Posted on October 15, 2024
A particularly interesting theme for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge: ‘Looking back’.
If you think about it, every photo you’ve ever taken – even the one you might have captured less than a minute ago – is looking back: a split second of a memory preserved for ever (or at least until you press the ‘Delete’ button). Indeed, why do we take photos in the first place, if not to create a memento?
I’m fortunate to have many happy memories – and perhaps even luckier to be able to remember them, but I’d be lying if I said that having a photographic record hasn’t helped in that.. So, the choice wasn’t easy, but I finally settled on something.
Madame and I have been lucky enough to visit Venice four times, all for wedding anniversaries, of which three were significant milestones. This is the hotel , on the Grand Canal, that we stayed in on two of those occasions. Happy days…

Lens-Artists Challenge: Looking back
Category: Travel Tagged: Grand Canal, hotel, Lens-Artists, Looking back, Memory, Nostalgia, Venice
Posted on March 10, 2024
During a recent visit to the UK we stayed at a hotel near St Pancras and Kings’ Cross stations. This is the rather unexpected view from our room.
I cropped the original to establish some symmetry between the two walls and darkened the shadows on the left one for a more pleasing contrast.

Category: Uncategorized Tagged: #cellpicsunday, Cellpic Sunday, hotel, statue, Windows
Posted on September 15, 2023
A typical staircase in a typical Paris hotel. Our room was on the top (sixth) floor. And, as usual, the lift is about as big as an upright refrigerator.

Posted on November 30, 2022
The warm glow of the sodium lights gives a caramel tone to this view of the courtyard of a hotel in the centre of Toulouse.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Caramel colour
Category: Travel Tagged: Caramel colour, Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, Courtyard, hotel, Toulouse
Posted on October 15, 2019
A very interesting challenge from Frank this week. He invites us to go to our back catalog(ue) and take a new look at an old image – probably something we could all benefit from doing more often.
This is part of the exterior of a hotel on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. The original – reproduced in the smaller photo below – is pretty ho-hum: no doubt why I’ve never done anything with it. However, after some cropping and ‘popping’ in Lightroom post-processing it becomes a more striking abstract geometric composition.


Tuesday Photo Challenge: Back Catalog(ue)
Category: Abstract Tagged: Abstract, Abu Dhabi, Architecture, Editing, fpj-photo-challenge, geometric, hotel, Yas Island
Posted on October 17, 2018
Cee’s Fun Foto theme for this week is just about as close to carte blanche as it’s possible to be. ‘Places people visit’: well, if there’s a photograph of it somebody must have visited it, in order to take the shot.
It’s fun being a pedant.
In the spirit of the theme, though, this place is definitely a tourist attraction and to prove it, this view of the cathedral of Saint-Front in Perigueux was actually taken from the window of our hotel room. I’ve stayed in places with worse views.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Places People Visit
Category: Travel Tagged: Cathedral, Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, hotel, Perigueux, Places People Visit, Saint-Front, Tourism
Posted on August 29, 2017
After last week’s theme of ‘pink’ it’s quite natural for Frank to set us the challenge of ‘Blue’ this week.
I hope this is blue enough for everyone. It’s a detail of the roof of what used to be called the Yas Hotel, on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi – just outside the Formula One racetrack. At night, the colours cycle through the spectrum, but I managed to catch it when it was at its bluest:

Category: Abstract Tagged: Abstract, Abu Dhabi, Architecture, Blue, fpj-photo-challenge, hotel, Night, Rooftops, Tuesday Photo Challenge, Yas Island
Posted on May 26, 2017
This final instalment of Cee’s alphabetical Black & White challenge was always going to be a bit tricky – unless, that is, you have a particular soft spot for yachts or zebras (I don’t).
However, inspiration finally struck when I remembered this iconic hotel (it actually used to be called the Yas Hotel), which is on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, right next to the Formula 1 race circuit.
We stayed there once. Very interesting architecturally, but as a hotel? – meh.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Y or Z
Category: Black & White Tagged: Abu Dhabi, Black & White, Cee's Black & White Photo Challenge, hotel, Yas Island
Posted on May 22, 2017
This week’s theme set by The Girl That Dreams Awake is ‘From Above’. This can often provide an interesting and unusual perspective when compared with the more conventional ‘straight ahead’ view.
This particular example is looking down from a fifth-floor balcony onto a water feature in the foyer of a nautically-themed hotel in Dubai.

52 Weeks Photo Challenge: Week 35 – From Above
Category: Travel Tagged: 52 Weeks, 52Weeks, Dubai, From Above, hotel, Water feature
Posted on March 3, 2017
Looks like we’ll be going through the alphabet over the next few months with Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge. Naturally enough, we start with A or B, so as a special introductory offer here are two Bs for the price of one.
I freely admit that it was a little unsettling the first time I went into this bathroom at a hotel in Paris to be confronted by a Polar Bear. Fortunately, it was only an image on the door of the shower cubicle and I should have been forewarned because I’d already seen one on the wall over the bed.
And that’s really weird.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: A or B
Category: Black & White Tagged: bathroom, Bear, Black & White, Cee's Black & White Photo Challenge, decor, hotel, Paris, Polar Bear