postaday
Weekly Photo Challenge: Converge (2)
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Converge.” My second shot at this theme. See the first one at https://charlieray45.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/weekly-photo-challenge-converge/.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Converge
It’s been a while since I did a Weekly Photo Challenge. This week’s challenge is Converge. There are a number of ways to show lines meeting. I decided to go for some conventional and unconventional.
Photography 101: Just Messing Around to End the Week
I’ve not been able to do all the assignments, but I’ve enjoyed the ones I did do. Been sitting here on Black Friday catching up on book reviews and outlining my new novel, but as i go into the weekend, when I’ll be totally focused on these two tasks, I’d like to share some photos I took on Thanksgiving Day near my daughter’s home in Woodbine, Maryland in neighboring Howard County – a mainly rural county.
Photography 101: Double
Again, I think I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. This is for Photography 101: Double.
Photography 101: Edge
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I’m taking a stab at the Photography 101 theme Edge here. I’ll let the photo speak for itself:
Photography 101: Treasure
What do you treasure? What is important to you? Today’s Photography 101 is on Treasure, and I had to think for a few minutes before coming up with a photo that shows the things I treasure most in the world, my granddaughters, Samantha and Catherine.
Photography 101: Architecture
Okay, this is my last one – promise. London’s architecture is unique, a combination of old and new that is somehow still uniquely English.
Photography 101: Moment
Grabbing that quick shot that tells a story is often difficult. Light is poor, and subjects are moving, and you get strange reflections. Then again, that in itself can make an interesting composition.
Photography 101: Buckingham Palace
During the past week in London, one of the areas that caught a lot of my attention was Buckingham Palace. Partly because I was staying at the Royal Air Force Club, just across Green Park from the palace, making it easy to get to, but also because of the history of the place. The guards are not as colorfully dressed during the dreary fall and winter, but still impressive.
I started with a shot of the palace from Green Park.
This was shot around 4:00 pm, when the sky was already starting to darken, and lights come on inside the building. This helps to establish the size of the structure. I was also impressed by the statue and fountain in front of the gates, which attract less attention than the palace itself, but are in many ways even more impressive. Take the water gushing from the mouths of the figures, for instance. You cannot help but be drawn to that. 
After a look at the fountain and statue: 
One’s attention is drawn to the ornate gates and the crowds gathered around them; then the building itself:
Finally, we have the Buckingham Palace guards and these two photos I got just before it got too dark to get good exposures:
Photography 101: Landscape
I was in London for the past week, and while I took a lot of photos, I wasn’t in a place where I could do a photo blog and post it, so I’m playing catch-up this weekend, starting with the subject Landscape.
Photography 101: Connect
There are a number of ways ‘Connections’ can be portrayed. I tend to like the offbeat ways.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Minimalist
More is less – that is the essence of Japanese art. This weekly photo challenge tasked photographers to show minimalism in their offering. There are a number of ways – I chose to show how a complicated story can be told with a simple image. Here, the story of animal poaching in southern Africa is demonstrated by this skull left to bleach in the sun.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Signs
This week’s photo challenge is signs. Looking through my photo files, I came across this picture I took during a visit to Fayetteville, NC earlier this year. The sign says it all, I think.
Travel Theme: Market
Ran across this travel theme – Market – and was intrigued, so I thought I’d plunge in with my interpretation:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Adventure
This week’s photo challenge is adventure. I like nothing better than exploring with my camera, and over the years I’ve had what could be called adventures as I seek out new photographic challenges. Here are just a few – not all of them my adventures, but adventure nonetheless:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dialogue
The week’s photo challenge is Dialogue. I take this to mean two or more photos that relate to, or communicate with, each other in some way. Anyway, I think the young Muslim girl on her way to the mosque is a definite form of communication:
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Black and White Photos
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge for this week is black and white photos. This is a photo I took of the citadel and cathedral in Kleve, Germany when I visited there in 2010, and then converted to black and white in post-processing. Hope you like it.
Photo Challenge: Fray
The Daily Post photo challenge for the week is ‘Fray.’ This is a word that can have many different meanings, so how would you show it photographically? Here’s my interpretation – I’d be interested in your comments on why you think I picked this photo:
Leave My Biscuits Alone
Machines are so pervasive these days, it’s hard to find anything anymore that has human hands involved in the creation process. Hell, machines are making machines to make other machines. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – theoretically it leaves us free to use our brains more. Okay, that was just a joke. We’re not becoming any more creative, just lazier.
There is one place, though, where I draw the line against the encroachment of technology and machine-made goods – the kitchen. And, most especially do I object to the baking of my bread being automated. When I was a kid, I used to love watch my grandmother standing at the table, her arms flour-stained to the elbow, rolling dough so she could use a jelly jar to stamp out the huge buttermilk biscuits we had with our breakfast. Watching her line them up on a cookie sheet before putting them in the oven was, in my youthful mind, akin to watching Michelangelo daub his brushes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I’m not really engaging in hyperbole here, either, because she did some really inventive things with biscuits, like putting little chunks of cheese in the center of each biscuit, which would melt into the bread as it baked. Man, did that taste good.
Nowadays, though, biscuits come in a can. You tap it against the counter edge, peel back the paper wrapping, and pull each biscuit off a roll. You can still, I suppose, get creative if you wish – but something’s missing. Same goes for making rolls, croissants, corn pone, etc. When you take out the mixing of ingredients, rolling the dough, etc., you remove an essential part of what makes bread – well, bread.
Machines are never going away, and more and more things will be machine-made in the future. But, could we please, please, bring back handmade bread.
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Leaves and Trees
I follow Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, but for some reason missed this one when it first came out. So, late as usual, here’s my take on Leaves and Trees.
Charles Ray's Ramblings 