Two curious fawns
Posted on March 3, 2016
A pair of curious young fawns in a Safari Park in the Vienne region of France
Thursday Doors: Limoges
Posted on March 3, 2016
Our nearest city is Limoges, the capital of the Haute-Vienne département. Not surprisingly, it has a major railway station, the Gâre des Bénédictins. The current structure was built in the late 1920s and, according to Wikipedia, has been named the most beautiful rail station in Europe.
It boasts an impressive clock-tower, a large dome over the main hall and stained-glass windows. These certainly help to lift the necessarily utilitarian features of the building a little out of the ordinary, as in this otherwise unremarkable side-door (the exit to the car-park)
Thursday Doors 3 March 2016
Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 15 – Under
Posted on March 2, 2016
I’m afraid I can’t remember what this particular species of monkey is called (marmoset?), but I do know I took this photograph of one peering out from undera plastic sheet at the Vallée des Singes (‘Monkey Valley’) nature park in the Vienne département of France.
Analogous Colours
Posted on March 1, 2016
The latest instalment in this thread calls for examples of analogous colours – in other words, ones that are adjacent on the colour wheel:
The most common mnemonic to help with remembering the ‘proper’ sequence of colours in the spectrum is ‘ROYGBIV’: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Here are some images that put together good neighbours.
OYG
Two examples here: a flower from Monet’s Garden in Giverny and a selection of flowering courgettes from the Rialto Market in Venice
GB
A bright blue dragonfly on a green leaf (from my garden pond)
BIV
My grandson sitting at the top of a slide at his pirate-themed second birthday party
IVR
Finally, this is an electronic display in The Mall of The Emirates in Dubai. The colours actually cycle through the whole spectrum
Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge: Complimentary Colours
Weekly Photo Challenge: State of Mind
Posted on February 28, 2016
Like everybody else, I was looking forward to the display of birds of prey at a chateau in the Dordogne – and when it came, I enjoyed it.
But I couldn’t help wondering, as I mooched about with my camera before showtime, what the birds themselves might think about it.
Place de l’Eglise
Posted on February 25, 2016
Just over a year ago, I bought a book* about the history of the Haute-Vienne departément of France, illustrated by old postcards. It’s a fascinating series of snapshots of life a hundred years ago and more in what is still a very rural area of the country.
I had a fancy to find the locations of, and try to reproduce, these postcard images. This project, which I rather grandly call ‘Autrefois’ (literally ‘another time’), hasn’t really got off the ground yet, although there is one post extant in the thread. However, Cee’s challenge of posting a sepia image this week gives me an ideal opportunity to double my output.
Our local village is called Mézières-sur-Issoire, and this is an old postcard of the church, reproduced from the book:
And here is my take on it. As you can see, not that much has changed over the past hundred years or so, apart from the ubiquity of the motor vehicle and the related signage. The space in front of the church is now commonly used as a car-park, so I counted myself lucky that there was only one van (which actually belongs to one of the builders who did most of the renovation work on our house) there when I went along with my camera.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Sepia
* Fabienne Texier & Paul Colmar: ‘La Haute-Vienne Il ya 100 ans en cartes postales anciennes’
Thursday Doors: Montrol-Senard
Posted on February 25, 2016
I suspect I’m not the only one who finds this particular image of a door slightly unsettling. It was taken in Montrol-Sénard, a very pretty village not far from here, which is preserved as a living museum of rural life as it would have been a century ago.
This particular door is at the back of a barn which now houses a collection – which could best be described as ‘eclectic’ – of bric-à-brac and various oddities owned by an obviously somewhat eccentric Dutchman.
I am reliably (translate.google.com) informed that ‘Ooievaar’ means ‘stork’…..No, me neither.
Still, it’s not often you see an illustration of the well-known saying ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’.
Thursday Doors 25 February 2016
Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 14 – Wrong Position
Posted on February 23, 2016
A perfectly okay photograph of a line of horses of the ‘Cadre Noir’ of France’s national equestrian centre. Apart from the flowerpot emerging from the centre rider’s hat. And the apparent rotor-blade on number 3’s hat. Oh, and if the leader hadn’t had his tongue out, that would have been good too.
Other than that, spot on.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Seasons
Posted on February 20, 2016
In 2014 I set myself a project to record the passing seasons by every month taking a photograph of the field behind our house, from the same point of view. This week’s Photo Challenge provides an ideal opportunity to show the results.
Before & After: Boat
Posted on February 19, 2016
I took this photograph of an upturned boat at Watson’s Bay, near Sydney. It was a bit of a snatched shot and while the subject is interesting, it’s a little frustrating because I didn’t capture the entire boat, cutting off the prow (at the bottom of the image) and the sides. Furthermore, the horizon (waterline) isn’t straight and the colours are rather bleached – partly because it’s a pretty weatherbeaten vessel in the first place and also because it was taken around noon – so I was probably on my way to lunch, which probably explains why it was a snatched shot.
Before
After
I cropped out most of the boat, the shoreline and the surrounding sand, and also added a light Vignette. This brought the real interest, the bottom of the boat, and especially the ‘trident’ effect of the struts, properly to the fore.
This produced an almost abstract feel, which was reinforced largely by reducing the Luminance and modestly tweaking the Saturation of the key colours, blue and orange
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