Through other eyes

Sarah — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 12:48:25 +0000

Through other eyes... recent posts

Bye bye summer

12/09/2026

Just one day of intense rain has put an effective full stop to one of the hottest driest summers here in Italy’s central Apennines. A few late summer flowers, the last of the insects and we’re ready for autumn.

Fifty shades of black

16/08/2026

In the northern hemisphere, Summer 2026 will long be remembered in shades of black, accompanied by the acrid smell of wood smoke. Sometimes our planet as we know it seems such a fragile place.

Saved by a leaf

09/08/2026

Sometimes a dried-up shrivelled leaf is all it takes to dissipate a bad dose of summer season grumpiness and re-awake creativity.

It rained

08/08/2026

Rain can be both a curse and a blessing… but at this time of year when wildfires threaten on every side, it is definitely the latter.

Hunters of light

06/08/2026

How lucky we “hunters of light” are to appreciate those little things. Just a few seconds, an angle changes by a couple of degrees, a leaf shifts in the breeze, shimmering, shifting… that’s all it takes to remain spellbound.

My heroes

04/08/2026

After the last few few days with the Canadair fire fighting planes passing continuously over my home, it seems right to share these images with you as a tribute to the pilots who are my undisputed heroes.

12/09/2026

Bye bye summer

Two days ago, it rained. Not a passing storm, all show and spectacle for an hour, maybe two, then the dampness evaporates almost before the clouds have dissolved and by the next morning, the parched ground has sucked up every last remaining drop. No, this time it was for real. Genuine clouds and rain that hung around long enough to form puddles. And mud. I never thought I’d be so happy to see mud. The temperature dropped from the low to mid 30°C to a chilly 17°C and I found myself hunting around for a pair of socks. Of course, as everyone knows, one pair of socks doesn’t make autumn. But actually, it sort of does. Because since then, everything has changed. Cooler, yes, but there’s something different about the air, and the light glows rather than shimmers. It simply isn’t summer anymore.
While slipping into a warm pair of socks isn’t necessarily a universally recognised sign of approaching autumn, there are some late-flowering species of plant which most definitely are. In the last week or so, my central Apennine hill meadows have turned bright yellow with a massive blossoming of yellow bartsia (Odontites luteus).

Now I’d love to claim that this crooked horizon was an intentional style choice (ISC for short). But actually it was because I had become an eagerly-awaited breakfast and lunch opportunity for diverse swarms of blood-thirsty (literally) insects who mistakenly took my immobility as a sign of compliance. The need for evasive action was more important than a level horizon. Such is life.

Then there is the delightfully scented winter savory (Satureja montana)…

… and the delicately coloured but not so delicately named leadwort (Plumbago europaea).

But apart from these wondrous displays of late summer colour, my meadows are showing their age. Everything is a bit dusty, a touch shabby, a tad untidy and worn (I know the feeling).

The sun is lower now, the shadows longer.

Black on white, white on black. Looking out or looking in.

Far or near. Perspective and point of view.

There is less buzzing, less flitting. Hard to resist a touch of melancholy, knowing that soon my meadows will be silent and empty. But it’s as it should be, as it must be. These creatures have done their bit. Genes have been transmitted, the next generation is assured.

So yes, summer 2026 is officially over, at least in my books. It’s not been the easiest of times, but we (me and them) have survived. Now all that remains is to find a find a nice warm cranny somewhere to weather out the winter chills and long dark nights.

Oh yes… and of course to offer my sincere thanks to whoever invented socks. Cold feet. Just can’t abide them. So from him and me, bye for now

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

16/08/2026

Fifty shades of black

This is not the image I’d like to be posting, but for many of us in the northern hemisphere, our memories of Summer 2026 will forever be tinged with the sombre shades of black and accompanied by the acrid smell of wood smoke. It seems right that we don’t forget. A couple of days ago, fire broke out on the outskirts of our village in the foothills of the Italian Apennines. It was no big deal, just a small patch of wasteland, dry vegetation, some dogrose and blackthorn scrub. Given the situation in other parts of the world, I hardly like to mention it. But it makes you think. We were lucky. There was virtually no wind, the fire fighters were notified almost immediately and they managed to put it out before it spread to the adjacent trees, then from there, a small leap to the first houses in the village and some cars parked nearby. As I said, we were lucky. But when I walk past, I can’t ignore that acrid smell and it gives me the shivers. Sometimes our planet as we know it seems such a fragile place.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

09/08/2026

Saved by a leaf

I admit it, it’s a bit of a grumpy time for me right now. Too little sleep perhaps… window open for the heat, neighbour’s dog barking until the small hours, an impromptu get-together on the steps outside my window at two in the morning, you know the thing. Too many people in places I usually go for solitude. Too many cars. Above all too many cars, narrow village streets designed for feet or hooves turned into improvised car parks. Too much, too many, too fast. It’s not my world. Anyway, that’s not why you’re here of course, I just wanted to explain my state of mind when I went on my customary photo-walk yesterday morning. Inspiration nil, creativity nada. So there I was, sitting under a tree having a cantankerous conversation with a dried-up leaf lying there on a stone beside me minding its own business… well actually, it was pretty one-sided. Shrivelled-up leaves aren’t known for being great conversationalists, being dead and all that.

Then suddenly I stopped in mid whinge. Hang on (I thought), the curve of those veins actually looks pretty neat, and what about that hole, and just look at how the light catches those spiky bits, and… Well, before I knew it, there I was totally engrossed in exploring a withered leaf that all of a sudden had become the epicentre of my universe.

The results are certainly not going to win me any of the competitions I wouldn’t enter anyway, but viewing them together they seem to have something to say. If only that you need to let go (by “you”, I obviously mean “I”). You can’t force inspiration, you can’t oblige creativity to just appear as if from a genie’s bottle. Or at least, I can’t. But it never hurts to just get out there and open up to what’s around. So that’s what I’m about to do, while “they” are still yawning and wondering whether to have a second cup of coffee. Over and out. Che la luce sia con voi.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

08/08/2026

It rained

It was not to be. This afternoon I charged up my personal force field and gathered all my available courage with the intention of dabbling with a little “urban” in a nearby town. Evidently it was not my destiny. After weeks without the tiniest drop of rain, five minutes before I reached the car park, the heavens opened and it poured. Not just a quick summer storm, a veritable cloudburst. Now given the wildfire situation hereabouts, I’ve been praying to all the gods of all times for just such rain and I am truly and profoundly grateful that finally they decided to answer my prayers. But right then? Right there? I did venture briefly out of the car and took a couple of hasty snaps from under the umbrella, but it was not at all what I had been hoping for. But on the positive side, the downpour may well have got the wildfires well under control. Time will tell .

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

06/08/2026

Hunters of light

Nothing fancy. A quick walk just after dawn. Isn’t it incredible what a difference light can make to the most ordinary of subjects? Miraculous even.

It’s as if for an instant, that was the light we’d been waiting our whole life for. That particular light and no other.

Then it’s gone and we’re left with a vague anxiety, a creeping apprehension, wondering whether we’ve succeeded in “capturing” that energy, transposing those photons into pixels and memories.

There’s the light that pierces and penetrates. Translucency and opacity. Textures revealed.

There’s the light that frames. Shadows and shapes that ripple and stir, refusing to hold still while we fiddle with knobs and dials.

There’s the gentle, compliant light that whispers rather than shouts.

And there’s the light that reflects, whether we want it or not.

And fellow “hunters of light” there I am, reflected in the uncompromisingly shiny surface of these industrious ants, engrossed in their preparations for winter. I could, of course, have eliminated myself with a few clicks, but I rather like being there, or rather, being here with you. Che la luce sia dolce con voi… which roughly translates as: “May the light be kind to you”, but it sounds so much better in Italian.

Adapted from an article first published in The 617 Club.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

04/08/2026

My heroes

Images I’d much rather not have shot, but after the last few few days with the Canadair fire fighting planes passing continuously over my home, it seems right to share them with you, if nothing else as a tribute to the pilots who are my undisputed heroes. Compared with the situation in so many other places throughout the northern hemisphere, we’re the lucky ones, at least for now. Our immediate area is so far unscathed, but there at least four different fires burning at the moment within a 50 km radius from where we live, mostly “just” tinder-dry grassland and juniper scrub, but the damage is extensive. With high temperatures, no sign of rain and a hot, dry wind, the fight is to prevent it from reaching the woods and forests and, of course, people’s homes. What makes me so angry is that the largest and fiercest was certainly started deliberately, the investigators have already found an incendiary device, ignited in the place and at the moment when it was likely to do most damage. Tragically the use of fire as a weapon for extortion, protest or vendetta is not uncommon hereabouts. The fire risk is at its peak for the next ten days, so I live with my fingers crossed. Here’s hoping.

Adapted from an article first published in The 617 Club.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

01/08/2026

You're not my friend anymore!

You’re not my friend anymore. Did I shout it out loud? I can’t be sure, but when I listened there was no echo. Silence. There are just two moments in the year when the silence is so, well, silent, you can hear your own pulse pumping away in your ears. The deepest of deep cold in January through February when the light acquires a crystalline fragility, so brittle you find yourself whispering for fear it might splinter. And midsummer when the temperature creeps into the high thirties and even the air seems to sweat. Like today.

The quietness isn’t the stillness of peace, but rather of an uneasy waiting… for shade, for a breeze, for (dare I say it) a cloud. The crickets and cicadas have fallen silent. Birdsong is a distant memory. A buzzard calls once, twice. The rippling call of a golden oriole out of sight in the branches that stand between me and… you’re not my friend anymore!

That time I did say it out loud, a bit sheepishly I admit, but there’s no-one around to hear. No-one else crazy enough to be out there in my crunchy sun-dried meadows, scorched to a crisp by… it, him, my enemy of today. The sun.

I’ve never got on well with those bossy types, overbearing, so sure of themselves. And that exactly describes the sun yesterday, today, tomorrow, who knows for how long. From the moment the first rays escape from behind the mountain, it’s up there glaring, blazing, blinding, greedily sucking up every last drop of moisture from the ground, bleaching flowers, withering leaves without a care in the world.

My meadows… they’re tired. Dusty. Held together with cobwebs in that silence of waiting; patient as befits a nature accustomed to the never-ending cycle of the seasons.

But all is not over. Far from it. For some, the party’s just begun…

My meadows are tired and truth be told, so am I. This heat is good for drowsiness, not so great for sleep. But we wait patiently (more or less) for the next chapter to unfold, that miraculous second spring that will follow the first late summer rain. It won’t be long now, and I’ll be out there, shaking the dust from my boots, to follow its progress.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

16/07/2026

A question of style

Some like to shout…
Others prefer to whisper…
Whether you’re a shouter or a whisperer, have a great day folks

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

15/07/2026

Chromatic agility

Every morning as I sip my wake-up coffee, I resolve that today will be the day I post some of the images I’m accumulating in this period. Then every morning I pick up my camera (with macro lens permanently mounted), put on my hiking boots and head out into my meadows and woods on a new hunting trip. During these summer months, finding new species, genuses and even families has become a bit of an obsession, not to mention the ever present quest to get better images of the ones I already know. Then as the sun gets uncomfortably hot and it’s time to swop my hiking boots for sandals, I hurry back to download the images, quickly process them and (the really fun part) identify the critters I’ve managed to digitally capture. Time to put together that post, I think… just as my brain starts to fog and my eyes start to close with nothing more creative in mind than a good old afternoon nap while out there beyond the half-closed shutters, the sun does its fiery best. Uhm… that article? Yawn. Tomorrow morning, yes, definitely tomorrow morning. But then, when the time comes, my camera calls me, my hiking boots too and I’m out poking through the long grass and peering under leaves again.

So the images I long to share are piling up and… well… just to say, sorry folks. I will get round to it, I promise. But perhaps not today. In the meantime though, on my way home yesterday I came across this beautifully coloured crab spider (Thomisus onustus), perfectly tone-in-tone with the equally beautiful sweet scabious (Sixalix atropurpurea) flower, one of the commonest blooming in this period. Now on with those boots, up with the camera… who knows what I’ll find today!

Adapted from an article first published in The 617 Club.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

22/04/2026

It's a small world

Browsing through my website, it’s pretty obvious that macro photography of both flora and fauna makes up about 90% of the images I take, at least when conditions are right. Actually, this has much more to do with my love and fascination for the natural world than it does for my passion for photography, but that’s a story for another time. What does, however, make me just a little bit different from the vast majority of macro photographers is that I usually work exclusively with natural light. This has its benefits, but I admit it also its disadvantages, so last year I made up my mind to finally get to grips with using a flash. I took the plunge and bought a flash and diffuser right at the end of last arthropod season with the idea of getting some practice in before the return of my beloved critters, but after enthusiastically charging the flash battery, it remained on the shelf until… yesterday.

Of course the wisdom of advancing (advanced?) years should have suggested that I studied manuals and settings before going out, but I am still young in my ability to err, so I inevitably found myself caught up in heated disputes between my camera and my flash, while the few arthropod subjects I came across laughed so much they fell off their respective petals and leaves. It’s clear I still have a great deal to learn, but that doesn’t trouble me unduly, a little bit of study should sort things out. No, it’s not the technical side that bothers me.

My problem comes with the sheer “ingombro” of the thing. Now in Italian, “ingrombro” means more or less the space something takes up, and that diffuser… well, I just don’t seem to be able to cope with the sheer size of the thing! I’m used to being able to slip in and out of bramble and hawthorn patches more or less unscathed, or slide my lens easily through a jungle of stalks and leaves. But heaven help me if try the same thing with the diffuser mounted! The disturbance I create must be the equivalent of a hurricane and earthquake combined for all the small inhabitants of the undergrowth who rightly flee or drop to the ground and disappear.

So after I finish disentangling bits of plastic and cord from miscellaneous thorns and other protuberances, all I’m left with is an arthropod desert. And if I do manage to get near enough, the sight of all that towering shiny whiteness is enough to send any remaining arthropods into a blind panic. You can just see the terror in their little eyes… and who can blame them! In short, yesterday the addition of flash and diffuser undoubtedly made me lose more shots then it helped me take. On the other hand, a couple of the images I did manage to get were only possible thanks to the flash, and that’s enough to convince me to persevere.

My initial conclusion is that it’s a completely different ball game and precisely because of that, with practice, I can imagine it becoming complementary to, rather than a substitute for, the natural light macro photography I will probably always prefer. I will stick at it and endure the derision of my arthropod subjects, until the use of flash or natural light becomes a conscious decision, rather than the inevitable consequence of my lack of technical expertise. Will I succeed? Only time will tell.

For my Italian-speaking friends (or anyone wanting to translate into another language), I recommend DeepL translator available clicking here or also as a browser extension for Google Chrome.

Per i miei amici di lingua italiana (o chiunque voglia tradurre in un’altra lingua), consiglio DeepL translator disponibile cliccando qui o anche come estensione per il browser Google Chrome.

Project 1522

Sarah — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 08:03:22 +0000

Project 1522...

Born in November 2020 in a world daubed with yellow, orange and red, amidst a capricious confusion of “you can”, “you can’t” and “you shouldn’t”, “Project 1522” (or Day by Day as I called it back then) is in some ways a child of Covid, a way to draw my thoughts away from that all-enveloping miasma of disease, mortality and contagion that pervaded every facet of our everyday reality. I never thought it would last, but it did… for much longer than I had intended. For four years and two months, an image a day marked out my existence through the good and the not-so-good times on this wobbling planet of ours. I’d say that about 70% of the images (or more) are in and/or about nature. And that’s how it should be, as it is out there that I am most alive, whether scrutinising remote horizons or scouring the leaf mould or long grass for barely visible and infinitely fascinating forms of life. But “Project 1522” was also a stimulus to experiment with different subjects, different techniques and different ways of treating the resulting images to become a new (for me) form of expression. Will you enjoy all the images? Absolutely not. Many are downright banal, with little merit outside the flow of my daily existence, but then, isn’t that precisely what everyday life is all about? Will you understand the images? Why they were important to me then? On that particular day? Absolutely not. It was a truly personal and intimate journey, unlikely to have much meaning to anyone outside my mind and my self. But that said, if you still feel you’d like to share some of the things that passed before my eyes and my camera lens during those 1522 days, I’d be delighted to have your company for a brief stretch of my already lengthy journey on this staggeringly beautiful lump of gas-shrouded rock we call Earth. In short… welcome to my world!

You can read more on the whats and whys of “Project 1522” in my blog post of the same name.

The year is 2020

The year is 2021

The year is 2022

The year is 2023

The year is 2024

The captions accompanying the images are in a mix of English (my mother tongue) and Italian (the language of my adopted country). There are now a myriad of tools (some excellent, some less so) available to translate between them, or into another language. My recommendation is DeepL Translator.

Le didascalie che accompagnano le immagini sono in un mix di inglese (la mia lingua madre) e italiano (la lingua del mio paese d’adozione). Ormai ci sono una miriade di strumenti (alcuni eccellenti, altri meno) disponibili per tradurre tra di loro, o in un’altra lingua. La mia raccomandazione è DeepL Translator.

mainpage – Lynkos

Through other eyes