Weekly Photo Challenge: Experimental
Posted on November 15, 2017
It was during my ten years in Abu Dhabi that I bought my first DSLR, reigniting my interest in ‘serious’ photography. I spent part of one evening with my new camera sitting on its tripod on the balcony of our apartment doing an exercise recommended by the teacher of one of the weekend courses I took.
The idea was to use a long exposure (eight seconds in this case), during which a zoom lens should be rotated (as smoothly as possible) to give this abstract effect:

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Bridge
Posted on November 14, 2017
Frank’s theme for this week is ‘Bridge’, so here’s a twofer: two of the bridges that span the River Lot in the town of Cahors.
This more modern road bridge isn’t too shabby, especially when the shadows make it look a little like a set of nutcrackers:

…although the famous one is the medieval Pont Valentré:

Misty Morning
Posted on November 10, 2017
Early morning mist on the river Vienne at Chabanais (which thoughtfully also provided the inspiration for an earlier post in this weekly challenge)

Thursday Doors: Chabanais
Posted on November 9, 2017
The town of Chabanais stands on the Vienne river in the neighbouring département of Charente.
It’s about a 45-minute drive from Tranquility Base and we used to go there quite regularly for pub quizzes – until the pub in question closed down abruptly and without explanation (the inevitable rumours suggested that this may have had something to do with tax payments, or absence thereof).
So I hadn’t really seen the town in the daytime until recently, when we visited on a Saturday morning. While Madame did her thing with the quilting group, I slouched off with my camera in search of more doors for your delectation.
Although there’s not much left of the old parts of the place, it can still boast a few interesting doors, so my quest wasn’t entirely fruitless.
As it turns out, most of these images form natural pairs, such as these green doors:


And then there were these:


Two adjacent doors:

And even this single door is a double door, if you see what I mean:

Thursday Doors 9 November 2017
Weekly Photo Challenge: Temporary
Posted on November 9, 2017
Take a long enough time-scale and you could argue that everything is temporary. There’s all the difference in the world, in terms of longevity, between the Great Pyramid and a Higgs boson, however.
At the shorter end of the time frame there are, most obviously, fireworks and flowers.
So here are two images that illustrate the temporary life-cycle of a flower, from our garden earlier this year:


Sic transit gloria mundi.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Kitchen
Posted on November 7, 2017
Frank has chosen ‘Kitchen’ as the theme for this week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge, so here is an image from the restored kitchens of the medieval Abbaye de La Réau.
Clearly, these are not the original pots and pans and jars – unless Bonne Maman has been making jam for a lot longer than anyone has ever suspected.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Peek
Posted on November 2, 2017
Another dip into the archives for the Weekly Photo Challenge this time, as I’m still away from home and therefore from full access to my image library.
Here, my grandson takes a peek around the patio door of our apartment in Abu Dhabi. He – and his twin brother – are rather bigger now.

Saint Cirq Lapopie (2)
Posted on November 2, 2017
This week, more doors from the lovely medieval village of Saint Cirq Lapopie, in the Lot region of southern France.
If it’s a village, it must have a church:

Another two-door image:

Arches are a common architectural theme…


…although not universal:

Finally, I had to include this one, for obvious reasons:

Thursday Doors 2 November 2017
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Broken
Posted on October 31, 2017
Still away from base, so for Frank’s Tuesday Photo Challenge this week it’s another dig into the archives to match his theme of ‘Broken’.
I must say, this is one of my favourite photos – a broken cartwheel seen through the window of the blacksmith’s shop in the nearby ‘living museum’ village of Montrol-Sénard. The blurring of the ancient glass and the spiders’ webs gives the image an other-worldly atmosphere.

The Tower
Posted on October 27, 2017
From ground level, the stonework of the tower of this church at Chabanais looks particularly imposing:





