THINGS THAT LOOK LIKE THINGS

I took this photograph because it reminded me of Kuato. It is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

 

RESTING

Here's my contribution to Picture Perfect. The daily village gathering in Pissouri, Cyprus. Once perhaps they actually talked about things or played chequers; now I think they are just resting after the effort of getting to the village square.

ELEMENTS

This is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.  We were given the freedom to show all four elements, so here they are.  This picture was taken last month of a fish being served in a salt crust.  The fish is on FIRE, the restaurant is in the open AIR, on EARTH (natch), but over the WATER of the Bosphorus.

ENTRYWAY

You might think I've edited this pic a little.  OK, so you'd be right.  Just a bit.  I've kept the colours, but I wanted to focus on the land behind, rather than on me.  Yes, that's me.  This is the doorway to the fortification protecting the harbour in Tangier.  But the point is that the land beyond is Spain.  Andalusia to be precise.  That's how close it is.  It wasn't the speed with which the Moors conquered Andalusia, nor the small number of men they employed to do it, that struck me, but just the surprise that they hadn't done it before.  They must have looked covetously out of this doorway for years at the land just across the straits before they invaded.

So - not just a gate into the fort, but an entryway into the new land of Andalusia.

SILHOUETTE

I've just posted this pic in my Flickr account, but I don't expect any of you will have seen it.  So here goes again.  Captured in the Carmen de los Martires in Granada.



This is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

SUMMERTIME

Summertime is all about kids, colours and ice cream.  So here's my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

DRAMATIC

For someone who lives in the Surrey Hills and who was brought up in the lee of the South Downs, nothing is more breath-taking than expanses of flat country.  And all that sky!  Add to the mix a summer's day (summer took place this weekend), and you have drama.  Today we walked along the sand dunes of West Wittering, looking out over the mud flats and the Emswoth Channel towards the South Downs.

This is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

ARTSY-FARTSY

I have to admit that I sometimes (just sometimes mind) wonder whether artists are trying to make fun of us ordinary punters.  Or maybe the just want to extract money from us.

I thought that when I visited a Picasso museum once where they had a display of seemingly hundreds of plates on which Picasso had painted yellow blobs.  They were I think kn own as the 'sun plates'.  I suspect they took him a morning to do the lot and he then spent the rest of the day at the bullring.  I thought the same thing every time Damien Hirst brought out a new piece of 'art'.

Here's a piece from the recent Roy Lichtenstein, I think it was called 'Modern Sculpture' to compound the offence.  I think it's made out of an old trombone or a bedstead or maybe one of those trolley things from Ikea.  Some people (including the curator) probably think it's marvellous.  I think it's wonderful only because it has my reflection in it, which makes it more surrealist than deco.  Anyway, I think it's artsy-fartsy.

So this is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

SMELL

I always seem to be late with my Picture Perfect postings.  But anyway here it is.

I am currently at the seaside.  OK, there is a bit of a whiff of sea, but something else seems to be overriding that aroma . . .


Mmmm, I know where I'm going for lunch.

SONG TITLE

As summer is now with us, we need a happy, jaunty song with 'sun' and other suitable summery words in the lyrics.  We need music to get you moving and in the mood for the beach.  And, as we spent Friday walking ever closer to the Sussex seaside, I have chosen Sussex and Sun by Serge Gainsbourg (at least, I think that's what he says).

Anyway, here's the pic of us walking around Bewl Water, in the sun, just 30 kms to go before we hit the Sussex coast.



And here's the Gainsbourg song in case you don't know it.  Doesn't it make you want to get up off your seat and out into the sun . . .

TAKE YOUR CAMERA TO WORK

Bit tricky this Picture Perfect project, as I haven't actually worked for some years now, but I liked the idea of showing each end of a job.  Hardly a real job, but I have just returned from leading a walking group which made its way from Marrakech to Madrid.  So here is a shot of the sunrise over Marrakech from my hotel window and one of the sunset from my Madrid hotel window.

TWO

Last weekend was the Teignmouth Classical Music Festival and I wandered through the events looking for a subject to fit the title of this week's Picture Perfect.  As a last resort, I attended the Palm Court performance on the Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately, they decided to field a trio.  So no pictures of the group then.  But here are the two legs that held the cello and the two feet of the cellist.

OPEN/CLOSED

Most people know my predilection for photographing doors and windows.  One reason is that, even when the building is somewhat boring, the door (or window) is often attractive.  Another reason is that I am always struck at the way people decorate their doors and windows, sometimes quite elaborately, and then sit inside without being able to enjoy the fruits of their labours.  It is up to you and me (me at least) to appreciate the attractive appearance.  Another reason is that doors and windows are gateways to the everyday life of the building's inhabitants.  When we look at these openings in the wall, we are half-seeing, or seeing maybe just a glimpse, of the existence of others.  Are we looking through windows into their souls?  What can we imagine of their lives, their loves, their aspirations from the decoration they choose?  Or maybe B&Q only had blue paint the day they went to buy decorating materials. 

Anyway, while I was in the little seaside village of Newton in Northumberland recently, it wasn't surprising that I saw the buildings as ordinary cottages, but the shutters on the doors and windows as something more - protections against the frequent storms, shields of the residents' privacy against the world outside, the one opportunity to brighten up the dull, workmanlike exterior.  Here's one as an example.

The shutters are open but the window is closed.  The curtains are open, but what goes on in the house is closed.  The shutters are a lovely shade of blue (Azure #007FFF to be exact.  So, why not Royal Blue #002366, we're all left wondering?).  And yet the view of them is completely closed to the residents sitting in their living room.  Curious, isn't it?  Not at all an open and shut matter.

This then is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

DISCOVERY

This Picture Perfect theme has so many interpretations.  For me it still has personal connotations.  One day I will be so old and wise that I will know everything (except what women really want of course).  It is lovely to see children trying things out and finding new things as they grow and mature.  But every day I still discover something new. Maybe it's just the child in me.

So walking through the countryside for me is a way to see things that are invisible to those poor people stuck in cars on the highway.  It is always a delight to find that the 20 minute walk across the fields leads to the village that is half an hour away by road.  Or even to come across a wonder that is on my own doorstep, if only I explore the right footpath.

So here is my discovery - the source of one of the many streams in the area I live, just around the corner from my house, but somewhere along an ancient footpath, unused by motorists or cityfolk, that leads to the next town.

SPLASH OF COLOUR

For this week's Picture Perfect theme, I immediately looked through my Morocco pics - all those shots of the fruit and veg markets, the carpet shop, the wool dying factory, the white buildings with red doors surrounded by the blue sky . . .  Or flowers, I thought.  But then I came across this - a flowering cactus in the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech with their blue and yellow walls.  Perfect!

WINTER WONDERLAND

It was indeed a winter wonderland this year; the trees were a beautiful, lacey filigree of snow and ice so many times.  But, assuming that there would be so many such pics, many from snowy places more used to such scenery, I have chosen this pic from last year's fall of snow, which occurred while our crab apples were still in the trees.

This then is my entry for this week's Picture Perfect.

NOSTALGIC

Here is nostalgia on so many levels.  The pic was taken only about 40 years ago, but it is taken in Japan, near where I used to live.  Oh, the remembrances of walking through this park and, by extension, of walks in the rest of Japan and indeed my life there.  The occasion photographed was the local cherry blossom festival, the celebration of the beautiful blossoms, of the transitory nature of beauty and of the end of winter.  How I long now for the end of winter and dream only of spring!  And of course, at this festival, one eats delicious thingies on sticks and with them one drinks sake.  How could I not be nostalgic for that?!  But also, there is something much older about this uniformed band, with its military style conductor and painted backdrop that reminds me of my childhood and days in the park back here with my parents, long gone.  Ah, such fond distant memories!

 

This is my contribution to this week's Picture Perfect.

NATURAL FRAMING

This is my entry for Picture Perfect this week.  I think it just about meets the criteria.

In Antalya there is a fluted minaret which has become a sort of symbol of the city.  It is part of a mosque which sits on a platform overlooking the old city.  It is old, like 1230 old.  And is famous for being built of brick, being set with glazed blue tiles (which you can barely see) and being, well, fluted.

I went to see it about a month ago, but, like so many landmarks, it looks much better from a distance (see Wikipedia for a much better photograph).  In fact, up close, it is rather boring and you can't see the top, so that it resembles one of the chimneys on Battersea power station.  Anyway, I went round to the back of it and, in the interests of art, hung over the precipice and took this pic through the bougainvillea with my free hand.  Natural framing.

CONTRAPTIONS

OK, this picture is not exactly of a contraption, but I am taking advantage of the PP promise that we can interpret liberally during this freestyle period.  So I offer this:

I came across it in a small town in the West Country during my wanderings.  To the side there was a town Council notice which said, 'we have sought planning permission to redevelop this site, meanwhile we have planted this garden for you to sit in and enjoy.'  I was so impressed, I went and sat in it.  At the rear, there is a fence, and I discovered that behind it, the Council had stored all their construction machinery and contraptions (aha!).