Would you name a place after a notorious pirate who had ransacked your coastline and hid out here, evading capture? To our surprise we discovered that is exactly what happened here in the south west of Costa Rica; Bahia Drake is named for Sir Francis Drake.
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Fire lives in the death of earth, air lives in the death of fire, water lives in the death of air, and earth in the death of water (Heraclitus). Some of these four elements are easier to photograph than others, as a quick trawl of my archives shows. Of water and earth I have many images. But air is much harder to capture, and fire too.
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For many years I wanted to visit the Galápagos: to walk on these remote islands where unique species thrive, where Darwin first developed the ideas that would change our understanding of nature, and where animals have never learned to fear humankind. In 2012 I realised my dream; and fortunately, it more than lived up to my expectations!
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Peer at a white flower and you’ll observe nuances of different shades. The same in a white sky, even a field of snow. Light and shade play tricks with the eyes and white turns to grey, to blue, to cream. Perhaps that’s why, when I started to search my archives for ‘white’ images to share for this week’s Sunday Stills challenge, I found the purest whites in manmade objects.
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I cannot, of course, photograph the future. I could perhaps take photos of futuristic sights and buildings, but they would still be very much of the present. People often talk about the future in terms of a road we are travelling, don’t they? And we also often talk about choosing a path or road, making a decision to go this way or that.
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It’s fair to say that 2021 wasn’t quite the year I thought it was going to be when it started. Back in last January we were anticipating a possible return to ‘normal’ at some point during this year, with more freedoms and more travelling. That did happen to some extent, but only ‘some’ extent. Never mind, we’re still here and we’ve managed to have a pretty good year, all things considered.
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Sooner or later it seems, all paths in Marrakesh lead to the Jemaa el-Fnaa. The name (sometimes spelled Djemaa el Fna or Jamaa el Fna) means ‘Assembly of the Dead’ in Arabic; but a visit here suggests life in all its vibrancy. To call this the city’s main square doesn’t begin to do justice to it. This is a meeting place, a shopping centre, a performance space, a happening. It is surrounded by restaurants and cafés, each with a roof terrace to offer a ringside seat from where to observe all the action, but better by far to get immersed…
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Martin Luther said, 'For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver. But while he makes a good point about the glories of nature, there are still times when we need a bit of bling in our lives. And now is probably one of those times!
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Sometimes it seems as if Starbucks is taking over the world. Wherever we travel, apart from in North Korea of course, we come across branches of this ubiquitous chain. But we don't go in. Even at home it’s a place we choose to avoid, preferring to support our local independent coffee shops. And when we travel the same rule applies. Even in Seattle, the birthplace of Starbucks, we refused to visit the first ever branch in Pike Place.
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A brief extract from one of my favourite poems by one of my favourite poets to introduce a gallery of burgundy-red images. Of course this colour takes its name from a red wine, the French Burgundy, but we might just as well use the name of any other red wine to describe it. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, the French themselves tend to instead call the colour Bordeaux!
