LENS-ARTISTS

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #116 – Symmetry

/ Leya / 85 kommentarer

Patti is our host this week, and we are asked to think about symmetry. As she explains in her instructive and beautiful post, symmetry is, and have always been, pleasing to the human eye.

The header, as well as most of these images, are from Spain. Art and architecture here has its origin from many cultures including the Moorish. A fantastic blend.

A warm Barcelona night – we stumbled upon a motorcycle gathering
More Spain – Gaudí of course! A small church or chapel, not that well known.
Nature then? I cannot have a post without being natural in some way… Bilateral symmetry, (in biology) – ”a basic body plan in which the left and right sides of the organism can be divided into approximate mirror images of each other along the midline.”
Back in Spain again – A silent monastery walk
Cervantes looking down at his heroes, Don Quixote och Sancho Panza
Finishing off with one of my favorite floors – a wooden floor found in Copenhagen – man-made. Diagonal symmetry? Or I just made that up maybe… but, symmetry can also exist in many ways in the same object, work of art or image. I like the combinatory possibilities.

Thanks to all of you in our creative community for your support, enthusiasm, and creativity.  Let’s keep inspiring each other !  Next challenge, LAPC #117 will be hosted by Amy instead of me, October 3, 2020, so don’t forget to stop by her site and join the fun.

Until then, I wish you all a wonderful, creative week – and stay safe.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #115 – Inspiration

/ Leya / 74 kommentarer

This week, Tina’s challenge is all about inspiration. What inspires you in life? Go to Tina’s fabulous post for more inspiration – and I am sure you will be lingering there for a while…

I am a nature person and an animal person. I prefer walking in nature and being together with animals instead of people. Nature is all inspiring and the foundation of my thoughts and choices in life. Nature is real, animals are honest and straight forward. Humans can seldom measure up to that.

When I was a child there were always cats in my home. As an adult, always dogs. They listen, they do not judge you, and they are faithfully loving till the end. I believe it is essential for a child to grow up with animals around, to watch them and to learn from them how life and death works. They teach you how you should treat everything living. Furthermore – it is a scientific truth that people feel more calm and stable with animals around. In Sweden we have specially trained dogs to go visit elderly people regularly. Some homes for the elderly have a ”house cat”.

I have met some fabulous dogs and cats over the years – here are two of my favorites.
Nature is my greatest inspiration. From glorious landscapes to its tiniest and most intricate elements.
My Swedish summer landscape, and then something from my windows – size, 7-10 mm.
Art in all its forms is inspiring – religious art, street art, everyday art… Antoni Gaudí was always inspired by nature, in my book he is the number one architect of our times.
Abstract trees and flowers in Sagrada Família. Remember that Gaudí found Nature inspiration through walks and talks with his mother.
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis

To me, reading and books always mean inspiration, film and photography as well. There are so many things to be inspired of…what is inspiring for you?

Thank you as always for your support of, and commitment to, our challenge. We hope you’ll join us next week when Patti brings us challenge #116 on her Pilotfish blog.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 114 – Negative Space

/ Leya / 92 kommentarer

This week, Amy is our host, and she wants us to show the importance of negative space in our photography. Negative space is the area around the main subject of your photograph. (Which means that your main subject is the positive space) Check out her post, see brilliant examples and learn more about this!

Positive and negative space are two important tools for us to give an enhanced emotional feel to our images, which is essential in photography. Looking forward to seeing your choices!

Negative space is there to give your photos a sense of calmness
…and subtlety.
Well used, negative space provides a natural balance against the positive space in a scene.
But, images can also appear lonely
..or solemn (or funny…)
Most of all, I would say negative space often gives a contemplative beauty to the image, a unique possibility for us to declutter, relax and recover in this jumbled and unruly world.

Our special thanks to Rusha Sams for hosting last week’s Labor of Love. We had so many positive and uplifting experiences of genuine love and care!

Be sure to check out Tina’s Travels and Trifles post next week as she hosts Challenge #115.

And, as always – may you stay safe and well. Our thoughts these days go especially to all of you out there fighting the wild fires.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #113 – A Labor of Love

/ Leya / 70 kommentarer
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #113: A Labor of Love

First of all – thank you for so many inventive, creative and fun interpretations of last week’s challenge – Pick a Word! Fabulous!

Rusha Sams of Oh the Places We See is our host this week, and she has chosen to highlight all those people who work for a better society and a better world. A Labor of Love.

As so many of us do these days, I think of the health care workers, police and firefighters – all those brave people helping us in this unruly world. But my thoughts also go to all those who work for a sustainable world and helping vulnerable species to survive – because biodiversity is essential to us all. Without biodiversity we will all perish and our planet is lost. Even if we are living in a pandemic now, we know that other problems will not go away – we have to fight them all, simultaneously. Tough. But, the pandemic is also a result of how humans have abused and misused Nature and our only home, planet Earth.

In the header, the dotterel beach in Coromandel.

My daughter voluntered in New Zealand in 2011, working in a Nature preserving program.
She worked mostly with inventory of traps and keeping the forest open. All voluntary work is of course unpaid (monetarily…) work – A Labour of Love for the planet.
Saving the NZ Dotterel was/is a project involving many volunteers. During hatching time there was a time table for those watching the birds 24/7. We saw some Dotterels running on the beach, but also some little ones dead.
A big threat to all endemic animals, maybe especially the NZ flightless birds (the kiwi is only one of them) are the invasive possums. Emma brought home several skulls and bones from roadkills.

In 2016 we went to Ecuador, the Amazon Basin and the Galapagos Islands. Threatened already then by the oil industry and new settlers burning down the rainforest, but little did we know of the many fires that would arrive through mismanagement and the pandemic.

A vast piece of jungle was once bought by a man from the Netherlands who wanted to save it from getting destroyed. We stayed at his eco-lodge with local people guiding and lecturing about herb medicine and Amazon plants and animals. These people were born and raised here, lived here and knew the jungle like the back of their hand.

They took us out on crystal clear waters…
…silent canoe days
…and if not out on the waters – then bird watching high above the Amazon jungle.
Luis was one of our skilled guides, helping us find essential plants for cuisine and health. This was certainly a Labour of Love for him – a way of helping his people, animals and plants survive. He could also recognize and identify several hundreds of different bird sounds.
For Andi, his Labor of Love meant that several villages could survive – and thrive.
This journey is the most highly treasured one of all my journeys through 47 years. To see these people’s loving faces in preserving and teaching about their natural environment was a great joy and to learn how deep their knowledge is of Nature’s secrets was truly humbling. Knowledge and skills of this kind can only be yours if you are born and raised here. I am forever grateful to have met them all.

”We hope you’ll join us in sharing your interpretations of “A Labor of Love” whether you showcase a person or a group or an object notable for the labor or laborer involved.” Publish your post and add your link to the Comments section at the bottom of Rusha’s post. Please don’t forget to add the tag Lens-Artists so you can be found in the Reader.

Next week we will be back on schedule, and Amy will be our host for challenge #114. Until then – stay well and be kind. To yourself as well.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #112 – Pick a Word…

/ Leya / 216 kommentarer

Pick a word and illustrate it with a photo! This used to be a favorite challenge of mine when held by Paula of Lost in Translation. Unfortunately she is not running it anymore. So – how about a revival at Lens-Artists? It is easy: Choose one (1) word or more – choose all of them if you like! The words available are the following:

Comfortable

Growing

Tangled

Crowded

Exuberant

In the header – Comfortable? Yes! If you are safe and living in the Galapagos Islands!

Swimming is normal for me. I’m relaxed. I’m comfortable, and I know my surroundings. It’s my home.  – Michael Phelps
 

Gunnera

Growing

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

 – Pearl S. Buck

19800 Cranes at Hornborgasjön, Sweden

Crowded

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.  – Seth Godin
Double exposure from my windows to make tangled even more tangled…

Tangled

A word garden blooming within the tangled weeds.
― Jazz Feylynn

Holland, flower festival at Keukenhof

Exuberant

Exuberance is beauty.

 – William Blake
 

Thank you for a marvelous response to Patti’s Everyday Objects – you really made us all open our eyes and SEE what we have around us!

A new announcement: We have the pleasure of having Rusha Sams  of Oh the Places We See as guest host for September 5, #113. Be sure to visit her! Until then – stay well and safe, and be kind, to yourself as well.

Have you seen these:

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #111 – Everyday Objects

/ Leya / 72 kommentarer

”For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #111, we’re taking a fresh look at ordinary, everyday objects–things that you see and use in your daily life.”

Patti is our host for the challenge, and we are looking forward to seeing your creative response!

My start is the old silver box from my husband’s mother. I haven’t changed its position for the image, but, inspired by Patti, I put my garnets there, to pick up the colours of the faded rose. In the header it stands in late evening light – here in ordinary daylight. Quite a change – light and the photographer’s position sets the mood.

If you read my blog now and then, you know I have two real dogs, but also some other dogs and cats, hiding among my house plants…

These are my two favourites – both left to me by Anita, a beloved friend who passed away some years ago.

They are hiding in different places depending on what plants I have for them. The lovely blue cat was one of Anita’s special favourites – and yesterday she was hiding behind a Medinilla Magnifica. I think she loved it!

Finally, my scary friends in the blue box – always hiding – seemingly frightened – put there and painted by Lena, a very good friend of mine. Can you see just how scared they are? I even helped them look a bit shaky…

A special thanks to Tina for hosting last week’s Creativity in the Time of Covid challenge.  A great theme, that really showed us many creative ideas on how to cope with and manage these difficult times.  I think we all learned something new and picked up more tricks to stay creative throughout! Well done All of us – together we will meet the future, stronger!

Next challenge, #112, I (Ann-Christine/Leya) will be your host. Stay creative and stay well – and be kind, also to yourself.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #110 – Creativity in the Time of Covid

/ Leya / 73 kommentarer

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.”

Paulo Coelho

And many of us tried, hard, this summer.

Last week we saw a tremendous amount of beautiful answers ”Under the Sun”, hosted by Amy. This week, ”We’d love you to share with us the ways you’ve fueled and satisfied your creative energies these past few months as the pandemic has restricted our ability to move freely.” And this time, Tina is our host.

When all this started, I had just visited my daughter in Umeå, and bought a fascinating  jigsaw puzzle with many house plants – most of which I some time over the years had grown in my house. And, puzzling hade not been on my mind for some 20 years…This was february, and we knew nothing about what would happen only some weeks later.

Emma’s birthday is in September, so we decided to celebrate during her summer vacation instead. She wished to take a short course in ceramics and clay work, together with some friends. I joined in as well, and we all had a creative day at the small farm, where the artist, Caroline, had her studio.

During the whole summer, Emma kept working on the costume for her graduation. She also made a prototype for sewing her leather spats. Much work, but I am sure it will look really good in January for her Big Day. Posing for me? Well, some minutes only – it was 37 degrees C that day…so fast I had to be!

For her birthday, of course I made her favorite lamb pies with lots of vegetables and fruit. For me it is a joy to cook for her when she comes home – I want to make her feel relaxed and having nothing to worry about. Being a student for so many years is tiresome – not least doing all the cooking yourself.

We did many other things togehter of course, but these were some of those that made our summer worth remembering. I think we worked on 5 puzzles at least, and we had so much to talk about and debate – things that might never have come up an ordinary summer. Summing up, this Covid summer went from hopeless to meaningful in the end.

Emma has left now for her final term, so maybe this was her last stay ”at home”. And the last puzzle we started together, I have to finish on my own. It has a name: Universe Creator, by artist Lora. Autumn is coming, and I sit in the warm evening light, looking at Lora’s painting. It shows a little girl cycling, and a giant panda blowing soap bubbles that sails through the air, making new planets and galaxies. I like that idea.

 

Finally, are you interested in learning more about about the team behind the Lens-Artists Challenge?  If so, we invite you to visit TCHistorygal.net where you’ll find our recent interview with Marsha Ingrao of Always Write. It was great working with Marsha and being a part of her Artists’ Interview series. We thank her sincerely for her efforts on our behalf.

We hope you’ll join us next week for Patti’s challenge #111. Until then, take care and stay safe.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #109 – Under The Sun

/ Leya / 62 kommentarer

Last week we had the pleasure of having Xenia of Tranature as our guest host – a real treat of Sanctuary for us all! This week Amy is our host – Under the Sun.

The theme title was inspired by the book Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy by Frances Mayes (published in 1997). ”However this theme series is not about featuring the Tuscan sun, but photo captures anywhere under the sun.”

Fanö Drakflygningsfestival 245-2

As Amy says, taking photos under the sun is often advised against… but still we do that sometimes,  because sometimes we really have no other choice.

Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.
― Roman Payne

I wear myself out and struggle with the sun. And what a sun here! It would be necessary to paint here with gold and gemstones. It is wonderful.

– Claude Monet

Let there always be a bright spot in your heart for the people around you. They might need a bit of sunshine.
― Ron Baratono 

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

– Virginia Woolf

We look forward to seeing your Under the Sun photos! Please make sure you include a link to Amy’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag so we can find your post in the WP Reader.

Also – stay well and safe, and be sure to check out Tina’s post next week as she hosts Challenge #110.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #108 – Sanctuary

/ Leya / 78 kommentarer

Thank you for last week’s sparkling Winter images and thoughts – showing that, despite being cold or wet it can be a season of beauty!

This week we are happy to welcome  Xenia of Tranature as our host, and she has chosen ”Sanctuary” – a timely concept for the year of 2020.

A home is a kingdom of it’s own in the midst of the world, a stronghold amid life’s storms and stresses, a refuge, even a sanctuary.

 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

I have a friend, whose home is a true sanctuary. In the hills, a kilometer away from me.

When you walk up the gravel road – of course there is a string of grass in the middle – …

…and the houses and the lush grounds meet your eye – a calm, serene feeling of harmony descends upon you.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. –

 – Hermann Hesse

Sanctuaries are magical places – dare I say holy?

– Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

 

Just Listen to the sound of Mother Nature – and, only Cats know how to Live In the Moment.

Thank you, my friend, for letting me visit your house whenever I need to.

Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.

 – Rumi

 

Take care and stay safe and well wherever you are in the world –

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #107 – Winter

/ Leya / 203 kommentarer

Winter? Now? Totti would have loved it!

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
― John Steinbeck

Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Christmas Eve, 2011

Winter is not the same in any corner of the world…and maybe most significant is the difference when you compare the Northern Hemisphere with the Southern Hemisphere.  – So, your winter is not mine, my winter is not yours.

Let’s enjoy the differences! Being different and different experiences give us more strength and brings variety to our lives. This week – Winter rules.

I decided to get nostalgic about this theme – as our winters have changed much over the years since I was a child…even in the last ten years, three years, year… Climate change has also made every season more unpredictable. We live in changing times in all aspects. A bit of nostalgia comes over me quite often these days – I guess you might feel the same?

For many years we went skiing every winter, in Dalarna, Sweden. We always stayed in Fryksås, at an old mountain farm – or Shieling (Scottish Gaelic) – overlooking Lake Orsa.

Mille, our first Lagotto (Milo look-a-like, isn’t he?) was a cone collector…he could easily run with 5 (five) cones in his mouth without dropping a single one. He loved going to Fryksås every year – knowing he could play around every day in that cold snow.

The last time we rented one of these 18-19th century cottages, was in 2010. No electricity, no lamps, no technical devices…Only open fires, candle light, reading, playing card games and board games. Knitting, crocheting, discussing… The children (18 and 20 by then – and still loving this concept!) slept in the beautifully painted box-beds.

In Skåne, where I live, (the most southern part of Sweden), winters used to have at least a month of snow, and skiing was often possible. Today’s winters offer only forest walks. And this last winter, for the first time in my life, we had no snow at all.

– And no ice breaking up, letting the brooks sing and the smooth, velvety stones reflect the sun. But I am deeply grateful that we all have these wonderful memories – and that the children share them too. We still talk about going to Fryksås again. Together. Just the four of us. Maybe some day…

 

Announcement: We are happy to welcome Xenia of Tranature as our Guest Host for August 1 !

And thank you, Patti, for hosting a beautiful Autumn week! Thank you for so many colourful and beautiful posts from friends all over the world!

Despite the fact that winter will come to all of us – whether we like it or not…we are looking forward to seeing Your Winter! Meanwhile – stay safe and well out there.

 

Have you seen these: