Photo Challenge – Page 225

Sunday Stills, the next challenge: Bridges

Ed is a truck driving photographer from Tennessee who hosts a photography challenge blog called Sunday Stills here on WordPress.

This week Ed would like to see Bridges

Above: The Ribble Viaduct. It is the longest and most famous viaduct on the Settle-Carlisle Railway, a railway line passing through some spectacular British scenery. The viaduct is curved, and so may be seen by passengers on the train.

(click on an image to enlarge it and get more information)

The Coat-hanger

Johnson Street Bridge, Victoria BC

Burrard Street bridge, Vancouver BC

Lions Gate bridge, Vancouver BC

Golden Gate bridge, San Francisco, USA

lambley viaduct

Ironbridge, SHropshire UK

Jackfield Bridge, Shropshire UK

Dinham bridge, Ludlow UK

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beginning

Cheri’s first post of the year is about Beginning. She wants to see what we see through our lenses.

As someone who divides the year into seasons I see the beginning as spring, when nature awakes from the cold of the winter and new life appears. Snowdrops are usually the first flowers to raise their heads above the frozen ground, so it is an obvious choice for me to choose the common snowdrop or Galanthus nivalis.

If you would like to see what others have come up with for this challenge then go to the Daily Post @ WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

A Lingering Look at Windows: # 1

This weekly challenge is hosted by Dawn from ‘The Day After’ who invites participants to post pictures of any windows that they find curious, inviting, photogenic, or in some way tell a story.

“Summoned by Bells”, by John Betjeman

Down the drive,

Under the early yellow leaves of oaks;

One lodge is Tudor, one in Indian style.

The bridge, the waterfall, the Temple Pool

And there they burst on us, the onion domes,

Chajjahs and chattris made of amber stone:

‘Home of the Oaks’, exotic Sezincote.

Sezincote (pronounced seas in coat) is a British estate, located in Gloucestershire, England. It was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell in 1805, and is a notable example of Neo-Mughal architecture, a 19th-century reinterpretation of 16th and 17th-century architecture from the Mughal Empire. At the time of its construction, British India was becoming the “jewel in the crown” of the world’s largest empire…. Wikipedia

It was also the inspiration for the Brighton Pavilion.

This extraordinary Indian house set in the Cotswolds hills has a central dome, minarets, peacock-tail windows, jail-work railings and pavilions. The main photo above shows the curving Orangery which frames the Persian Garden of Paradise with a fountain and canals. A more in depth post about the gardens is on my flower blog: Earth Laughs in Flowers

Peacock-tail Windows

Door to the Persian Garden

A Word a Week Challenge: Gap

Every week Sue from ‘A Word in Your Ear’ dips into her English Oxford dictionary and picks a word on the page that it falls open at. The challenge is to post a photograph, poem, story – whatever the genre you like best to describe what that word means to you.

This week’s challenge is GAP (click to join in with the challenge)

a break or hole in an object or between two objects.

synonyms:

opening, aperture, space, breach, chink, slit, slot, vent, crack, crevice, cranny, cavity, hole, orifice, interstice, perforation, break, fracture, rift, rent, fissure, cleft, divide, discontinuity;

A few years ago my husband and I were travelling around the Canyon Circle in the USA during March and I had booked us on to a photography tour of a photogenic slot canyon close to Page, Arizona where we were staying for two nights. I chose The Upper Antelope Canyon or the Crack, as it is the easiest to access and also the best canyon for sunbeams (though these only take place during the summer months). Winter colours are a little more muted. You need a permit or permission from the Navajo so it is easiest to go on a tour, the photography tour is more expensive, but also longer, and if you want to sell your photos you also need a commercial permit.

The entrance is a narrow curved slit in the cliffs only a few feet wide and the light filtering down the curved sandstone walls makes magical, constantly changing patterns and shadows in many subtle shades of colour. Some sections of the canyon are wide and bright, while others are narrower and more cave-like, with no light reaching the sandy floor. It is not easy to capture the beauty of the canyon, but you will come away with wonderful memories.

Organic Shape

My Year in Photos – 2013

2013 has been an unusual year for me in that I have not left the shores of the UK once! That doesn’t mean that I have stayed at home all year – no I have travelled to the south-east, the south-west, right across the Midlands to the east coast and to the west into Wales. The only direction I haven’t been in this year is North! And in between all this to-ing and fro-ing I even managed to have a few local trips, all of which have made me grateful that I have my health to enjoy such travels.

So here are some of my favourite memories of this year, enjoy them and I wish a Happy New Year to all my WordPress blogging friends 😀

This post links well with a couple of the end of year challenges, notably Sue’s ‘A Word in Your Ear’ Reflect, and the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge showing Joy.