Photo Sunday: Fire

Photo Sunday Challenge:  Fire

Candles burning in the Protestant Memorial Chapel at the 
Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich, Germany.

Photo Sunday: Sun

Photo Sunday Challenge:  Sun

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Snowshoeing at Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Winter Meets Spring

Check out what the other participants have done on the Red Robin Photo Challenge Blog!

Photo Sunday: Children

Photo Sunday Weekly Photo Challenge:  Children

Photo Sunday: Glare

Photo Sunday Weekly Photo Challenge

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Door Number Three

The Challenge:  "Pick three doors to photograph, and show us all three in your entry. They can be three doors from the same locale or sharing some characteristic, or they can just be totally unrelated doors you happen to like. To make things extra interesting, you may want to explain what is special about these particular doors."

**Well, it just so happens that I love to take pictures of doors.  Whittling it down to three pictures was a challenge indeed!  Perhaps a wall calendar or a decorative photo collage for my bedroom is in order...***

A locked door to nowhere, along the town wall in Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, Germany from my November trip.  Since it was the off-season, I had the wall entirely to myself, so I could take as much time as I wanted with the details of this enchanting Medieval city.

Marktkirche in  Wiesbaden, Germany.  Unfortunately it was a Monday, the day of rest for this beautiful place of worship.  But if you thing the door is beautiful, you should hear the bells ring at noon!

The door to my classroom pre, during and still today, post Super Bowl :)   I am a Green Bay native, so the Super Bowl was not just about a sports team to me - it was about my home town!  I get teased most of the year about my team affiliation, so this was my way to not only show my support, but do a little passive-aggressive smack talking back to all the fools who doubted the power, heart, and ability of the Green Bay Packers.

Don't forget to check out the Round Robin Photo Challenge blog to see what other people have done!

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Bridge

The challenge: "All around the world there are bridges, in all shapes and sizes, ages and colors. Bridges connect two places, enabling something to pass safely over something else; but the details vary wildly. It can be a little wooden foot bridge over a three foot-wide babbling brook, a drawbridge, a railroad bridge, a stone bridge carved out by the forces of nature, or even that big Golden one over the Bay that our friend Carly loves to capture with her camera. Wherever you live, I can almost guarantee there's an interesting bridge somewhere nearby to photograph.  But just in case there's not, feel free to explore alternative meanings of the word. Photograph the bridge of a nose, a game of bridge, or even something metaphorical, such as a bridge between two cultures."


There really aren't any interesting bridges - in the obvious sense of the word - where I live.  There are a few overpasses, but not much else.   I've actually taken a few pictures of bridges in my travels,  but, I'm almost ashamed to admit, I can't actually remember the last time I took pictures specifically for a RR challenge; I usually just pull something out of the arsenal.  So in an effort to actually take new pictures for a challenge,  I have taken a few of the bridges I find the most beautiful that I have access to right at home - the ones on my mandolin and a friend's violin:

  This is a bridge that I love, painted by Dutch artist Johannes Huibert Prins at the Louvre Museum (I love Dutch, Flemish, and German paintings from the 17-19th centuries because they show day-in-the-life type scenes) :

Now don't forget to check out the Round Robin Photo Challenge blog to check out what other people have done!

Round Robin Photo Challenge: For a Song

The challenge:  "Pick a song you like, and give us your photographic interpretation of all or part of that song's lyrics."


Well, these pictures are far from the peak of photographic genius, but they do go well with the lyrics of my favorite song of all time, "Let You Down," by the Dave Matthews Band, and they are of my nieces and nephew, who I adore.  


"I let you down.  Let me pick you up.  

                    

I let you down.  Let me climb up you to the top so I can see the view from up there, tangled in your hair. 

I have no lid upon my head but if I did you could look inside and see what's on my mind.

Oh, it's you. " 

 



Don't forget to check out what other participants have done by looking at the links on the Round Robin Photo Challenge website here!

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Togetherness

Well, I forgot to post yesterday, which in the RRPC world is a death sentence.  But I did have some photos in mind.  So to the two people who regularly check my blog, I guess these are for you!

Here is the challenge:  Show us anything or anyone who is exhibiting togetherness, whether it's a loving couple, siblings who get along, or cats curled up together. Or perhaps you have a more literal or more metaphorical interpretation in mind. 

There is nothing better than being able to fit into your mother's arms and have her cuddle you until you again believe everything will be OK. 

 I love these two, especially how much they love each other.  What one does, the other will do!

It's funny that the challenge mentions cats curled up, because the picture of two kittens who claimed me as their new BFF that I took on the 4th of July weekend up in Orderville was the first picture that came to mind!  If I would have been allowed to take them home I would have.  They were not welcome where they were hanging out, but I found them absolutely delightful.  They would run up to me when I would walk out the door and follow me around, pouncing on each other along the way.  One had yellow eyes, the other green.  

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Weather

The challenge:  "Basically, we're looking for anything to do with the weather. You can go for something subtle: colors of sky and qualities of light that we associate with hot or cool days. Or show us the most extreme weather your camera can find, or has ever found: blizzards, ice storms, hail, lightning storms, floods, serious fog, or the opposite: sandstorms, dust storms, or a day so hot that the air shimmers and mirages appear. Show us what you've got!"


I love stormy weather, but surprisingly enough I don't really have pictures of the rain or lightening.  I have a few of fog and many more of stormy skies and clouds - the kind of days you want to be curled up with a good book and a warm blanket and fuzzy pair of socks.  This weather will be here soon enough I suppose.  Don't forget to click on the link to check out what other people have submitted to the Round Robin Photo Challenge!

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Guess What This Is

The challenge:  "...it works best with macro photography, where you can zoom in close enough that we see shapes and textures, but not the whole thing. But if you have something so unusual that people would be hard pressed to identify it at all, by all means photograph it!" And, "Don't tell us what your mysterious something is when you first post your entry. Let people guess in comments, and then tell them when they guess right! Sound like fun? Good!" 

I always have so much fun with these assignments, I can never stop at just one photo!  

Round Robin Photo Challenge: Broken

The challenge: "show us something broken, maybe even beautifully broken. And if you fix that thing that was broken, show us how it looks now."

I traveled to Grafton, a ghost town in the process of being restored.  Lucky for me, there was a church activity there so I had permission to visit, and there were plenty of "beautifully broken" things still around.

The next two aren't actually broken things, but I liked the way the light broke through the darkness (Sorry if I'm being overly dramatic).  It also added to the spooky, lonely feeling of the place.

Now don't forget to check out the photos of other Round Robin Photo Challenge participants!

Massachusetts A - Z

During my recent family vacation to Massachusetts, my dad, sister and I offered each other photo challenges.  Mine was A-Z. Some of these pictures were taken with a letter in mind. Others were assigned to a letter afterward. Enjoy!

A - Alleyways and streets which demand exploration  (Boston)                                 

B - Boston, a modern city with history around every corner

      C - Clover fields, cranberry bogs, and old cemeteries pop up unexpectedly (Plimoth Plantation; Boston)

  D - Dahlias and so many other beautiful flowers everywhere (Heritage Museum and Gardens in Sandwich)

E - The 'Everyman' calls Massachusetts home (Rockport)

F - Foggy mornings and afternoons in the salty sea air (Rockport)

G - Generations of family members loving and learning from each other 

(Grandma and great-granddaughter Claire)

H - New England's Holocaust Memorial (Boston)

I - The luck of the IRISH for the NBA finals in downtown Boston

J - Jetty's sometimes lead you to what's beyond the fog (Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod)

K - Knot-tying was a must to sail the seas to the Americas (Mayflower replica, Plymouth)

L - Lobster, and the means by which it ends up on my plate!

M - Motif #1, the most painted structure in New England, in Rockport

N - Nevermore (my nod to Poe, who was born in Boston)

O - Ocean breezes, sounds, and sea life (Provincetown)

P - Patriots, alive and long dead (Sturtevant Cemetary, est 1728, Halifax)

Q - Quincey Market, along the Freedom Trail at Faneuil Hall in Boston

R - Red Sox baseball at home in Fenway Park (Boston)

S - Skiffs lined up to take their owners to their fishing boats in Rockport

T - Taking the T is the easiest way to get around the city.

U - Unpretentious; there isn't the pomp and glitz of Europe, but America's past and present are nevertheless amazing and inspiring (Wampenog Village, Plimoth Plantation)

V - Villages; from living history museums to all of the little towns we drove through during our comings and goings, small-town is the way to go (English Settlement, Plimoth Plantation)

W- Whethered by cold winters and hot, humid summers, paint doesn't stand a chance (Fenway Park grandstand seating, Boston)

X - Xanadu, a place of beauty.  There is a lot of it to be found in this glorious state (Rockport storefront)

Y - Reminders of Years gone by, as well as how far we've come as a nation and people.

Z - Zest of life and vernacular, seasoned air, bustling traffic - however you choose to define this word, just look around you - Massachusetts has it!