Some Favourite Photos

This week, for the Lens Artists Challenge, Tina invites us to show off ten of our all-time favourite photos. Not only must we explain why we like them, but they have to be technically top-hole too. I can’t do it. When an image is freighted with memories, whether happy or exciting or astonishing, unpicking these from technical considerations is something this snap-shot-ist can’t do. I shall be disqualified. I can live with that.

I first ‘needed’ a camera when I had the chance to spend a month travelling in India in 2007. I was even more point-and-shoot than I am now. Here’s just one memory, taken from my hotel window in the French quarter of Pondicherry (as it was then called), Builders, both men and women, unstacking their consignment of bricks to begin their day’s work at 6.00 a.m. Some of my best memories come from staring out of that window: such as the women who cleaned the streets at night, sitting right in the middle of the road at 2.00 a.m. cheerfully chattering during their break.

Delivery from the Builder’s Yard

By then, we were already living in France. How to pick just a few shots from that period? Let’s have a go. I’ll choose pale and delicate wild daffodils in the mountains just outside Foix, in such profusion it was almost impossible to avoid treading on them. I’ll choose pristine snow, many feet deep, just waiting for a Sunday snow-shoeing outing. The only sound was the snow itself, squeaking softly as we trod it down with our raquettes. I’ll choose a dramatic , never-repeated sunset which glowered over our small town one spring evening.

And sea-voyages. We’ve had a lot of those – back and forth to France when we lived there and came back here often to see family. Nowadays it’s because we need to get to Spain where my daughter and her family live. There’s often a dramatic skyscape.

Sunset near Santander

And now North Yorkshire’s home, with its stone-walled Dales, its meadows and hills, its autumn fogs.

And then there’s Fountains Abbey, where I spend so much time volunteering. Can’t leave that out. We’re just coming into autumn, which may be my favourite season there. So the Abbey in Autumn in my featured photo.

So these are my choices today. Yesterday I might have chosen differently. Tomorrow I’d choose other shots.

PS. Can anybody tell me why WP is no longer always allowing me to centre my photos? Or – now that WP have made it impossible to comment directly onto a post, how to comment on a post that’s more than a couple of days old, such as Tina’s one about this challenge, and which is no longer reachable on the Reader?

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Author: margaret21

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

66 thoughts on “Some Favourite Photos”

  1. I love your technically imperfect shots, Margaret. I can whisper it here but I’ve never felt a need for the technical side of photography. For me it would probably need an implant to the brain. My photos are purely what I see. My diary and memories. I have one somewhere almost exactly like your lead photo. And, oh, those high meadows! Wonderful.

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    1. Jo, I think you and I sing from the same hymn sheet. Beyond a little cropping and levelling of drunken horizon lines I rarely do anything. If the photo ain’t worth it, I junk it (but not often enough. It’s the memories, innit?) Yup, meadows. One of the glories of the countryside.

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      1. I think it was that false start we had. My head went into autumn mode, then the weather flipped to July and my brain couldn’t make sense of it. The colours haven’t really begun yet.

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  3. I hear you: the best photos are the ones which hold the dearest memories. A single photo can bring back an entire holiday for me. Your selection is beautiful, especially the autumnal shots.

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  4. Well, you do have an eye for what looks interesting, and often focus on the main event without cluttering too much. I love the Indian builders image, a story told there! And your Yorkshire meadow with buttercups, cow parsley and unkempt grass in profusion.

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  10. I’ve said it before, I think you do yourself a disservice when you talk about just taking snapshots and not thinking about technicalities and composition etc. You frame many of your shots beautifully, especially the landscapes in the Pyrenees and Yorkshire with the foregrounds full of flowers! And I love the drama of your French sunset and the view from your window in India 🙂

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    1. I forgot to say, I’m not having those issues with WP. I can centre photos as I always did. But I usually read and comment on the actual page rather than via Reader – maybe trying that would resolve your commenting problems?

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      1. I’m only using the Reader, which I never used before, because I am totally unable to comment – with very few exceptions – on the blogger’s own page. And the centring thing is baffling. It won’t ‘hold’ the command.

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    2. Thanks Sarah. I don’t at all mind that I’m not a techie – I was observing though that techie comments were beyond my paygrade! That sunset is quite extraordinary, isn’t it? It brought people out into the street.

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  14. Glorious, Margaret. Glorious. I see why you have chosen these, and I am totally whisked away with that spectacular sunset! Of course I also must mention the trees in the snow – love that one, and I can almost hear the sound of the snow shoes.

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    1. Thank you! However, deep snow is probably not quite as special to you as it is to me, used to a mere smattering of snow if any. And that sunset was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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  15. well now Ms Margaret – thou doth protest too much! These are truly wonderful, every one of them. They have interesting subjects, are beautifully composed and follow every rule of photography I could imagine. Your images from France are my favorite of the set – that pristine snow and Oh MY – that SKY!!! Never seen one like that. And perfectly shown over those stark black trees. Fabulous. Also loved your closing autumnal image – beautiful. And next I want to see the woman in the middle of the street in India😊. Re WP, not sure what is causing your issues. My post is still in the reader and I can still see it in the Lens-Artists Tag. Maybe you are using Jetpack? I find it terribly buggy and much more difficult to use vs the original WP on my laptop. There I found I couldn’t comment on or link to others’ posts as I can on my laptop. Sorry you’re having issues but it seems most everyone is and they are all different 😩. Thanks so much for joining us this week!

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    1. Thanks for your detailed response. I’ll dig out my 2.00 a.m shot of the street cleaners soon. Yep, I went over to Jetpack on my phone, but not my laptop. I think I can see if I can undo it, though both are affected.

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  18. A nice selection Margaret. Boringly I am much the same as everyone else, the sunset and woodland are quite good. I can’t believe you of all people stuck to the rules 😂😂

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    1. Luckily, you would have had time to do so: it lasted ages. You obviously know that part of the world if you thought it was Foix. Good guess, but it was actually where we lived, at Laroque d’Olmes. Both would have shared that sunset though.

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  20. enjoyed the pics! enjoy the rest of the friday.

    btw – regarding wordpress, you have to center your pictures within the actual editor “block” but the thing is, I’ve noticed how finicky it can be depending on the webpage theme you use. this also goes for being able to comment. even though I’m logged in for my webpage, I still have to click twice on the wordpress icon on your page to be able to make this comment. confusing, right? I hope wordpress detects this and can make a change to their sign in. have a great weekend!

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    1. WP is driving me bonkers just now, so thanks fo your helpful advice . Actually I was doing as you say with my pictures, but WP doesn’t care. And as for commenting… why is it all so hard these days?! Thanks for the compliments – and have a great weekend too.

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      1. I agree with the commenting. it’s really annoying. this is why I comment through the reader tab but I also want to be able to see the effort people make customizing their own pages, and that’s where things get weird with the webpage – I find your theme to be very nice and would like to try it on my page when I get the time. hope you’re able to solve that centering issue!

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  22. Beautiful set of gallery of your favorites, Margaret! I love all of them, just breathtaking. The sunset is wow! The leaves were beautifully captured. Great subjects you chose.

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  24. I loved your heartfelt selection of images, though Marion put it so much better. I think it is natural to be critical of our images if we care, and generally leads to us getting better over time. I actually wince to add the Lens-artists tag if I take part, because I don’t want any readers thinking I think I am a lens artist!

    WordPress tries to deal with everything the same way when there are so many different types of bloggers, needs, browsers and equipment. Corporate needs come before the needs of everyday bloggers like us. I’m guessing that the new system is designed to let people change in and out of different personas so they can manage multiple sites. I suspect comment counts will be dropping site-wide. I hate the way the reader now shows comments under the post. It’s distracting. When I comment on a blog, it’s a private interaction. I don’t expect my comment to have the same ‘weight’ as the few lines of post people can read. You would think it was a dream come true for spammers too.

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    1. Thanks for your long reply. Yes, Lens-Artist is a big title to live up to, isn’t it? It does feel as if we simple bloggers are being a bit short-changed by WP these days. I’ve been forced into using the Reader, and agree that the comments display is annoying. Although I accept my comment is there on the site for anyone who chooses to read it, I don’t usually care for it to have Banner Headline status. To be fair, so far I don’t seem to be getting an influx of spammers – yet. Famous last words.

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      1. Fingers crossed. Ann Mackay (don’t know if you know her) suddenly has a completely black comments box, so you are typing black on black. She’s trying to change themes as the only way to fix it. Sigh.

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