9. similarly-shaped but unrelated objects

this gem just arrived in the dropbox

accompanied by these words…..

am not <entirely> sure how closely my pic adheres to brief... but i definitely felt a 'connection' between specs + cruets... think it was recollection of myopic childhood + taunts about 'looking through milk-bottles', etc, etc... anyway, photo is a memory of lovely day at rye harbour, walking, bird-spotting, eating scampi and chips in nicotine-stained pub... and coming home having purchased v beautiful vintage, snuggly, grey'n'white, swedish blanket... before trashing all through guilty pleasure of an evening watching x-factor. SO not the same without Kelly.

this, the reply…..

a spanish evening beachside walk led to this (rather unpleasant – and rarely emptied – garish blue rubbish bin echoed by ancient tumbledown martello tower); seems kind of sad, somehow…..

and this (alicante tower blocks echo the shapes of the glistening rocks)

and (sorry; was on a bit of a roll that evening shape-wise!) even this (spikes of vicious keep-out fence echoed by spikes of <spiky> palm tree)

and (oh dear) this, taken yesterday afternoon in nimes (was almost worth getting up at 4.30am – nimes is a long way from alicante!)

next week he who is already in bed grunted sleepily (did I mention our LONG drive?) ‘100’ to my request for a number; which means a week of getting up close and personal…..

8. thirteen hundred kilometres later…..

well for me at least the ‘road trip’ is taken and all ‘people and objects in the vehicle’ arrived safe and sound

much of the driving was done pre- sun-up but the glint of gold that flashed across the old man’s shoulders at precisely 08:19:45…..

places him squarely at the wheel

meanwhile…..

ok... so the Bloody Dog - whose life's work in the car is usually to escape his crate, and sit with both paws on the dashboard, looking [cute and disney like] out the front windscreen - decided today that all he wanted to do was Lie Down. no treat. no throwing a tennis ball window-wards [oooh BAD idea that one!] could tempt him... so that's why the shot is documenting the placement of Mostly Window and Not Much Dog.

[and now i've read the small print, i realise he isn't even a 'people'. yikes! [our roolz... blah... etc...].

meanwhile lethargic teen son, when asked to choose a number between 1 and 50 barked, '36... is that ok?'. which is the most concern he's shown about anything of late...

anyhooooooo... just in case you've not got your book with you, is thus, 'find two unrelated objects with similar shapes...' fun! fun! fun! xxx

7. clutching at straws maybe but three out of four’s not bad!

it seems there were 4 key words for this week’s challenge – submerge; tall; glass; water

and so to Thursday, and lunch out (not an especially nice one which was disappointing) with friend in pretty Swiss village near the Rhone (just upstream from here - or maybe downstream.....); excited on finding river-submerged branch.....click!

ticks submerge; tall; water; but sadly Rhone on a rather different scale than mere glass of water, so will probably have to make do with a few stems chucked into a vase

meanwhile - toni is ‘not entirely certain I am in possession of a tall, transparent vessel...am planning to go on Sloe Berry Picking walk tomorrow... so am contemplating a seasonal slant...

in response – ‘do you have gin for your sloes?  or have you glugged it in desperation?  (Gosh I Hope Not!)  I haven't yet picked any this year - and last year's bottle went to son’s for Christmas.  Me?  Am dropping hints about long-stemmed roses (ha - some bloody hope!) but may have to resort to sipping cider through a straw!  Although of course we have no straws.....nor yet any cider!’

toni: ‘glorious day here - but freezing! have bag for sloes - and secateurs for snipping branches ... but shhhhhhh!’

and some time later:  ‘I now have bountiful collection of sloes…but there's not really an ounce of beauty between them... shrivelled past their best and crunchy brown leaves ... so I'm currently pursuing the lichen route...’

jenny: ‘mind working overtime to work out how lichen fits.....’

toni: ‘Lichen? Ah-ah! Er, gulp... am not <entirely> sure where it fits in myself either... yet... so do stems <against> water, shot  through  um, <glass> of mobile phone screen, er, count?’

jenny: ‘well, it ticks tall; water; possibly glass but it is so very lovely that we might just have to put it in the blog anyway…..

‘it’s definitely clutching at straws though!  talking of which.....went out to lunch again yesterday (last minute Saturday morning decision) and husband obligingly opted for a post-prandial Irish coffee - with a straw.....see where this is heading?  it could very well be my 'tall thing submerged in a glass of (something-other-than) water' pic.....’  click!

‘this ticks submerge; tall; glass - but (from that swirl of sugary alcohol in the bottom of the glass, not [most definitely not] water) - three out of four? not bad I say!

although…..

toni: ‘it's toooooooooooooooo hard... smears... water-drops... reflections [gah! i hate reflections] have run out of bed sheets to block sunlit windows... but STILL there are reflections... not to mention floaty bits of chipped off bark + other crapola in the water ... out of 18 clicks this <one>’

which ticks all 4 submerge; water; tall; glass – three (no, four) cheers for toni!

next week – (exceedingly grumpy old git chose) number 73 which, fortuitously is to ‘take a road trip’ and ‘document the placement of people and objects in the vehicle’; personally I will have thirteen hundred kilometres to come up with something…..

6. hand it over!

seems it has been a crazy week for us both…..

toni: sunday 11.51 ‘am away in belgium, helping the BF move into his new home... the pic is a snap of him passing me the key to his new place [only it's not the real key, because it wasn't photogenic enough, so this is me getting the key to the garden shed]’

jenny: sunday 11.59 ‘have one snap of a child's hands taken in school garden on tuesday; have barely picked up camera since – may just have time to snap my mum's gnarled gnuckles before we head to airport…..’

toni: sunday 12.21 ‘SO pleased yours a rush too... i've been 'oh! 'f***, f***, f***, quick hon - pass me something... anything...'’

jenny: sunday 16.55 ‘gnarled gnuckles dismal failure so it's back to small child waiting for a handful of seeds to scatter.....’

as for next week – we are going with number 33 which is to 'submerge something tall in a glass half full of water’; meanwhile I am pondering how this tall thing, whatever it is, might be submerged in a mere half-glass of water…..

5. finding god in the slightest gleam of light

the email from toni arrived midweek, just a simple line: this week: no concepts (in head), no photos (in camera), no screw (for tripod base)…

jenny: might this count?  just caught by chance in today's art lesson.....

requires slight stretch of imagination to fit the task as it was only 'dark' because of strong sunlight behind her; plus it was an easy peasy pic - so p’raps 'good for soul' to have a go with a night-time tripod..…am crossing fingers for decent sunset sometime (v) soon - but may have to resort to being driven through m'way tunnel (lots round here - all those mountains!) with camera on dashboard.....

toni: i tried shooting through aperture of bird hide today - looked like i'd only taken half a frame... just a huge slab of black down one side of pic... correct exposure eluded me completely [well... that and wayward pooch bouncing over all other very quiet birdwatchers...] so am home alone tonight. think it is going to be a 'camera on chest of drawers shooting bedside lamp' number. hmmm. v imaginative. and if this doesn't work, am scuppered...

toni: Too angsty about taking pic, so have forsaken 'escape to the country'. Tripod? Nope! Sturdy chest of drawers? Yes! Self-timer? Yes! Bed-side lamp illuminated? Yes! Click. Wait. click. Click. Wait. click. Hmmmm Well... there's a <truth> about the shot!

jenny: .....I think I might just have found some light in a dark place.....

toni: what’s your light; is it clever? mine is dull. [cue: sulky pout]

jenny: nah - not clever; just hopefully not downright cheating.....(cue: innocent look of 'hopefully-I-am-not-being-a-cheat') is sparkle of sun on stream in dark dark wood.....does that count, do you think? otherwise it's a tripod in the garden tonight (yes, I have screws with mine, even though it is ancient and the legs are a BUGGER to undo) in vain hope of catching the moon setting or at the very least, the last Easyjet flight of the evening

toni: have been thinking about this week's challenge a lot - how, metaphorically, 'seeking out light in the dark' is the job of every photograph.  think this is why i have struggled so much - for instance, my daughter coming home from school grinning, after my own crappy day - this was light in the dark, etc, etc.. but more so really, wanted to write to you about a photography exhibition i saw a few years ago in den haag

i kept finding inadvertently, that all the photographic pictures that moved me seemed to be taken by hungarian photographers - and this exhibition featured them all. there seemed to be an eye for composition [andré kertesz once said, i think, 'all you need to take photographs is a beating heart and an understanding of pythagoras'] and a tender beauty and emotion in so many of the shots. i bought the book of the show, and read the following, which just struck me so strongly:

the curator spoke of the shocking horrors and losses [of people and land] of the great war which were inflicted on all hungarian people. and he talked of how many of the photographers turned disenchantment into creative energy... and despair and melancholy into social criticism. then he wrote this:

’to be a hungarian photographer, you must stare into the greatest darkness. it's not enough that you distinguish between light and dark, you have to tell the black from the black. if there is a god, then you will find him in the slightest gleam of light, and in the barest principle of composition.'

so... i don't know... every time i read this, it moves me so much. seems to say so much about life's struggle generally - and the importance of picture taking in that. and it is this too, which makes this week's brief feel a little-overawing to me - how does one, symbolically, demonstrate the light in the dark? i think a stream in the woods probably does it just perfectly…

meanwhile, this morning i found the missing 'plate' for my tripod - though am beginning to feel affection for straight-forward simplicity of Bed Side Lamp

 

as for next week; we must ‘hand someone something’…..just ponder the possibilities of that!