Reflections

Thursday Thoughts – A Day in Dubrovnik

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I guess Dubrovnik does not need any presentation to most of you – renowned for its beauty and millions of visitors every year. Dubrovnik, Croatia, is one of the most prominent tourist attractions here. First built in the 7th century, now with a population of about 43,000. In 1979, the city joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.

Personally I think I enjoyed the views from a gull’s perspective even more! But the steps were numerous…,I would never have tried this in the summer heat…

You can still see traces of the war – not everything has been rebuilt yet.

I was so fascinated by that little house on top – overlooking both the sea and the old city. This lovely, early morning I could imagine sipping my coffee up there… (and the beauty of a sunset as well…)…my feet dangling from the wall. Maybe you would care to join me?

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #79 – A Window With a View

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Keep creating new windows from which to look at your world. Never accept your current view of the world as the only view. Let new awareness help you to alter your view and motivate you to be the force of change in your life.  – Don Shapiro

A window can stand for so many things… and windows are attractive to any photographer. This time, Amy’s inspirational choice is A Window With a View. My windows offer very different ideas of a window view – depending on the perspective, who you are, where you are and maybe how you are.

Set wide the window. Let me drink the day. 

– Edith Wharton

Library of Water – Roni Horn
You are your state of mind. Your state of mind creates your view,

Windows hold a different dream for each of us.
― Anthony T. Hincks 

If you want the people to understand you, invite them to your life and let them see the world from your window!

 – Mehmet Murat ildan

You have the nicest window, you know? None of the others can even compete. It´s not flashy like the others, or bleary,  your window gives of this nice, quiet light.

– Banana Yoshimoto

Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.

– Amit Ray

 

These windows were found in Italy (Rome), Georgia (Tbilisi), Iceland, Poland, Sweden, Bhutan and Scotland. (My own old favorite, is in the header here. )

Thank you for sharing so many, very special spots last week! We hope you join us this week for Amy’s inspiring “A Window With a View” challenge.  Just add your link to her post. (Links from the Reader are not working correctly.) Use the Lens-Artists tag to help us find you.

As always, Patti, Amy, Tina and I thank you for your continued support. Hope to see you again next week when Tina is our host for challenge #80!

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 – Countryside – That is Where I Belong

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To me, Magical goes well with Countryside – I am a country girl. Even if I love to visit big cities, I know where I belong. This week, Amy is our host, and as I often post about my own countryside, you will get some pieces of Icelandic countryside instead. Iceland is a bit more harsh and rough, and we remember – once Iceland was only for the tough guys.

I consider it the best part of an education to have been born and brought up in the country. – Amos Bronson Alcott

The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the perfect musical drama. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I long for the countryside. That’s where I get my calm and tranquility – from being able to come and find a spot of green. – Emilia Clarke

I really feel that my body craves to be in the mountains or by the ocean or in the countryside. – Miranda Kerr

I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. – Albert Einstein

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other. – William Penn

Thank you for all your Magical posts last week – they made every day into pure Magic!

 

 

Thursday Thoughts – Iceland, Life on Earth and at Sea

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Djupalónsandur beach lets you meet sea, rocks and the remains of the British trawler Epine – that went down off the coast in 1948.

And of course there are enigmatic lava formations. You get a glimpse of snowcapped Snaefellsjökull  volcano through the holes.

Once this bay was home to one of the most prolific fishing villages on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Today this area is uninhabited.

Except for the old rusty debris from Epine, four lifting stones still lie on the sands of Djúpalónssandur, in olden days used by fishermen to test their strength. Today tourists and children roam the beach to look at the rusty pieces, and many of them test their  abilities – and possibilities – of getting hired as seamen…

This was quite a special walk where many thoughts were coming and going… The harsh lives of seafarers and society changing fast. And, will there be any fish in the sea for our children?

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #60: Framing the Shot

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You don’t need a framework. You need a painting, not a frame. – Klaus Kinski

I guess most of us love things framed to help us follow lines and reveal the artist’s intentions with his/her work. At least if we put them on our wall at home or go to an exhibition. Now Amy challenges us to consider framing – and in my selection (from Stettin all except the header) I try to show some very different ones as well. An important thing to remember is, that a frame doesn’t have to look like a frame, and it does not have to apply to the whole picture either.

You don’t buy a Picasso because you love the frame – Joss Whedonm

Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts – Garry Winogrand

What counts isn’t the frame, it’s what you put in it – Otto Preminger

I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it’s inside a frame – Abbas Kiarostami

I have a European frame of mind and Europe is my home – Andrea Bocelli

 

Thank you for all your inspiring Angles last week!  –  and thank you, Amy, for a beautiful set of frames and for all the fun with this challenge!

 

A Masterpiece – Good Omens

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Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote Good Omens, released 1990, when my daughter was born. So I missed out on it then. This summer my daughter and son made me read it, and we have watched the 6 piece adventure streamed from Amazon.

I simply LOVE it! The way I loved Narnia and JRR Tolkiens masterpiece about the Ring. But this one is hilariously funny as well. My student’s were more or less forced to read Gaiman’s books, but I was less into Pratchett.  But now – I have to read him as well. This series is a tribute to Pratchett from Gaiman.

I totally fell in love with the series – with a master cast (Cumberbatch, Jacobi, Richardson, etc.) …and Queen’s music. Michael Sheen and David Tennant – they could not have chosen a more suitable pair for the leading parts of Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon.

For 6000 years they have known each other, and have come to love us humans…with all our faults and errors…so when Armageddon is nigh, they have an agreement to save the world together.  No matter what their ”bosses” say.  And important roles for the outcome are played by young children – at the age of 11. (When I grew up, they said 11 was a crucial age. You will see how…). A timely novel and movie indeed!

Now, just enjoy this, my favourite fan youtube clip – with Belinda Carlisle’s hit from my younger days: Heaven is A Place on Earth!

Thursday Thoughts – Vatasafn/Library of Water

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Vatasafn, Stykkishólmur, Snaefellsnes peninsula. This Library of Water, by Roni Horn, opened in 2007 – a constellation of 24 glass columns containing water from some of the major glaciers around Iceland.

In fact, the first attempts to methodically record meteorological conditions in Iceland started exactly here in the mid – 19th century.

The glass columns refract and reflect the light onto a rubber floor with words in Icelandic and English which relate to the weather. ”You are the weather”, Horn says .

The New York born artist has visited Iceland many times since the mid – 70s, and knows that weather is the prime force in Iceland. Weather often changes mood and personality – good or tough for the residents – but also an important thing to be well prepared for when you visit.

This installation is housed in a pavilion on top of a hill, with spellbinding views of the harbour as well as the surrounding landscape and seascape. I found the Library offers a serene and silent space for private reflection. I easily stayed for more than an hour, alone, but would have loved to come here often.

Weather is a metaphor for the atmosphere of the world; weather is a metaphor for the atmosphere of ones life; weather is a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social, and moral energy of a person and a place.

– Roni Horn

 

 

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #54 – Detail

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When you pay attention to detail, the big picture will take care of itself.

– George St-Pierre

First of all – thank you for a marvelous response and encouragement for us to keep going with the challenges! Cheers to you – here we go for year two!

From Patti we are urged to think about details this week. I thought of our travels in Bhutan last spring, and the colourful Tsechu we attended in Paro. So many people, so many faces, so many details. All these people, they make up a great picture together – a picture where you maybe don’t pay attention to the details so much…at first.  Sometimes there actually are so many details that you have to decide to really take a closer look. To get the Whole picture.

It’s the details that make people distinct, that make them individuals. 

– Howard Lutnick

The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail. 

– Charles R. Swindoll

This magnificent temple displays tree carvings of utmost beauty. As I am usually well prepared when traveling, I knew what else to look for – the hanging pouches above the window. They are natural details, not man made. In fact they are bee communities. The bees are free to live there, and the Bhutanese don’t touch them or take away their honey.

Art is all in the details. 

– Christian Marclay

Things can happen when you least expect them so you always gotta be prepared. And pay attention to the details. The devil is in the details.

– Lesley Kagen

Abundant details or a few – they all make up the whole picture. What makes you tick? Personally I love both ways, and the combination of man made details and natural ones gives the picture a whole new dimension. I find it fascinating.

 

Thank you, Patti, for an inspiring challenge – you made me think of details from different angles!

 

Thursday Thoughts – Going Vestmannaeyar

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Vestmannaeyjar came to international attention in 1973 with the eruption of Eldfell volcano, which destroyed many buildings and forced a months-long evacuation of the entire population to mainland Iceland.

Approximately one fifth of the town was destroyed before the lava flow was halted by application of 6.8 billion litres of cold sea water.

About 1500 people decided not to come back to the islands.

In 1979 We visited Heimaey, in the archipelago south of Iceland mainland, which is the only inhabited island here, and home to Eldfell. You could still boil an egg in the lava ashes, and putting down a finger would make your skin peeling off.

Our plan was to revisit now, 40 years later, to see in what ways the island had changed.

The photos show the views from the ferry takeoff and in the header, you can spot the whole range of the archipelago islands in the distance.

Lens-Artists Challenge #53 – Your Choice

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New Zealand is not a small country, but a large village – Peter Jackson

There is real purity in New Zealand…It’s actually not an easy thing to find in our world anymore – Elijah Wood

Today is a very special day for us here at Lens-Artists – the one year anniversary of our Challenge. While we were all initially saddened by the discontinuation of the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, for us it became an opportunity to expand our blogging horizons and to create some amazing new friendships.

I feel that New Zealand is my second home.  – Luke Evans

On our end, we have transitioned from four independent photography bloggers to a tightly-knit team that supports, encourages and helps each other as we develop and create our weekly challenges. We’ve also been fortunate to have expanded our follower base thanks to bloggers like you who support and inspire us.

Toitū te whenua (Leave the land undisturbed).

As a result, our challenge has become near and dear to each of our hearts. We’ve gone well beyond being individual members of a team and have become four good friends.  We are tremendously thankful to you for your appreciation of our efforts; and for making us smile or feel touched by your responses.  As our thank you for your support and encouragement, we’re suggesting that you respond to today’s challenge with any subject that’s near and dear to YOUR hearts, as we’ve done with our images today. If you’d prefer some guidance, choose any of the four subjects we’ve selected this week (Friendship, A country that’s special to you, Imagination and Connected).

We are a proud nation of more than 200 ethnicities, 160 languages, and amongst that diversity we share common values. – Jacinda Ardern

Each of us has included several captures that are special to us in some way.

Mine are from a country and people that occupies a special place in my heart – New Zealand. Aotearoa is the Māori name – and the most popular meaning usually given is the ”land of the long white cloud”. A strikingly diverse Nature,  warm-hearted People with strong Environmental care and – an insane sense of humour! It is also the country in which JRR Tolkien’s characters so naturally belong. New Zealand opened its arms to me – and I immediately felt at home there.  I would never have guessed that our blogging community could feel like ”home” too – but it does. It is a privilege to host this challenge once a month.

I’ve learned that home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.
― Cecelia Ahern

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for making this such a terrific experience. If you have a subject that you feel might inspire us, please feel free to suggest it – we’d love to hear from you.  Should you be new to our challenge and interested in joining us, please click here and be sure to include the Lens-Artists TAG so we can all find you. Happy Blogging to all of our loyal followers and friends, and Happy Anniversary to us!

Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua

(As man disappears from sight, the land remains) This demonstrates the holistic values of the Maori, and the utmost respect of Papatuanuku, Mother Earth.

 

Have you seen these

Each week on Lens-Artists, we highlight several responses from among our followers. This special week we’d like to thank ALL of our followers for their thoughtful, funny, often-feisty and always wonderful posts. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do, and will continue to join us as we move into year two of the Lens-Artists Challenge.