Dried Ferns

These tightly curled dried ferns were in a roadside hedge just outside the hameau last December.

Wavy2

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge

Two curious fawns

A pair of curious young fawns in a Safari Park in the Vienne region of France

Couples

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Twins

Place de l’Eglise

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:

Church PC

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.

Church ed

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Sepia

* Fabienne Texier & Paul Colmar: ‘La Haute-Vienne Il ya 100 ans en cartes postales anciennes’

Stormclouds

Weather has come around again for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge. Last time I put up a picture of freezing fog close to home, but on this occasion here is an image taken on the other side of the world, in the Hunter Valley in Australia.

weather

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Weather

Ponies in the snow

These Shetland ponies used to be found in a field about a quarter of a mile from our place. The snow (it was a couple of years ago) lends itself well to the monochrome version.

Ponies

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Pets

Feeding Time

Never having been one for sharing pictures of my dinner with the world (what exactly is Instagram anyway?), Cee’s chosen subject for this week of ‘Food’ had me stumped initially, notwithstanding that over on my other blog I had recently posted a picture of my take on a deconstructed curry.

But then it occurred to me that it didn’t have to be food for humans, so here’s a close-up of a giraffe grazing on whatever it is that giraffes eat.

Food

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Food

Bridgework

This photograph is a crop from a photograph I took from a bateau-mouche cruising down the River Seine in Paris and is of the underside of a bridge. It seems to fulfil the ‘lines and angles’ requirement of  Cee’s challenge for this week.

It’s an interesting optical illusion that, although the image is a perfect rectangle the right vertical looks longer than the left.

Lines&Angles

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Lines and Angles

Spiral steeple

Cee’s Black & White challenge this week is anything that begins with the letter ‘S’. So how about the spiral steeple of St Saviour’s church in the town of Rochechouart? Shown against the sky.

Steeple

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: the letter ‘S’

The Lantern

For this week’s subject of ‘Lights’, here is a traditional lantern that hangs over the terrace of the Royal Villa (boy, was that ever a free upgrade) at the Sir Baniyas Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The shadow is a bonus.

Lights

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Lights

The two towers

The headquarters of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority are in a building comprising two towers, about 35 storeys high, linked by a spectacular atrium. Here is a detail (sorry Cee, not the whole thing):

Buildings

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Buildings