Photo Friday – “Bridges, Arches”

Okay, so my dad is visiting from California and although he is currently staying at my sisters’ home for the remainder of his trip, he has kindly left his laptop at my house!  So I thought I’d take the opportunity to play Photo Friday!  Woo Hoo!  Now, if I had my druthers (love that word, druthers!) I’d put a picture up that I took about 12 years ago on a medical mission to Cuba, partly because it’s a cool bridge, but if truth be out in full, mostly because I think it’s so awesome that I got to go to Cuba in the first place to be able to take the picture!    But THAT picture is curently a 35mm print and I have no idea where it is.

But I don’t have my druthers.  Cuba pics will have to wait.

So I rifled through my online photo albums to see what I had that I could use instead.  I decided on an arch, of sorts.  This is arch is called Orecchio di Dionisio, or Ear of Dionysius.  It is in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy.  An old limestone quarry, the accoustics inside are amazing!  You can whisper at one end and your whispers can be heard throughout the cavern!  Read more about this most cool place HERE.

Players:  add your link to Mister Linky so that we can all see what fabulousness you’ve created this week!  I don’t know if I’ll have computer access to be able to visit your work…sorry…   The new computer isn’t slated for shipping until October 27th, or so.

Non-Players:  click on the Mister Linky link to access the links to the players’ blogs!  Let ‘em know what you think of their pics this week!

Coming on future Photo Fridays:

24th October: Eiain’s choice - Paws for thought

31st October: Author’s choice - Halloween!

7th November: Tina’s choice - Action Shots

14th November: Author’s choice - Windows (unusual or favourite windows, in your own home, or other homes, or churches, buildings etc – you may even include the view through a window. This can be a selection of photos or just one favourite pic)

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“The View Through My Window” – Photo Friday

PHOTO FRIDAY

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Today’s Photo Friday entry is entitled: The View Through My Window © Jan Marshall 

When I get up early on the days I have to get up early, I am able to watch part of the sunrise through the bathroom window in my shower.  However, since I didn’t have to get up early this week, I have missed every opportunity to photograph the morning display.  And the views from the rest of my windows didn’t do much for me this week either.

So, I trudged to the archives and found a favorite view through a special window in my past.  This is the view from my kitchen window this past summer with Teen Missions in Ispica, Sicily:

That’s wisteria on the lattice, and that’s the Mediterranean in the distance.  The picture doesn’t do its beauty justice, and it doesn’t capture the warm and faintly salty breeze rustling through the olive and almond trees.  My window had no screen and I could see out of the window from pretty much wherever I was in the kitchen.  Sigh.  It was a long hard summer, but this view?  This view refreshed me and recharged my batteries on a daily basis…

Please visit the other participant’s work!

A Curious State of Affairs

Idea Jump

Just For Fun

Sky Windows

I’ll be adding links to any other participants who want to play!

Next week we’re having another go at Photographic Art – “Photographic Art-2″.  I’m already thinking about what I can do! 

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“Amazing Architecture” – Photo Friday

PHOTO FRIDAY

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Today’s Photo Friday entry is entitled: Amazing Architecture © Jan Marshall   

As much as I love nature and all the beauty that is just because it IS, I love the beauty of the things that man creates just as much.  Man (and by that I mean humankind) was created in the image of its maker, and part of being created in His image includes the ability to create as well.  Out of God’s creation of rock, wood, metal, and sand, one of the things man creates is architecture.  The interpretation of a floor, walls, and a ceiling is as varied as the birds of the air.  Shacks and cathedrals, skyscrapers and lighthouses, cottages and castles, pyramids and soddies, forts and obelisks.  No other creature in all of creation exhibits the ability to never have to build the same thing twice as they are driven to do so by instinct.  Birds of a feather always build the same nest.  People never do.  Even the most mundane tract homes each have their own individuality.  But man doesn’t only build homes.  Man builds all kinds of structures because he CAN and because he WANTS to.  And man can build things that last, some times for millenia.  Since taking digital pictures is till fairly new to me, most of my favorite architectural pictures are still 35 mm prints or even worse, they are SLIDES!  But I found a few pictures I thought would do nicely for this challenge.

This is the Gallarus Oratory in Dingle, Ireland.  Believed to have been erected for use as a church, it was built in the 6th century and is mortarless!  It is also very small.  Even a short person must duck to enter the doorway.  It is watertight and has amazingly remained unchanged, stone upon stone, for 1500 years.

 

In about 480 B.C. the Greeks erected a Doric temple in Syracuse, Sicily.  Some of those pillars remained after the temple was destroyed and were incorporated into the wall of the Syracuse Cathedral at an unknown point in time.  The cathedral was named the Cathedral of Syracuse (Sicily, Italy) in 680 A.D., so this building, too, has been around a LONG time!  The first photo is of the front of the cathedral.  The second is of the interior wall of the left nave which amazingly incorporated pillars from the original temple.

 

 

Finally, because I wanted to include a picture that I took specifically for this post, this past weekend while in Denver I took the opportunity to look around at the many varying architectural structures there.  This building caught my eye as it was very ungainly and looked completely out of place in its surroundings.  I cropped it down to focus on the lines and shadows, which I actually thought were quite amazing.  The elements?  Lovely.  The overall concept and location?  Ugly!  (Incidentally, I have no idea what this building is used for).

As per the usual, I will add the links to the other participant’s work as they are posted.

A Curious State of Affairs

Idea Jump!

Sky Windows

Just For Fun

Please come back to check those links out!

Anyone else still wants to play this week, do so!  Friday lasts until midnight, wherever you live!

Next week’s challenge?  “Photographic Art”.

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“Friends” – Photo Friday

PHOTO FRIDAY

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Today’s Photo Friday entry is entitled: Friends © Jan Marshall  

My goodness.  I have been blessed with many excellent, wonderful, loving, fun, supportive, etc. ad nauseum (!) friends.    I have been blessed much more than I deserve.  If friends were riches, then I should be called one of the world’s wealthiest women. 

This past summer I met a woman named Angelica.  (The g is soft, like in girl.)  She was at the same camp in Ispica, Sicily, as my teen missions team.  She was there from Austria with five German and Austrian men, one of whom was her husband.  They were there also as missionaries and were working alonside ”my kids”.  They’d been there some weeks prior to our arrival.  Angelica could not have been more thrilled to see me show up.  She was quite tired of all “the mens”, as she called them!    She was anxious for female companionship and conversation.  As I was the only real “adult” in my group and I had no one really to talk with either, we were a perfect match. 

A few times a week we’d go to the local Conad grocery store in town to pick up whatever we were in need of.  Though my time was limited, we managed to find time to get cappuccinos and have a private chat and laugh together.  You’d probably laugh, too, if you were to overhear us!  Her native language is German, mine is English.  She speaks some English and a little Italian.  I speak no German, but some French and Spanish.   Between all those languages, we manged to understand each other, at least mostly!  Once she was trying to explain to me an illness that one of her children died from many years ago.  She couldn’t find even the most rudimentary of words to explain what it was in any language and it was really frustrating her.  ”I only know in German” she finally said after many extremely failed attempts to say anything at all.  So, give it to me in German then, I said.  Maybe it’ll be close enough to something I know. 

The German word for the disease turned out to be the same as the English word…exactly the same!  We laughed long at that and learned that sometimes German works just fine.

We were old friends from the very beginning.  I love friendships that start like that.  I hope to visit her in Austria one day.  She hopes to visit me in America one day.  I am looking so very much forward to sharing a cappuccino and laughter with her again.

Angelica at a cafe in Pozzallo.

Our favorite little caffetteria in Ispica.

Yum Yum Yum.

Good friends.  Good times.  Good flavors.

Please visit “A Curious State of Affairs” and “Sky Windows” to see their entries for the week.  And please consider joining us next week.

Next week’s topic?  “Portrait”.  And Lady Luck promises she has something good for us as her entry!

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Lady Luck’s New Meme – Photo Friday

Lady Luck of the blog “A Curious State of Affairs” has started a new weekly photography meme that I will be joining in!  Yay!!!!  The flagship topic for this new “Photo Friday”?  HAGGLE!

Leaving Sicily through Messina this past summer, I saw this quintessencially Sicilian gentleman pushing his cart of wares down the street.  I shot this picture through the bus window just before the bus pulled onto the ferry which would take us across the straight to Italy proper.  Not a great story about haggling, but I loved the picture and the feelings evoked when I look at it.

For a good haggling story, check out an older post of mine called “Drum For Sale“!  It’s about the procurement of a gorgeous drum on a roadside in Zambia.

Click HERE to check out the other participants work!  Links to each of the participants’ entries are in the comments! 

Next week’s topic is “Tit for Tat”.  You can play, too!

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