This weeks challenge from the Lens-Artists is:
How many ways can you think of for getting away from the daily grind and finding peace? Show us your views on “taking a break”
We recently took a break visiting both Anglesey and part of Yorkshire, fitting in both parents on our travels, and general having quite an active break. However there was time to sit, relax, eat ice cream, and take a few photos :).
‘Poppy eye’, Beningbrough Hall, 2019.
Ken
This weeks challenge from the Lens-Artists was:
I’m hosting this week’s L-A photo challenge. Tina, Patti, Ann-Christine, and I are looking forward to your photos of seascapes and/or lakeshores, which may be taken from a fun vacation or the sea/lake near you. Feel free to include the water front, the shoreline, waves, people, reflections …
We sat here eating chips in the van, looking out into the distance.
‘Cemaes Bay’ Anglesey, 2019.
Ken
This weeks challenge from the Lens-Artists was:
so this week’s challenge is – Dreamy.
I could have sat under this sky for hours.
‘Soft Sky’, Cairn holy, Dumfries and Galloway, 2018.
Ken
This weeks challenge from the Lens-Artists was:
Here’s one way to solve this dilemma–focus on detail–our theme for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #54. Sometimes one or two small details can convey the big story.
So from our Holiday last week, a visit to Aldborough Roman town, a lot of detail here:
‘Mosaic’, Aldborough, 2019.
Ken
Yesterday was a special day for the Lens Artists Quartet, their 53rd post, the one year anniversary of their Challenge, and so we had a special challenge from Tina, Ann-Christine, Patti, & Amy.
Your Choice
They chose Friendship , A Country That’s Special to You , Imagination , and Connected. I like the fact that these posts all deal with the web that has grown between us all as a community across the globe, holding different views, and beliefs, but brought together every Saturday to share our pictorial thoughts. Each week a little of our personality is shared with the other members of our group, and we in turn learn a little more about our place in the world and how we relate to others.
Most of you are aware that I enjoy visiting ancient stones, often in remote locations, so once more I will share a photo of the ‘Druids circle’, Penmaenmawr.
‘Ancient view’, Druids circle, Penmaenmawr, 2019.
I like to think I am taking some of you along with me for the walk, inspiring some to visit such places, or simply showing you something you otherwise would not have seen. In my imagined world I publish a post and then members of our digital community that exists as ones and zeros to me on the whole, but who are indeed real people slowly make the trek to the stones with me.
‘Ones and Zeros’, Druids circle, Penmaenmawr, 2019.
Ken
This week we are challenged us with:
Personally I find nature and its scenery of all kinds helps me to achieve serenity in this crazy world. What about you? What is it that helps you to find serenity in the face of growing chaos?
I find serene moments in many places, and while undertaking many pursuits, I guess in that respect I am lucky. The flip-side of this though is a sometimes chaotic mind, given to dwelling on things.
serenity – the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.
I find myself in this state when walking in nature, visiting ancient sites, when I am sewing or cooking, at times when taking and editing photos, when meditating, playing or composing music, or just after solving that niggling problem. In essence when I slow down, take stock, realise how blessed I am.
Below is a place that always makes me feel this way, a place where time slows for me, where I feel warm and loved, and for a brief moment I sometimes think I can understand what it all means!
‘Serene Meg’, Long Meg and her daughters, Cumbria, 2017.
Ken
This week we are challenged us with:
We are looking forward to seeing your interpretation of unique, which may be a building, person, color, place, photo…
So here is a unique quilt I made for a friends 40th birthday.
‘Quilting’, 2019.
Ken
This week we are challenged us with:
the theme this week comes natural (!) to me – Trees.
I love trees, and walking in wide open spaces, interaction with ‘nature’ is when I probably feel most like ‘me’. Trees whisper softly and slowly to us, if only we stop and listen.
“I thought all the trees were whispering to each other, passing news and plots along in an unintelligible language; and the branches swayed and groped without any wind.”
“But there, my friends, songs like trees bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
But sometimes they shout and let us know what they are thinking, they breathe, they weep, and bleed. If we pay attention we might learn what we are missing.
Look at the way the Welsh weather has shaped this tree, and how resilient it has become in spite of the forces of nature, Uprooted at on point in its life, but still strong and apparently healthy.
‘Resilience’, Penmaenmawr, 2019.
Ken
This week we are challenged us with:
We look forward to seeing your unique and varied responses to this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #49: Favourite Things.
What are my favourite things? There are a lot when I come to think of it, but if there are so many, does that make them favourite, or just things that make me happy and those I love. And what should I group into the category of ‘Things’. Anyway enough of an early morning existential crisis, here is a photo that has a number of ‘things’ in it. My wife, friends, me taking a photo, Long Meg and her daughters, stone circles in general, wide open spaces, the country side, walking, nature . . . I’ve used a different edit of this before but it just contained so many favourites, that the opportunity to re-edit was too good to miss.
‘Meg is a favourite’, Long Meg and her daughters, Cumbria, 2018.
What is missing, well cats, our cats especially, music, dancing, visiting new places, West Penwith, St. Ives, sunsets, a roof over my head . . . just where do the likes stop and the favourites begin!
So I am going to choose just one more photo:
‘A wife and two cats’, 2014.
Ken
This week we are challenged us with:
There are many ways one might choose to interpret this week’s “wild” challenge – of course wild animals, but also wildflowers, the wild blue yonder, wild about “fill in the blank”, the wild, wild west….I could go on and on. Instead I’ll turn it over to you to show us YOUR perspective on what wild means to you.
Recently this woodpecker has been visiting us, well the nut feeder actually, almost on a daily basis, and we enjoy this fact very much. It is about as wild a time as it gets for us on a damp South Wales day :), actually we a blessed with a garden that is bigger than average and thus we get to see our fair share of wildlife.
‘Daily pleasure’, 2019.
Ken
