For this post, self has decided to focus on Garden Art. Well, not sure they rise to the level of Art. But they are man-made and have a certain aesthetic of beauty.
The hanging heart and the Buddha planter are both in self’s front yard.
The hanging wind chimes are from a garden in Carmel.
The fence with bottles is from a friend’s backyard in Menlo Park.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful, safe New Year’s!
Self is fascinated by gates and fences. All kinds of gates and fences.
For this week’s Photo a Week Challenge, she went browsing through her archives and selected three: two from a friend’s garden in Menlo Park, one from the Gamble Garden Center in Palo Alto:
The tree behind the metal dancing figures is in Filoli, in Woodside.
The tree with the dangling glass icicles is in East Menlo Park (between El Camino Real and the 101). A homeowner just decided to festoon a front yard tree with glass ornaments and name it The Tree of Hope.
Self took the pictures below in Afterwards, a vintage clothing and furniture store in Menlo Park. She was on her way to the Rodin Sculpture Garden at Stanford, but her attention was caught by the big globe hanging in the window. So she decided to investigate.
The store is huge! And full of one-of-a-kind pieces. So much more fun than shopping in a department store.
Self and the woman there had a nice conversation about Louise Penny.
Squares in Picture # 1: the McDonald’s awning? The shape of the building?
Squares in Picture # 2: The chair back is sort of — squar-ish?
IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO OF YOUR STREET OR NEIGHBORHOOD.
This picture is of the nearest independent bookstore to self’s house: Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park. Still going strong. Self gave her first local reading here:
Thanks again to Cee Neuner for the always-interesting photo challenges.
Be creative if you feel like it, and fun with this challenge this week. Remember your photos needs to be black and white, desaturated, sepia (brown tones) or selective color. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all come up with.
Self went through her archives. These are pictures that weren’t intentionally black and white, they just became that way because of the conditions of the light. They all date from 2019, the last year that self was traveling.
Top:
Cork, Ireland: hallway to apartment above Café Paradiso
Bottom Row, L to R:
Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, California; driving from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, New Mexico, three days after Christmas 2019, with son and his in-laws
The squares in the New Mexico pictures are at the very bottom: the road signs. Or the highway leading to a vanishing point: a triangle?
Discovered another Photo Challenge! This one’s from Buddha Walks Into a Wine Bar, and it’s called Challenge Your Camera.
This week’s Challenge Your Camera (# 11) is STILL LIFE.
Here are a few pointers for the Challenge:
What is a Still Life? A still life is a work of art that focuses on inanimate objects. Usually commonplace objects which can include both man made objects (vases, items of clothing, and consumer products) and natural objects (plants, food, rocks, shells) as examples.
So, here are self’s still lifes, all of which she pulled from her archives. They’re mostly food-related.
Still Life # 1: Self loves farmers markets. The ones in her area are held on Sundays. She bought these mushrooms at the Menlo Park Farmers Market. This picture’s from a few weeks ago. The farmers markets stayed open throughout the pandemic, and self went regularly (of course masked). Her last COVID test was ten days ago, and that was negative.
Still Life # 2: Shoreditch, East London, November 2019. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to get back to London until late 2022, at the very soonest. In the meantime, she has a huge trove of photographs from her last visit. Someone with a sense of humor left this on a window ledge.
Still Life # 3: Her last visit home was September 2019. She spent her time in Dear Departed Dad’s hometown of Bacolod, and spent a few nights in a city close by: Silay. And ate herself into a food coma. All the variety of food made from rice! These are just two examples, and they’re from the public market.
Discovered a new Photo Challenge today, hosted by Travel with Intent.
Today’s One Word Sunday Challenge is LIGHT. Which is one of self’s favorite topics.
Self loves light stores. Here’s one near her home: Light Point in Menlo Park. She entered it for the first time a few months ago, looking for a porch light (See next picture)
And here’s her front porch. Her lights are solar and made in America. They cost a little more than lights made in China. Nevertheless. Must help American business!
Kanlaon 