Weekly Photo Challenge

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WPC Favourites

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2013-11
2014-05
2015-11
2015-03
2014-12
207-12
2016-02
2015-07
2015-04
2017-05
2014-12
2017-09
2015-04
2015-06
2015-12
2017-10
2017-05
2017-12
2017-02
2016-04
2018-04
2017-02
2018-02

So, the WordPress powers-that-be are shutting down the Weekly Photo Challenge, and for the final instalment we are invited to share our favourite photo. I can’t possibly choose one from among my thousands of photos, so I’ve gone for a collection of faves from my own Weekly Photo Challenge posts (my first was in August 2013). I’d actually forgotten about a lot of the photos I’ve posted over the years!

Like many other WordPress bloggers whose comments I’ve read, I can’t understand why the WPC is ending. It’s been a successful vehicle for fostering engagement and sharing, and I’ve met many talented and interesting people around the world via it. To close the WPC will surely make us all a bit more insular. The official explanation — “we’ll be focusing our attention on other projects that help WordPress.com remain the best place on the web to publish, build an audience, and find a community” — rather interestingly ignores the fact that the Weekly Photo Challenge DOES (whoops, DID!) build audiences and communities.

It was fun while it lasted.

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The Indivisible Curves

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Sculpture by the Sea is on again in Sydney. Apparently, it’s the world’s largest free sculpture exhibition, and it runs along the coast from Bondi Beach (where I live) to Tamarama Beach. Two friends and I braved the inevitable hordes of people today to check out this year’s offerings. It was a beautiful early summer day, with a cloudless sky and a temperature around 26C (79F), and ocean breezes to take the edge off the sun.

Remembering that this week’s theme is curves or rounded, I was on the lookout for a sculpture with no straight lines.

Finally, towards the end of our walk, we came across this one. A sensous swirl of curves twining around itself, with no beginning and no end.

And if you’re wondering why I titled this post “The Indivisible Curves”, it’s because the piece is called “Indivisible.”

When I get my other photos sorted, I’ll post about some of this year’s other sculptures. You can see my other related posts from previous years here.

sydney-strolls-badge

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Shine a (little) light

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A perfectly ordinary reading lamp.

As the caption above says, here is an ordinary reading lamp. You may have one at home, on your desk or on a table beside your favourite reading chair. Those bendy arms are so convenient for getting the light in just the right place.

But, through the magic of scale manipulation, the lamp shrinks! This book looms over it.

Perfectly ordinary reading light shrunk to half the height of a paperback book.

And how many ordinary reading lamps can hang over the top of a Kindle?

Even smaller when hanging over the top of a Kindle.

Clever shots, you may think, but not achieved through forced perspective or other photography tricks. This is no ordinary reading lamp: it’s actually a miniature. The book and Kindle are full size. (And I really do hang the lamp over the Kindle, it’s very useful!)

The moment of truth: the lamp is actually tiny!

(I hope you’ll forgive the bit of shameless self-promotion: the featured books are two of my own novels written under my pen name of Elizabeth Krall.)

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Passing by in a blur

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People walking along Martin Place, Sydney.

These two photos of pedestrians on Martin Place were taken a couple of years ago during the annual Vivid light festival. The long exposure needed for the lights created some interesting motion blur as people passed by!

I’m really not sure what this person was doing to turn into such an odd shape!

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The coveted Bondi Beach view — if you don’t have it, fake it!

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The “view” from my bathroom. The sun always shines, and it’s always summer on Bondi Beach.

I live in an apartment building on Campbell Parade, the street that curves along Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. Any dwelling along the road that has a beach view is prime property indeed! I, however, live at the back of my building — much quieter, and with sweeping “district views”. One wall in my bathroom does face the beach, though it does not have a window (just as well, really, because on the other side of that wall is the foyer/lobby area for my floor!).

So I gave myself a view. I took a photo of the beach, slipped it behind a graphic of a window frame (complete with pot plant on the window ledge) and had it printed as a large poster. Then I put it on the wall, and for the finishing touch added real curtains.

Hey presto! I too now have the coveted Bondi Beach view.

(btw, the peach-painted wall is the landlord’s idea, not mine!)

The view from the window

Tiramisu slice from Wellington Cakes (Bondi)
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Luscious layers of cakey scrumptiousness

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Tiramisu slice from Wellington Cakes (Bondi)

Layer upon layer of sinful delight, topped with an cheeky little disc of white chocolate.

When I read that the theme for this week’s photo challenge is layered, only one thing popped into my head: cake! (Though to be honest, cake needs little prompting to pop into my head.) So I stopped by my local bakery on the way home (the dangerously tempting Wellington Cake Shop on Bondi Road) for a slice of something layered.

I ended up buying two — the second one purely as a backup, for photographic purposes, of course. Just look at these cakes: tiramisu (above) and hazelnut (below). The richly textured cake layers with their flecks of nuts and chocolate, the silken melt-in-your-mouth creaminess of the filling. Oh my.

Hazelnut slice from Wellington Cakes (Bondi)

Small flakes of nuts cling to the cake like mountain climbers scaling Everest.

Hazelnut slice from Wellington Cakes (Bondi)

Eat me. You know you want to.