WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes 4

In Front of the Legion of Honor, Sunday, 23 June 2013

Self really likes the current exhibit at the Legion of Honor, “Impressionists on the Water,” which no doubt has been timed to coincide with the America’s Cup races, beginning soon.  She did not know that the impressionist painter Caillebotte owned 25 rowboats, many of which he designed himself, and that he later gave up painting in order to devote himself fully to building and sailing his boats.

One must have quite substantial means to own 25 sailboats.  Aside from Caillebotte, there were paintings by Sisley and Monet.  Hard to think of these as “struggling artists.”  They lived in Argenteuil and seemed to be able to come and go as they pleased.

It was a very chilly, damp, foggy day in the City.  Some of the shots self took that day are nothing but unrelieved gray.  Hard to believe they were taken in the middle of the day, in late June.

A Close-Up of that monument in front of the Legion of Honor

All week, self has been trying to keep her photos in line with the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge of “The World Through Your Eyes.”  At first, the prompt had her scratching her head.  Some of the suggestions were to “look for natural lines or frames in the shot to guide the viewer’s eye” and to “try different angles:  Get low on the pavement.  Look down from above.”  She was hoping to find a Venice picture, but was surprisingly taken by her ghostly Legion of Honor shots.  More about Venice another time!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes 3

Returning from Murano on the Vaporetto , April 2013

The prompt:

Whatever your skill, we challenge you to take and share a photograph that shows a command of your frame.  Lead our eyes somewhere.  Make us focus on something.

What self was so struck by, in Venice, was the light.  The light on water.

She loved taking the vaporetto.  The day she took this shot, she was returning from Murano.  It was early evening.  You can just see, off to the right of the photograph, the church of San Michele on Cemetery Island, the vaporetto’s next stop.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes 2

Self was told not to number her Photo Challenge posts, but she just can’t help it. Different moods result in her selecting different pictures, it is simply impossible for her to decide all in one go. So, she will continue numbering her posts that have to do with the Weekly Photo Challenge; but to avoid any confusion, any subsequent posts she makes on the week’s theme (after the first one) will not be shared on The Daily Post website.

Dawn Breaks Beneath the Window Curtains (After Self’s First Sleepless Night)

This picture was taken in Bacolod.  Hometown of Dear Departed Dad.  The time difference from California is 15 hours.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes

Philippine Impressionism: Interior Wall of the Church of San Isidro Labrador, island of Siquijor, Philippines

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is a tricky one.

The theme is “The World Through Your Eyes.”

From the WordPress Daily Post home page:

It’s that little extra something in a snapshot that transforms a photograph into something more:  a visual interpretation of one’s vision.  A story, captured in a frame.

Hmm, self thinks.  What is the story in the above?  Is there even a story?

It was self’s second time in Siquijor.  This island is a short ferry ride from Dumaguete.  In feeling, it was so old.  Islands do that to self.  She finds

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves 5

Aerosoles, $7, Payless Shoe Source Going-Out-of-Business Sale, Years Ago

These are self’s most comfortable shoes.  She wore them all over Venice.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves 4

This mug was from a museum gift shop (probably the de Young): Self filled it with chai tea today.

Self had a grade-school Art History teacher named Mother Remedios who taught that the ancient Egyptians always drew eyes in full-on frontal view, even when the people they drew were in profile.  Curious effect.  When some artist began to draw the eye as it would realistically appear in profile, the art of portraiture changed forever.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves 3

Calla Lilly, Side Yard

These callas have appeared all over self’s yard.  None of them were planted by her.

And here are more garden curves!

On a beautiful spring day . . . when the sun is shining . . .

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves 2

Could this be a sundial? (Stumbled across it on an excursion to the island of Torcello)

This was in a courtyard in front of an old, old church (the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta —  said to be the oldest church on the Venetian lagoon, older even than the Cathedral of San Marco.)  Self took the vaporetto first to Murano, then to Burano, and finally to Torcello.  That was one of the best days of her trip to Venice in April.  The crowds of San Marco Square were far, far away.

Just outside the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta (No pictures were allowed inside — sigh)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves

The theme for this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is CURVES.

Sooo frustrating:  she just can’t get her posts to appear in the Comments section of the WordPress Photo Challenges site.

Here’s a picture self took a few months back. The akebia quinata on her front porch was, for a couple of weeks, covered with these little greenish-white puffs!

Akebia quinata, twining around trellis on front porch

Stay tuned.

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting 4

San Francisco, about two weeks ago. She drove to the City to find a reading. She found the place. She was blocks away, but she could see how the street went perpendicular, at precisely the block where the reading was to take place.

Self tried to find parking in the surrounding streets. None. If she had been more familiar with the neighborhood, she might have not given up so easily. Afterwards, when she sent her apologies to Allison Amend, the writer whose reading she missed, Allison chided her with: There was a parking garage a block away. It was on the directions on the evite.

!!!!!

Anyhoo, self did manage to get off a shot of this San Francisco street corner, early evening in late spring:

Trying to find the freeway on-ramp, circled this same block endlessly

And somehow she wound up on the Marina, and managed to squeeze off one shot just as the sun was beginning to set:

The Marina, after hours of fruitless driving around

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.