52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 17 – Laughter

‘Laughter’ is the theme for this week’s challenge hosted by The Girl That Dreams Awake.

A game of peek-a-boo is guaranteed to produce laughter in a two year old. This photograph of one of my grandsons comes with free reflection.

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Mundane? The New Frames The Old

Another entry for the Mundane Mondays challenge hosted by PhoTrablogger.

Close to Circular Quay, in the heart of Sydney, you can still see some of the original stone that must have welcomed the First Fleet, although most is now concealed behind more modern brickwork:

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WPC: ‘It’s Not This Time of Year Without…Frost’

We’ve had a couple of frosty days over the past few weeks. So that’ll be November then:

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Time of Year

Abstract Geometry

I took this photograph while on a weekend photography course in Abu Dhabi a few years ago. The colour original isn’t up to much: an over-exposed (very bright sunlight) pale yellow section of what, apart from a line of these tilted squares, was a pretty nondescript wall.

However, this monochrome version is, in my view, a lot more interesting: the shape itself is emphasised – helped by the vignetting I added – and the whole thing is somehow much ‘grittier’ thanks to the greater contrast available in black & white.

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Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Geometric Shapes

Thursday Doors: Mezieres-sur-Issoire – the gates

As promised, this week we feature some of the more interesting gates to be found in our local village of Mézières-sur-Issoire.

You’d expect the grander houses to have gates and indeed they mostly do, like this rather commanding set:

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although personally, I found this next set more interesting. I particularly liked the way that the autumn leaves wrapped themselves around the gatepost.

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Whereas those two examples are a bit off the beaten track, the gates below are on the main road, and at least you can see the house that sits behind them (the architecture is quite typical of the maisons de mâitre around here):

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Notice also that those gates and railings could do with a lick of paint. As indeed could the long-unused gate at the corner of the garden of the same property:

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…or this one in front of a much smaller terraced house a little further along the street:

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And, of course, gates don’t always have to belong to houses – or even lead anywhere:

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Thursday Doors 24 November 2016

Macro Moments: Week 20 – Butterfly on Buddleia

Back in the summer, our buddleia bushes were, as usual, hosts to many butterflies. This was one of them that I managed to isolate and get back-lit.

butterfly

Nikon D800 with Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens at 200mm. 1/250 at f6.7, ISO 500. Cropped and edited in Lightroom.

Macro Moments Week 20

Tuesdays of Texture: Quilt

Last year, as a wedding present for our son and (now) daughter-in-law, Madame made a king-sized bed quilt, with most of the stitching done by her own fair hands. It took close to a full year to complete, and the last Swarovski crystal being stitched on just two days before the wedding. This is a work-in-progress image.

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Tuesdays of Texture

52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 16 – Christmas

Yes it does seem a bit too early to be posting Christmas images, but it’s The Girl That Dreams Awake’s challenge, so who am I to argue? (Except with the numbering: this is Week 16, not 15.)

Anyway, here are some photogenic pine cones from the roadside about a mile down the road from here.

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Ropes and Rigging

I’m participating for the first time in the ‘Mundane Monday’ challenge hosted by PhoTrablogger. There are two aspects to the challenge: to find beauty in mundane objects and/or to place the mundane in a beautiful or interesting frame.

This image takes the second option. It was captured while on a late afternoon boat trip on Sydney Harbour a few years ago. The canoe at the centre of the photograph is a fairly mundane object in itself (although it was nice of it to be orange against the blue water). However, the rigging in which it is framed provides the real interest and – literally – focus.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Magic

For those who believe that there is a rational explanation for just about everything, ‘magic’ is – by definition – something that isn’t real: in other words, an illusion. So here’s an, admittedly very impressive, example of an illusion.

In the centre of Limoges this medieval building dominates the Place de la Motte. Except that it’s neither medieval nor even a building – it’s a gigantic and brilliantly rendered trompe l’oeil mural, painted on the side of a much more modern edifice. The cat at top left isn’t real either (although the satellite dish is).

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Not that I want to puncture the illusion, but here’s a wider-angle perspective:

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Magic