MtLawleyShire and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Rule of Thirds

This week’s Photo Challenge: Rule of Thirds

And interesting challenge and took me a while to find appropriate shots.  I found a few, and they’re mostly flowers (which I guess shouldn’t surprise me) – mostly – not all.

pinkish-purple:

 

bottlebrush types:

 

Grevillea:

   

Grevillea & bee:

Various – petunia & raindrops, and a light-drenched hibiscus:

 

little red and a red rose:

 

Remember I said ‘mostly’?  Some non-flower ‘thirds’ –

one of my favourite ‘rain drop’ photos:

sunsets – possible straining the challenge a little 🙂

  

and this one – she is only taking up a third of the space 🙂

I enjoyed this challenge and look forward to browsing through others.

 

MtLawleyShire sunset – Feb, Friday 13th

Notwithstanding it is the date of a friend’s birthday, Friday the 13th has an aura of something other, usually dark, and this sunset reflected it.

A sky untidy with cloud presaged a sunset of scattered potential.  It began with gold, light delineating the complex cloud architecture and beauty so often lost to grey:

 

 

the light changed and deepened with gaps revealing clear sky behind the cloud play:

 

But there was a ‘smear’ of thin cloud amongst the cloud play:

As the sun descended, it became edged in golden threads:

Then the clouds caught the upward slanting blasts of light, changing into static explosions of gold against the darkness:

 

 

That golden-edged cloud contrasted with the darker clouds rushing in to swamp the fire of remaining day:

 

overhead, cloud trails became golden sky calligraphy.  I see a unicorn escaping the conflagration below:

 

then the gold became crimson and the pale blue of the sky behind like a painting of someone else’s winter dawn:

 

It deepened and became richer, contrasting with the larva bright below:

  

Magma of the clouds: their darkness failing to suppress the rage of dying day:

 

Fiery passionate moments in the ethereal cloud play of coming night:

 

 

In the east, the sweep of colours was more muted but no less glorious

     

Finally, night moved in, leaving last embers to flare and burn down into darkness.

 

It was a magnificent sunset and I hope your enjoyed it.

For the moment, with cloudless skies, there are no more.  But – there are storms forecast for next week, so keep your fingers crossed 🙂

 

 

 

 

MtLawleyShire and a Landsdale sunset

Landsdale is a long way from MtLawleyShire – approximately 20 kms.  The difference in the topography is notable, as was teh vantage for the sunset: wide open, flat, reminding me that I was much closer to the sea than in MtLawleyShire.  It allowed, though, a glorious sunset view, despite the fact I stood on a major road – so no, I couldn’t really avoid the lightpoles, but they do add a nice perspective.

These straight trees caught the lowering light nicely

but even better were the clouds as the lowering sun blasted gold all across the horizon

 

  

the light coated trees behind me in that darkly golden light

  

and then the sun caught up with itself and the end of day:

 

 

 

 

and gone

 

in other directions, following the road, the skies changed, but the vast emptiness of it almost defeated any sense of colour

 

 

 

In the west, the golden echoes of light intensified clouds

 

it was possible to see virga

 

the sky beneath the clouds was as clear and clean as glass

the light began to fade and withdraw

 

leaving the hint of deep burning embers down on the horizon

A wide, uninterrupted sunset, not something MtLawleyShire is accustomed to.  I hope you enjoyed it 🙂

Dragon – a short post

As requested by KDH – here is one dragon that is in a format compatible with WordPress 🙂

‘Smoker – with attitude’.

He sold and resides in a graceful house with as much grace as he innately possesses.

And I should add he is coloured pencil on black paper and took quite a while to complete.  He always made me smile though.  I enjoyed drawing him

🙂

Outside of MtLawleyShire: railway line trees

MtLawleyShire, as an area (though occasionally, it is also this person – just to confuse you 🙂 ), is leafy with lovely trees and gardens.  It is an old area, the trees are large, but it is a regular suburb with roads and parks and houses.  The railway line is some distance from my normal routes, and getting near the city, is bridges and buildings without a great deal of space.  Further west, on the oldest rail line – Midland to Fremantle (which also goes through the eastern edges of MtLawleyShire) there are areas where the buffer along the tracks has been allowed to be itself.  Urban bush.  Managed, no doubt, and therefore not ‘pristine’, but nonetheless – a touch, a taste, of bush in the middle of suburbia, so this is what the railway side of the road looks like:

 

I don’t know all the trees.  I recognized this one though – a massive peppermint tree, its huge girth giving an indication of its age:

These are either lemon-scented or ghost gums – or perhaps something else entirely!  Beautiful though:

 

 

especially this one – so straight! It makes me think it’s a ghost gum:

A massive moreton bay fig – known as the strangler fig, it is definitely an interloper that has been here a long time.  It makes me thing the area is managed because otherwise, there would be many of them, and it is dotted with berries:

 

this Norfolk pine soaring above everything renders the lightpole redundant 😀

Cheating a little – this paperbark was in someone’s garden – over the road from the urban bush, so not really straying 🙂 But of such a size! It had been there a long time:

the first of this group is so reminiscent of something you’d see driving something other than the city – trees against the sky.  The other 2 are trees I see frequently, even in MtLawleyShire, and I think they are actually west Australian natives:

 

I have no idea of the names of these trees, but they are lovely:

 

 

and this one – the last of my photos – just magnificent!

This post was to remind myself of my love of trees, and I hope you enjoyed it.  Bulldog, my friend – I hope this made you smile.

Next post will most likely be back in MtLawleyShire, and quite possibly, yet another sunset.

MtLawleyShire on an outing

Saturday – an outing to see the Giants in the CBD.  I thought I had it all organized, but the bus went a different way.  I hadn’t seen this on the maps.  So I had an extra walk.  Passed this beautiful tree unaffected by the growing crowds:

A rose outside a Greek Orthodox church and a lion guarding a closed restaurant:

 

Then I was in the crowds.  I had missed my best opportunity to see the Giants.  The crowds were incredible – and I don’t like crowds, being rather small.  But I wish I’d taken photos of the crowds.  1 million people visited the city during this 3 day event and the afternoon I went? In this one small area?  100’s of 1,000’s.  And I was one small member of that crowd.  I couldn’t see over or through and the best photos I got of the Little Girl was as she was going up the steep slope of the Horseshoe Bridge:

 

I escaped the worst of the crowds to catch the train to Daglish.  Inside the station, it is still possible to see the old style of the building:

and I did love the geometry of the modernistic ceiling:

On the walk to my friends’ place, I was struck by the light coming through leaves:

 

It is a very leafy area and there will be another post of all the trees along the railway line, but here are some details.  Berries on a moreton bay fig tree and the surprising colour of blossom on a young eucalypt:

 

The banksias are getting ready to burst into candles:

 

It was really too windy for photographing flowers, but I couldn’t resist this grevillea in someone’s garden:

 

And this – a cassia fistula the flowers cascading in the light:

 

 

Finally, after a lovely evening, although I got home when it was dark, I was still greeted by a Fattee Cattee – all purrs and cuddles.  So here she is before I left, being affectionate at me:

Quite an exciting weekend.  I hope you enjoyed this little taste of it.

Next post – trees!  🙂

MtLawleyShire goes to the city

I met a dear friend for lunch in the city – a rare outing for me.  At the moment, the Perth Festival is on so there were many more people and activities going on around me.  This massive moreton bay fig near the art gallery was sublimely unfazed by all the activity around it:

and the graceful architecture of a bygone age, the lovely eucalypt near it were likewise untouched:

 

It was a little breezy for flowers in the city orchard, but I was able to get a few:

 

 

the view from the walkway to the railway station is somewhat unappealing:

and then, from the elevated walkway above Forest Place, a glimpse of the Diver, sleeping – one of the Giants, marionettes that visited Perth and walked the streets for three days to open the Perth Festival.

 

a wee rabbit in a shop window display – it just looked so wistful

delicate foliage and graceful architecture:

 

modern glass against old facades:

 

straight and soaring:

detail of shopfront decorations – reflections of plane trees in the mall are glimpses in this:

blocky architecture:

 

and the old Trades Hall on Beaufort Street – more old architecture.  I’m not sure which I prefer, the black and white or the green – which it is & it looks charming:

 

Other things – a blue dragonfly in the city wetland:

a very strange character – really quite large – near the Art Gallery.  It looks like a big pink faceless bunny:

and this – larger than anything else (except for buildings) – in the museum: a claw about to descend ‘pon my head!  😀

It’s OK – I’m still here 🙂

I hope you enjoyed my little wander around the CBD of Perth (well, a section of it).  🙂

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Scale

Scale
This week’s Weekly Challenge: Scale I thought would be yet another I would have to bypass, but then I saw others had posted the smaller things of our natural world.

I have many of them 🙂  But I thought I’d post some I haven’t posted before.  They are from last year – I have many bees from this year, but they have, for the most part, been in other posts.  These are new to the blogosphere

A wee hover fly on a blade of grass:

I followed this wasp around the garden, feeling very brave.

On a nasturtium leaf:

 

On lavender leaves:

 

I hope you enjoyed my entry 🙂

 

Flowers on a smokey afternoon in MtLawleyShire

More fires filled the city with smoke.  This time in the southern suburbs (MtLawleyShire is inner north).  The smoke filters down streets, filling in shadows, and reduces perspective by playing with it:

 

It played havoc with the lighting as well, but I caught some flowers:

a sunflower translucent with sunlight

the astonishing beauty of a white hibiscus (though it was too breezy to be trying)

The joyous scarlet of a bottlebrush type:

 

The limitless grace of roses.  Red:

 

with a touch of gold and pinky-apricot:

 

and this delicate pinkish-mauve:

Finally – Grevillea and a close-up of one unfurling:

   

and now, I must go walking.  Maybe I will find more flowers…..

MtLawleyShire would love to fly: birds at Matilda Bay

Birds – well, mostly seagulls.  Seagulls sitting, flying.  Oddly enough, they were well-behaved today because normally, the raucous scallywags are everywhere, squabbling and messing with the peace of mind of patrons at the tearooms.

So I photographed them sitting in the dappled shade of the plane tree:

Standing as though in a meditative trance or preening on the river’s edge:

 

A little stranger standing quietly, possibly a fairy tern, and this seagull looking as though he’s going to have a go (he didn’t):

Three short-billed corellas who flew in from an earlier post

and seagulls flying: towards the tables of the tearooms:

 

over the river:

solitary but never alone: flying with your shadow:

 

 

 

or your reflection:

  

and this little guy playing at being Narcissus 😀

Now these – they came with the dolphins and left with them too.  Some I think are fairy terns, like this one:

but I am not sure of the others.  They were too far away.  But I loved their shape against sky or water:

 

 

And that is the last post of MtLawleyShire’s visit to Matilda Bay.

I hope you enjoyed it.  I will go again…..