◆ PARALLAX

Just back from a long weekend doing the Wiltshire stones on a coach tour and I took about four films worth, so I thought I would start a thread for everyone to share their megalith photos, not theories, just photos, because I think they are wonderful and the theory threads make my head hurt.

Here is Avebury in the drizzle. You can walk right up to these ones and there is a pub in the middle of the circle, which I think is the most British thing in the world.

Oh this brings me back. I do not post much anymore but a megalith photo thread will always pull me out. Here is Avebury from 1994, before some of the path changes, scanned off a proper print. Look how empty it is -- you could have the whole West Kennet avenue to yourself on a weekday morning. I have boxes of these. Callanish, Carnac, the lot.

1994

Forty-one sites and I still get a thrill from an Avebury drizzle photo, so this is a good thread. I will not theorise either, I just go and stand in them. Two from the collection: halfway up the Great Pyramid, which you are absolutely not supposed to climb and which I will not tell you how I did, and inside the Stonehenge circle from before they roped it off, which dates me.

The thing the photos never capture is the SOUND inside a big stone enclosure. Carnac at dawn is so quiet your ears ring. That is the bit I keep going back for, not the alignments.

1997

I am the resident pedant from the theory threads and I am DELIGHTED to be in one where I do not have to correct anybody about Sitchin. Phil, your Carnac dawn point is better archaeology than half of what I argue about -- the acoustic experience of these spaces is understudied because it does not photograph and it does not carbon-date. Carol, the pub at Avebury is genuinely older than some cathedrals. Carry on, all of you. I will just be over here enjoying not being angry.

Annie your 1994 one made me a bit emotional, the stones do not change but everything around them does. Phil you are a maniac and I love it, although please do not climb anything else. Here is one more from me, West Kennet long barrow, inside, where it smells of cold earth and a German couple were singing a low note to hear the echo and honestly it was the best moment of the trip. This is a lovely thread. Post your stones, everyone.

Since Carol has made this safe for the shoebox people, here is Callanish from 1991. I went with my sister and we got there before the coach party, so for about twenty minutes it was just us, the wind, and a sheep that kept sneezing.

No theory from me either. Just a place that makes you stand a bit quieter than usual.

1991

Long time reader, first time brave enough to post. I live near enough to the Ring of Brodgar that visitors assume I must be wise about it, but mostly I just know which car park puddle is deepest.

This was taken last October after rain, when the low sun made every stone throw a long shadow. The best bit is the sheep in the middle refusing to move for anyone.

OCT 01

Nell, that Brodgar light is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me taking bad trains to inconvenient fields. Here is Carnac at dawn from a trip where I slept in a hired car because I misread the hotel booking by one whole day.

Worth it, obviously. The rows go on longer than the photograph can explain, and the rabbits were up before any of us.

1999