theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Lens-Artists Challenge – Personal Favourites
Posted on March 25, 2025
This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge is a bit of a tricky one – not that we’re being asked to find an unusual subject, or one which we tend not to photograph very often (e.g. last week’s ‘Portraits’).
No, rather we’re invited by Tina at Travels And Trifles to post five of our personal favourite images. I mean, where do you even begin? I -and I’m certainly not the only one – have literally thousands of photographs in my library from which to try and make a choice. It’s almost invidious.
So, in order to make the process of choice more manageable, I hit on the idea of confining my selection to a particular type of image. I’m quite fond of photographing things from a low viewpoint, as a different perspective can prove to be more interesting.
This flower was growing in one of our raised beds and, backlit by the sun, it looked quite striking.
This chandelier hangs in the reception area of the hotel on Sir Baniyas Island in Abu Dhabi.
By happy chance, this helicopter was about to touch down on the helipad at the top of the Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai.
This is the mightily impressive vaulted ceiling of Beverley Minster.
No, it’s not something from a Transformers movie: it’s an electricity pylon at a shopping centre on the outskirts of Limoges.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Portraits
Posted on March 18, 2025
Like many others. I suspect, I’m not really comfortable with portrait photography. There’s no doubt that it’s an art form in itself – cf. Annie Leibovitz, for example, or Karsh of Ottawa – but I feel much more relaxed focusing (literally) on non-human subjects.
Nonetheless, I thought I’d give it a go for the Lens-Artists Challenge this week and started to comb through my image library. I was very happy – and surprised – to come across this image of a young chimpanzee. It had been misfiled (and therefore forgotten about), but my best guess is that it was taken at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
As portraits go, I don’t think it’s a complete disaster. The subject is calm, reflective – a little curious, even. And, happily, looking straight at the camera.
Lens-Artists Challenge: Pick A Word
Posted on March 4, 2025
This week, John at Journeys With Johnbo has challenged us to show three or four images united by the same one-word description or subject.
Okay then: how about ‘BEAKY’? All three pf these photographs were taken at the Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates. I give you, respectively, a duck, a pelican and a vulture.
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.
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