weekly photo challenge: landscape

I’ve been playing around with the Nik filters collection which Google has now made available free. This original colour shot was adjusted using the black and white Silver Efex Pro 2 filters and is posted as part of the WordPress weekly photo challenge, Landscape.

weekly photo challenge: half-light

sunlight shafts over the Haute-Allier

This weeks photo challenge is “Half-Light” and in this landscape the sunlight was flickering in and out of the cloud cover.

This reminded me of the track “Halflife” by Grasscut from the album “Everyone Was A Bird”. A band who take much of their inspiration for their music from the landscape.

From the liner notes by Robert Macfarlane

‘Halflife’ is the most haunted of all the tracks here. The ‘he’ of the lyric is the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn, who like Sassoon joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers, who was killed at Passchendaele on the last day of July 1917, and who had been born and brought up near the village of Trawsfynydd – which in 1959 became the site of a twin-reactor Magnox nuclear power station. Anyone who has been to Trawsfynydd will know the huge cognitive dissonance of the area: out on the island in the lake stands the decaying concrete castle, with its lethal treasure still inside, while above and behind it rear the Rhinog mountains, wild and catastrophic.

‘Halflife’ imagines Wynn as a post-nuclear apparition trapped in an 8mm film-loop by the shores of the lake: ‘a loop he makes / through silver birches flickering / by concrete towers he disappears / disappears’. It’s a track that works its way under the mind’s skin. It flickers itself, moving in and out of clarity. The language of decommissioning and unknown futures haunt it, and fragments of the past fly through it – like the ‘shells by the roadside’ which recall the nosecap shell that struck Wynn in the stomach as he crossed the Pilckem Ridge advancing on the Iron Cross stronghold. ‘I saw him fall’, remembered a fellow Fusilier, ‘I saw him fall on his knees and grab two fistfuls of dirt. He was dying, of course.’

weekly photo challenge: seasons

This February has been the mildest and warmest we have known since moving here. Usually it can be very cold with periods of -5C to -9C overnight and sometimes much colder. A few days ago it was 20C during the afternoon, so it’s no surprise that the garden is a bit advanced and we have primroses in full bloom.

These are also some of the first photos I’ve taken with my new phone (Moto G 3rd gen.) and I’m really pleased with the results, a great improvement on my old iPhone 4.

This post is inspired by the WordPress weekly photo challenge, this week the challenge being seasons.

weekly photo challenge: vibrant

A french footpath “flèche” used for path guidance.

See more “vibrant” photos over on the Daily Post blog.

weekly photo challenge: trio

 

This weeks photo challenge is “Trio”. This is a group of three gargoyles on the chevette of the Basilica in Brioude, which has recently been restored.

This was one of the first batch of photos taken with my new Nikon D33OO camera and a 35mm Nikon lenses. The detail it captures is amazing and allows for a lot of manipulation and cropping.

The original photo is as below.

 

 

Have a look at what other responses there has been to “Trio” over on the Daily Post blog.

weekly photo challenge: orange

The challenge this week was “orange” and I took the opportunity of a countryside walk to pick out suitable subjects. What soon becomes clear are the many shades of orange trending from the edges of yellow and blending into red. I had hoped that the local brickwork and tiles would offer some good shots and I was not disappointed , but orange can be found in many places, even sitting on a bridge!

footpath sign

hay bales

VTT(mountain bike) trail sign

rake

tractor

orange van

bridge lichen

boots

brick infill

roof tiles

window

old tiles

lavaudieu bridge

 

weekly photo challenge: yellow

 

This weeks challenge was “yellow”. Very little of that colour about at this time of year, however we had some leaves just catching the morning sun and accenting the colour.

 

Weekly photo challenge: gone but not forgotten

The photo challenge this week is “Gone but not forgotten“. This was the last rose in the garden this year, though it did very well and still looking lovely towards the end of November.

the last rose

 

weekly photo challenge: minimalist

terracotta tiles

This weeks challenge is  “Minimalist”  It should “illustrate a moment in time, or an artistic perspective, with simplicity and grace.”

I decided to work on a photo which for me just didn’t work as it stood. The original photo is below, however I prefer the cropped version above, focussing on the terracotta roof tiles. I love the repetitive pattern though in fact each tile is completely different.

The roof is part of an old mill, down on the Doulon river just outside our village of Vals le Chastel. Its unoccupied now, except for once this year when an elderly couple stayed in part of the mill for a couple of days. The son of the original owners maybe?

old mill roof

weekly photo challenge: descent

Heading down into Horton in Ribblesdale from Pen Y Ghent

This weeks topic gave me an opportunity to look through the many photos I have of walks in the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. I’ve been using Lightroom for over a year now and these were all still in iPhoto, which now seems a complete pain to use! I also always shoot RAW files nowadays and these were all jpegs, mostly from a small Canon Powershot, so I’m quite pleased with how they have turned out with a little tweaking in Lightroom.

Descending Pen Y Ghent

Leaving Great Gable and heading towards Styhead

The restored path from Sty Head to Seathwaite

Descending from Helvellyn via Swirral Edge, with Catsycam in the distance