***

 

....perhaps He knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road....I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it....

 

***

 

Sonnet XVIII:

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

 

***

 

…I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you, and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good…

 

***

 

"The Human Element"

 

For each of us, there is a moment of discovery.

We turn a page, we raise a hand.

And just then in the flash of a synapse,

We learn that life is elemental.

And this knowledge changes everything.

We look around and see the grandness of the scheme.

Sodium bonding with Chlorine,

Carbon bonding with Oxygen,

Hydrogen bonding with Oxygen.

We see all things connected.

We see life unfold.

And in the dazzling brilliance of this knowledge,

We may overlook the element not listed on the chart.

Its importance so obvious, its presence is simply understood.

The missing element is the human element.

And when we add it to the equation, the chemistry changes.

Every reaction is different.

Potassium looks to bond with potential,

Metals behave with hardened resolve

And hydrogen and oxygen form desire.

The human element is the element of change.

It gives us our footing to stand fearlessly and face the future.

It is a way of seeing. It gives us a way of touching: issues, ambitions, lives.

The human element.

Nothing is more fundamental, nothing is more elemental.

 

[Author unfortunately unknown]

 

***

 

It seems 15 of my photographs have so far been in Flickr's Explore / Interestingness....

 

 

***

 

I use the following cameras:

 

- Leica D-Lux 3

 

- Canon EOS 5D Mk II

 

- Sony DSLR-A100

 

- Pentax ME Super [traditional 35mm] (...we've been through so much together, she's my best and favourite camera of all time, never lies, never fails, always trustworthy, one tough cookie and good as gold...everything a good friend should be and is, family...oh and she of course works without batteries on 1/125th of a second...try that with a digital camera...)

 

- Leica III (...this is actually my father's camera he had as a student in the 1960s. Unfortunately it is in need of repair. It's very robust, lovely to use and exceedingly simple, quiet and accurate to operate. The Leica III series is another true favourite of mine...)

 

- Praktica Super-TL 1000 [traditional 35mm] (...this is my grandfather's camera, which I inherited when I was about 11 or 12 years of age or so...It came with lovely 28mm, 50mm and 135mm prime lenses and later on I purchased a 500mm lens for it as well. When I was 19 years of age everything was stolen in a burglary, alas, never to be seen again. This camera helped me learn everything there is to know about fully manual TTL photography; especially as the uncoupled selenium light metering system had a mind of its own. With no money for an external light metre educated guesses were the order of the day...a lovely piece of engineering and certainly very well built and highly reliable as well...)

 

- Kodak Instamatic Pocket 200 [110 cartridge] (...when I was 7 or 8 years of age, my grandfather presented me with one of the best presents I have ever received: a Kodak Instamatic Pocket 200. This camera was robust and ever such good fun to use as a child and, especially important, above all else it was very easy to load film. It went everywhere I went and was lovingly cared for by myself. One day aged 10, during the Easter holidays in Paris, I stood together with my father on top of the Eiffel Tower when the internal mechanism decided it had enjoyed enough of life and broke. That was a very sad day indeed and I will always be very grateful to my grandfather for introducing me to the joys of photography at such an early age...)

  

All photographs in my photo-stream copyright ©2015

All rights reserved. Tous droits réservés.

 

If you are interested in using any of my work in any form of publication or for commercial purposes, please contact me by Flickr message.

 

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