Silent Sunday

3 november, 20191 november, 2019 / Leya / 30 kommentarer

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #70 – Monochrome

2 november, 20198 mars, 2020 / Leya / 84 kommentarer

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #70, Patti is our host, and she is inviting us to explore the world of monochrome– which includes black and white and sepia, as well as different shades of one color.

Patti also allows us, for an extra challenge, to try using a selective color – which is easily done in Lightroom for example. Just take out all colours (saturation) in the colour table – except the one you decide to keep. Sometimes you will find it gives the image that little ”extra touch”.

I have chosen one B&W ( a sweet meeting on the steps in Mariacka Street, Gdansk ) and three with selective colour – looking forward to Your posts!

The new WWII museum in Gdansk – keeping the colour Orange

A carpet shop in Tbilisi – keeping the colour Red

A shop in Mariacka Street, Gdansk – keeping the colour Lilac

We had a lot of fun with all the Doubles for Tina last week – thank you for posting with such great variety and creativity!

Next week it is my turn (Leya) to host challenge #71, so please be
sure to stop by and find out what is on the table!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Coast

1 november, 201924 februari, 2020 / Leya / 31 kommentarer

For Frank this week – Coast.

In the header – Spain, north west coast.

Ostia Antica, Italy

Scotland

Off the coast of Ecuador, Galapagos

Sweden

Iceland

Thursday Thoughts – Guest Blogger – Chernobyl, a Visit

31 oktober, 20191 november, 2019 / Leya / 38 kommentarer

My son went to Kiev and Chernobyl this Autumn, and I asked him if he would share some of his photos and impressions on this blog. He said yes, and I am happy to have him here once again. Hope you will enjoy his work!

I’ve wanted to visit Chernobyl for a long time. The combination of two of my biggest interests; urban exploration and history, took me here.

The worst nuclear disaster in history took place in April 26th 1986. A disaster releasing an amount of radioactivity equal to 400 Hiroshima bombs.

Pripyat had 50 000 citizens who were evacuated by bus, roughly 1,5 days after the accident. They were given false promises of coming back – and so they left everything, even their beloved pets.

Every corridor in the buildings I visited felt endless. Seemingly reaching for the end of the world.

The Middle School was modern and well equipped with both music halls and sports facilities. They even had a large storage where they kept child-sized Soviet gas masks, in case of an emergency..

This was one of five secondary schools in this town. Hundreds of children once ran up and down these corridors. It almost felt like all of these notebooks, documents and files tried to chase after their owners when they left.

There are an endless amount of houses out in the Chernobyl woods. Some hide treasures, but most of them are just husks. Although they are just as beautiful.

The Duga Radar was a so called ”over-the-horizon” radar that was supposed to detect missiles and airstrikes. Soon, it got the nickname ”The Russian Woodpecker” because of the repetitive tapping noise it caused at 10Hz on shortwave radios.

The radar itself is enormous – towering 150 meters high and around 700 meters wide.

The Azure Swimmingpool built in the 70s

Outside the Kindergarten

Infant beds in Pripyat Hospital

Cooling Tower #5

We managed to sneak past security and get a peek at cooling tower #5. It was supposed to pump large amounts of water around the reactor for cooling, but the tower was never finished after reactor #4 exploded.

The ”Palace of Culture Energetik” was a large community center for the citizen of Pripyat. ”Energetik” is a wordplay – meaning both ”energetic” and ”power plant worker”. The purpose was to have a wide range of recreational activities including a library, gym, swimming pool, dancing halls and the very theater in the image above.

Outside the Kindergarten

The gymnastics hall

1st, 2nd and 3rd floor of the middle school

I am barely even scratching the surface of the stories and the history of Chernobyl. If you are interested in learning more, I recommend the TV Series called ”Chernobyl” on HBO. They portray the disaster in an incredibly powerful and emotional way, while staying close to the facts and real life stories. I also recommend the book which the show is based on: ”Voices from Chernobyl” by Svetlana Alexievich.

I would love to answer any questions that you might have.

Regards,

David P

CFFC: Green

30 oktober, 2019 / Leya / 21 kommentarer

Cee’s place this week – My favorite colour – Green!

Wordless Wednesday

30 oktober, 20196 mars, 2020 / Leya / 14 kommentarer

Macro Monday – The Last Aster

28 oktober, 201926 oktober, 2019 / Leya / 34 kommentarer

Lens-Artists Challenge #69 – Seeing Double

27 oktober, 201924 februari, 2020 / Leya / 52 kommentarer

Tina’s challenge for the week sounds like this: ”Double trouble, double-time, two’s company, take two …. the world is filled with references to twosomes. This week, let’s double our pleasure and focus on things that come in twos.”

In fact…my first thought was of shoes – they always come it twos! These art clogs stand in a street in Malmö as a memory of one of Sweden’s most beloved actors at the beginning of the 20th century. He was from my part of Sweden, Skåne, where clogs were the only footwear needed in the old days.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, one of the most common things to see in twos are…dogs! But in the header, two lovely young women as well, peeping out from an art studio.

As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. – Audrey Hepburn

And people talked to the stray dogs, took time to feed them or to just give them a warmhearted pat. I loved how this young man kept his hand resting on the sun warmed, relaxing dog, and with his other hand using his modern, electronic device. Overall the people in Tbilisi did not use cell phones that much. ( If someone did, you almost knew it was a tourist…) They seemed to care more about the living beings around them.

Some years ago we had a pair of swans often landing at our summer house, and we were kindly allowed to admire their young – if we kept the distance of course.