This week, we invite you to share what you treasure. Our first Guest Host for July, Aletta, is asking us to share our treasures. If you read my blog sometimes, I am sure you know some of my treasures already – they are many, just like yours, but these are my most treasured treasures:
Everything nature …
Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
– Hans Christian Andersen
My number one friend, Milo…
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
– Roger Caras, author of A Dog Is Listening: The Way Some of Our Closest Friends View Us
And of course my funny family –
A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
– George Bernard Shaw
Since some weeks now, I have to add a new sweet treasure to my family – my first grandchild – Myra.
Children are the keys of paradise.
– Eric Hoffer
Never sleepy, always alert – so, this is the first time I have seen her yawning properly!
Please visit Aletta’s wonderful post for more inspiration, and if joining us, remember to link back to it and use the Lens-Artists tag so we can find you.
Last week we focused on eyes and the responses we had were fun and very diverse. Continuing the tradition of inviting Guest Hosts during the month of July, next week is Jez Braithwaite’s turn with Seeing Double as his challenge. Be sure to take a look on Saturday 9th of July.
This year the sun was shining and we spent a fine day together. Biking to a local greenhouse with an amazing bloom of cacti and geraniums. And millions of tadpoles – and a leech. I do love tadpoles, we always let some grow up in a big bowl, and then let them out when all four legs had arrived. A nature’s wonder. Leeches though…naaah. Not one of my favourites…
This week, Patti is our host, and LAPC#131 gives us the opportunity to focus on Emotions. We can do portraits or street photography – or, choose a subject or scene that evokes an emotion in the viewer.
Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. – Sigmund Freud
No flowers this time… In my opener, I have chosen rippling water in a soothingly green environment – Madeira’s levadas. Green is always recommended for bedrooms because of its calming effect – and that is the emotion I get whenever I meet the colour Green.
My images here will show maybe one main emotion – happiness. But, also love and friendship.
I cannot think of better choices than students and the storm of feelings on their graduation day. It’s impossible to get enough of their happy faces and their vivid body language!
After three years of hard work – High School graduation! These used to be my happiest days – sharing their joy.
Two of the photos are of my daughter. Now I am maybe being too personal…, but seeing her walking up the stairs last Friday as a freshly baked Doctor – filled my heart with pride. She looks so happy, so confident – so ready for a working life outside university.
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. —Franklin D. Roosevelt
And, don’t we all feel that for our children, for their first steps into this world, for our students and for every person who have worked hard and reached their goal? (For making tears fall it is even enough reading a good book where the hero succeeds…) I am very grateful to have met so many students in my life – and to have left them as fully fledged young men and women.
Looking back at last week, thank you Anne Sandler, for It’s a Small World, which made us all see the beauty in little things. And thank you for the fabulous macro/micro and close-up images from all of your collections!
I, Leya/Ann-Christine, will be your host for LAPC #132 next Saturday, January 23rd at noon. So, stay tuned… and for all of you in the USA – may the inauguration go smoothly.
Now we are looking forward to seeing Your emotional images! Be sure to link them to Patti’s beautiful examples, and don’t forget the Lens-Artists tag. As always – stay safe and well and mind the little things until next time.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. —The Dalai Lama
A strange, surreal Holiday Season. For many of us, itwill be very different from earlier years.
I know many creative plans are being made to make these celebrations work – somehow and anyway. This last LAPC challenge, of the strange year 2020, is all about your Holiday Season. So what will your holidays look like? What are your plans and/or memories? Will you create new traditions or will you just ”survive” this one, looking forward to a ”normalized” celebrating next year?
For me, the holidays are all about Christmas – memories of Christmases gone by and what Christmas really, essentially means to me. What traditions can still be kept this year, and what will I have to let go of…
Well, let us begin… be my guest!
”So this is Christmas…” – John Lennon and Yoko Ono – is always present when we are decorating the Christmas tree. In Sweden we celebrate Christmas, even though not many of us are truly religious. But the message is much the same – Imagine… Wishes for Peace and Harmony. Caring for family and each other – Love for everything living. Gratitude.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To me, Christmas also means discussing, listening to music and playing games together. Happy music, classical music, religious music…
Street music, LodzPiano a’ la Yayoi Kusama
Candle light was made for these the darkest days of winter. Lights in our windows are glowing the whole day – to chase the darkness away. Today’s sunrise was 8.34 AM – and sunset 15.35 PM. No complaining when I compare to my daughter Emma’s situation in Umeå: 9.27 AM and 13.45 PM. (But where I live, the sun has not shown its face for the last two months.)
Adding – just listening to the news it seems people are decorating their houses double up this year – I too bought new lights for the path up to our door…75 meters!
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. – Buddha
So far, these holidays look much the same as every year. But, Imagine Covid19 was over and gone …. then more of the happy celebrating would come alive – Going to Denmark for delicious food, coffee and cake, attending Christmas markets, traveling to beautiful places, finding snow again – at least for the Christmas card photos… and having the youngsters back for baking, laughing and pottering!
Luckily we Will have three youngsters here with us this holiday season – which makes me truly happy. Corona safe, no hugging or kissing. I know many families with mixed generations have booked barbecue places to eat outdoors in recreation areas. A very good idea.
The greatest differences will be the lack of hugs and kisses. And, our mother and grandmother will not be here with us to celebrate. Her photo is standing where she used to sit at the table, with a candle lit by her side. Maybe she Is watching us somehow, from somewhere. I’d like to think she is.
The much longed for light will slowly return, starting with the Winter Solstice, December 21. This year has made it crystal clear just how much we have to be grateful for – and how little we can take for granted.
Please include a link to my post and use the Lens-Artists tag so that everyone can find your post in the WP Reader. We look very much forward to seeing your creative work!
Special thanks to Amy for her beautiful “Precious Moments.” And thank You for sharing with us so many positive and loving moments! Smiles and tears in a beautiful mix.
Finally we send our deepest and most grateful Thank You to you all for being an endless inspirational resource this special year, 2020. Hopefully we have helped each other stay reasonably sane in a crazy world. I want to close with John Lennon’s words in:
Happy Xmas (War is Over)
………………………………………..
A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let’s hope it’s a good one Without any fear
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– someday soon we hope this invisible enemy, Corona and Covid19, will be defeated too –
The need for crisp air and eyelifting skies? Totti enjoying a frosty morning some years ago – so fresh in the air…so easy to walk.
Right now I don’t need any more grey days – and Emma is not here to brighten them up…
Today was announced on the news, that November and December were the darkest ever in Sweden since they started measuring hundreds of years ago. So little sun and so little light. Stockholm didn’t have a single sunny hour in these last 7 weeks.
Grey can be beautiful – but not every day for two months – and there are three more to go before early Spring.
But in less than two weeks The Winter Solstice will be here. I can’t tell you how much we need it!
Leya 
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