Sad, maybe. But windows in as bad a state as these are always have me wondering about the tales they could tell and their history, whether humble or grand.
For these images I’ve been just down the road, as well as to farthest North Yorkshire; Leeds; London; Seville; Catalonia; Korçë in Albania. Which are which, you may wonder …?
For Ludwig’s Monday Window.
Today, I have just a few everyday windows (and doors) from my daughter’s and family’s town in Catalonia. Plus windows-within-a-window as my featured photo. You can tell from the colour of the sky that these were not taken last week, during Heat Wave Central. Nobody in their right mind was walking round then, as daily ‘feels like’ temperatures regularly hit 42 degrees
For Ludwig’s Monday Window, hosted this week by Brian of Bushboy fame.
How very British is that? The photo just above is of the quietly flowing Ripon canal, upon which the rain is gently beating down.
More man-made flowing water: A lock on a different canal, the Leeds -Liverpool Canal, near Gargrave: and a detail from a different lock – er – somewhere else.
No waterfalls on a canal. To find those, you need to find trainee waterfalls, like this little torrent in Cantabria, or these jumping, weaving and bumbling ones on the River Wharfe at Grassington, and the River Swale near Muker.
Then there’s the sea: a winter sea here, at West Wittering: and a summer sea at Premià de Mar. All that equipment tells you the sea had been flowing rather too much, and nicking the beach. The citizens wanted their sands back.
But if you’re going to do this, or any other challenge, what you need most is a photographer to record these images for you. Here he is. I can’t use his photos, because he went off, unidentified, taking all his images with him.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness: Flowing Water
Seen at the Museu de l’Estampació, Premià de Mar: the only museum in Spain celebrating the art of printing on textile.
For Debbie’s One Word Sunday.
You know the sort of day. When things just go right. When, perhaps unexpectedly, you have your camera with you just when one of the flighty, nervy Neighbourhood Squirrels is posing nicely, as ours was one day last week.
When, camera in hand, you manage to point-and-shoot at just the right moment. These images come from a long-past day in the Farne Islands when the Arctic Terns, frantic to protect their young, wheeled and dive-bombed overhead, giving chance after chance for action-packed shots even to a strictly amateur type like me. We had no idea where their nests and babies were and certainly weren’t going to go looking.
There were those red squirrels in Málaga, who managed to forget me for just long enough for me to whip my camera out …
Or that heron in Córdoba. It wasn’t so much the heron I was afraid of losing, as this collage of evening light.
Sofia, of Photographias fame wants us to showcase those moments for this week’s Lens Artists Challenge: Lucky Shot. Thanks Sofia, for helping us remember those joyful lucky seconds.
Patti invites us, in this weeks Lens-Artists Challenge, to consider the shots we take – those which have a foreground – perhaps introducing the scene; middle ground – perhaps what the shot is ‘about’; and background, setting the shot in its context, and rounding our ‘story’ off.
I’ve chosen three watery shots. The first, the featured photo, is so freighted with memories of a calm, peaceful November evening at l’Albufera, Valencia, full of peace and joy that I can’t really judge it on its merits. I like the swell of the rippling water in the foreground. The middle ground merely has a bird (I can’t any longer remember what kind) pausing on that pole: for me providing a little context. And the background is surely that dramatic evening sky?
My second is also an evening shot: a beachside walk in my daughter’s home town in Spain. There are seashore strollers silhouetted in the foreground. The Mediterranean itself provides middle-ground context, with no action whatsoever. And there’s Barcelona in the background. Or is Barcelona part of the middle ground, with the sunset providing the backdrop?
I come closer to home for my last shot, to Knaresborough. The raven perching on the wall is a surprising visitor to the photo, perhaps acting as compère, describing the scene behind: the quiet River Nidd and riverside houses. Behind is the commanding viaduct. Is this background feature actually the dominant part of the image? Three sides of the shot are framed by trees, giving a slightly bucolic air to this urban scene.
This was an interesting challenge, Patti. I think that in some ways the techniques you describe start to become more instinctive the more time one spends with camera in hand. But it’s good consciously to revisit them and think about them anew. But looking out of the window at the rain, I think I may give photography a miss this weekend!
I told Tina in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t be joining in her Lens-Artists Challenge: Phone Photography, as my antique bargain-basement phone and I weren’t up to the job. She wasn’t having that, so I went and had a trawl.
And discovered that reflections seemed to come up as a theme that had worked quite well on days when I hadn’t got a camera to hand.
These were the first two I came across, both from Cosmo-Caixa Science Museum in Barcelona.
Still in Spain, we’ll pop to Valencia and its ancient Gothic bridge above the Turia Gardens.
And now we’ll return to England, and the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Gargrave, where one day, this was the scene we saw as we walked under a bridge there.
And finally, a little gallery of other watery local photos- and that includes my header image too.
Thanks Tina. I’m glad you made me dig these out. Perhaps my phone doesn’t do so badly after all …. After all, that last photo got me second place in a public vote at Masham Sheep Fair the other year (I got first place too, but that wasn’t a reflection shot).
I thought of Brian on Sunday. Here’s why. Brian is the blogger charged with introducing this week’s theme for Monochrome Madness. And he’s chosen ‘On the Roof’.
I was with the family in Borough Market on Sunday. And we were having fun as we picnicked, at the expense of this poor gull try to land – time after time after time – on the roof of one of the sales kiosks.
Every time his feet touched down, he slithered and skittered, unable to find any purchase, until at the bottom, he more or less tumbled off … again. He persisted and persisted until, finally…
Here are some more herring gulls, all in either Whitby or Staithes: the seaside in fact. Perhaps they feel more at home and comfortable.
Here are birds who are definitely at home on a roof. Storks. A roof’s the perfect place for nest-building and raising a family. Let’s go to Tudela in Spain.
We could go to North Macedonia now, and stay in a hotel crowded with peacocks. One even had to escape to the roof for a bit of peace.
Back home for some more domestic shots: a crow on a nearby chimney pot, and a robin on the roof of a nearby bird house (does that count? I think so.)
We’ll finish off with a shot to complement the featured photo. Here’s a line of pigeons on some ridge tiles. They echo the ones which begin the post: a host of ceramic cockatoos (?) decorating the roof of a house in Busan, South Korea.
Thanks for a fun challenge, Brian!
The parakeets that live round and about Ciutadella Park in Barcelona are opportunists. They know that all they have to do is hang around tourists, looking winsome, and the next meal will appear. If they’re lucky, maybe specially purchased nuts and seeds from equally opportunist street vendors. Otherwise, croissant crumbs and biscuits. They don’t seem fussy.
For Monday Portrait.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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