Sweden

Thursday Thoughts – Enjoying the Last Autumn Colours

/ Leya / 24 kommentarer

I walk as much as possible in the forest before the last colours are gone. I know too well what is waiting – grey November. This walk was last week – and there was no wind or rain. Only stillness and the occational, faint, sound of a bird. Mostly robins now.

I love the way the colours change with the light and the surroundings. Inside the denser parts of the forest, the leaves are still green. Closer to the meadows, the light is brighter and the yellow and brown colours dominate.

When I walked out of the forest and onto the gravel road, the sun came shining through and the slender young birches glowed. They are waiting for next year’s Spring festival.

On the right side of the road, an old gate is standing alone, protecting a seemingly abandoned house…

…immersed in a haven of colours.

A few days later, most of the leaves were gone. I am grateful for this day of harmony – something to remember in grey and moody November.

Thursday Thoughts – Along the Old Country Road

/ Leya / 30 kommentarer

There is something special with old country roads…Every autumn we walk some kilometers along this country road, and I guess you might recognize parts of it, even if it changes over the years. But, that is one of the reasons why I like to photographs this walk every year.

This part of our neighbouring village was always an agricultural area with many small farms.

Today farming is mostly a business for big farms with much land and large machines to work it.

This house is a typical old farmstead, but I am not sure anyone lives here anymore. It looks abandoned – even though you can see furniture and lamps if you look in the windows. There are even withered house plants in some of them, and a sign with the owner’s name. It looks like the owners just walked out the door left it that way.

Old wagons and tractors are left at the road side or in an abandoned garden.

I feel sad looking at it, because farmers work hard every day, every hour on their land – but as they grow old, they reach a point where they cannot manage it any longer. Being a farmer is a lifestyle, and that must be hard to give up.

There must be a few farmers still working though, because there is cattle in the small fields and meadows.

Aren’t they beautiful, making bypassers feel the harmony and the beauty of the landscape! I wonder what their story is…

Thursday Thoughts – on a Friday

/ Leya / 23 kommentarer

As the possibility to comfortably comment just returned yesterday, my graphic card decided to give me another headache. So what do I do? I got my computer back this evening, and decided to still have some Thursday Thoughts…

At home, Mr and Mrs Blackbird are evening visitors, searching for tasty worms, and doves and finches, magpies and tits pay the little fountain a visit for a short bath. A day at our summer house,

we enjoyed a walk by the sea before returning for a late meal. This was one of the last warm evenings. Summer will be sorely missed but gratefully remembered.

LAPC #211 – What’s Your Photographic Groove?

/ Leya / 62 kommentarer

Our host this week, Anne Sandler , is asking: ”What type of photography do you truly enjoy doing?”

I enjoy almost all types of photography, but Nature is my Muse. More specificly: flowers, close-ups and macro. And I am happy if in the flowers there is a critter or two as well… I believe our ”groove” changes over the years – as the world is changing – so are we.

For many years my photography was all about travel, new places, new people, new architecture, new food… but there has always been flowers. And why flowers? Well, I was born in the countryside, and from my grandmother I learned the importance of the little things – to see a world in a grain of sand. Flowers – nothing beats their great variety; in colours, shapes and sizes. I have to have flowers in my life!

My blog was named lagottocattleya after my favourite breed of dogs and my favourite orchid. So, the first image is a cattleya hybrid pictured at Keukkenhof, Holland. Then follows a gallery with some old and new favourites, from close-ups to macros and from Spring to Autumn. From forest to garden and indoors plants. I hope they will speak for themselves.

Special thanks to our guest host Sarah Wilkie of Travel With Me for the exercise of picking out three of our favorite images. And thank you to all our wonderful July guest hosts, Aletta, Jez, Andre and Tracy. If you join us, please link to Anne’s original post and use the lens artists tag. We’re looking forward to seeing your photos! As the LAPC team resumes rotation, Patti will present next week’s challenge. In the meantime, have fun and safe travels.

If you would like to participate weekly in our Lens-Artists Challenge, click here for more info.