Thursday Doors: Mortemart

Mortemart, about a twenty-minute drive from here at Tranquility Base, is listed as being among the most beautiful villages in France, according to the association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. It’s all a matter of individual taste, of course, and personally I don’t think it’s a patch on Montrol-Sénard, which is another five minutes up the road and has made many appearances on this blog, and not just on the theme of doors.

However, it does have a few interesting doors, including this one, my particular favourite. Who can resist a ‘two-tone’ example that also boasts a ‘door within a door’?

Mortemart2

or a long disused one like this:

Mortemart3

Or even this more prosaic example:

Mortemart1

Thursday Doors 18 August 2016

Macro Moments: Week 9

This week, Sue at Musin’ with Susan, as her latest Macro Moments Challenge, asked for an image of an inanimate object. Here are the heads of three safety matches. This was taken as part of an assignment on a weekend Macro photography course I took just after I became the proud owner of my Macro lens.

As you can probably tell by looking at the metadata below the image, I was still struggling to get to grips with it. Plus ça change.

Matches

NikonD300. Nikkor 105mm f2.8 Macro lens. 2 secs at f36; ISO200. Edited in Lightroom

And yes, I did use a tripod.

 

52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 2 – Food

This year we are inundated with blackberries and there are plenty more to come. These may not be quite at the ‘food’ stage yet, but they soon will be:

Food Wk2

52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 2 – Food

Tuesdays of Texture: Statuary

A fortuitous angle of light source helps to bring out the textures of these statuettes, which are located up on a wall of a side chapel in the cathedral of Limoges:

Texture=Statuettes

Tuesdays of Texture: Week 34

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fun

Yesss! Got the car keys! Let the fun begin.

Fun1

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fun

52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 1 – Black & White

The Girl That Dreams Awake is hosting a brand new weekly challenge which I thought I’d try and play along with.

I’m intrigued to see what topics lie ahead for future weeks, but for Week 1 it’s Black & White, so here is another image of Terry’s Triumph to add to the ones that I posted recently in response to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge:

52W B&W

Metropolitain

At a fête des fleurs in Magnac-Laval earlier this year, I couldn’t help noticing the shadow thrown by the back of this old chair, which presumably began life (quite a long time ago) somewhere on the Paris Metro. The weatherbeaten textures suit monochrome quite well.

Chair

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Any Seating, Including Tables and Chairs

Thursday Doors: Le Dorat

With a name like that, this town about thirtty minutes drive from here is surely crying out to be included in Thursday Doors.

Le Dorat is probably best known for its medieval church: the Collegiale, whose stonework is mightily impressive:

LeDorat3

…and not just on the outside:

LeDorat1

There remain some other relics of earlier times, including a good section of fortified wall, as well as this impressive towered main gate:

LeDorat5

Outside the old and very compact centre of the town, however, there are plenty of examples of more recent and typical rural architecture:

LeDorat2

LeDorat4

Thursday Doors 11 August 2016

Macro Moments: Week 8

Before I traded up to my D800, my first ‘proper’ DSLR was a Nikon D300, which I bought while living in Abu Dhabi. This was the second ever photograph I took with it.

Buds

NikonD300 with Nikon 18-55mm kit lens at 40mm. 1/80 at f5.3, ISO200. Edited in Lightroom.

Macro Moments: Week 8

Tuesdays Of Texture: Window

Alerted by the estimable Norm 2.0, I thought I’d make a contribution to the ‘Tuesdays of Texture’ stream hosted by Narami at De Monte Y Mar.

This old window is to be found high up on the wall of Paulette’s barn, here in the very hameau referred to in the name of this blog. I think the textures of the wood, the stone work and the metal are all worth a look.

Texture- Window

And here’s the same window in context:

Paulette's Barn