Macro Monday
Tankar
Silent Sunday
Thursday’s Special: Pick a Word – July 2023
Once again – Paula’s challenge, my favourite – I haven’t participated for a long time. Life happened. I went for three of the words only. Slow starter…but still!
FAMILIAR
NAUTICAL
SPLENDID
Thursday Thoughts – A Capital Visit
The city on the water – Stockholm – founded by Birger Jarl in the 13th century.
Busy, yet calm.
A gallery of what Stockholm is to me!
Lens-Artists Challenge #259 – Unbound
We welcome Dan as our host this week, and the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge this time is to capture moments that break the boundaries of our everyday life.
Today I have chosen to write about a Swedish prince who broke free from his life as a royal and from the conventions and norms he was expected to follow. To feel Unbound. I hope this twist is OK with you, Dan!
Prince Eugen of Sweden was the son of King Oscar II and Sophia of Nassau.
Showing early artistic promise, he studied in Paris, and went on to become one of Sweden’s most prominent landscape painters.
We visited his home in Stockholm, at the beautiful Waldemarsudde.
After finishing high school, Prince Eugen studied art history at Uppsala University. He did not make the decision to pursue a career in painting easily, not least because of his royal status.
Prince Eugen was very open-minded and never married, in an era when royal princes almost always found princesses to wed. His homosexual orientation was unknown to the general public.
In this gallery, we see the prince painting, and next to him another famous Swedish painter, Carl Larsson. His home Waldemarsudde, and pieces from his collections. The last painting was my favourite of his own paintings, The Blue Villa.
Prins Eugen loved Norway, and was also a prince of Norway before the union was dissolved in 1905. He loved flowers, and one of his famous designs is a flower pot – Waldemarsuddekrukan.
Throughout his life Prince Eugen was an art collector, a designer and a supporter of fellow artists. He was also involved in many cultural organisations and committees. He bequeathed his villa Waldemarsudde at Djurgården in Stockholm, and its collections, to the nation. It is now one of Sweden’s most popular museums.
Sincere thanks to Dan for this interesting challenge, “unbound”. Please be sure to visit and link to his amazing post here, and remember to use the Lens-Artists Tag. Thanks also to Dawn for last week’s Fences challenge, and to you for the incredible variety of responses. Finally, we hope you’ll join us next week when Janet of This, That and The Other Thing will join us as our final Guest Host of the month. Until then, please stay safe, be kind and enjoy the journey.
Silent Sunday
Thursday Thoughts – A short visit to Alnarp Castle and grounds
Who can resist waterlilies? I can’t. If I had a pond in my garden, I would try growing them. Their beauty is irresistible. Alnarp had a very tiny pond but it was well kept.
Gunnera is a fascinating species, and I can never resist taking photos of this gigantic plant. Natural umbrellas a rainy day?
There were several Himalayan birchtrees, very white and stately. Betula utilis, the Himalayan birch is native to the Western Himalayas, growing at elevations up to 4,500 m (14,800 ft). Utilis means ”useful”, and refers to the many uses of the different parts of the tree.
The white, paper-like bark was used in ancient times for writing Sanskrit scriptures and texts. In fact it is still used as paper for the writing of sacred mantras, with the bark placed in an amulet and worn for protection. Some areas of its native habitat are being lost due to overuse of the tree for firewood.
(European) Smoke trees are interesting things…I first saw one in New Zealand many years ago. It looked something out of this world, I thought – and I still think so!
I guess this stump once was an oak tree. Still impressive though, and left as a monument at the back of the castle.
After our stroll in the arboretum, we sat down to admire the castle and its grand wisteria on the front facade (in the opener). That will be something to return to next spring!
Wordless Wednesday
Lens-Artists Challenge #258 – Fences
This week we welcome Dawn Miller of The Day After as the Lens-Artists guest host. Please visit her place and enjoy her guidance for this weeks challenge: Fences. In addition to her stunning photography, her blog teaches us of the landscape, seasons, history, and culture of the Shenandoah Valley, her home.
If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.
– William L. McKnight
The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
These are some of my favourite or spectcular fences found during my travels – and at home. In fact, we have a fence in our garden too – to save us from Milo running out in the street.
I love stone fences, they are very common here in Sweden, and they speak loud of hard work in the old days. Ireland showed us some of the broadest stone fences I have ever seen – impressive.
And one of the most beautiful and ”wild” graveyards I have walked was in England, Yorkshire, where members of the Bronte family are buried.
A big Thank you to Philo of Philosophy Through Photography for last weeks challenge, Simplicity. I think we all learned more about the power of simplicity in photography – and in life.
Next week we continue with our July “Month of Guest Hosts”. Be sure to visit our hosts each week as they explore the following topics:
- July 22 Dan Fenner of Departing in 5 Minutes will take us to UNBOUND
- July 29 Janet Webb of This That and The Other Thing will explore OVERLOOKED
Interested in knowing more about the Lens-Artists challenge? Click here for more
Macro Monday
Leya 
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