Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves Of The Poppy

Red Poppy

The petals are so big and so fine and paper-thin.

This is not a common European poppy, but something else – a cultivar from Asia, no doubt.

I photographed it in a hillside garden in the village of New Lanark in Scotland, just yesterday.

But still I think of Flanders’ Fields and the First World War.

The story of the poppies is one of those stories that has remained untainted through the years – the way they grew in countless numbers through the mud, and wove their way past the splintered bone of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers after the carnage in Belgium and France ended in 1918.

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Sign Says Way To

Sign In Agra Zoo

Enough said…

Or, a transcendent sign that knows no boundaries.

Jaguar

Click for a much larger image.

Photographed in Edinburgh Zoo today – through glass (naturally)

Technical

Olympus E-PM1 with 45mm f1.8 lens

1/250th second at f4.0 and -1 exposure compensation.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Culture

The word culture comes from the Latin word meaning to cultivate, as in agriculture. It gained its modern usage in the 1800s.

What is this culture of which we speak?

Is in the brightly-coloured baubles in the shops?

Is it in the high-flown opera to which I do not go?

Is it in the book I am reading?

Is it in the conversations I have?

Where is it when the conversation runs dry?

Where is it when I am silent and meditating on my breathing?

Is it given to me or do I have to find the key?

Is there more to come or is this all there is?

A Day In Someone Else’s Life: Postaday

A pocket camera is not the best tool with which to capture a wedding, and when I first saw the car I didn’t know it was a wedding car. But I followed it, and soon it turned into the drive of a churchyard and then ahead I saw bridesmaids dressed in shocking pink.

The car belched blue smoke and ground to a halt. Out came the bride with a wonderful smile and into the church they went.