Flower petals bokeh, Valle Crucis, NC

Bokeh mystique: Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #194

This may be my one and only true confessions post, but when I saw Sofia’s theme this week, I knew I was in trouble. Bokeh is one of those “real” photographer terms, one that I hardly understand, let alone use intentionally. As Sofia says, “It literally means ‘blur’ in Japanese.” And let me tell you, […]

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Chicago skyline and Roosevelt Road bridge

Architecture in the city of big shoulders: Chicago

With Tina’s theme — Interesting Architecture — for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #173, our photos from a recent trip to Chicago couldn’t be more fitting. After all, this city of big shoulders, immortalized in Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” sets the standard for skyscrapers, old and new buildings, artsy collections, and riverboat tours just begging you to […]

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Elvis/Marilyn by David Scheinmann, 2013

Lens-Artists Challenge #171: Weird and Wonderful

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. Sir Francis Bacon With Ann-Christine’s choice of topic — Weird and Wonderful — for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we were reminded of a recent trip to Lexington, Kentucky, and a stay at 21c Museum Hotel. It’s not that the hotel was weird by […]

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Boxed by size, pumpkins await bidding at Crab Orchard, Kentucky

Lens-Artists Challenge #167: Colors of Autumn

Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and rust, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies. Sharon Kay Penman This adventure just happened — as many of our adventures do. We were driving home from Lexington, Kentucky, and noted what looked to be a farm selling pumpkins […]

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Waco, Texas: touring a Fixer Upper kitchen

Lens-Artists Challenge #166: Artificial Light

With the publication of Ann-Christine’s challenge this week entitled “Artificial Light,” we noted from the entries posted on her site that light sources other than natural ones can actually be quite magical indeed. To tell the truth, we tend to take pictures mostly in natural light, generally the glow from the golden hours of sunup […]

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Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, Greece

Lens-Artists Challenge #165: Going Wide

The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy. Henry Ward Beecher Patti Moed of pilotfishblog.com offers the topic for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge: Going Wide. Her post and the delightful shots taken both with wide-angle lenses and a cellphone follow the advice she gives: Before you […]

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Seaside houses in Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy

Lens-Artists Challenge #164: Looking Up/Down

With an interesting theme by a new host for the Lens-Artists Challenge — Sofia Alves of Photographias — we’re exploring the idea of looking up and down this week. And one of our favorite towns — Manarola — in Cinque Terre, Italy, came to mind. Although we visited on what must have been one of […]

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