Thursday Doors: Loches
Posted on June 9, 2016
The town of Loches, in central France (not far from Chédigny) was, in medieval times, the seat of the kings of France and there are many interesting – some long-neglected – doors in and around the old citadel that dominates the moderrn townscape.
At the base of the citadel is this door, that obviously hasn’t been used in a very long time:
And nor has this one, which comes from a time when disabled access was not something anyone thought about:
For sumptuousness of decor, though, the main door of the Collégiale church is impressive:
Thursday Doors 9 June 2016
Guiding the viewer
Posted on June 6, 2016
The latest task in Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge is to guide the viewer: in other words, to compose your image so that the viewer focuses on what you want them to see within it, rather than be distracted or have their attention drawn away from what they ‘ought’ to be looking at.
Bright Spot
The intended subject of this image, of a church interior in Rochechouart, is the decoration on the columns and walls on the left, but the eye can’t help but be drawn to the bright spot of the stained glass window on the right: so it has to go, leaving the focus of the image as it was intended:
The S Curve
A curved object in an image is almost always more interesting and attention-drawing than a straight line and, as Cee points out, it’s a common and perfectly respectable technique in pictures involving roads. Here are two images (the one on the right is a cropped version of the first) of light trails at the T-junction. Apart from eliminating the distractions of the vehicles stopped at the lights on the bottom left, the tighter crop’s curve also takes precedence in the eye over the otherwise intrusive angular traffic-light gantries.
Flipping The Horizon
Sometimes you take a photograph and it’s fine – except that you wish it could be the other way round – a mirror image. Of course, through the miracle of editing software it’s now very simple to get the image you want simply by flipping it. The two images below (taken just along the road on a sunny autumn day last year) are identical in every respect except that one is the mirror image of the other. Can you guess which was the original and – more to the point – which one do you prefer?
(Sometimes an image can also benefit from being flipped upside down, as I did recently in my contribution to the June One Photo Focus.)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Numbers
Posted on June 5, 2016
Not so long ago, I posted this stark image of one of the outside-facing clocks on the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. For the latest WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, with the theme of Numbers, here is the ornate gilded clock – roman numerals and all – that hangs over the main exhibition hall inside:
Less conventionally, here’s another way of looking at numbers, from the old schoolroom in Montrol-Sénard:
Capital carving close-up
Posted on June 4, 2016
The precision and detail of the carving on the capital of a marble column in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is clearly brought out in this monochrome close-up.
One Photo Focus June 2016
Posted on June 3, 2016
The original image for this month’s One Photo Focus was taken by David Croker and is a lovely shot of peaceful serenity; who doesn’t like the combination of sky, water and reflections?
The only problem with this original is that the air of tranquility is jarred somewhat by the electricity pylons running right across the horizon. I realise that it’s possible to remove such intrusions through various photo editing programs,including Photoshop, which I have myself, but it looks like a very painstaking exercise, particularly if (a) you haven’t done it before and (b) when there are not only wires but also the pylons to be erased.
Then I recalled that for a WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge some time ago, with the theme of ‘Dreamy‘, I had used a reflected image to get the dreamlike look that the assignment called for, and I thought it had worked quite well.
Accordingly, I adopted the same principle for this One Photo Focus, to produce this:
Here’s what I did:
- Flipped the image horizontally
- Cropped to remove the sky – and therefore the power pylons and cables. I also wanted to highlight that cloud on the right of the original image, so cropped out the whole of the left half
- After that, it was simply a matter of adding a little ‘punch’ in Lightroom, and also adjusting colour Luminance to make the green and blue of the reflected boats stand out more.
I’m quite pleased with the dreamy, painting-y effect of this revised version
Thursday Doors: Chedigny en fleur
Posted on June 2, 2016
More doors from Chédigny this week and, as promised, this time with added flowers (particularly roses), for which the village is justly famous.
In this first image is apparently the oldest rose bush in the village, over a hundred years old. And you’ve got to love the purple paintwork.
Here are another two doors featuring Chédigny’s signature roses:
And finally, not roses but some pretty impressive wisteria:
Thursday Doors 2 June 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Spare
Posted on May 28, 2016
This motley collection of rusty washers and other miscellaneous bits and pieces (presumably spares) was seen at a vide grenier (car boot sale) in the village of Lesterps. Who buys this stuff?
Backwards in time
Posted on May 27, 2016
An open topic for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge this week gives me an excuse to post this image.
It was taken in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, which is housed in a former mainline railway station. This is the inside of the clock tower. I was praying that everybody else would get out of the shot before this gentleman decided to move on and spoil the composition.
This is what it looks like from the outside:
Thursday Doors: Chedigny
Posted on May 26, 2016
The little village of Chédigny, in the central Indre-et-Loire département, is widely held to be one of the loveliest in France, and is particularly noted for its flowers, which line the streets and can be found on or outside pretty much every house. Of course, every house has at least one porte and on a recent visit I took enough photographs for at least a couple of door-themed posts.
I’ll save the best flower-surrounded examples for another time (respecting the old adage that you should ‘always leave them wanting more’), but to whet the appetite, here are a few of the plainer – although still interesting in their different ways – examples.
The only thing to say about this first one is that it seems to have been overtaken by events, as half of it is below the current pavement level. If it opens outwards, then someone’s in trouble.
By contrast, here are two doors with more elevated aspects, both of which you would step out through at your peril:
And finally the austere simplicity of the side door of the village church:
Thursday Doors 26 May 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Jubilant
Posted on May 22, 2016
‘Jubilant’ derives from a Greek word which means (literally) ‘shouting for joy’. Not unlike this guest at one of our grandsons’ birthday parties:
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