Another day, another drenching. But sometimes we get rainbows too. This one was spotted at the allotment, though it’s not the one I saw the day before yesterday, because I didn’t have my camera with me. Pretty dramatic though, looking over the town to Walton Hill.
The quotation is from Shakespeare’s King Lear Act 3 scene 2
Six Word Saturday Now please pop over to Debbie’s for a very astonishing vista
This month Paula has given us 5 words to spark our photographic imaginations: dawning, condensed, coalescing, verdant and sempiternal. This skyscape view from our house on Wenlock Edge says everlasting (sempiternal) to me, though that could be wishful thinking on my part – to think the world as I know it will always remain the same. I think, with the different cloud formations, this image also covers condensed and coalescing. No hidden verdant though, for this is a winter scene – the big bare ash tree in the corner of the allotment. And it was definitely taken at sunset and not at dawn.
Answers on a postcard please.
I was in primary school when I fell in love with Raoul Dufy. In those days there was a state schools’ travelling art scheme, and at regular intervals our classrooms would receive a new reproduction of some striking painting. The said artist would then feature in a piece of project work: we would learn something of their life, and diligently copy or create our own versions of the picture.
Vincent Van Gogh featured often, and for a long time I was overly fascinated with the man, the loss of his reason and his ear, and was also visually transfixed by his chair.
But it was one of Raoul Dufy’s many images of La Promenade Des Anglais in Nice that captured my imagination. As I painstakingly copied the never-before-experienced palm trees, the balustrade, the blue, blue sea beyond, I became aware of quite new sensations: of something excitingly foreign, but above all, and I could not have put this in words at the time, of a sense of unfettered joi de vivre, something I had never felt before, since it was definitely never a sensation to be experienced in my home-life. And so when I see this sky, I have that same sense of the joyous liberation of the spirit, and think that this is possibly all I need to know about the universe. It simply IS. And I am glad to be here.
Daily Post Against the Odds
The view from my office window two nights ago, captured by placing the camera on the back of the open roof-light window.
Crab apples as caught in yesterday’s afternoon sun. There’s a bit of story here too. This year the fruit on our Evereste crab apple tree is absolutely tiny, nothing like the giant size suggested by the photo. But this is good, because it makes us think that the tree has survived being moved back in the early summer. Hurrah! It has produced fruit, albeit apples of elfin proportions.
All through last winter we had ummed and ah-ed about doing something so rash and ruthless as digging up this lovely little tree. I had planted it not long after we moved to Much Wenlock ten years ago. It was the star of an ugly and awkwardly large, raised bed at the back of the house. (You’ve probably seen the crab apple/blossom photos in earlier posts).
In the end we decided to risk it. Graham pruned back much of the top growth, and then effectively dismantled the flower bed around the roots while I dug a big hole at the top of the garden. The transplanting all had to be done double-quick. Then we firmed it in, stamped on the soil to get rid of any air pockets, and gave it lots of water. The final proof of success will be next spring. Will it ever flower again? I think it will.
BLUE!
So I’m passing it on: Monday lift-the-spirits blue
I am always fascinated by silhouettes. I also seem to do a lot of sky watching these days. This shot of a farm hedge in one of the fields behind the house was taken late one winter’s afternoon using the Dynamic Monochrome setting on my Lumix compact camera. There was just enough light left. I added the blue-ish tint in Microsoft Picture Gallery.
This week for Black & White Sunday Paula asks us to post a favourite b & w photo, so this is one of mine. You have the rest of the week if you want to join in, but please visit Paula’s blog where you will find more ‘favourites’.
I have to say I’m rather pleased with this offering for Paula’s Black & White Sunday. The theme is ‘light’, and there are several interpretations of it here. The photograph was taken up at the allotment in a break from clearing winter weeds. This electricity pole stands slap in the middle of the back boundary fence, and for some reason I find it rather fascinating.
Please visit Paula at Lost in Translation to see her intriguing lamp-lit composition along with inspirational soundtrack from Keith Jarrett – a real Sunday treat.
My plant obsession
A Little Bit of Texas in Swansea Wales
Childhood stories and wildlife encounters
here, there and other places
Art & Inspiration beyond galleries.
Social commentary from a perspective of moral secularism
Photos, places and my experiences
exploring reality
all things library and life.. from a librarian
