Beach

The glory of the random word comes into play today.  This photograph shows Gentoo Penguins on the beach in the Falkland Islands proving that the dynamic of beachbum and joyful swimming/surfing is not confined to human beings.  Yes, they were largely congregated to deal with the shopping for fish business of the daily routine, but the sun was shining and the wind was calm.  Those coming back in from the sea would wait back in the water for several minutes for the right wave and then surf onto the beach, often landing on their feet with a flamboyant 'Taddah!' with flippers out and a little run up the beach to those studiously NOT watching!  This was Gentoo behaviour.  The Magellanics also on the beach tended to come out less dramatically and lever themselves up from their tummies.  Watching this scene the concept of the film 'Surf's Up!' seemed so much less daft!

Thunder

Strictly speaking thunder is the noise created by the travel of a flash of lightening, but in order for this to happen a thunder cloud is required.  Getting the atmosphere of a thunderstorm as it lowers above land or water is an interesting study.  This photograph was taken in the docks of St Petersburg, Russia as a thunderstorm progressed.  There were breaks in the cumulonimbus clouds that allowed glimmers of sunshine through, reflecting on the water and throwing the dock landscape into silhouette.

Photograph

 

View into Harpa, Reykjavik

There has been a bit of a hiatus over these photographs, because I have realised that my heart has not been properly in this exercise as a result of the website I have been using to generate the ‘random’ words.  It has been producing ‘themes’ of random words.  These are a) not helpful and b) not my idea of random!  So.  I have discovered a much more fun and creative site that will, if asked, generate up to EIGHT random words!  Yippee!

Just for fun I clicked on the 8 button and the words listed below are those it generated:....
refugee
work
photograph
bush
pocket watch
butter
race
hour

All of these immediately bring forth ideas and there is almost a temptation to go out and take a photo with butter and a pocket watch (Salvador Dali style probably not, the sun isn’t hot enough), but they are also a great deal more entertaining than ‘pneuma’, ‘Homeric’ and the intriguing but horrible ‘Haggard’.  The whole thing now feels greatly invigorated.

The image I have chosen for this selection is one taken through the window of the new Icelandic Concert Hall, Harpa, in August shortly before its official opening.  The workman in the shot is there still working hard to get it ready, everyone else was I think visiting to marvel at the building.  The darkness of my reflection taking the shot allowed for the view through to the other side of the building.  It is a photographer’s paradise, that building....maybe I could attempt to say the photo is summing up work, photograph and race – the primary focus on the word, however, is photograph, and what a brilliant word to start out again with...

There is more on Harpa (from me) on Pragmatic Bollards.

Pneuma - what a word!

This is far more integrated with my other blog than would normally be the case, but when the day’s random word is one that means Wind and the other blog is today all about Wind, how it could not be the same heading picture when that picture is all about Wind is something I haven’t worked out.

This picture was taken in the immediate aftermath of the 1987 'Great Storm' aka hurricane.  It should be pretty obvious that the STOP sign was not man enough to stop the wind that must in this location have hit it square on.  The lie of the branches and twigs in the hedge also shows how windy it had been the day before.  Uri Gellar had competition that night......

Link to Weather 1 - WIND on Pragmatic Bollards

Homeric

Taking the definition of Homeric literally, to mean more than a place detailed in Homer’s surviving tales, this photograph is of Leptis Magna in Libya, taken in 2009.  It seems appropriate to choose it because of the historic changes that have taken place in Libya in recent days.

Leptis Magna was initially a Phoenician city on a promontory overlooking the sea and would have been active in Homer’s day. It was developed much later by Hadrian and then Septimus Severus as a Roman city, rival to Carthage and to Alexandria.  Septimus Severus apparently came from the city before becoming emperor in 193 AD, from which time he spent a great deal of time and energy investing in it, as well as a great deal of money.

This photograph shows a street called the Cardo viewed through the Triumphal Arch of Severus as it passes down to and under the Arch of Trajan.  The streets show the ruts from carts wearing the stone over the centuries.  On this day there were hundreds of thousands of starlings feeding on olives in the fields next to the city, any black dots visible are starlings not blobs!  It is hard to know what has been happening to this incredible place in the past few months, there were stories of weapons and tanks being stored amongst the ruins, all we can do is hope that there hasn't been a profound level of damage.

Starting it all off

Flower festival turtle in Liepaja, Latvia - looking rather exhausted...

Here we are on a bright and sunny Monday morning and a good idea turns a bit weird.  This morning it seemed like ‘a plan’ to start a new blog on random generated words and how photographs can be selected to illustrate the word.  It is unlikely to be a unique idea, but it is not consciously triggered by anything other than the experience of taking and using photographs for clients and for graphic design projects.

So, full of enthusiasm, I headed for the website given to me through a newsgroup a few weeks ago on Random Words http://wordsmith.org/words/random.cgi and got landed with the deeply ‘inspiring’ (not) word of HAGGARD!  How beautifully apt for a Monday morning, sunny or not, but not the best one to start a new idea on its march to public view.

Haggard. Gaunt, exhausted, tired.  Definitely Monday morning-ish.  I don’t take many photos on Monday mornings, so it is an interesting first word to test the lateral-thinking.  Apparently it originates as an Old French word for falcon, but they fly jolly fast and so I have none of those either.  Oops!

What this word does do, however, as a result of the image I have chosen to use, is that it illustrates very well how the addition of a word to a caption or a concept can change the sense of the image remarkably.  This floristic turtle is definitely feeling very Monday-morningish and is a photograph that couldn’t normally be used, because the poor chap looks so tired and flat in spite of his colourful back.  But calling it Haggard suddenly it is quite attractive as an image and yet also illustrates the word.

He was taken in the town of Liepaja in Latvia outside a local church and has no pretensions to grandeur.  That day there were several floral creations around the city for a flower festival, I think and he was much remarked upon.