Silent Sunday…purple

A delight for the soul

As much as I enjoy color, especially after a long winter, sometimes only black and white will do.  For me, this is such a case.  Every third Monday, Sally asks us for a monotone shot taken with a mobile or none-traditional camera.  This was taken pre-iPhone some years ago with my iPad.

“To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.” – Andri Cauldwell

“There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery.
”– Stefan Kanfer

Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: Challenger’s Choice…still life

This still life consists of a still life and painting in our house in Cleveland.  I loved the way the colors of the Chinese lanterns echoes that of both the inner mat and one of the colors in her shawl.  Unfortunately, the contents of the vase did not make the move with us.  The painting, however, did.

Wordless Wednesday…parallel universe

Weekly Photo Challenge: Vibrant…glass

What a great time to have a theme of “Vibrant!”  In the northern hemisphere, we’re yearning for color, while our friends and family in the southern have color to share.  I’m going back to an earlier trip to Arizona, when I was fortunate enough to see an installation of Dale Chihuly’s work at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens.  There was a surfeit of vibrant colors and I’m going to share more than one, as I can never decide which I like the most.

I’m in my last several days of this year’s trip to Arizona, with only about an hour of internet per day, so please excuse my absence this week on your blogs.  I’ll do better next week when I’m back in the winter of the midwest.

Phoneography Challenge: Black and White…Ocean morning

There’s something hypnotic about the sounds of the endless waves, breaking and returning, breaking and returning.  The fog mutes and distorts the sounds, wrapping me in a damp coat of solitary silence.  Sunshine is turned into the silver of scattered diamonds on the water. A host of footprints marks the empty beach, perhaps the imprints of all who’ve ever walked here before.

The seagull soars silently past and I whirl, trying to catch him (or her; who knows?) in my lens.  Later, when I look, he appears to be balancing on the tip of one wing.  We were all in balance that morning, the seagull, nature and I.

Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.
~H. P. Lovecraft

Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.
~Lord Byron

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.
~Ryunosuke Satoro

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Phoneography Challenge of “Black and White”.  If you take photos with a Smartphone or iThingy, feel free to join in. The black and white in the photo is natural and I’ve done no editing.

Phoneography Challenge: Nature–Leading me on (photos and haiku)

The Phoneology Challenge comes around each Monday, with a different but repeating theme.  (BTW, Sally, thanks for getting the post up early.  I’m so impatient to get my post done each day!)  On the first Monday of each month, the theme is “nature.”   I take quite a few nature photos, so it can be difficult to choose.  But as we wait for our worldly goods to arrive on Wednesday at our rental house, the idea of a new beginning, leading to unknown places, was on my mind, making two photos perfect for the challenge.

On our way back from Wyoming in August, we made a stop at Devil’s Tower, a volcanic extrusion in Wyoming near the South Dakota border. As we walked around the base, this view called to me and I took the shot with my trusty iPad. No editing took place, but I did compose a haiku to go with the photo.

Verdant grass beckons
Hobbit-like I run swiftly
Through unknown forests

This is a similar photo taken in Cape May, New Jersey last Thanksgiving.  On the other side is the ocean, but the inviting path and round hole at the other end made me think of hobbits as well.

Phoneography Challenge: Abstract

This week is a free choice week for the Phoneography Challenge entry and I chose “Abstract.”

The first photo is a photo of the Tour de France on the monitor of my laptop. We had the laptop connected to the TV for a bigger picture, when I noticed that from the angle I was viewing the laptop monitor, I was getting an unusual picture. I took a number of shots, but this is one of my favorites. No editing or anything else, just the original shot.

The next photo is of the light coming through the shower curtain in the bathroom.

My final shot is of my feet on an oriental carpets, taken using one of the things I love to play with on the iPad, the Photo Booth app.
I used the Thermal Camera for this picture.

If you want to see what other photographers are shooting with their iPhones or iThing-ys, click right here.

Phoneography Challenge: (Almost) Portraiture

This week I’m trying a new challenge, the Phoneography Challenge, for photos taken with an iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have, as Tom at The Palladian Traveler dubs it, an i-Thingy (aka iPad). I don’t have the little widget up yet for the challenge, but one thing-y at a time, yes? This week’s challenge is “(Almost) Portraiture.”

Hopefully, I’ll be doing this correctly. If you want to look at other almost-portraits, you’ll find the links here: Almost Portraiture.

So without further ado, here I go.

The above photo was taken in our bathroom mirror and I love the effect of the smaller and smaller reflections. No editing on any of these photos as that’s something I unfortunately don’t really know how to do yet. 🙂