Friday Night Lights
Posted on November 14, 2018
In response to Cee’s Fun ‘Foto’ Challenge with the theme of ‘lights’, here is another night shot taken from the balcony of our apartment in Abu Dhabi, with traffic busy as usual on Hamdan Street.
Glass of wine, anyone?
Posted on November 9, 2018
Shine a light through a glass of red wine and some of the effects can be quite pleasing.
(Same goes for drinkng it.)
Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire (encore)
Posted on November 8, 2018
A couple of weeks ago saw the annual ‘Expo’ of arts and ‘passions’ in our local village. As in previous years, Madame dispalyed some of her quilts, to widespread approbation, while I stuck up a few photographs for people to walk past without noticing.
Once again, I took the opportunity after lunch to go for a wander around parts of the village that are off the beaten track and managed to find a few doors (enough for this week and next, at any rate) that I had somehow missed in previous years.
This first one is actually on the main road, but down at ground level I’d not noticed it before.
The next few doors were along a road that leads out of town into the countryside.
This one is particularly interesting – if you like that kind of thing – as it’s clear from the surrounding stonework that it’s been repurposed at least twice in its history:
Back in the centre of the village is a little lane, Rue du Lavoir (Laundry Street), that few would venture along without a specific purpose – or the need to feed the insatiable Doors monster:
Thursday Doors 8 November 2018
How to shear a sheep
Posted on November 7, 2018
Cee wants to see some images of tools this week. I spotted this in the Museum in Perigueux.
As the card states, it’s a pair of scissors for shearing sheep. They’ve been in the museum since 1914, but date from some time in the late 19th century at a guess. They are made of iron, no doubt by a village blacksmith.
Nowadays, sheep are sheared using electric clippers, which is obviously a lot quicker than this traditional method – although only a few years ago we watched our neighbour and his wife shearing one of their sheep with a pair quire similar to these.
Next year, the World Sheep-Shearing Championship (yes, there is such a thing) will be held in the nearby town of Le Dorat. I sense a major photo opportunity.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Comfort
Posted on November 6, 2018
Frank’s theme for his Tuesday Photo Challenge is ‘comfort’. The idea of comfort can be either physical or mental of course or – in this image from the Vallée des Singes of a baby gorilla taking a ride on its mother’s back – very probably both.
Prelude to Prizegiving
Posted on November 2, 2018
These rows of plastic chairs were set out for the prize-giving ceremony at the Doué La Fontaine roses festival. We didn’t stay for that, but as the proceedings were scheduled to start during France’s World Cup semi-final match, I suspect that quite a few of them stayed empty.
Thursday Doors: Chabanais Revisited
Posted on November 1, 2018
Taking a break from the treasures of Perigueux, I recently revisited the nearby (40 minute drive) town of Chabanais, which was featured here about a year ago. I managed to discover a few more interesting doors.
After last week’s diet of exclusively brown doors, here, by way of a change, are a couple of green ones:
And a white one, with some interesting metalwork:
This one’s back to brown, but also has the redeeming feature of metalwork:
While this one also has a weathered shutter to enjoy:
But here’s my favourite from this week’s selection, spotted through a broken window in a derelict house:
Thursday Doors 1 November 2018
Living Colour
Posted on October 31, 2018
The island of Burano, in the Venetian Lagoon, is noted for the bright colours that the residents paint their houses.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Slippery
Posted on October 30, 2018
A particularly interesting theme from Frank for this week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge: ‘slippery’.
This scallop was on a display in the fishmarket near the Rialto Bridge in Venice. The contrast between the slippery flesh and the characteristically patterned scallop shells adds interest.
The Inquisitive Giraffe
Posted on October 26, 2018
This week, Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge has the subject of ‘Tongues and Tails’. This is something I would definitely think twice about googling while in mixed company.
Anyway….in the game reserve on Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi it certainly used to be possible to be driven through the giraffe compound and feed the locals through the open window of your SUV, as illustrated here. You can just about see the giraffe’s tongue, which in real life is actually blue.
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