The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: sphinx

Sigma 15-30mm F3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical DF lens.

Photographed with a Sigma 15-30mm F3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical DF lens on a Nikon D2Xs. Optically, the lens is capable, although suffering from flare if pointed towards a source of light. It is versatile too, being compatible with full frame Nikon cameras as well as APS-C format. But it is a big lens occupying a lot of bag space, and although well-built and in Sigma's professional range, I did not think it was the sweetest lens to handle.

This is the plinth supported by the pillars which once were chimneys on top of which Benjamin Carter's sphinx surveys the visitors. They file past with scarcely a glance.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. In 1755 Squire John Ivory Talbot had the new hall built and some old chimneys were moved into the grounds as a garden ornament. The Squire got a mason called Benjamin Carter to carve him a sphinx to go atop his renovated Tuscan columns (formerly his chimneys). There is a myth that when there is a full moon at midnight, the sphinx jumps down from her resting place and walks across the park to drink from the river. Nikon D700 with a 20mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens.

Having bought the book in the secondhand bookshop at Lacock Abbey, I felt an unstoppable urge to photograph it under Benjamin Carter's sphinx which is supported by the plinth in the picture. The book is open at a reproduction of Evelyn Hofer's 'Portrait in Windowlight' photographed in 1969. Secondhand books are seldom described as 'used' or (worse) 'pre-loved'. I need to analyse why this is so, and whether it means books are held in high or low esteem generally. Photographed with a 50mm f/2.8 vintage Tessar lens on a Canon EOS 40D.

Photographed using a Nikon D300s with a 28mm f/2 Nikkor AI lens.

Nikon D700 and Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AF lens. Wonderful light on a clear early November afternoon. I went equipped with a set of three lenses released to coincide with Nikon's introduction of automatic focus (not counting the two specialist lenses made a bit earlier specifically for the F3 camera). All of them must be 30 years old plus. Here I used the 24mm which is simply the optics of the 24mm AI repeated in AF mechanics. Likewise the 70-210mm f/4 which had an earlier iteration as a manual focus zoom in the 'E' series. And finally the 35-70mm f/2.8 which I guess has had the hardest life of the three but keeps turning in a stellar performance.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D lens.