Thursday, December 20, 2007
brobdingnagian robin
Comments:
What the heck do the robins eat around your parts?
I love the light and the softened details, particularly the glow on those water taps in the lower right corner.
Is this real or is it a montage? Sorry, I can't help wondering. Maybe the sheer size of the robin should make me realize it can only be a montage, I honestly don't know. The reason I don't know is it is hard to me to fathom why one would do this. If it is real, I don't understand how that bird got so big.
My point is, these are the thoughts coming to me and it is the third time I look at this picture. This questioning probably prevents me from enjoying it. I do see esthetical merit, especially in the light and the objects before the window.
Rex - I shall have to report you to the RSPB!
Stephane - definitely montage. The title was supposed to say that in a relatively subtle way! I'm not sure that robins are so much a part of Christmas on the continent: my wife says that if we sent a card to her relatives in Slovakia they would wonder what it was about. Why do it? Just playing with the materials to hand.
The kitchen window is at the manor house at Llanerchaeron near Aberaeron. The robin was outside our kitchen window, where Jana feeds them much too much. Not a shotgun in sight!
John -- the size of the robin, though eventually obviously unreal, is just iffy enough to make one look a couple of times between it and the items on the window sill thinking "what the?_ I looked up that marvelous word in the title and it became clear, even though in the U.S. we don't associate robins with Christmas (and our "robin" is not even the same bird).
Add in the comments, (especially Rex's) and I found the whole thing to be very amusing.
Thanks for that information Christina - robins are obviously not one of the UK's export strengths (nor is much judging by our incipient balance of payments deficit - where the US goes, we follow)!
I did spend a little while looking at this trying to see whether it could possibly have been shot from inside a dolls house before concluding that there was just a little too much detail for it to be a model.
I seem to recall that the Australian robin is something else as well. Seems that it was such a culturally iconic bird that we needed it to be everywhere we went.
We have a little robin war brewing here. The abundance of food at our kitchen window feeders mean that we have overlapping robin territories. Now play nicely boys, or it'll all end in tears.
I think that we avoid robin wars because the poultry get fed in different places, in addition to the bird table. So there is the robin that comes to benefit from the chickens' feeding place, one that takes in the ducks' stretch of concrete and possibly two that compete with masses of sparrows on the bird table. This last winter, one nested in the sheep's hayrack, which made management even more problematical than normal.
We don't get robins quite like this in Japan but the message is still loud and clear. He doesn't look full of seasonal cheer though!
This nearly works as a montage - he's just a little too big with the rest of the components to truly meld in. Great effort though and much more realistic than anything I could hope to achieve.
Happy holidays to one and all!
Post a Comment
I love the light and the softened details, particularly the glow on those water taps in the lower right corner.
My point is, these are the thoughts coming to me and it is the third time I look at this picture. This questioning probably prevents me from enjoying it. I do see esthetical merit, especially in the light and the objects before the window.
Stephane - definitely montage. The title was supposed to say that in a relatively subtle way! I'm not sure that robins are so much a part of Christmas on the continent: my wife says that if we sent a card to her relatives in Slovakia they would wonder what it was about. Why do it? Just playing with the materials to hand.
The kitchen window is at the manor house at Llanerchaeron near Aberaeron. The robin was outside our kitchen window, where Jana feeds them much too much. Not a shotgun in sight!
Add in the comments, (especially Rex's) and I found the whole thing to be very amusing.
I seem to recall that the Australian robin is something else as well. Seems that it was such a culturally iconic bird that we needed it to be everywhere we went.
We have a little robin war brewing here. The abundance of food at our kitchen window feeders mean that we have overlapping robin territories. Now play nicely boys, or it'll all end in tears.
This nearly works as a montage - he's just a little too big with the rest of the components to truly meld in. Great effort though and much more realistic than anything I could hope to achieve.
Happy holidays to one and all!