Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #117 – A Photo Walk

This week Amy is taking us on a walk – a photo walk. What a brilliant idea!

In order to distract myself and lift my spirits, we decided to go to Borås last Friday – a lovely little town we hadn’t visited for years.

Leaving your garage to meet this charming lady might be a not so bad start of the day…
Alfred Nobel – I heard today that the Nobel Prize for medicine went to three scientists: Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice, who discovered the virus giving hepatitis C – and making it a curable disease.
A discovery of great importance – we need more of those.
This mural was painted on a school building – It surely makes the school days brighter!
Back on the parking after an enjoyable tour – Autumn had left its mark.

The whole day I had been on the lookout for the Swan and the Fox, but it seemed nowhere to be found. I had found it on the Internet plan and was eager to see it with my own eyes too. In fact, after two hours I had given up on it by the time we were approaching the end of the walk. But, on turning right into the last street before the car park, I caught a glimpse of it in the corner of my left eye – there it was! Sitting on our left hand side, it obviously was impossible to find on our way out. So, now you too can see it, in the header. It was my favorite on this Friday walk.

As always, thank you all for your creative responses to last week’s Symmetry challenge. We enjoyed your interesting and thoughtful images for the concept. I am sorry to be a bit absent from commenting – I lost my mother in September and my mind is focused on everything connected to that. But I will be back. I am sure Patti, Tina and Amy will support you even more.

Now we look forward to seeing your results from this week’s Photo Walk. Please remember to link them to Amy’s original post here, and to Tag them Lens-Artists to be included in our reader section. Last but not least, we hope you’ll join us next week when our special guest host, Biasini, Anne Leueen’s clever horse, hosts our next challenge on her always-interesting blog Horse Addict.

Until then, stay safe and creative.

Thursday’s Special: Pick a Word

Time to join Paula again – if you haven’t tried this challenge before, give it a chance!

LUNAR – Galapagos Islands

VOLTE FACE – Stettin in the opener

SOARING – Iceland

REPOSING – Italy somewhere

and

IMPREGNABLE – Spain

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #116 – Symmetry

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

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.
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

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

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.

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.