Lens-Artists Challenge #360 – Found at the Fair/ Market

/ Leya / 104 kommentarer

You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.

– Walter Hagen

We have all been to a market or fair at least once when we were children. Some of these are still fun to visit as grown-ups, even if we don’t buy anything. It is the joy of an abundance of fruit and vegetables, flowers, people…And often everything for sale is elaborately exposed.

Here are some of my summer memories from such events. Enjoy the season and the smiles, and then – I’d love to see some of your memories too! They can be from any fair, Farmers’ market, Christmas market, or maybe a carnival? From your own country or from abroad – feel free to choose whatever you have in store!

Life is a lot like jazz… it’s best when you improvise.

– George Gershwin

Ystad Jazz festival last week – Good music, lovely people and beautiful, creative art! (And ice cream of course…) Jazz maybe attracts mostly grown-ups and elderly people, but they do bring their children and grandchildren too. (And dogs) Hoping they will get hooked on the feeling?

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.

– Hans Christian Andersen

Every year there is jousting at Hovdala castle – our nearest castle just 10 kilometers away. I used to go when one of my students was in the competitions. Fun for all ages. Knights, horses, castles and fair ladies!

To me, flowers are happiness.

– Stefano Gabbana

Finally, Madeira – the lovely land of flowers. When we visited for a week in June, we came upon several different fairs and markets. They have quite a few over the year. One of them had a sustainability theme. At the harbour they had put up big hearts for life and painted recued PET bottles as a ceiling.

A big Thank you to John for another turn of learning last week! I truly enjoyed seeing examples and tips. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with this week! Next week we will have another chance of ”Looking Back”, with Sofia at the helm. Be sure to visit her beautiful site for more!

Until then – stay calm, be careful and loving.

Thursday Thoughts – A Glimpse of Funchal

/ Leya / 28 kommentarer

Madeira always holds a moderate and soft temperature. That’s why it is a haven for both flowers and people. We walked the old streets to see if we could still recognize something from long ago…

…and we did. The typical black and white stones and street patterns of course, but also Zarco’s house, the Portuguise who colonised Madeira. The second picture shows our first hotel in Madeira, Monte Carlo, and the next picture shows the view from there. They kindly let us in to look at the premises again, and could not believe we stayed there as early as in the 1980’s. Fond memories!

Lens Artists Challenge #359 – Tools of Photo Composition: Lines, Colours, Patterns

/ Leya / 44 kommentarer

John’s very informative and inspired challenge this week is – Tools of Photo Composition: Lines, Colors, and Patterns, composition guidelines that are invaluable for both new and seasoned photographers. Visit his post for some great ideas.

Here are some examples of tools I love to use: Leading lines and colours of contrast and harmony.

Above is a shot from Japan, where an exhibition with giant balloons and coloured lights opened up a special kind of leading lines.

In this picture, I even managed a triple of leading lines as shadows too are involved. All of them will find Milo.

This photo from an English castle has got some interesting leading lines in several directions, including downwards.

An ordinary dirt road in Sweden, with patterns, lines and a lone tree.

Photographers often use contrasting colours to make both colors appear more intense. In the last two photos though, the browns and muted greens of the landscape are close to each other on the color wheel, which gives a beautiful sense of harmony.

Another technique is to let there be a single pop of colour in an otherwise calm environment. This picture also shows the poppies in front of a sandy, diagonal slope. An interesting combo.

Another diagonal line, this time featured in a strikingly green/black setting.

Lastly, patterns. This is a square in Madeira with beautifully laid black stones, adorned with fallen yellow petals. The contrast was stunning, and enhanced by regular stones versus irregular petals.

Now it’s your turn to showcase examples of your use of lines, colours, or patterns in your compositions. John gives extra points for showing examples that combine two or three of the categories of composition.

Last week, Tina’s challenge focused on how we all “Live and Learn.” Next week, I (Ann-Christine/Leya) will be your host. If you’d like to submit your own responses to the Lens-Artists Challenge each week, but aren’t sure how to get started, check here.

Hope to see you soon – in the meantime, stay calm and cool.

Macro Monday – Aeonium Arboreum

/ Leya / 19 kommentarer

I love this almost black variety of it. In fact I picked one from Nice and it is now a beauty in my garden. Indoors winter time of course.

Thursday – Friday Thoughts

/ Leya / 19 kommentarer

Well, I have problems with the internet and accessing my site, lagottocattleya. When I am finally in, I soon get thrown out again. And I am home, not in our summer house where I always have trouble with it. This has continued for a week, and I am struggling. So, finally here are my thoughts:

Bathing on the north coast of Madeira is spectacular. Natural pools and lava – open sea. 15 years ago, they were totally natural, but today there are hundreds of tourists and the pools are modelled after it.

In fact these are now the most famous sea pools in Europe, and a joy to visit. Seen from the road above, Porto Moniz doesn’t look like much…but I can assure you it is well worth an hour or two for a cooling swim.

Lens-Artists Challenge # – Live and Learn

/ Leya / 45 kommentarer

Tina starts this week with another of her wonderful quotes – this time from Mahatma Gandhi:

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Through my whole life, I have strived to take good care of and preserve the things I love. When it comes to humans, people I love, it becomes more difficult. We don’t live forever. Photos are essential of course, but to me, also living things I have received or inherited from them.

The white geranium above, was one of the flowers in my grandmothers windows. In Sweden we have a long tradition of keeping geraniums in our homes – indoors and outdoors. My grandmother taught me everything about them, and I inherited all of hers when she died in 1988. Soon I excelled in propagating them from cuttings, and outdoors they thrive the whole summer.

Our National Painter, Carl Larsson, often used his family and home as models for his pictures. The Flower Window is maybe a favourite with most Swedes.

Our summer house is a haven for the whole family – and the old sallow was the warden tree. It was believed to be at least 200 years old. Last year it didn’t make it through the heavy storms, but luckily a sapling survived at its feet. We were so happy. When we arrived early this spring though, the sapling too had fallen in new storms. And maybe, because it no longer had the support of the mother tree.

I was devastated, and so were all of us. I decided to gather some of its twigs and take them home, ”Live!” I whispered… when I planted them, and at least one of them does. I am hoping for more.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

– Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

I often fall in love with roses, and would love to have more of those. Google is a good friend when my books are too old, and I found a good youtube clip that showed me how to take cuttings. So, nowadays, I don’t have to double expose my rose photos to see more of them! And I can give new roses away as presents too. This yellow rose for example. I now have three of them.

I just could not resist picking something I have learned over the years, ever since I was a child. It still gives me so much joy and satisfaction. It’s a celebration of life. My whole house and garden are filled with plants and flowers, and many of them are gifts from the start, or inherited. So, in fact they are great great grandchildren to the original ones.

Tina wants us to show some of the things we’ve learned about photography or any other subject. How do we learn it – by doing, from classes, or online, or through working with others? Please be sure to use the Lens-Artists Tag with your responses and to link your posts to Tinas’s original one.

Last week Egidio took us Into the Woods for some Forest Bathing. I enjoyed all of the wonderful responses I could read. Our summer house does not easily allow us an internet connection… On Saturday, August 2 at noon Eastern Time John will be hosting our next challenge. Many thanks to Tina for this challenge Lens-Artists #358 – Live and Learn