Category Archives: Life through the lens

Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale

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Red Bishop – Kwazulu – Natal, South Africa

 Microcosmos

Beauty at scale rarely seen
by human eye, but inbetween
lush blades of grass daily spy
a microworld of strange small fry

As this mini-jungle wakes
from dark of night, a lone ant slakes
his thirst from fresh dewdrops bright
reflecting snails in love’s delight

Airfields of apian craft at ready
take flight from rouged poppies, heady
with blue jewels sparkling far and wide
on backs of bees on buzzing ride

A mighty dung beetle battles
sticks arresting rolling chattels
from onward journey, this daily testing
to construct his place of resting

Inkblot-eyes of springtails watch
(in somersault) nymphs slowly hatch
themselves from deep and watery vault
and caterpillars as they moult

A miniverse that’s quite astounding,
with creatures, strange and weird, abounding.

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For more entries to last week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Depth

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One of the things that sticks in my head from a photography course that I did is the instructor’s mneumonic for depth of field settings: F-stop 2 = 2 fence posts; F-stop 22 = 22 fence posts.

For more entries to this week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.

Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto

Torii Gates – Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto

Weekly Photo Challenge: Twinkle

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Often
in the crowd
a ghost flies by
in a smile, in a walk
in the twinkle of an eye.

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A Wild Night in Tokyo

For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post. (Although, when I last looked, their pingbacks weren’t working.)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten

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My maternal grandfather had many interests and hobbies: he studied the stars (astronomically, as opposed to astrologically), played the violin and loved photography, carrying his camera wherever he went.

I don’t know if he kept a journal, but if he did, it’s long lost; however, his insatiable curiosity about so many things–from people to architecture, to history, to nature–is well documented through the many photos (in slide form) that he took over his lifetime.

He worked as a mosaic tradesman and sometimes travelled from his hometown, Durban, South Africa, by ship up the east coast of Africa to do mosaic work on buildings in exotic places, such as Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and Beira.

On one of these trips, he took my mum and brother along, documenting the journey with his lens.

I particularly love this photo that he took on the ship of my mum making bubbles for my brother. And I love my mum’s reaction to it: “Oh, what a silly young thing I was then.”

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Photo by RIP © beeblu

 

For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.

 

The Beauty Of It

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Oliver Sacks is loving it. Frederick Wiseman forgets that he’s it. Ellen Langer thinks that it’s possibly nothing but a mindset.

In Japan, they know how to style it.

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Ginza O-Fashionistas

Forget the Erololi, Ero-Kawaii and Gothic Lolitas of Akihabara, and the Cosplay kids of Harajuku; it was the quirky, fun and completely unselfconscious fashion sense of the older generation that stood out for me on the streets of Tokyo.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Signs

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As a student of Linguistics, I am very interested in semiotics and, in particular, the affective impact of public signs.

Last week I got to realize a lifelong dream by taking a holiday in Japan. I loved the public signs there and the politeness of some of the signs in the Tokyo subways and trains.

I think people are more inclined to co-operate if a sign is polite than if it shouts, “Do not do this! Do not do that!”.

What do you think?

For more entries to the Signs Photo Challenge, see The Daily Post.