Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 196: “Humor”

This time John challenges us for The Lens-Artists Photo Challenge with Humor 😲 He writes, that he picked this theme because he was considered of having a very special kind of humor. Phew!

How can I picture “humor”? What kind of humor do I have? My wife sometimes states that it seems from her point of view, I’d have to go to the cellar for laughing. I guess, she’s wrong. But, I have to admit, I love intelligent humor and when you have to look around the corner for being able to understand it.

From my point of view, it seems to be impossible to show “humor”. Instead, I picked a few humorous or funny images from my archive for you.

This is quite common in some areas in the countryside to make public that someone on the farm is about to marry soon.

 

We found this open-air shower and washbowl in the high-temperature area of northeast Iceland. Water was running unstoppable. While we were wondering about it and taking a couple of images, a second car arrived at this completely free parking ground. A couple from Slovenia left the car and came up to us. They were also wondering about it. After a short talk, the man decided, that taking here a shower would be a great opportunity because the camping ground where they stayed the night wasn’t that great, and visiting a public bath would be quite expensive.

 

 

This next image was taken during the parade for the annual funfair of our town. It celebrates the idea of Jamaica having its first bob team for running during the Olympic Winter Games. There’s also a movie telling this remarkable story called “Cool Runnings”. The scene below shows the finish of the racing track.

I photographed this funny lady a couple of years ago, also during the funfair parade.

This is a harpy, a fictional character in an anime or manga. I’m not that familiar whit that kind of art, but I love photographing cosplayers during the annual Japantag in our state capitol every now and then.

I love street art and this huge one is painted on the side of a 3- or 4-floor apartment building. Enlarge it, it has funny details, too.

This is also street art: a war-knitter decorated some poles and street-bordering chains.

I stumbled upon these “babies” in Prague a couple of years ago. No idea, what the artist has in his mind while creating them.

This is also in the town where I live. Two times a year the laundry is put up in the old town: in June during the Old-Town-Festival and in September for the funfair. A few years ago this image found its way into our State Archive as it documents a certain folkloristic habit.

 

This final image is taken during our annual carnival escape. It’s one of the fish dealers in the Barcelona Market hall

Enough fun for a day,

Take care!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 194: “bokeh”

Today, Sofia Alves asks for something called “bokeh”. This word is derived from Japanese. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

“In photography, bokeh (/ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə or /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay; Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”. Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause very different bokeh effects. Some lens designs blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce distracting or unpleasant blurring (“good” and “bad” bokeh, respectively). Photographers may deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions, accentuating their lens’s bokeh.

Bokeh is often most visible around small background highlights, such as specular reflections and light sources, which is why it is often associated with such areas.[6] However, bokeh is not limited to highlights; blur occurs in all regions of an image which are outside the depth of field.”

Next, I have a few examples from my archive.

 

Take care!

 

Throwback Thursday and Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 193: “birthday”

This week, John Steiner is looking forward to celebrating his birthday, so I’m happy to join the LAPC party. In some families and in some cultures, birthdays are a reason for huge celebrations. So, I picked up this post published first back in 2013.

There is a certain habit in Cuba of celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday.

The girl gets special clothing, is dressed up, and gets perfect makeup. Then they go to a photographer to take beautiful photographs.

According to our guide, some girls are dressed like a bride for these sessions, others wear cocktail dresses and I also noticed photographs showing a girl dressed like a female version of an old-fashioned, Spanish caballero. The photographs are usually taken in a park or in the streets and not in a studio.

Two weeks later, the parents and the girl have a party with all of her friends, and an album, containing the photos, which is a real eyecatcher for that party. Also, the parents put framed photos from that session on their walls.

I like that idea. (OK, maybe, because I’m a photographer).

We met this young lady in the old town of Havana. Her mother was with her and took care of her hairstyle and her makeup, while the photographer directed his assistant to adjust the reflector.

So, we can congratulate her on her 15th birthday.

Are there any similar habits, where you live or coming from?

While waiting for my next post you can have a look at the previous posts and maybe drop me a note in the comments section below.

 

In the meantime, the girl is a young woman. As I said, I took these photos back in 2013. So, she’s already 24. How much must have changed for her in her life.

As I’m always interested in getting to know habits from other countries, regions, or cultures, drop me a note in the comments and tell me, how do you celebrate birthdays. I’m interested in your personal celebration as well as in general habits and traditions.

Take care!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus

This week’s photo challenge is about Focus.

Photographers are asked to focus on certain parts of their subject and leave the remaining parts in blur. In case they are unable to do it by using their camera, they are also allowed to realize their idea by using software. I personally don’t like the idea of using software, to manipulate a photograph.

Here is my contribution:

The more a child grows, the more his or her parents become needless. They step back and finally they vanish away. The stronger a kid becomes, the weaker the parents have to become.

God bless, for all the kids.

Take care!

 

Tulips

My last post was on a tulip field, I got introduced to by a friend. Now, I want to show you a few of the different tulips. I was very surprised of the huge variety. Even I know tulips differing in color and size. but, here were tulips of shapes I’ve never seen before.

Originally,

Flowers everywhere

It’s spring again – finally. The winter lasted long this year, but finally spring came. Spring means, trees and bushes start blooming and flowers coming out of the soil.

The Netherlands are well-known as a flower growing country and the flower everyone connects with the Netherlands first is the tulip, even tulips originating from Persia. I heard about big fields with tulips and was eager to visit one for taking photographs. But going on a trip

Happy birthday

There is a certain habit in cuba in celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday.

The girl gets special clothing, is dressed up and gets a perfect makeup. Then they go to a photographer to take beautiful photographs.

According to our guide, some girls are dressed like a bride, other wear cocktail dresses and I also noticed photographs showing a girl dressed like a female version of an old-fashioned, spanish caballero. The photographs are usually taken in a park or in the streets and not in a studio.

Two weeks later,

Having a little chat

These two figurines are sitting in front of the former commodity exchange of Havana, not far from the harbour. The building in the back in the first photo already belongs to the harbour. Nowadays a commodity exchange isn’t necessary anymore, because Cuba’s economy is centrally planed and controlled by the socialistic government.

Take care
and while waiting for my next post on cuba you could have a loon on my past posts.

Chestnuts

When I was a child we used to collect chestnuts, but it was quite hard to find them, because in my area the chestnut trees are quite rare.

Every kindergarten wanted the kids (and their parents, of course) to collect them for tinkering. Chestnuts, matches, yarn and acorns were used to construct animals, bracelets and necklaces.

On the other hand, the foresters wanted teenagers to collect them for feeding deers and wild boars during the winter. So, chestnuts were quite rare.

In Bavaria is it a very long tradition to have beer gardens. The landlords have cellars for storing the beer barrels and planted usually chestnut trees above the cellar to keep the cellars cool and to have a natural shadow for the guests during summer. So, it’s quite easy to find chestnuts in Bavaria, where I took all these photos.

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