Seven Kinds of Smooth

Jude’s Photo Challenge this week invites us to consider texture: Smooth.

It immediately made me think of that English folk song, Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron – I’ve included a YouTube clip at the end just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about. But I’m so un-keen on ironing there’s no chance at all I could submit a photo of a pile of neatly ironed, beautifully smooth clean and dry washing.

Back to the archives then.

I’ve ended up choosing these: click on the images to see them full size and to read the captions.

These stones at Alnmouth aren’t yet particularly smooth, though they are weathered. But their reflection, and that of the blue sky emphasise what smoothness they do have.
My goodness, that was a gnarled tree that we spotted in Vic, Catalunya. But look what the shadow has done to it- flattened and smoothed it completely.
This is at the Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Centre. I like those strong smooth steel claws contrasting with the decomposing and disintegrating grot that it spends its life seizing and masticating.
A smoothly polished metal spherical sculpture near St. Paul’s Cathedral London provides perfect reflections, even on a rainy day.
Smooth flowing architectural lines, smoothly polished concrete, smooth mirrored reflections on smooth water: La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia.
The obvious one: a rose, but using a pinhole lens to direct attention to the only subject here: the smooth petals.
Grotty old tyres in a rather grotty farmyard. But years of use has made their surfaces smooth, as moving close in demonstrates.

Jude at Travel Words‘ 2029 Photo Challenge #9

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and living in North Yorkshire, where I walk as often as I can, write, volunteer, and travel as often as I can.

32 thoughts on “Seven Kinds of Smooth”

      1. Perhaps we had better music teachers than they did. Also my family enjoyed singing round the piano at home while my dad played so perhaps that is where I learnt it.

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  5. your choices are fabulous, every one. The beauty of the rose, the lines and colour in Valencia. and the rock pool at Alnmouth are immediately gorgeous, with the tree at Vic, the extraterrestrial creature from the Leeds recycling centre, and the pattern made by the discarded tyres all growing on me in no time at all. I do know the song, very well, but not the St. Paul’s sculpture. I’d better go and check it out!

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    1. That sculpture is one of a series about which I know nothing. If you learn anything, do tell me – or the extraterrestrial if you prefer!

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  9. It’s fun to see how you interpreted smooth. Until I read the caption, I couldn’t figure out why you included the photo of the old tires in this group.

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  10. liked this very much, like what YOUR eyes see and what goes on behind those eyes amongst the grey meanderings of your brain matter….. and absolutely loved the song – THIS kind of singing is so difficult to do properly and this was pure gold!

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      1. Just you wait – it CAN get worse…. and I don’t like it one bit. But apart from that, the other side (and very appreciated too) is that you get so ‘relaxed’ (speak lazy) and easygoing (speak ‘can’t be bothered any more’) that life, on the whole, is only getting better….

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  11. ‘Smooth’ is difficult to capture as you illustrate with the ‘gnarled tree’ photo as it is light catching all the uneven quality of surfaces that creates the detail of an image and the formation of the shadow smooths out those blemishes. I think the Alnmouth stones picture using contrast captures smooth beautifully.
    Aha, I remember ‘Dashing Away’ as it came in a sequence with ‘Any Old Iron’ and ‘Boiled Beef and Carrots’ that my grandfather (part-time pianist in local trio) would perform to entertain me and my sister as children.

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    1. Ah, your experience of ‘Dashing away …’ sounds about right! I’m glad you liked the Alnmouth stones. So did I. I felt they captured the spirit of the challenge.

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  12. I love your smooth images, Margaret especially the reflection of St Pauls and the one from Valencia. Such a pretty rose, too! I enjoyed listening to the song which I sang at school, too though not that clever arrangement.

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