Into The Frame

For this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge we’re asked to display images that have a clear ‘three-dimensional’ structure: foreground, middle ground and background. I suppose that is the two-dimensional equivalent of a beginning, a middle and an end in a piece of fiction.

Anyway, I think this fits the bill. I took this photo on the Sir Bani Yas nature reserve in Abu Dhabi. It was about the time of golden hour but there was too much sand in the air on this day, so the whole world had a very hazy feel to it.

Fortuitously, this lone oryx walked into the frame and a flash of sunlight caught its swishing tail, creating a perfect foreground object. The line of gaff trees provided the middle ground and that mysterious pyramid shape (it’ just a hill) added interest to the background., which would otherwise have been just sand-laden air.

Lens-Artist Challenge: creating depth

Lens-Artists Challenge: Wild

Two Arabian oryx bask in the afternoon sunlight on the Sir Bani Yas Island nature reserve in Abu Dhabi.

This species of oryx was getting uncomfortably close to extinction and the establishment of the Sir Bani Yas reserve played a significant rôle in protecting them and allowing their numbers to increase. Here, they are still ‘in the wild’, as it were (there’s plenty of room), but are safe from the predations of man.

Lens-Artists Challenge: Wild

Lens-Artists Challenge: Two rectangles

The Lens-Artists Challenge this week has been set by Egidio, with the theme of ‘two rectangles’. To me, that seemed like an open invitation to show a bit of minimalist symmetry.

Dusk on Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi:

Lens-Artists Challenge: Two rectangles

Coming in to dock

A catamaran – used mainly for sunset cruises – comes in to doCK at Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi.

CMMC 24 April 2024

Oryx at rest

An Arabian oryx takes it easy in the game reserve on Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

CMMC: Must contain the letter ‘X’

The bull-necked giraffe

It’s not really bull-necked, of course: an optical illusion caused by use of a telephoto lens.

However, the natural pattern of the giraffe’s hide is very characteristic.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Patterns In Nature

A quiet bar

The bar at the Sir Bani Yas Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Life is hard sometimes…

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Doors & Windows

Horny

A veritable forest of horns in this group of Arabian oryx in the nature reserve of Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Horns

Oryx

A safe home in the Sir Bani Yas game reserve, Abu Dhabi.

Posted in response to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: All About Nature

Monday Window: Sir Bani Yas

This is part of the Royal Villa at the eponymous hotel on Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Best upgrade we ever had….

Monday Window 18 May 2020