Month: October 2022

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 223: “Flights of Fancy”

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John invites us today, to imagine the unthinkable and go behind the border of imagination for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. He writes:

“According to Dictionary.com, the idiom “flight of fancy” refers to “an unrealistic idea or fantastic notion, a pipe dream. For example, ‘She engaged in flights of fancy, such as owning a million-dollar house.’ This idiom uses flight in the sense of ‘a soaring of the imagination,’ a usage dating from the mid-1600s.”

and

“For this week’s challenge, consider sharing images of interesting or unusual subjects that represent notions or ideas that seem incredible even today or seemed. “

So, the jump point is set.

The French Brothers Montgolfiere used to have a dream, an incredible dream! And, in fact, they were able to realize it. On June, 4th of 1783, they presented their self-constructed vehicle to the amazed audience: the Montgolfière, the ancestor of today’s hot-air balloons. Their courage has opened up a new world for mankind.

This image is taken a few minutes before sunrise during my second flight looking east

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The people of the North are used to this incredible glowing in the dark during the long and cold winter nights: Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. But, unlike us nowadays, they did not have an exclamation for the moving lights above them. The old Vikings found a saga to explain it: At night the valkyries ride along the battlefields to collect all the past heroes and lead them to Odin’s table in Walhalla. The rays of moonlight were reflected by their arms and shields which are supposed to result in the amazing lights.

 

My third image is to honor the genius Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí. In the past, I already donated a few posts to him and his absolutely incredible work. He was able to think outside the box when planning buildings and was able to make heave stone seem to be light plant parts. All the shapes were derived from nature, just like this hall of forest trees forming the main ship of the cathedral La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I got aware of parts of his work first when I was in my 7th or 8th class at secondary school. I’m so happy, to have been there a couple of years ago and I hope to revisit when the cathedral is once finished.

 

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to John’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 222: “mountains are calling”

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“You stand up there, whith your head in the clouds” – John Lees

This line of Barkley James Harvest’s famous song Hymn came to my mind when I read the topic, Amy has chosen for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.

In Norway, the mountains grow straight from the bottom of the ocean

But, there’s another line, tied strait to the other one:

“Valley’s deep and the mountain’s so high”

A mountain can’t exist without a valley.

In the Bavarian Alpes, the valleys in between the mountains are used to build houses

 

The Bavarian Alpes seems to grow out of a plain when coming from the North. Seeming to be a barrier, and they are. The Alpes are the main reason for the quite stable weather in Europe.

 

Again, mountains having their heads in the clouds.

towns are embedded in the valleys and areas not so steep.

 

When discovering the tiny rail track you’re getting an idea of the dimension.

 

Isle of Skye

 

Iceland

 

Water finds its way down, simply following the gravity

 

Humans have to walk or invent something

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Amy’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Throwback Thursday: “Lisbon”

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wow, I’m coming closer to the bottom of my backlog. The pile of undeveloped images decreases. Last week, I finished another big folder. That folder contained the images taken during the carnival escape in Lisbon from February 2015 😳😲! Seven years!

During our stay, I already developed a handful of images, but the majority was only moved to the to-be-done disk.

When I walked now through my images to decide which to develop, many memories came back.

  1. old architecture, Art Deco, tiled facades, tile decorations
  2. many narrow cobblestone roads
  3. trams everywhere
  4. a lot of amazing street art

In the past, I already published a few images. But in the future, you can expect more. For now, I have one of the most amazing images. Not because it shows one of the topics mentioned above. But, because of the selection of products for sale in the shop.

I know i.e. butchers, bakeries, milkmen, as well as shops selling shoes, clothing, wine, beverages, tracking or sports equipment, or shops offering only products of a certain brand. But, I’ve never seen shops before selling only gloves! Or another one selling only oil sardines, a specific kind of canned fish.

It’s not a tiny shop. But, the only product they offer is canned fish. Amazing!

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 221: “Flower Favourites – and Why?”

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It’s Saturday evening here in Germany, the sky is gray, and it’s raining. As we’re in the northern hemisphere, October means fall. So, I have to dig in my archive to find suitable images of blooming flowers instead of going out to a botanical garden or so. Nevertheless, Ann-Christine‘s challenge fits well in this gray and dreary time of the year to cheer us up.

Although I don’t have strong preferences when it comes to flowers, I do have some regarding photographs of flowers.

First of all: the Strelitzia

This is a closeup image taken with my macro lens from a backlit strelitzia blossom. I love them, because of the friendly warm base tone featuring smaller violet, blue, yellow, and green stripes. In addition, their shape is so unique.

 

Second: the Schlumbergera or Christmas cactus

This is also taken with my macro lens. I was laying below the plant equipped with a remote-controlled Speedlight and a black card box above. Here we have again a very unique-styled blossom.

 

Third: a pasqueflower, a protected plant because it’s quite rare nowadays.

pasqueflower

 

Fourth: Pulmonaria Officinalis, or lungwort. In German, one of their common names is “Brüderchen-und-Schwesterchen”, which translates to “little brother and little sister”

 

You might notice blossoms in lite blue and in lite pink. One plant has blossoms in blue and pink at the same time.

 

And finally the Amaryllis:

 

Here we have again a uniquely shaped blossom. Although you can buy onions each year starting in November and enjoy the blossoms for several weeks from approximately January, I picked an image taken in Cuba, where they were blooming outside in the gardens.

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Ann-Christine’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so that we can find it.

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Throwback Thursday: “Three of One in Barcelona”

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This week’s LAPC “One subject, three ways” hosted by Patti was so much much, that I prepared a second port. My first contribution was published on Saturday.

This time, I take you back to my visit to Barcelona in February 2014. I went there with some friends on our annual carnival escape. Many of my images are already here on my blog. For the challenge, I’m focussing on a modern and iconic building right at the beach: Hotel W

 

 

 

A wonderful challenge and again a great opportunity to look through the archive and discover the images from a different perspective.

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Patti’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so that we can find it.

Take care!

art, landscape, nature, photography, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 220: “One Subject Three Ways”

solaner

This week for LAPC Patti asks us, to spend some time with a subject to find the ‘right’ angle of view. In the past, I already walked you through a set that way, like here, here, or here.

Today, I’ve chosen a slightly different approach than cropping or getting closer. Instead, I visited the same location on three consecutive days and spend some time on my subject: driftwood on a quite remote part of a beach.

full-frame 16 mm (fish-eye) – 14:34h

 

full-frame 20mm 14:14h

 

full-frame 20mm 21:42h

 

On each of these three days, I was happy with my final image and I still am. But, when I was back the next day, that piece of driftwood pulled me in again. Each of the days (4 in total – but during my first visit I wasn’t in that particular part, where these trees were laying in the water), I spend hours on that beach and working some time with these trees. Because of the remoteness, the beach and the cliff above are more or less untouched. No-one tidies up, except Mother Nature herfelf. So, you can discover a lot of things.

My conclusion of those days is (and I also experienced this in other places too), sometimes you have to call it a day, pack your gear, and go home. But, you have to come back another day (or time) to find the final image.

 

A wonderful challenge and again a great opportunity to look through the archive and discover the images from a different perspective.

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to Patti’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so that we can find it.

Take care!