Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Patterns
Colours and colours and patterns!
Art
Lens Artists Photo Challenge #35: Architecture
As Amy’s challenge this week is Architecture, I invite you to follow me to Umeå for a visit to a very special hotel.
The Grand Hotel in Umeå, by architect Viktor Åström, was built 1894-95. The facade is in neorenaissance. Close up to this beauty is U&Me Hotel, opened in 2014, by architects from Snøhetta, and interior design by architect- and design Stylt Trampoli.
The more than 120 years old Seafarers’ House and Grand Hotel in central Umeå has been exquisitely renovated, and the concept of historic influences from the seven seas is so unique that the hotel was elected World’s Best New Boutique Hotel 2014.
The whole interior is spectacular…
and some pieces remind you of a shipwreck.
The old Grand Hotel is closely connected to (a real juxtaposition) U&Me, something that feels a bit awkward from the outside – while the inside might be described as a smooth swim through a coral reef…
Thank you, Amy, for an inspiring challenge and the opportunity to follow in your footsteps to one of the new seven wonders of the world!
Lens-Artists Challenge #32 – Shadows
In the header, the grand Aqueduct of Segovia, Spain. A picture where you cannot ignore the importance of shadows. For Tina’s challenge this week – Shadows.
Shadow owes its birth to light.
John Gay
Even the tiniest creature/ thing displays a delicate shadow when there is light enough
And as you move, your shadow moves with you…
In the late evening… the shadows make us a delightful pair – the cherry tree and me
The fence, in Riga, Latvia – one of my favorite pictures ever
Some flowers look their best in the shadows of other flowers in my garden
The golden browns of the dunes become enhanced by the shadows
…and the trees provide soothing shadow while they thrive and reach for the light
Thank you to Tina for a lovely challenge, and a homage to the importance of shadows.
Find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and dark which that thing provides.
Lens-Artists Challenge #28 – Curves
Curves –
”In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.”
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Thank you Tina, for this week’s opportunity to admire natural as well as man made curves. They are everywhere – if you just let your eyes find them… Sometimes you have to look up though – like in Trinity College, Dublin, and The Long Room.
Antoni Gaudí – a master of curves
Rila Monastery, Bulgaria –
– glorious curves
In my forest – colourful, natural curves
Lava, and life returning – in curves
But no curves are as beautiful and complete as those of the koru –
A short Wikipedia explanation: Koru (Māori for ”loop”) is a spiral shape based on the appearance of a new unfurling silver fern frond. It is an integral symbol in Māori art, carving and tattooing, where it symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. Its shape ”conveys the idea of perpetual movement,” while the inner coil ”suggests returning to the point of origin”.
CB&W Photo Challenge: Rocks, Boulders, Stones
Thursday Thoughts – Christmas Market
Christmas in Sweden also means many Christmas markets to visit, where local people can put their work on display, and there is a lot of chatting and big smiles. This year we only visited one market, and came home with some lovely presents of course…
This young woman was a talented painter with somewhat a style of her own.
And there were even younger participants… mother and daughter sold flowers and decorations. Everything works out well when you are smiling!
Thursday Thoughts – We Must Make it Work!
My post from November 30, 2017, a year ago – I thought a reminder to us all would not hurt. What do you want to give your children and grand children for the future?
Every December I remember our month in New Zealand some years ago. Never have I been to a country where I found so much and so many to admire and love.
This is where our antipodes live, this is where I had one of my first penfriends, this is the country whose nature I believe to be the most diverse and beautiful in the world. And this is where Rainbow Warrior went down, sending many people around the world into an unbelievable state of shock.
We are constantly reminded of how much we contaminate our world, and the focus here in Swedish media, right now, is the sea, the oceans.
Just like in Wellington, we can still bathe, swim and fish in Stockholm – but for how long?
I am a member of many organizations trying their best to help preserving our planet for generations to come. But right now, we receive news every day about all the plastic and micro plastic in the oceans – a terrible threat to all organisms-
So, I think again, with my heart wide open, about how much I respect and love NZ, its people and its genuine efforts to help the world stay healthy. Down to every detail… for example the artwork made for making us humans see and do the right things.
And these are only two, small, brilliant examples out of many, many…we saw new examples every day.
Hopefully it is not too late for the world – but You and I, and all of us, have to do our bit, our part, every day – to save our enigmatic and fantastic planet. Start with the little things…don’t use plastic bags, bring your own when you go shopping. Don’t throw old medicine in the toilet, in Sweden we leave them at the pharmacy for destruction.
Can you say you try to do everything you can to help? I know I try – but I also know I can do so much more.
Thursday Thoughts – Art Nouveau Villas
Wherever I travel, I love to walk among architectural big or small wonders. In Łódź, on our last day, I found a guide about famous houses in the city. Not much time left, but I just had to see their famous Art Nouveau gem.
Villa Gallery, a house built in 1903 for the manufacturer Leopold Kindermann from Łódź, is listed on the prestigious Iconic Houses platform.
The global list of outstanding architecturally-significant houses is created by the Amsterdam-based Iconic Houses Foundation.
The aim of the Iconic Houses organisation is to popularise knowledge about 20th-century great architectural designs, gathering documentation on them and promoting the idea of opening such buildings to the public.
Only the houses that are open as public museums can enter the Iconic Houses list.
Among the list of most beautiful houses of the 20th century, there are icons such as Antonio Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in Poissy, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Arizona, as well as the houses of Alvar Aalto in Helsinki, and Victor Horta in Brussels, Theo van Doesburg in Paris, Arne Jacobsen’s in Copenhagen and many others, all considered milestones in the history of modern architecture.
Just to look at the elaborate details is magical. The iron gates were magical wonders.
The windows, and the visible – or hidden – sculptures really kept your eyes alert.
I met with some great difficulties trying to photograph the house – high gates and impossible angles. But I hope you get a hint of the beauty of the villa. It made me long for Bacelona and Gaudí, again…
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Memories
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Memories
After a wonderful, one month long, trip to New Zealand 2011, suddenly our tour guide from The Lord of the Rings tour in Wellington turned up for our Midsummer celebrations in 2012. And he brought a girlfriend as well. One of the best Midsummer events ever!
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #20: Open Sesame – Doors and Doorways
Tina’s challenge this week is for us to find doors – and maybe to open them…or at least making you want to find out what is hidden behind them.
“Doors can lead you to other worlds, or to what is behind what is in front of you.”
Stephanie Torbert
I like that quote from Tina’s post, because I like word play, and my doors are simply a diverse gallery of some favorites from my travels. All of them works of art – natural or man made. In the header, the enigmatic doorway to Rila monastery in Bulgaria.
Bhutan
Tibet
The Moroccan desert – where the doors are the woven, striped and checked ”carpets” on the left hand side.
Spain
Latvia
Sweden
Sweden
Please remember the Lens-Artists tag to be seen in our Reader section. For more information about our challenge click here. And don’t forget to join Patti for her challenge next week!
Leya 
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