View the scene from a different angle

(Beware blinking text if you have epilepsy)
As I wandered around Avebury, veering between purposeful (must get a shot of that!) vague (Oops, nearly fell over a tree root/ grass clump/ my own shadow) and meditative (hmm, how old are these trees, did people once live in betwen this group of stones, where does that go I wonder, aren't stones wonderful), I saw increasing numbers of people as the day went on. Some more than once (Like this man who stepped out of the circle from the 21stC into a sepia age while I was taking a batch shot at 3 different exposures). Nearly all of course snapping away. Some, like me, after the great shot, some just holiday snapping, some posing for snaps. Then there were those who looked to be after a spiritual/ mystical experience who could be seen surreptitiously stroking stones or sitting cross-legged in the grass with closed eyes (I didn't catch anyone chanting though and cross-legged, closed eyes got away before I could catch him...I expect he sensed my gently mocking aura :)
To be fair, I used to go for the whole meditative/mystical experience thing but I was never able to suspend disbelief long enough to get into any kind of other-worldly trance. Whereas, caught by a shaft of sunlight or a sweeping wing or a landscape of stormlit cloud chasms, I would (and still do) go into a state of total EYE...the legs may continue to walk or the mouth to move but the person inside has gone AWOL following a vision. A visual vision, not a spiritual one!

There were people following the obvious well trodden route around the bank, taking the same pictures I was taking, people who went their own way, like this splendid red-head, striding confidently along the bottom of the bank in contrast to the sheep people meandering along the top.There was occasional eye contact and mumbled greetings coupled with instant assessment...Ah another photographer...Oh tourists...must be local...must be from abroad...must be English...must be a weirdo.

Well, there we all were, doing the same stuff, being in the same space and seeing the same things. ??? So last night I browsed through a few hundred flickr pictures tagged 'Avebury' and I was truly impressed, not so much by the quality of the pictures as by the variety of angles and images. There were pictures taken of the same stones I took and not one was from the same angle!
I think the reason is, Avebury isn't really photogenic. It's too scattered, too big and too random. You have to work quite hard to get a feel of what will work as a photo. There's too much flat space (in spite of the circular bank). The stones are huge but decidedly enigmatic and it's hard to get a sense of the scale of the whole place. By moonlight it's staggering and I imagine at dawn or dusk likewise. I can imagine that mist or rain would bring it to life in a quite different way. And I think it needs not two or three but a hundred visits to get a true vision of it's presence and essence.
Oh but it will be worth the effort.


Anyway, here is an aerial view pinched from a website dedicated to aerial views of England*


And here is a link to multimap so you can see the same thing, as a map.
Map of SN8 1RF United Kingdom

* aerial pictures site