Category: Turkey

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

Posted on Posted in canon eos 450d, England, Gardens, Photography, Turkey, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , , , , , 38 Comments

Bibury is a pretty village in the Cotswolds, the sort of place that is seen as a typical English village by its many visitors from abroad. Travelling through a few weeks ago there were coach loads of Japanese tourists merrily snapping away. On my return journey a few days later it was quieter and I was able to merrily snap, and have been waiting for a reason to show you. I thought I would focus on the growth happening there.

This row of cottages look like they could be swallowed up amongst the dense growth of  trees and meadow.

Fruit trees have a good crop bursting with growth and gorgeous roses doing what roses do best in June.

Look how high the river is, it’s no wonder everything is lush and green this year with the amount of rain we’ve had, I’m glad it isn’t just in Devon, Bibury is in the county of Gloucestershire.

Bibury Trout Farm is an attraction open daily where you can try your hand at catching Rainbow or Brown Trout. There is something for everyone and children especially would love the chance to see the fish leap for the food they can throw in. They sell fresh and smoked trout and have a nice café where I stopped for a quick cuppa – so much nicer than a motorway services! There is quite a bit of algal growth on this section of their fifteen acres.

They have beautiful gardens to walk through as well.

 

This is the Bibury Court Hotel, a Grade 1 listed 16th Century mansion. I haven’t been inside but a friend tells me its divine, having checked the website I believe her, I like the look of their Afternoon Tea, a mere seventeen pounds a head. I imagine that its grounds are a real sanctuary from the visiting hoards outside. I love the dense growth of creeper spreading over its walls, hope it doesn’t have too many creepy crawlies though.

This is a real ‘Chocolate Box’ cottage but I couldn’t get the best photo because too many other people were trying to do the same.

I visited five weeks ago so I think that by now the runner beans, carrots and potatoes have put on a big growth spurt and filled a few tummies. What a pretty veggie patch.

This is my entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge with the theme of growth. I hope you   have enjoyed it and will visit some of the others here,  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/weekly-photo-challenge-growth/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 Super Shots!

Posted on Posted in Ghana, India, Photography, Travel, TurkeyTagged , , , , , , , , , , 29 Comments

The lovely Madhu over at http://theurgetowander.com/ chose me for the http://blog.hostelbookers.com/travel/7-super-shots/  and gosh was it difficult. I have 20-25 thousand photos to choose from, how do you decide which are good and which you just like? So mine are possibly a mix of both.

The first was in India a few years ago when I had a point and shoot, to date it is the only photo of mine I have framed. It takes me right back to how I felt that day. It was taken close to the top of Ratnagiri hill in Pushkar which has a temple to the goddess Savitri at the summit. We got up before dawn to climb up for the sunrise as suggested by our driver the venerable Magan Singh. What he didn’t know – until now maybe – was that we didn’t actually quite reach the top, but didn’t have the heart to tell him as he was so sure that we would love it! The problem was that we had been so ill for a few days before and were still incredibly weak. He was right, the view was beautiful. I remember every moment, every laboured step, and most of all, the tiny, bent old ladies climbing to the temple as they do each day for prayer. This one literally took my breath away, I couldn’t breathe as I struggled upwards!

Next, a little closer to home, this is close to the finishing line of last October’s Commando Challenge on Yettington common in East Devon.  I love this photo because it shows the determination of these women to complete a really gruelling and hideously muddy course. They ran 10 kilometres through water and mud filled tunnels and tracks that is part of a marines endurance training course. This particular group were so supportive of each other, and it makes me think, isn’t it wonderful what can be achieved when you work together? 

Over in Malaysian Borneo this time, at Kota Kinabalu. There had to be at least one sunset! These are two of the islands of Tunku Abdul Rahman park taken from Jesselton Point. This the photo that makes me dream!

At the village of Baobeng-Fiema the story goes that the monkeys are considered special. The locals give them all names and they are buried in a graves when they die. It wasn’t the monkeys that I found special in this Ghanaian village, it was the children. This is the shot that makes me smile

This young woman’s backpack must have weighed as much as she did. I couldn’t help wondering where she was headed, I suspect a local youth hostel. More interesting still, where had she been? For me, this photo tells a story.

In Western Anatolia breakfast was early one day last June. We had a lot of miles to cover that day so we had to skip the hotel meal but were promised a treat instead. Delicious local yoghurt and honey, sprinkled with poppy seeds, it worked for me and made my mouth water, I’m not sure about the carnivores though. 

Now, I don’t know if anyone else will ‘get’ this photo, what I see in it. Again its a shot that conjures up atmosphere for me. I love the quality of light, I love the activity, the between time. It was taken in Marrakech from a rooftop cafe at a time when the work of the day was ending, and the evening’s entertainment and culinary delights had not yet begun. So this is my photo that I am most proud of , aka my worth of National Geographic shot. 

So there we are, all seven, I hope you like them. Is there one in particular that you think is good? or terrible?

As always there are rules! I have to nomnate five bloggers to take part, but only if you want to. My five are,

http://sophomorejinx.wordpress.com/

http://jobryantnz.wordpress.com/

http://catbirdinoman.wordpress.com/

http://adinparadise.wordpress.com/

http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/

 

 

The Sunday Post: Work

Posted on Posted in Ghana, India, Photography, Travel, TurkeyTagged , , , , , , 38 Comments

Jakes theme this week is work and once again he has created a clever animation here http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/

Here are my work photos.

Rug making in Anatolia, a woman’s work.

Palm oil production in Ghana, the whole family share the work, even very small children.

Building repairs that seem to be shared work.

Rug uh – guarding? a man’s work!

Sunday Post : Design

Posted on Posted in Art and Design, Photography, TurkeyTagged , , , , 32 Comments

My question is, at what point does it become my design and not the original artists? Maybe never? What do you think?

The original photo, from a frieze on a wall in a museum in Ankara

Not very exciting but I changed it into this to make a card for a friend, better maybe?

and then for today’s theme, I really began to play 🙂

My favourite – today at least!

This post is part of Jakesprinters Sunday Post photo challenge …you can join in too … check it out at http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/sunday-post-design/

Sunday Post: Landscape

Posted on Posted in canon eos 450d, Devon, Photography, TurkeyTagged , , , , , , 49 Comments

As part of my decision to focus more often on the UK, my photo for the Sunday post this week was taken on Dartmoor, hope you like its stark beauty.

At 368 square miles, Dartmoor is the largest and wildest area of open country in Southern England, this shot is taken from Houndtor and the granite outcrop in the distance is Haytor. I believe that some areas on the moor were used in the filming of Warhorse.

This is part of Jakes Sunday post here, http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/sunday-post-landscape/

 

RHS Rosemoor, a garden in winter

Posted on Posted in Devon, Flowers, Photography, Turkey, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , , 30 Comments

I’ve been to one of my favourite gardens today, looked after by the Royal Horticultural Society, Rosemoor is near Great Torrington and an hour from home. It’s a garden for all seasons and perhaps best known for its midsummer display of roses. Much as I love roses, it can be a bit busy there for me then and the rose garden is more formal than I like a garden to be.

At this time of the year its heaven, full of the earliest of spring flowers and shrubs and the trees look stunning in their nakedness. There is fragrance everywhere, most noticeably from Daphne, Viburnum and Box with the occasional waft of Eucalyptus. The most common snowdrops are coming to the end of their season but they have many varieties still looking fresh, crocuses are abundant, and the dwarf narcissi and hellebore are exquisite.

Rosemoor is divided into several sections, a winter garden, herbaceous, woodland, exotic and the original garden created by Lady Anne Palmer who gifted the 65 acres to the RHS. To reach Lady Anne’s garden you walk through a tunnel under the road towards the house which is surrounded by a more relaxed style of planting with Mediterranean area and the stone garden.

A very well planned vegetable garden produces an abundance of fresh food for the restaurant as well as seed for research. Right now the espaliered fruit trees are still dormant, but this really shows the skill involved in maintaining them. Strings of last season’s onions hang in a thatched summerhouse along with pumpkins, gourds and dried peppers and everywhere you walk there is an orchestra of birdsong.

Modern water features and ponds can be seen in the formal areas and there is a large lake stocked with Rudd and visited by ducks, and amphibians. The area around the lake has been refurbished since I was last there, smartened up and I prefer it as it was, but no doubt health and safety had to be considered, so it now has an improved path to the edge and a wooden bridge that I do like.

The icing on the cake today was a sculpture exhibition, a wonderful selection of art scattered throughout the garden, and great fun to turn a corner and find the next piece. It was all for sale and for those with a few thousand ponds to spare there were some very desirable things to choose from, my favourite was called ‘Refuge’ and of course was way beyond my reach.

 

I spent five hours happily wandering, it’s a very peaceful way to spend a day especially as the sun came out after lunch. Perhaps I will go back when the roses bloom or maybe when the vegetable garden reaches its zenith in August, whenever it will always be a delight!

I think I have created a pdf thingy of some of the Rosemoor sculpture photos I took, try clicking and let me know if it works!

Sunday Post : Colourful

Posted on Posted in TurkeyTagged , , , 28 Comments

If your blog is about photography, videography, Graphic Artwork Or Writing – Join in the Sunday Competition:

Here’s how the weekly photo Competition  works:

1. Each week, Jake will provide a theme for creative inspiration. Show the world  based on your interpretation what you have in mind for the theme, and post them on your blog anytimebefore the following Sunday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. Subscribe to jakesprinter so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

GET THE BADGE FOR YOUR IMAGE WIDGET….

Make sure to have the image link to http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/ so that others can learn about the challenge, too.

So here is my entry for the theme ‘Colourful’

Colourful traditional pottery in Turkey

Sunday Post : Expression

Posted on Posted in Photography, Travel, TurkeyTagged , , , 33 Comments

If your blog is about photography, videography, Graphic Artwork Or Writing – Join in the Sunday Competition:

Here’s how the weekly photo Competition  works:

1. Each week, Jake will provide a theme for creative inspiration. Show the world  based on your interpretation what you have in mind for the theme, and post them on your blog anytimebefore the following Sunday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. Subscribe to jakesprinter so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

GET THE BADGE FOR YOUR IMAGE WIDGET….

Make sure to have the image link to http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/ so that others can learn about the challenge, too.

So here is my entry for the theme ‘Expression’

Do I look a bit of a goof in this?

No, no, you look very handsome, you must buy!