Oooh. For Monochrome Madness this week, Brian Bushboy has set a challenge and a half. Backlighting. What? I hear non-photographers ask. Here’s what Brian says: ‘Backlighting in photography is a way for photographers to create dramatic lighting. This involves positioning the main light source for a photograph behind the primary subject’. In other words, do what you spend your photographic life trying NOT to do. Take shots direct into the sun, or the light source, anyway. It’s easier in a sunny country, so let’s take the ferry to Spain.
I have no idea who this couple are. But they were enjoying a meal, a glass of wine, with the sun shining over the coast we were heading for.
And here we are in Premià, staying with daughter and family.
We won’t outstay our welcome, but nip down to Valencia. To l’Albufera.
After, we’ll come back to the UK. To Pembrokeshire:
The featured photo is from the UK too. No idea where.
I had various Red Images jostling for position on this last day of #SimplyRed. But yesterday, enjoying a cup of coffee with friends in our village’s Community Garden, I realised that what I want to celebrate today is … Community. Specifically the one that Becky has built up, in which the Squarers in particular have the chance to visit old friends and make new ones, and just generally enjoy the world-wide connections that blogging brings to our lives. Thank you Becky. Here are some flowers from our Community Garden. Very few, unfortunately, are red. So I’ve squeezed a clump of pink ones in as well.
Also, probably the first entry of the end of the month for Brian’s Last on the Card.
In my opinion, you can never have too much bougainvillea. It cheers up any town or village walk in Spain or southern France … or anywhere hot I guess.
My header shot was taken in Málaga, and the others too showcase bougainvillea in Spain.
And as there is, after today, only one more day of Becky’s #SimplyRed squares, we might all need a spot of cheering up.
PS. These flowers are redder than they seem in a couple of these shots!
PPS. There’s a late addition to the clutch of stories addressing the issue of What if She says Yes? You can now read it at the end of Sunday’s post. And I recommend that you do!
The plain truth is that these days, in the UK at least, a phone box rarely has a phone within. They have become so iconic that many remain in situ. They’re often re-purposed as community book exchanges (Grrr. No photo!), or as a community planters – spotted in Bath with Becky herself, and Anabel, aka The Glasgow Gallivanter, who wants her own photo of it.
My featured photo is of the colourful (but poisonous) fly agaric. And as we all know, elves like to sit on them. I have no photos of elves, but I can do fairies.
I offer you a fairy collecting the secret wishes of children at Ripon Theatre Festival this year; another spotted on a fence; and a warning on a London front door.
Finally, here’s a genuine letter written by the tooth fairy who visits the children in our family when they lose their baby teeth. She’s a grumpy soul. She writes messages on tiny pieces of paper the size of a postage stamp and tucks them under the pillow as she leaves her silver coin. A Red Letter Day for the lucky recipient.
Last Saturday, I threw down a challenge, because Jude, featured below, was one of those who suggested it: to write a story, up to 100 words long, that addressed the question posed here:
Here’s mine: But hang on. Before you read Jude’s, or Dawn’s, or mine, make yourself comfortable on this bench. It is after all Sunday, and the day for Jude’s Bench Challenge.
What if she said ‘yes’?
Nell sat slumped against the stairs, leaning into the comfort of her neighbour. ‘He always drank too much, your dad.’ Her father lay twisted at the bottom—eyes open, unmoving. The investigators stepped gently round the body and its ooze of blood. ‘He fell’, Nell said. Only she knew about the bruises beneath her sweater, her sore and aching thighs. Only she knew whether what had happened just an hour ago was an accident or an escape. Only she knew what she’d say when at last they ask her: ‘Or …did you push him?’ What if she says ‘yes’?
PS. A late, great addition to the clutch of flash fiction, from Rebecca of Fake Flamenco:
What if She Says Yes?
When the wallpaper in the downstairs hall began to peel in the heat, I didn’t think it odd. Our house needs repair often after a century of Tiverstons. I bought a bottle of papering adhesive. As I sanded the wall before re-glueing, newsprint appeared in the lower corner. Using an exacto knife, I liberated the sheet. The headline about an Edna Swargle chilled my blood and I stopped breathing a moment. The woman in the photo looked just like mom as a teenager, but her name is Nancy. I walked upstairs where she was reading. “Mom, were you ever, Edna?”
The featured photo is not my own, but squared from an unattributed image found in Pexels, a great source of Royalty free images.
British readers will recognise the allusion to the Flanders and Swann ‘A Transport of Delight’, celebrating the good old London bus. These specimens aren’t from London, but to be found transporting visitors round the vast site which is the museum at Beamish. This is a marvellous place celebrating the day-to-day life of working men and women in the North East of England, mainly from 1900 to the 1950s, but with glances back to earlier times too.
By the way, this is the last day for sending your 100 word story: ‘But What if She Says Yes?’ suggested in my post last Saturday. Only two of you (well, three, counting me) have been brave enough so far.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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