Category: Weekly Photo Challenge

Serenity

Posted on Posted in Exeter, Photography, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , 48 Comments

Serenity (noun):
The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

Cheri Lucas Rowlands has been to Hong Kong and was impressed by the serenity of the big Buddha in Ngong Ping, on Lantau Island. Cheri challenges us to interpret serenity in photos.

I’ve posted about St Peters Cathedral in my home town, Exeter, before and I probably will again. Today it was the first place I thought of as serene, what do you think?

Perhaps you will join the challenge, https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/serenity/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadowed

Posted on Posted in Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , 45 Comments

 

Experimenting with shadows can be a fun and rewarding way to push yourself to try something new with your camera, your subject, and your surroundings. Shadows can also add depth and drama to an otherwise ordinary image.
For this week’s Photo Challenge, find the shadows. You can choose a literal interpretation and shoot an actual shadow, or you can play with the light and dark, and create a moody scene, or capture your subject in a rich and interesting way.

So, I’ve tried to choose some images where something is shadowed!

shadowed
The courtyard at Bridport Arts Centre is shadowed by a decorative canopy and the buildings on each side of Buckydoo Square.
shadowed 1
She’s beautiful, you’ll just have to believe me as she is so well shadowed.
shadowed2
A Dartmoor day with the sort of weather that makes the clouds shadow the distant moor, beyond Scorhill.
Maybe you will join in?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/shadowed/

Weekly Photo Challenge: New

Posted on Posted in Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , 26 Comments

Michelle W. says,

It’s the first photo challenge of 2015, and the theme is “new.” Cliché? Perhaps, but clichés develop for a reason. For many of us, the year’s beginning is time to take stock of the past and plan for the future; this week, let’s get excited about those plans by celebrating what’s new.

Well, I’m expecting something new and really exciting this week but meanwhile, for me, these are pretty cool!

My new Christmas books, with their bright paper and sweet scent, tempting me into their pages, but I’m resisting until I’ve finished my current read.

new

Got something new to photograph? show us all here, https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/new/

I wish I was this warm

Posted on Posted in India, Photography, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , 20 Comments

If you’re like me, living in the upper reaches of the Northern Hemisphere, this is the season where we seek out small pleasures to compensate for the short days and chilly weather: fireplaces, down comforters, hot chocolate (or glühwein, if we must…).

Says Ben Huberman for this weeks challenge at the Daily Post, Warmth. The Thar Desert is without doubt the warmest place I’ve ever been, in a midday temperature of 44 degrees, I was hot and happy, even though it felt like the inside of my nose was burning. Dry heat seems to agree with me, here are some photos of my favourite kind of warmth.

Khuldera, an abandoned village in the Thar
Gadisar Lake, we paddled around there very early in the morning, it would have been unbearable later in the day
Khuldera, this is where the temperature was 44 degrees
No shelter for these guys
A tiny and moving bit of shade but totally ineffective

Visit https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/warmth/ to join in.

Twinkling Close

Posted on Posted in Exeter, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , , 23 Comments

Jen H. says ‘This week, share with us your photos of twinkling light. You will need to find a light source and a reflective surface in order to capture a twinkle, but those are the only limitations. Your photo could be the sparkle of an ornament, as in the photo I’ve shared. Perhaps it is a crisp catchlight in the eyes of a loved one, or the millions of twinkles in the waves of a body of water as a sunrise’s first rays appear. Maybe you’d like to try your hand at nighttime photography, and capture the sparkle of stars. Where there is light, there will be a twinkle.’ The CloseIn response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Twinkle.” This is Cathedral Close in the very centre of Exeter, on a cold winter’s night. I hope you enjoy the shimmering glow. Join in at https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/twinkle/

Weekly photo Challenge: Holst, Gone But Not Forgotten

Posted on Posted in Music, Photography, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , 30 Comments

Gustav Holst was born in Cheltenham, England in 1874 into a family of musicians. A rather sickly child, he grew up learning to play several instruments, including trombone, in the hope that it would help his asthma.  He taught music throughout his life, but is best known for his Planets suite. I’m sure you will agree he is gone but not forgotten.  Holst died of heart failure in 1934 and his ashes were interred at Chichester Cathedral, Sussex. My photo for the challenge is of a memorial stone in the cathedral.

holst

I don’t know if this link will work properly, I’ve never tried to add a you tube before.

Join in here,

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/gone-but-not-forgotten/

Converging Stone Rows

Posted on Posted in England, Photography, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , , 19 Comments

Photos are visual spaces where shapes and lines, objects, and people come together, says Ben Huberman at the Daily Post and he asks for photos with the theme of ‘Converge’. I find the bronze age stone rows on Dartmoor fascinating, imagine the people that created these way back in time. My photo shows some of the stone rows that converge at the top of the hill above Scorhill circle heading towards Batworthy and Fernworthy.

converge
If you have photos that converge – and who doesn’t? share them here.
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/converge/

Angular St Annes

Posted on Posted in History, Photography, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , , 14 Comments

St Annes Chapel has stood on the edge of town for 596 years and I don’t know how many times I’ve walked past barely noticing it.  As a teenager, I even had to walk past daily to school, just around the corner. In recent years it’s been refurbished and although I didn’t go inside because I was dog walking, I could see that the courtyard looks lovely. The chapel is actually the building on the left as the back of the picture, while the white timbered buildings are alms houses.  Exeter was a prosperous town as far back as the 16th century, as the biggest city in Devon it was the centre of the county’s woollen trade. Hence the chapel was named St Annes, as she is the patron saint of weavers.

Like many of the oldest buildings in Exeter, the chapel and alms houses were built from red Heavitree  stone, quarried less than two miles away, close to where I grew up.  Today as I peeped through the gate the winter sun was bright and casting long shadows.

St Annes

That’s when I noticed the angular shapes all around the courtyard, even those shadows,

Angular St Annes

The chapel is now part of the orthodox Parish of the Holy Prophet Elias, and its website says that the parish belongs to the Archdiocese of Orthodox Parishes of Russian tradition in Western Europe under the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
This is my second entry for the photo challenge of ‘Angular’ over at http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/angular/

Overcoming a Fear . . .

Posted on Posted in Animals, Weekly Photo ChallengeTagged , , , 34 Comments

. . . Even if it may seem crazy to most of you!

I don’t have many phobias, heights are fine, even snakes, as long as they aren’t venomous, do not bother me. Spiders, well strangely if they are outdoors in the garden they’re okay, as long as I know where they are and they don’t run towards me, they’re okay. Mice are cute, sharks are scary but I’m not likely to encounter one.

Rats however are a different kettle of . . . well rats really. And they terrify me, always have. I’ve had a recurring dream for decades about rats climbing up the drain into the toilet, I won’t keep you awake with the details.

So, earlier in the year when I walked into a tent at an agricultural show and came face to face with a whole load of them, my heart started beating way too fast. Just as I was beginning to feel sick and turned to get out a smiling girl approached me with a rat in each hand asking would I like to hold one.

‘Uh, no thanks I’m actually feeling rather anxious just being here, I think I’d better go’ did I actually look daft enough to hold a rat???

‘Well’ she said, ‘you’re managing to look at Jeremiah, well done, now isn’t he cute?’

I tried to slow my breathing and talk sense to myself while she muttered something about them being gentle, loving pets who like nothing better than snuggling up on their persons shoulder.

‘Perhaps you would like to stroke him? his fur is so soft.’

She continued to talk to me about Jeremiah and his siblings, breeding, feeding and winning prizes in the show. I started to feel a tiny bit calmer and my inner voice told me that I would never have a better chance to overcome my fear, than right then with such an understanding lady encouraging me.

Suddenly I heard myself say ‘Will it turn its mouth towards me f I stroke its back?’

‘No, it’ll be fine go for it.’

I did it. I may not do it again, I’ll never be a fan and I have no idea why anyone would choose one as a pet, but I’ve felt a big less phobic since that day and a real sense of achievement. Crazy eh?

ratty

So here he is!
If you have a picture that shows achievement, most likely more sensible than mine visit http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/achievement/ to join in.