photo a week: fill the frame

I came across this little monster in a park in Cologne, Germany. Inside the case was a hazel nut but not one I’d ever seen before, used as I am to the smaller, quiet, more discreet version to be found in England woodland. This one had fallen off a very tall tree – a Turkish Hazel tree – which can grow to a height of 25m. At first I thought it was the fruit of an edible (sweet/Spanish) chestnut as the case was similarly spiky. Closer inspection revealed that its case was fleshy, covered with tiny little hairs and sticky.

a cardoon flower head

Cassandra

sharing with PAW

photo a week challenge: tilted in Thailand

Some people hate photos taken on a slant but sometimes they can cast an entirely new perspective on a scene.

Do you tilt towards the tilted or do you only operate on a strictly horizontal or vertical plane?

Share your tilted photos here.

dp weekly photo challenge: minimalist

birds on a wire in Sri Lanka (swallows)

Sharing with other minimalists

weekly photo challenge: descent

Even if we didn’t manage to descend to the bottom of St Patrick’s well in Orvieto, Italy my glasses did. I leaned out to take a photo looking down the well and my camera jogged against my glasses knocking them off. I watched, horrified, as they bounced off the window ledge and then down into the void over 100 metres below…. We were at the beginning of our day’s outing and still had places to go. To make matters worse on our return to the hotel, when I put my spare pair of glasses on one of the lenses fell out of its frame. It was a public holiday just before a weekend and it was 3 days before I could get them repaired. Of such joys is life made!

the cascate delle marmore at nearby Terni

the chairlift down to Gubbio

Cappadocia

descent from Schafberg, Austria

When I was looking for suitable images for this challenge, although I found lots looking up various staircases, I had none looking down. I wonder why that is. Note to self – must take the occasional shot looking down a staircase

How did you interpret this week’s challenge?

weekly photo challenge: on top

Sharing with the Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge

Weekly Photo challenge: horizon

Some of the horizons we saw while on our recent road trip in Turkey.

What’s on your horizon? Visit some other far horizons here.

weekly photo challenge: the world through your eyes

We see many excellent shots out there in which a photographer’s intent is clear: where he or she leads us to the photo’s subject or main focus — using light, composition, and other criteria — and is able to convey what they see in their mind at the moment of capture. We challenge you to take and share a photograph that shows a command of your frame. Lead our eyes somewhere. Make us focus on something.

This shot was taken at the monkey temple in Jaipur, India

Visit this page and click on some of the links to see other parts of the world through some more eyes

weeky photo challenge: changing seasons

The WordPress weekly photo challenge this week invited us to share photos that illustrate the changing of the seasons to us.

The changing of the seasons is marked both by nature and by man in his seasonal celebrations – spring and summer solstices for example, cross-burning, harvest festivals, etc.

this lake in north eastern Thailand is only covered in a floating carpet of pink water lily flowers in January

dawn in February

cross-burning in February in Luxembourg to bid farewell to winter

winter sunsets are vividly coloured

ferns unfurling herald the promise of spring

pussy willow buds appear in March

apple blossom appears in late April

as does pink ornamental cherry blossom

edible cherry blossom in Provence

but in April 2005 we saw snow on the lavender fields in Provence

bluebells appear in late April/May

summer in Provence is represented by ripe cherries

poppies

lavender

and sunflowers

autumn colours in Luxembourg

nature’s bounty

winter in the garden

Weekly photo challenge: reflections

Reflections. This challenge is about using reflections in the composition of a shot.

This is a series of “accidental” reflections. The first four were taken in Amsterdam a couple of winters ago and I was more intent on photographing the contents of the florist’s shop window. It was only when I downloaded the photos from the camera that I saw what the camera had seen but I had not. This is also true of the last photo.

Have you taken time to reflect on some of the reflections featured at the Daily Post?

I am also sharing this post with SOOC Sunday.

weekly photo challenge: renewal

WordPress’ own weekly photo challenge this week was to share a photo featuring “renewal”, however we wished to interpret that.

These photos were taken in the woods near Watersmeet, Lynmouth, North Devon, UK, in the spring of this year and the mosaic of images was created as part of Kim Klassen’s Beyond Layers course.

Don’t forget to go and see how other people have interpreted this prompt.