The wide world is all about you, you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.     

J R R Tolkien

Where I grew up there were stone fences everywhere – even our garden had one, and we loved to climb and to play there. That stone fence was meticulously put together by my great grandfather and his family.

For centuries stones have been gathered from the ground to open up for grazing cattle or growing crops, and then laboriously made into beautiful stone fences stretching miles and miles over the landscape…

I guess this is the reason to why my favorite fences are made of stone. But there is a great variety of other fences in the world, both beautiful and practical.

If we travel up north in Sweden – these leaning beauties are frequent.

In Poland I found this perfect fence – creating total harmony with the surrounding nature.

In the Azores, especially in Faial, they use hydrangea to make natural fences for the cattle. The hedges can grow 3-5 meters high.

Which is quite different from Bhutan, where we encountered this most unnatural fence…But, in the rural areas they have to use whatever is at hand – and in the vicinity there was a working sawmill.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Robert Frost

The marble fences in the Forbidden City, Beijing, create mazes between the buildings.

Fences and walls can be effective and even soothing, at least for those who build them.

Richard Engel

Somewhere in the Canary Islands I found this modern, somewhat sprawling fence. Only because of the palm tree, it still managed to create a certain harmony.

But, real craft work is making the harmony in this elaborate iron fence, in Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, Spain.

 

 If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.

William L. McKnight

At the great Carnival in Lund, people gather in thousands – and for students, there are no fences unclimbable… they believe, like Locke, that

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

John Locke

This week, the Lens-Artists challenge is to show us your favorite fence. Or, maybe you prefer fencelessness? Looking forward to your ideas and posts!

Have you seen these – from last week’s Action challenge?

Sue of WordsVisual plays with shutter speed for action feeling

Su Leslie of Zimmerbitch caught a precious moment

Ron Mayhew’s Blog with, to me as a Scandinavian, a very American action gallery

• Welcome to join the challenge this week.
• Use the tag “Lens-Artists” in your post.
• Create a link to this post.
• Amy will post the next challenge (#11) on Saturday, September 15th.

• Missed our initial Lens-Artists challenge announcement? Click here for details.

As always, thanks for joining the challenge and have an inspiring week!