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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 – Countryside and/or Small Town

Posted on September 24, 2019 by Miriam Hurdle 35 comments

The theme from Amy for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 is: Countryside and/or Small Town.

I live in the big cities most of my life. The advantage of living in a city is the accessibility. But I realize that needs are relative. Lifestyle is a learned taste and habit. People can feel satisfied with a simple living. They may not know the existence of certain things and do not have a need for them; therefore, they may not miss them.

We bought a 10-acre land 35 years ago in Sequim, Washington Peninsula at the foot of the National Forest. It was an undeveloped parcel. The previous owner logged most of the big trees. They made a profit from the sales of logging. They poured gravels on the logging trail as a road to access the property. The purchase was to build a retirement home.

We rented a trailer to camp out there to do some inquiry. The minimum necessity to make the land livable was to have electricity hooked up, dig a well and connect the sewage pipe. The first thing we needed was water. Upon inquiry, we realized that drilling a well cost $5,500 per drilling for an average depth of 150 feet. If they detected no water, we needed to pay to drill another spot to find water.

I started to walk around the property and do some thinking. Even though the price of the land was reasonable, it required a lot of effort and resources to make it livable. One discouraging thing to me was that the closest neighbors were 10-acres away. It was hard for me as a city girl not to have neighbors close by. Eventually we sold the property.

When we travel, I appreciate going to see countryside that frees my mind and gives me a sense of tranquility such as Denali in Alaska, Bavaria in Germany, places we passed by in Amsterdam, Longleat and Stonehenge in England.

Denali, Alaska

Bavaria, Germany

Amsterdam

Longleat, England

Stonehenge, England

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 – Countryside and/or Small Town

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #54: Detail

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Miriam Hurdle 51 comments

The theme from Patti for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge this week #54 is Detail.

I appreciate painting and love colorful things. A good combination of both is stained glass windows. When traveled to Europe visiting the cathedrals, stained glass windows always caught my attention. Although I took photos in several cathedrals, I chose to display some to show the detail of the stained glass windows in Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

Stained Glass Windows

During the Gothic period and the Renaissance (1100s–1500s) stained glass was one of the foremost techniques of painting practiced in Europe. It inspired the lives of the faithful through religious narratives in churches and cloisters.

There was a time when glass panes were too expensive for most people, only in the late 1400s, did glass panels become wider-spread, so that middle class and wealthy people could have them in their homes—and they started setting into their clear glass windows that would celebrate their family histories.

Glass Windows in Cologne Cathedral

In many windows coats of arms help both to identify their patron and to date the glass windows in Cologne Cathedral.

Among the five original windows, the Three Kings is the oldest glass window in the cathedral, and the earliest preserved “Bible windows” in Germany.

A typological, classical of types, view of history is also worked out in more detail in the two “Bible windows” where scenes of Christ’s life are related to Old Testament events. These windows are the depiction of Christ’s ancestors as kings, the History of Salvation with themes representing the three periods of history. The prominence of the scene of the Adoration of the magi has been associated with the importance of Cologne Cathedral as the cathedral of the Three Kings.

I can only identify major detail in the stained glass windows shown in this post. An extensive study would be needed to understand and interpret the rest of the detail.

Cologne Cathedral Germany a

Cologne Cathedral Germany b

Cologne Cathedral Germany c

Cologne Cathedral Germany d

Cologne Cathedral Germany e

Cologne Cathedral Germany f

Cologne Cathedral Germany g

Cologne Cathedral Germany h

I hope you enjoyed these stained glass windows as much as I do!

LenArtists Photo Challenge #54 – Detail

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #45 – Street Art

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Miriam Hurdle 38 comments

When I go places near my home or travel abroad, I’m attracted to the sculptures, wall paintings, and different art forms. I included samples of these art forms in this post.

The MGM Lion Statue is the largest bronze statue in the Western Hemisphere. It is 45 feet tall and 50 feet long. It weighs 50 tons and is made up of 1660 pieces of bronze welded together. The sculptor was Snell Johnson, and the designer was M. Smeaton. The statue was installed on February 15, 1997. http://www.lionlamb.us/lion/lvlions.html

1.Las Vegas lion

The Walk of Fame was created by E.M. Stuart, its volunteer president of Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1953. By March 1956, the final design and coral-and-charcoal color scheme had been approved, and between the spring of 1956 and the fall of 1957, 1,558 honorees were selected by committees representing the four major branches of the entertainment industry at that time: motion pictures, television, audio recording, and radio. Official groundbreaking took place on February 8, 1960. As of 2018, the Walk of Fame comprises over 2,600 stars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Walk_of_Fame

2.Walk of Fame

The Navy sailor kissing a nurse is 25 feet tall, weighs 6,000 pounds statue called “Unconditional Surrender,” by J. Seward Johnson, although the city of San Diego has officially labeled it the “Embracing Peace” statue. The original image of the moment was captured by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945 at the end of WWII. https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/20274

3.Sailor

This Marilyn Monroe life-like statue is in front of the Tropic Cinema in Key West, Florida. The famous picture of Marilyn Monroe laughing as her skirt is blown up by the blast from a subway vent was shot on September 15th, 1954 filming The Seven Year Itch. https://shoestringweekends.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/marilyn

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The Wall cut off West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on November 9, 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

4.Berlin1

The following two are the sculptures we saw in Sydney next to a park we passed by.

5.Sydney1.1

6.Sydney2.1

The next two sculptures are among the sculptures, murals and other street art we see at Laguna Beach, California where we often go for a half day walk.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #45 – Street Art

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #35: Architecture

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Miriam Hurdle 29 comments

The theme for Lens-Artist Photo Challenge from Amy this week is: Architecture. During our travel, we have seen amazing architecture.

The Neuschwanstein Castle is a 19th-century Romanesque Revival Palace on a rugged hill top above the village of Hohenschwangau with an elevation of 800 m (2,620 ft) in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The fairytale castle was commissioned by King Ludwig II as a retreat and a homage to the king’s favorite composer Richard Wagner.

Walt Disney was so inspired by the fairytale architecture of Neuschwanstein that he used it to create Cinderella’s castle in the 1950 animated film, and the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland. Wikipedia My travel post is here.

IMG_1065 Neuchanstein Castle, Bavaria (2) Read more

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #31: Landscape

Posted on February 4, 2019 by Miriam Hurdle 41 comments

Amy‘s theme this week for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #31 is Landscapes. I included some photos of natural landscape and architecturally designed landscape.

I took this photo on the Alaska trip when our train passed by Hurricane Gorge, Alaska. They named it because the wind could go 150 miles per hour. The train slowed down for passengers to take photos from the bridge. The Hurricane Gulch Bridge is a 918 feet long steel arch railroad bridge and is 296 feet above the Hurricane creek. It is both the longest and tallest bridge on the entire Alaska Railroad.

Alaska 7 Read more