Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #13: Look Up!

Lens-Artist Photo Challenge: #13 Look Up

I have just returned from the Light Move Festival in Lodz, Poland – again. We were there last year, Viveka (My guilty pleasures) and I, and this year some of my best friends wanted to join me. Patty’s theme just seems meant for me – Look Up!

Piotrkowska Street

Lodz has a lot to offer visitors – even an enormous amount of art murals – outstandingly beautiful and worth walking for hours to see. Sometimes a lonely dog on a balcony as well…

 

Finally – Lodz has got some lovely parks to fill my lungs and eyes with as well! So, Look Up and you will be greatly rewarded!

Thank you, Patti, for a great challenge!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #11: Small is Beautiful

”Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, ”one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”

Hans Christian Anderson

For Amy and the Lens-Artists Challenge, I have chosen a series of small beauties from a trip to the Pyrenées in 2011.

A hidden valley that has kept its biodiversity almost intact –

– and is renowned for its variety of butterflies

A couple of days hiking this valley, and I felt harmony restored

Serenity

And …

… I even managed to capture a Hummingbird Hawk moth – what joy!

Friday Finds

I was looking through my telephone shots from Bhutan – and felt I had to post these lovely shops and doors. Wishing you a peaceful Friday! And, from Lignum Draco I learned that some of my comments might have ended up in your spam box – please check it out!

 

 

 

Thursday’s Special: Traces of The Past Y4-07

Paula, at Lost in Translation, asks us again to find traces of the past.

In Lofoten this summer, we experienced what is said to be the oldest and most authentic fishing village (fiskevær) there is – Nusfjord.

Dating back to the 19th century…

the village is still alive with rorbuer and everything.

We spent some hours there just walking – enjoying the past – and the present.

We had our lunch overlooking the charming harbour. Contemplating the difference between our own comparatively easy lives and the every day struggle where the family’s breadwinner might be lost to the sea any day.

 

Thursday Thoughts – The Lonely House

Lonely houses have always fascinated me, but maybe you too have noticed, that some people have a downright obsession with them…?

A lonely house can have a very picturesque location…

– maybe not that easily accessible…

And, at a closer look, you might find it is only an old boat shed…

…or maybe a lonely barn. On the other hand – I could live in one of those as well.

Some newer loners enjoy spectacular seascape views…

…while others stand dilapidated, slowly falling apart.

And then, there are the abandoned houses just looking – eerie…

…while others, at the end of the road, see new guests arriving every year.

Where do you stand in this? Do you believe they are lonely, desolate, forlorn, solitary – or what word would you use? Is a house ”alive” in some ways? Could they hide/have memories? Do you ask yourself questions like: I wonder who once lived here? And, what did their lives look like? Why did they leave?

Are you constantly photographing them…or would never dream of doing it?

I find them enigmatic.

CFFC: Men and Instruments

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Week 5 Photo – Music, guitar, instrument, men, coffee, etc.

All men…

 

…and good at what they are doing!  Irish in the header, in Madrid I admired the glass player sitting in a street market, and…

…happy guys playing cards in the streets of Beijing.

All candid shots.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Patterns

This spring, I visited Bhutan, and met so many fantastic people and a landscape so different from ours in Scandinavia. Harmony – this is the word describing it best.

I eagerly noticed all the patterns in people’s lives – in clothes, buildings, decorations, religious paintings and habits…as well as patterns in Nature herself. Like the pattern in the header – the mules and horses trotting in a row – while the lines of the landscape, the roads, paths and fences, create natural frames.

I often try to find and capture the less obvious patterns, noticing that colours are not that important to make you see the pattern or structure itself.

But in most cases colours make an obvious difference, natural colours as well as man made ones.

Either you can find patterns in a sweeping landscape or cityscape or you can look at the little details. Any way, you will find that almost everything consists of just – patterns. Moreover, in our human society, they often have a ritual or symbolic meaning.

Among the most interesting patterns must be languages. When a language is written in beautiful pictures or letters – their special patterns will give them yet another meaning. Magical, isn’t it?

 

Life is beautiful in so many ways – and patterns are a big part of it. So, for this week’s challenge, share your interpretation of patterns— open your eyes and find new ones! In you own home, outdoors, man made or natural… Use your curiosity and creativity!

  • In your post, include a link to this challenge.
  • Use the tag “Lens-Artists” in your post.  If you use a different tag, other bloggers won’t find your post in the Reader!  Also keep in mind that you should use fewer than 15 tags for your post to appear in the Reader.  For more information on how to tag, click here.
  • Amy will post the next challenge on Saturday, August 18th.
  • Missed our initial Lens-Artists challenge announcement? Click here for details.

 

Have you seen these?

Great diversity, from Abrie Joubert of Abrie Dink Hardop

Henry Lee of Fotoeins Fotografie

Storm coming in from the sea, from Suzanne of Being in Nature

 

Thank you for joining the challenge and have an inspiring week!

Thursday Thoughts – On Beauty

According to Wikipedia, Beauty is ”a characteristic of an animal, idea, object, person or place that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction.”

The experience of ”beauty” is also connected to being in balance and harmony with  nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being.

Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote On Beauty: A history of a Western idea (2004) and On Ugliness (2007). A character in his novel The Name of the Rose declares: ”three things concur in creating beauty: first of all integrity or perfection, and for this reason we consider ugly all incomplete things; then proper proportion or consonance; and finally clarity and light”, before going on to say ”the sight of the beautiful implies peace”. (Wikipedia)

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express

Francis Bacon

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old

Franz Kafka

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

(The first person to use it in the form we know today.)

It is unknown exactly where or how this idiom originated but it has been used in different forms since 3rd century BC when it first appeared in Greek.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it    

Confucius

Abisko och Lofoten 2018 399-Redigera-2

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Abisko och Lofoten 2018 403-Redigera

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

All photos from Reine, Lofoten – by many considered to be maybe the most beautiful spot in the world.