Weekly Photo Challenge: Twist

I wasn’t keen on this week’s challenge. Firstly, because I don’t have internet anymore at my house and only have limited time at the library to log on. And secondly, because I have to rely on the pictures I have stored on my computer (which aren’t many since I lost everything from an external hard drive).

Most of my stuff is nature-focused, for no better reason than it’s easier to find and closer to home. But I do get a bit of a kick when I come across an example of nature reclaiming its territory. On this day, I noticed that somebody had spray painted a wall along a trail in the woods. They had pulled away (rather forcefully and dismissively) a lot of the ivy that had originally clung to the wall in order to create the space to paint, and piles of it were dumped on the ground alongside. The twist in this tale is that the plant world doesn’t go out like that, and in parts, little by little, and inch by inch, the ivy was beginning to creep back and reclaim the wall.

 

 

© Alice through the Macro Lens [2012]

 

After The Storm

It’s so good to see how much the Broken Light Collective has grown since its inception in 2012. I posted a couple of times on it waaay at the beginning, and this photograph of mine has been featured today. As you will read, my life has changed drastically in that time too, and any channels that highlight the seriousness and pervasiveness of mental illness should be applauded.

 

I called this post “After the Storm”

Broken Light Collective

Photo taken by contributor “Alice,” a 49-year-old woman living in the north of England. She has suffered with severe depressive episodes since her late teens, but only two years ago was diagnosed with Cyclothymia, a milder form of Bipolar Disorder, followed recently by an additional diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Along with her own struggles with mental health, her son, then aged 12, began physically assaulting her and has now been diagnosed with Conduct Disorder. Alice began her blog Alice Through the Macro Lens in 2012 in an effort to try to understand her journey through the mental health process and has used this forum to display some of her photography, in which she finds solace. Recently, she began a sister blog, Like a Circle in a Spiral to document the struggles of raising a child with his own difficulties.

About this photo: “It was with no small irony that I just looked back to a couple of contributions I…

View original post 256 more words

Weekly Photo Challenge: Work of Art

I hate cities, but I visit one regularly because it is the choice of my son to have our fortnightly contact time there.

Occasionally, we visit a dubious, but very interesting part of this particular city, where very eager “salesmen” offer bargain prices for “designer goods” out of side-street operations.

This remnant of a building, perched round the back of this series of streets, always fascinates me. I have never had a camera with me when I am in the neighbourhood (for obvious reasons) but I tried to take a couple of pictures on my phone last time we went.

As it happened, the area is restricted by a tall steel fence, and it’s impossible to get very close. On the original photo, the picture was blanched by the surrounding sky, and the structure itself was just a silhouette. But I used Photoshop to claw back a bit of the detail, and the result is a bit “arty” (that’s Alice-talk for “I made a bunch of mistakes, but it was too much effort to keep going back to start again.”)

I have no idea why this part of the building has been left standing. I just think it’s a fascinating remnant.

I wonder what stories those doors could share?

(click on photo for clarity-ish)

“Ah, what sights and sounds and pain lie beneath that mist. And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place—but it’s all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that’s overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.”
Eldridge Cleaver “Soul on Ice”

 

© Alice through the Macro Lens [2014]

 

Another need, another poppy …

See why here

© Alice through the Macro Lens [2014]

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sun pt.2

You got me thinking with this challenge today. I know I’ve already offered up one effort – but those pictures were taken “out of storage” so to speak.

The weather was changeable today, and there were lots of cloud-sun-cloud-sun moments, I took a walk to the local woods with this challenge in mind. At one point, the sun began to shine as we walked past the pond, and I noticed a bit of a sparkle on the water between the weeds. So I just snapped a quick distance picture with the same macro lens I do my close-ups with.

As is becoming the way recently, I didn’t think much about it until I downloaded the pictures from the camera onto the computer and zoomed in to the sparkly bit of this photo.

I have posted the original picture, and put a box around the “sparkly bit” that I zoomed in to.

Imagine my surprise and smile when I saw …. well, you can see for yourselves in the second picture!

No manipulation whatsoever (except for the crop and enlarge)!

 Weekly photo challenge

© Alice through the Macro Lens [2012]