theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Lens-Artists Challenge: Bold
Posted on February 23, 2025
For this week’s challenge, Sofia at Photographias wants to see something bold. Although I only took this photograph last Thursday evening, it strikes me as a suitable response.
This is the Eglise Saint-Pierre-du-Queyroix in the centre of the city of Limoges. We were walking back from a restaurant to our hotel when I noticed how boldly the spire stood out from the night sky with that yellow hue from the sodium lights that illuminate it after dark.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Zoo
Posted on February 18, 2025
This week’s challenge is to choose ‘only one picture’. This is something I usually do anyway, thanks to a combination of parsimony and idleness.
Mostly, I just take photographs of things that strike me as interesting or aesthetically pleasing – like most photographers, I suspect.
However, if there is one image in my library that has stayed in my mind in the (many) years since I took it, it’s this image of a caged young chimpanzee in the Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates. There’s no suggestion that it was being ill-treated, but it looks pretty traumatised to me, and it does raise fundamental questions about the ethics of zoos.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Colour or B&W?
Posted on February 11, 2025
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge proved, I have to say, a lot less easy that I thought (or hoped) it was going to be. We were challenged to consider the differences in an image that arise when it is converted from colour to monochrome.
This is something that I often play around with in the editing process and I understand that subjects heavy on texture and contrast may be more inherently interesting in black and white. Also, of course, monochrome can give a better feeling for the age of a subject than a normal colour shot, which makes it quite suitable for photographs of old buildings, for example.
Nonetheless, I struggled to come up with something for the challenge, at least until I came across this close-up of a romanesco (a cross between broccoli and cauliflower and tastier than either of them). There’s never a shortage of texture to work with and although there’s plenty going on in the original colour version, I think that it’s easier to appreciate it in monochrome, which somehow gives the picture more depth.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Cats & Dogs
Posted on February 2, 2025
I’ve never been a big fan of pets as a genre. My parents had a couple of dogs when I was a child, the first of which – a mongrel called Scamp suddenly disappeared one day. I found out much later that he had to leave because he’d attacked me. I have absolutely no recollection of this incident, but it could go some way to explaining my, at best, indifference to the idea of owning cats or dogs.
So when it comes to photographs of cats and dogs, this week’s Lens-Artists. theme, the virtual cupboard of my image library is rather bare. However, there was a quite interesting cat mooching around the quiet village of Rancon a few months ago. It was gracious enough to acknowledge our presence. and look straight into the camera phone.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Complementary Colours
Posted on January 27, 2025
I’d like to think that I have a reasonable grasp of the theory behind complementary colours. The problem is that the world doesn’t necessarily adhere to the principle and often seems quite happy to juxtapose any old clashing shades with nary a thought about the aesthetics of the matter.
Orange and blue are certainly complementary, and when the setting sun hits the underside of clouds, the vibrant orange glow it can produce sits very well against the still-blue sky. Crop out any earthbound distractions and you could get yourself a bit of abstract art.
Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…
Lens-Artists Challenge: Shoot from above
Posted on January 23, 2025
Sometimes (or should that be ‘many times and oft’?) these old bones either can’t or – more likely – can’t be bothered to hunker down and take an eye-level photo of something at or near ground level. That at least is my excuse for just snapping this flower from above. Its bright colours made it really stand out from its surroundings.
Lens-artists Challenge: Resilience
Posted on January 14, 2025
In the parched desert outside the city of Al Ain, in the United Arab Emirates, some hardy bushes can demonstrate the resilience to cling to life even in the harshest of conditions.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Last Chance 2024
Posted on December 27, 2024
As I recall it, there was nothing that particularly stood out about this shot when I took it, about a week ago, but a closer look on the big screen rather than the smartphone made me think it’s actually a half decent composition.
It was taken down by the river in the old part – the quattiers pittoresques – of Bellac, our nearest town, when I was standing in the middle of a (very) old stone bridge.Apart from the tranquiity (it’s an area that isn’t that easy to access by car, so is usually quite quiet except in the tourist season), what stood out for me was the multitude of leading lines that draw the viewer in.
There’s the river itself, disappearing into the downstream distance, as well as the ripples in the bottom right, caused by the water flowing through the arches of the bridge. Additionally, there’s that low wall on the left. Mainly, however, it’s those trees and especially their reflections.
Well, I like it anyway…
Lens-Artists Challenge: Winter
Posted on December 10, 2024
Against a blameless blue morning sky, a very cold, clear night has put a spectacular bloom of heavy fros on the bare branches of these trees in one of our fields.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Five Elements
Posted on December 1, 2024
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, set by Sophia at Photographias, asks us to feature the four classical elements: air, earth, fire and water, but with metal as an addition.
Ideally, a single image would include all five (and so probably qualify for a notional bonus point. Unfortunately, I could find nothing in my library that would achieve that quintuple whammy, but I managed to include the full set in just two images.
Air and fire are accounted for by this shot taken at a firework display celebrating the United Arab Enirates’ National Day (which, coincidentally, comes round again this week).
As for the rest, here’s some dew (water) on a spider’s web woven on the back of a metal (sic) chair in our back garden (earth).
Top Posts & Pages
theonlyD800inthehameau 