enough. It does us good to think in the way you have done. Strange that I’m writing this on the day before The Mary Rose new exhibition centre opens. That will be an extraordinary step back into history.
Thanks Andy, in fairness I normally let the pictures do the talking but as I was processing this I started to think….
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