Set in stone – Sunday Stills – #Spirit

This week Teri has challenged us with:

There is much we can do with this week’s Sunday Stills theme: SPIRIT. . . Whether you believe in a higher being, a natural Earth, follow an organized religion, or simply just believe, show us something that moves YOUR spirit.

In another post ‘#49‘, I posted a picture of the Druids circle, at Penmaenmawr, where we had visited this weekend.  Not only did visiting this  sacred megalithic landscape raise my spirits, but one of the stones there is very interesting to me.  Perhaps it is the ‘spirit’ of the place, It certainly reminds me of a hooded figure watching over the circle.

‘Druids circle’, Penmaenmawr, 2019.

Ken

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Reaching toward reflection – K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge – Written in stone.

Each week, K’lee and Dale offer  prompts for us to consider as the latest challenge.  This week it is:

Written in stone, stonework and structures old and new.

My first choice is the Mên Scryfa in Cornwall, if you look closely at the lower half of the photo, you can just make out some of the text on the stone in this picture.  Potentially a prehistoric stone that was later inscribed in the 6th to 8th century, it is amzing to think that this stone can still speak to us.

‘Rialobranus son of Cunovalus’, Mên Scryfa, Cornwall, 2014.

And I’m Going to follow this up with the Ruthwell cross that we went to visit last year when we were in Dumfries and Galloway.

‘Reaching skyward’, Ruthwell, 2018.

And finally another photo taken on our visit to Dumfries and Galloway, this time taken at Anwoth Old Kirk – for those that are interested this was the church yard used in the film ‘The Wickerman’.

‘Reflection’, Anwoth, 2018.

Ken

Meg’s smile – Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge – Looks Like a Face

This week Cee challenges us with the topic ‘Looks Like a Face’.

I always think that this profile of Long Meg looks like a face, in fact I think she would be rather at home in an episode of the Simpsons!

‘Meg’s smile’, Long Meg and her daughters, Cumbria, 2017.

Ken

 

Stone, Wood and iron – Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge – Fences and Gates

This week Cee challenges us with the topic ‘Fences and Gates’.

Well I am not really sure if this counts as a fence, but both the woodwork and the ironwork look like fences, so I thought I would use this shot from the weekend.  We were at Lynton and this is some of the architectural detail on the town hall.

‘Stone, wood and iron’, Lynton, 2019.

Ken

 

Tweet – Monochrome Monday Challenge XXIII

Hadd Hai Yaar challenges us to:

create a post having monochrome photos

So I was browsing through the archives for some photos my wife had asked me to look up, and I saw this one, which I rather liked.

‘Tweet’, Avebury, 2010.

Ken

My Garden! – Weekly Photo Challenge – Out of Place

This week Jenn at ‘Traveling at Wits End’ challenges us to:

This week is one of those odd-ball challenges: Photograph Something that Doesn’t Belong.  I think I’m tapping back into my childhood and remembering a bit from the children’s show Sesame Street where they show a series of objects and challenges the children to find the thing that doesn’t belong. I can even hear the song in my head “One of this things doesn’t belong…”

Well what an interesting challenge, Jenn said she did not want to give us an easy time, no keyword searching through our archives, but rather a new photo, or looking at our archives with new eyes.

So I duly started looking through my archives for something out of place.  Well the first few things I saw were out of place in the archives, but taken as stand alone items would not look out of place to you at all.  I suppose I could have uploaded the photos to either side to illustrate maybe.  So back to looking.

Then I found a few things that were sort of out of place but actually entirely natural.  For example fungus on a tree, not out of place from our perspective as that is where we might expect to find it, but what does the tree think about it?

Then I saw this photo, to the observer perhaps nothing is out of place, but to one of our cats, the white statute of a cat was definitely out of place in his garden.  I had previously edited this photo, but took a look again for this challenge.  I would like to be able to say that the weeds are out of place, but more often than not they are in place.

‘My garden!’, Brynna, 2014.

And there I was all set to leave it at that one photo,  but I occasionally like a browse through the archives, and only a little further on was this one.  A red painted circle on a stone in the middle of a wood.  Out of place to the observer, but in place I suspect to the person who left it there.

‘Red Circle’, West Penwith, Cornwall, 2014.

Ken

Water worn – Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Smooth

For this weeks Fun Foto Challenge Cee gives us the topic of ‘Smooth’.

I love the way pebbles are worn smooth by the sea, so here is a shot taken at Sandymouth Bay last year.

‘Water worn’, Sandymouth Bay, Cornwall, 2018.

And another of some smooth stone balancing at Amroth beach.  However I have to admit that it is the texture of last week that makes this possible rather that the apparent smoothness of the stones.

‘Stone ship’, Amroth, 2016.

Ken

Lichen, Beetle, Stone – Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Texture

For this weeks Fun Foto Challenge Cee gives us the topic of ‘Texture’.

So just because I particularly like the textures in this shot taken at Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle last year. . .

‘Lichen, Beetle, Stone’, Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle, Shropshire, 2018.

Ken

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