Raw and Tamed – Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #33 – Nature

This week Patti has posted:

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #33, it’s your chance to showcase Nature–including plants, animals, landscapes–and other features of the physical world–either close to home or far away.  It’s up to you!

So here are two shots for you.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.  – Albert Einstein

‘Raw stone’, Zennor, 2016.

‘Tamed wood’, Newton House, Llandeillo, 2016.

Nature is not, of course, always benign and beautiful. It can be frightening and terrifying also.
Not too many generations ago, raw nature and wilderness tended to inspire fear and dread in “civilized” people.
They represented Otherness and the Unknown. That which is “wild” is also “bewildering”.
Today, wilderness is usually considered to be something good and in need of preservation.
The beauty and awesomeness of it dominate our attention.
We are attracted by wilderness, the Otherness of it, the sense it is something inevitably outside of us.
Always beyond us, it is what is ultimately real.
We cannot adequately appreciate this aspect of nature if we approach it with any taint of human pretense.
It will elude us if we allow artifacts like clothing to intervene between ourselves and this Other.
To apprehend it, we cannot be naked enough.
In Wildness is the preservation of the world.
-Henry David Thoreau

Ken

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Long shadows – Lens-Artists Challenge #32 – Shadows

This weeks challenge from Tina asks us:

Let’s make this week’s challenge SHADOWS.

We this is quite a hard one, as all our best photography is dependent on the shadows, looking for the best placement of light that results in the shadow when taking the shot, or of lightening them or darkening them in post.

So I could choose literally any photo, however lacking a photo of ‘Hank Marvin’, I chose these photos.

‘Long Shadow’, Long Meg and her daughters, Cumbria, 2018.

‘Present Photographer’, Swinside/Sunkenkirk stone circle, Cumbria, 2018.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ken

 

 

Memories – Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #31: Landscapes

This week Amy challenges us with:

Our photo challenge for this week is landscapes. As I was going through hundreds of my archived landscape photos, they brought back many fond memories.

Well it is fair to say that the majority of my photos probably fit into the theme of Landscapes, so where to start looking?

It snowed this week, and we went for a walk up towards the ridge-way.  So here is a panoramic landscape, .  A recently formed memory.

‘Dusted’, Brynna, S.Wales, 2019.

A photo from our visit to Dartmoor in June last year, a memory from the not to distant past.

‘Grey Wethers Landscape’, Grey Wethers Stone Circle, Dartmoor, 2018.

And finally a memory fading to the past, a view over Monmouth from the Kymin.

‘Kymin view’, The Kymin, Monmouthshire, 2014.

Nash Point Mist – Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #30 – Unexpected

This week Ann-Christine, Leya hosts the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, and she asks us to post based on the following:

Did something totally unexpected happen today? Did you meet someone unexpected at the grocery store, or did you find something in an unexpected place …or, maybe You are up to something unexpected?

In August 2018 we took an unexpected visit to Nash Point, its actually not far from where we live but we had never been before. It turned out to be an unexpected magical place, and that was before the unexpected, well for us anyway, sea mist started to roll in.

‘Nash Point Mist’, Nash Point, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, 2018. (6 photo panoramic stitch)

‘Sailing around Nash Point’ – Nash Point, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, 2018.

Hard to find – Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #29: Cityscapes

For this weeks Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Patti one of the curators of the Lens-Artists Photography Challenge asks us to:

share a cityscape of one city or several cities with populations in the thousands or millions.  They can be near your home or thousands of miles away.   It’s totally up to you.  Most importantly, show us the big picture view.

A particular challenge for me as I am usually a countryside creature rather than a city dweller whenever possible.  And when I am in cities most of my shots fairly close architectural shots of one or two buildings at most.  So Cityscapes do not feature highly in my archives, perhaps I need to remedy this.

However here are a couple of shots that will fit the bill.

Vienna 2013.

London 2013

And two more recent shots, but not as wide, Copenhagen 2017

Castlerigg Curves – Lens-Artists Challenge #28 – CURVES

This week Tina at Travels and Trifles, one of the curators of the Lens-Artists Photography Challenge asks:

How about you; how are you dealing with life’s little curveballs? Think about it as you’re putting together your response to this week’s challenge.

So here is my take on Curves – The curves of Castlerigg stone circle, set against the curves of the Lake district landscape.  How am I currently dealing with life’s little curveballs?  By occasionally escaping into the past, and editing photos of nature. As good as being there? No, but still relaxing.