theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Lens-Artists Challenge: Tools Of Composition
Posted on August 4, 2025
This week’s challenge is to demonstrate through an image or images the tools of photo composition. John, who’s overseeing proceedings this week, specifies lines, colour and patterns.
Certainly no arguments there, although I would argue that a photographer’s most important tools of composition are their very own eyes: to be able to see the image before it is captured, even if it’s not immediately apparent.
This image is, I think, a decent example of what I’m droning on about. It was taken outside my sister-in-law’s house. the dark triangle on the right is part of her garage roof, while the white triangle and dormer window form part of the neighbouring house.
There are lines and shapes a-plenty, of course, but what draws them together is the composition, and in particular the two triangles meeting at top right. The point is that at first sight this was not immediately obvious, although I could see it had potential. All it needed was for me to use my eyes and take two steps to the left in order to align the various elements as seen here.
Monochrome Madness: Sidestep
Posted on October 19, 2024
Sometimes it’s necessary to look from a different angle at something mundane in order to find an interesting image. Last week I posted a very mundane image of the side wall of a multi-story car park. Its one redeeming feature was a partially visible spiral fire-escape.
For Monochrome Madness this week, where the topic is ‘Steps or stairs’, I cropped out all the mundanity and flipped the steps through 90 degrees to produce what I think is a far more arresting photo.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Unexpected Vista
Posted on October 1, 2024
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge is about finding beauty in unexpected places. Good one.
As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder – in other words, a matter of personal taste, whatever the ‘rules’ say about the rule of thirds, the golden ratio or colour wheels..
This is actually the last photo I took in the month of September, so the ‘untouched’ version has been posted for Bushboy’s Last On The Card challenge here. It was taken in the nearby village of Rancon. It’s – obviously – an archway, although interestingly it’s completely free-standing and in fact the ground slopes away steeply about twenty feet beyond it.
What i failed to notice until I looked at it on the big screen of my desktop was the nicely framed vista that lay beyond, illuminated by the light of the ‘golden hour’. I wasn’t expecting that.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Tools of Composition
Posted on March 4, 2024
The house opposite my daughter’s has just got a new roof…
Cropping in to exclude everything but the tiles themselves not only removes distractions but also brings out the texture of the tiles as well as the patterns they form – obviously all helped by a bright, sunny day.
Ocean Colour Scene
Posted on February 9, 2023
Cee’s topic for her latest midweek challenge is ‘calypso (ocean) colours’. This exercise in the rule of thirds is of a jet ski racing up and down the coastline of Abu Dhabi along the Corniche.
52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 32 Frame within a frame
Posted on August 8, 2020
This week in the Smartphone Challenge we’re asked for a shot that’s framed naturally.
Can do. At the side of our garage a line of trees separates our property from a neighbour’s field, in which he grazes some of his horses.
52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 32
52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 8 – Leading Lines
Posted on February 22, 2020
This is week 8 of the Smartphone Challenge being hosted by Khürt at islandinthenet.com, and we are looking for Leading Lines – more specifically, how they can be used to show the concept of infinity.
In the nearby town of Confolens there is a little bridge over a small tributary of the Vienne river. The parapet on the right provides a leading line, while the bridge itself, as well as providing an interesting reflection (itself a nod to the concept of infinity) obscures the course of the river, adding an element of mystery to the image.
Or something like that.
52WeekSmartphoneChallenge: 8 Leading Lines
Somewhere to lay your head
Posted on June 1, 2019
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge this week has the theme of ‘Any kind of house’.
Well, I suppose everyone needs somewhere to live – although probably not in such a grand edifice as this at Chateau Villandry.
Mundane Monday: Bottles
Posted on January 1, 2018
I thought I’d return to the Mundane Monday Challenge hosted by trablogger.com. In a new departure, we’re to get a theme for each week, starting this time with ‘Bottles’.
This display outside a shop in Sarlat, in the Dordogne, is certainly colourful, although I prefer the colour of the bottles to their contents: an aperitif flavoured with salted caramel. I think I’ll stick to pastis, thank you very much.
Mundane? The New Frames The Old
Posted on November 28, 2016
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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