LA Live comes alive at night.
For another series of nighttime LA Live photos see my previous post for Ailsa’s Weekly Travel Theme: Illuminated
weekly travel theme
Change at Guildford
for Ailsa’s weekly Travel theme: Noise
Travel theme: Noise
Sudden summer wind…
Grasses dance and ripple with
Waves of sight and sound.
This brief film is of the fields behind The Maltings, Ely, Cambridgeshire in England.
The sound of the wind blowing through the rushes is for this week’s travel theme from Ailsa: Noise.
Travel theme: Edge
Sailing up to the glacier’s edge in Glacier Bay, Alaska on the elegant SS Arcadia, proud member of the P & O fleet, sadly no longer with us.
Arcadia entered Glacier Bay on June 1st 1970 and was the largest ship ever to have sailed in these waters on this first Alaskan Cruise. Here is the entry in the diary I kept during that remarkable summer, a summer that still remains fresh in my memory:
“Monday 1st of June: The climax to the whole cruise – Glacier Bay. How to describe the beauty of this awe inspiring scene. We felt we had arrived at the end of the world. Nothing but these magnificent mountain peaks, the silence and us. Slowly we moved round the bay exploring its hidden most channels, gliding up to the glacial faces, blasting the ship’s horn in the hope that we might produce an icefall – with no result other than the echo reverberating about us for a full minute. We saw seals playfully swimming beside us. I think there was no one who wasn’t moved by the sight. The sheer unexplored natural beauty that surrounded us is something we shall never forget.”
A little technical information about the images, which are from the Kodachrome slides I took using my first SLR camera, a Pentax Spotmatic. The slides, and there are many of them, remain as pristine today as the day they were developed in 1970. I scanned them into my laptop using an Epson Perfection V700 Photo Scanner and then processed them using Photoshop Elements.
New York Frame of Mind
Blossoms around the world
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Spring Close-up in the Land of Enchantment
Dear friends, as you see we did “find our way to Santa Fe.”
New Mexico is indeed the Land of Enchantment where the horizon seemed to stretch for a thousand miles beneath the bluest of skies.
So many images to share in the coming days and what better way to start than by combining this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Spring with Ailsa’s Travel theme: Close-up, and taking you on our hike to Chimney Rock at The Ghost Ranch in Northern New Mexico. On this perfect Spring morning the trail gave us views to the south of the flat-toped mountain Pedernal, so beloved by Georgia O’Keeffe…
…and to the north across the canyon the sandstone cliffs of the Entrada Formation over 150 million years old.
What made the morning seem even more “enchanted” was the absolute silence, with only the occasional sound and sense of a welcome cool breeze to brake the spell.
To meet the Close-up theme so many beautiful flowers are seen amongst the rocks and beside the trail.
Whilst the distant vistas were truly breathtaking these flowers were equally so.
One of my favourite quotations seems so fitting with which to close. It is by the great humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer who observed so profoundly that,
“In the hope of reaching the moon we fail to see the flowers that blossom at our feet.”
Well, not on this day I’m pleased to say. The flowers, the blossoms, the sky, the rocks, the mountains, the wind, all were enjoyed and appreciated every moment that we spent in this most magical of places.
I look forward to sharing much more of our visit to the Land of Enchantment with you, so please come back again and visit soon. With warmest good wishes as always…Andrew
The dramatic glow of this glorious sunset in Santa Fe, New Mexico
The statue of Asklepios, the god of medicine, from The Vatican Museum in Rome. Round his staff is entwined a serpent, the symbol of medicine to this day.
The perfectly circular 13th century Incan agricultural terraces at Moray in the Sacred Valley, which we visited on our Peruvian adventure last June.
Two very different interpretations of Ailsa’s Weekly Travel Theme:Round
thechangingpalette 