morning – Dutch goes the Photo!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Sunrise

A chill in the air!

Welcome to week 151 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge.

This week’s theme is another instance of surprised that I haven’t used this theme before! While Morning has been a theme, Sunrise has not been used yet. As I always look for the themes to be accessible to everyone, I figured that the Sun is available to most of us, Earthlings. Of course, it does happen early in the day, so night owls might be disadvantaged, but I’m sure their creative minds can come up with a workaround for rising early!

Most of all, have a lot of fun with this theme!!

This sunrise is from last week…

I had the fun of spending a day with fellow photographers, braving the cold of the Maine coast! The temperature at this time was only 3F(-16C), but the sunrise was spectacular, and putting it behind the Portland Head lighthouse made for a dramatic image…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

Looking forward to see what comes round the bend this week!

Three Line Tales – Morning Glow

Promise of the morning

Many thanks to Sonya for Week One Hundred and Thirty-Four of Three Line Tales, part of her awesome blog Only 100 Words!

three line tales, week 134: a mysterious water gateway

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Light scales horizon,
Golden glow brings day’s promise.
Rosy-fingered dawn…

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Thank you to Sonya of Only 100 Words for coming up with Three Line Tales.

You’ll find full guidelines on her TLT page, but here’s the tl;dr:

Write three lines inspired by the photo prompt (& give them a title if possible).
Link back to this post.
Tag your post with 3LineTales (so everyone can find you in the Reader).
Read and comment on other TLT participants’ lines.
NEW: If you want your post to be included in the round-up, you have until Sunday evening to publish it.
Have fun.

Happy three-lining!

Serenity in the Morning

A quiet moment

The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge provides the theme of Serene.

On a beautiful, still day, mornings can be particularly serene and inspiring of meditation, as we let ourselves be filled by the feeling of the moment. Filling our senses with the touch of the still air, the gentle sounds of birdsong, the pond stretching before our eyes and the scent of trees, we can almost taste the universe on the tip of our tongue.

To me, there’s nothing like taking a moment out of our busy days to stop and appreciate the universe, in which we find ourselves. Rekindling our connection with all that surrounds us, we feel alive, full and happy!

Here’s a rather serene moment for you…

Photo Sep 08, 7 17 42 AM — *Peaceful Morning*

Rocky Pond in Boylston, Massachusetts, used to be on my daily commute, and provided many an opportunity for me to stop for a moment and reconnect with the Universe.

Have a wonderful day!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round Up 77

Hour best time!

Welcome to the 77th round up of the Tuesday Photo Challenge! This was a week filled with wonderful hours and allusions to them!

The hours chosen varied in your posts for this theme, but all of them had creativity and wonderful work in common! As photographers love this time of day, I was not surprised to see a lot of great golden hour images. Then some of you also found clocks to let us know the hour. The one post that surprised me most, was one that had me going cuckoo! You’ll be sure to find it when you read through this awesome set of contributions!

Thank you all for playing this week and making my reading that much more fun!

And here’s the morning hour, even though I’m not really an early bird…

photo-oct-13-7-27-57-am — *Morning’s Fire*

This is an image from my commuting series. When my job didn’t have the same time pressures that my current one has 🙂 This is Rocky Pond in Boylston, MA, which allowed me to get some wonderful images throughout the seasons.

The following were this week’s participants in the challenge with links to their posts:

Sarah kicks things off again this week in By Sarah, with an hour that many of us like to encounter: Happy Hour! Go check it out and enjoy it!
Sheena’s post in Leaking Ink is definitely touching in the way she describes that hour that is more special than any other hour!
Nicole regales us with a beautiful set of photos in Une Photo, un poéme, showing the true colors of the golden hour!
In Folly’s Photoworld vol. 2‘s first entry of this week, we are treated to warm golden hours, which are condensed to golden moments in the second entry in Folly’s Photoworld vol. 2.
Ladyleemanilla shares some beautiful hours with us in her post this week!
Ed posted some wonderful views into the golden hour in his blog In my Mind’s Eye.
This week, iball round the world shows us that camel drivers get a break around the golden hour!
Xenia’s first entry in whippetwisdom.com includes a haibun and prayer for Las Vegas. Her second entry in whippetwisdom.com is wordless and full of color.
Stella’s post in Giggles & Tales takes us across a number of hours and the impression that they left.
Mara’s Artistry is back this week with a couple of great photos in her wonderful blog!
This week, theonlyD800inthehameau let’s us know exactly what the hour of the day is in another great photo!
In the Blog of Hammad Rais, we find ourselves in some wonderful hours that are inviting us to spend them outside.
Following Him Beside Still Waters not only captures the theme in wonderful photos, but also includes a great poem.
In ARHtistic License, Andrea takes us to the library, or, more precisely, outside the library to find the hour!
This week, we find a different hour in Musin’ with Susan, as she shares the blue hour in wonderful photo!
A great shot in BlackBody gives us insight into that hour we all dread: rush hour!
Frank’s entry in Poetry, Short Prose and Walking takes us on an hour’s walk through a great park!
Miriam’s entries in Out an’ About are always full of great photos and interesting to read; this week is no exception as she takes us to some surreal landscapes!
Bullyboy brings us some really interesting photos in his post in Travel387; the light in both shots is unusual and even a bit surreal.
Another great take on a theme in Linda’s Cr8tions 365, where we arrive at lunch hour!
Donna’s contribution in her very interesting blog Wind Kisses has us going cuckoo in a rather unusual location!
In Bajezen, we find various hours of the day covered in a wonderful fashion; time keeping is very precise!
Layue’s everday photo blog brings us a gorgeous shot that uses the light from the golden hour in stunning fashion!
Na’ama Yehuda shares another wonderful post, documenting the bewitching hour with photo and verse!
Miriam takes us for an hour’s walk in the Shower of Blessing, as she documents the changing of trees’ colors in Portland and the squirrels that love the park!
Robert’s photos in his post in Photo Robert’s Blog are bathed in that most wonderful warm light that we know to be the golden hour!
Imelda brings us the pleasure of kayaking around the hour of 5:00 pm in her post in My Wall; beautifully done!
In Pilgrim’s Photography, we find that their favorite hour is the morning twilight with some great beach photos!
Khürt’s post in Island in the Net brings us to Princeton for a wonderful night hour in another great photo!

Hope that you enjoy these posts!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round Up 51

From sunrise to bacon!

Welcome to the 51st round up of the Tuesday Photo Challenge! This week’s theme of Morning provided inspiration for a great variety of responses, all of them wonderful!

There were a number of Sunrises with lots of interesting creative aspects from your eye on the world. One post made me laugh out loud when I saw it (go figure out which one!), and all were full of great stories, interesting twists on the theme and some were also very informative! Lots of great entries, which were a pleasure to read!

Here’s another view of a morning a year or two back…

I captured this image on one of my daily commutes, as it was a somewhat chilly morning in early Autumn, and the Sun just caught my eye with its beauty and promise of warmth!

The following were this week’s participants in the challenge with links to their posts:

Charles’ provides several views of morning in his post in charlesewaugh; he also casts a substantial shadow 🙂
Xenia provides two entries this week, starting things first with a splash in her post in WhippetWisdom and following up with a second haiku WhippetWisdom! Go check them out!
Pensivity101‘s shares a wonderful poem of the new day.
Leaking Ink brings together a great image with wonderful poetry!
Ladyleemanilla shares a wealth of great morning moments in her post.
Cee’s post in Cee’s Photography shows us some gorgeous sky that is lovely to behold.
iBallRTW takes us to Bagan in Myanmar for a great vista of balloons floating over the city!
Judy’s post in her blog lifelessons cracked me up…no spoilers: go check it out!
Mike’s post in Weakly Thoughts takes us back to a cold December morning with a lovely sunrise!
Mac brings us Sunrise Kisses in her blog Southern by Design; they are quite simply gorgeous!
Ron shares one of my favorite morning foods in his blog Progressing into Solitude: bacon!
On the Road Cooking is a wonderful blog, and shares my love for mornings!
Amy’s post in her blog The World is a Book has truly beautiful morning photography!
Susan has us Musin’ with Susan in a rather cool post about routine!
Steve maybe a Bum without a Beach, but his post on the best part of waking up is fantastic!
Debbie has a great series of Forgiving Fridays in her blog ForgivingConnects. Her theme response to Morning reminds us to to all in love! Debbie also created a second post to celebrate one year of blogging on ForgivingConnects! Congratulations!
Bushboy’s World shows us some beautiful sunrises; I particularly like the photo of the bird with the sunrise.
Miriam’s post in Out an’ About has a wonderful set of beautiful morning photos, but none is better than the one of the breakfast that her husband was cooking!
Miriam’s contribution in the Showers of Blessing is about Palm Sunday and has some beautiful sunrises!
Khürt’s post in Island in the Net is about forest bathing; go find out what this is all about, as it might just add to your well-being!
Judith’s post in her blog Nature Knows Best (yes, she does) brings us out of our sleep into a lovely morning and provides something rather healthy!!
Sonya provides us a rushed view of the morning in her blog Middleton Road, as commuters hurry through the station.

This is another great set of images, posts and participation! Thanks to each of you for taking the time and being creative! Tomorrow we’re on to another week…

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Morning

Welcome the morning!

Welcome to Week 51 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge. I really enjoyed reading through your responses to last week’s theme of Forward! There is never a shortage of creativity or directions, into which you take these challenges. A lot of fun!

So I am sitting here in the cafeteria on the 9th floor of the Red Hat tower in Raleigh, North Carolina, thinking what might be a good follow up to the past couple of weeks, while also thinking ahead toward today’s work. I was a little stymied for ideas, when Nature helped out… The sun came out from behind the clouds and stared me right in the face with this week’s theme: Morning!

We may not always enjoy getting up early in the morning, as we fumble for that first cup of coffee, but for those of us who are fans, the morning light often carries beauty with it. So, I’m challenging you to capture something that is quintessential morning, and share it with us!

As always, feel free to be creative in your interpretation of the theme, and be sure to put your best effort into creating something evocative in your images. I’m looking forward to seeing your great posts!

Here’s an image that a lot of you have seen before, that was captured during that first hour of morning…

yt-2013-11-05-img_2630 — *The Wise Tree*

This photo kicked off an extensive series of Yoga Tree images that lasted for several years; she graces a compost farm these days, which mars the scenery, but she’s still proud!

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

Very much looking forward to all of your great images! Should be a fun week!

Wednesday Wonderment – Ep. 35

A brand new day

After a week’s hiatus, this 35th post in the Wednesday Wonderment series. As today provided a rather spectacular sunrise, I thought that today’s wonderment should be Morning.

While not all of us are morning people, I do think that each of us do enjoy the onset of a brand new day, even if it is just as an indication that we’ve made it to another day! As I do enjoy beautiful sunrises, but am not always an early riser, I try to make sure that I get my quota of sunrise images during this season , when sunrise is not too early for my taste.

2016-10-05-07-01-07-1-1 — *Top of the Morning!*

Etymology

The name (which comes from the Middle English word morwening) was formed from the analogy of evening using the word “morn” (in Middle English morwen), and originally meant the coming of the sunrise as evening meant the beginning of the close of the day. The Middle English morwen dropped over time and became morwe, then eventually morrow, which properly means “morning”, but was soon used to refer to the following day (i.e., “tomorrow”), as in other Germanic languages—English is unique in restricting the word to the newer usage. The Spanish word “mañana” has two meanings in English: “morning,” and “tomorrow,” along with the word “morgen” in Dutch and German which also means both “morning,” and “tomorrow.” Max Weber, (General Economic History, pp23) states that the English word “morning” and the German word “Morgen” both signify the size of land strip “which an ox could plow in a day without giving out”. “Tagwerk” in German, and “a day’s work” in English mean the same. A Good morning in this sense might mean a good day’s plow.

Significance for Humans

Some languages that use the time of day in greeting have a special greeting for morning, such as the English good morning. The appropriate time to use such greetings, such as whether it may be used between midnight and dawn, depends on the culture’s or speaker’s concept of morning.

Morning typically encompasses the (mostly menial) prerequisites for full productivity and life in public, such as bathing, eating a meal such as breakfast, dressing, and so on. It may also include information activities, such as planning the day’s schedule or reading a morning newspaper. The boundaries of such morning periods are by necessity idiosyncratic, but they are typically considered to have ended on reaching a state of full readiness for the day’s productive activity. For some, the word morning may refer to the period immediately following waking up, irrespective of the current time of day. This modern sense of morning is due largely to the worldwide spread of electricity, and the concomitant independence from natural light sources.

The morning period may be a period of enhanced or reduced energy and productivity. The ability of a person to wake up effectively in the morning may be influenced by a gene called “Period 3”. This gene comes in two forms, a “long” and a “short” variant. It seems to affect the person’s preference for mornings or evenings. People who carry the long variant were over-represented as morning people, while the ones carrying the short variant were evening preference people.

Technical Details

This image was captured using an iPhone 6S with the standard camera app.

Daily Post – WPC – Morning

The morning light brings to us…

I usually check to see what the Daily Post Prompts and Weekly Photo Challenges are, just in case there’s something I like. There definitely is for the Weekly Photo Challenge, as it prompts us with Morning.

I have been known to take a sunrise photo or two, so here are a couple of the Yoga Tree…

Birth of the Sun

Smoldering Sunrise

Sunrise Streaks

Autumn Beauty

All of these images were taken with an iPhone 5S using the standard Camera app. They are part of an exhibit that will be hung this week for the next 3 months.

Have a wonderful morning and day!

Sunday Morning – Tradition

Tradition can be good!

After a Grace Potter concert experience on Saturday night that was well-executed, but left us missing some of the older material that we had hoped to hear. Grace was dynamic, filled with energy and led the audience on a Rock and Roll line up that felt like a space-ship, tent revivial with a twist of voodoo high priestess thrown in, as she kept the audience mesmerized.

A solid show, but without some of the classics, such as Stars, Tiny Light, Apologies, Oasis, Ragged Company, which would have fit in beautifully to break the blistering pace of the show. This lack of the traditional material from her extensive catalog keeps a number of us wanting an alternative version of the show… Maybe next time, but I’ll share some tradition with you!

Old-Stone-Church-in-Autumn_2948 — *Old Stone Church*

Old Stone Church in West Boylston, MA

In the 19th century, the Quinapoxet River joined the Stillwater River to become the southern branch of the Nashua River in the town of West Boylston. Just to the east of the confluence of these rivers was constructed a magnificent stone church.

From 1896 through 1905 West Boylston endured the building of the Wachusett Reservoir and the destruction of its mills and farms. When the Wachusett Reservoir was completed, this impressive Old Stone Church remained standing as the last remnant of the town which was once in the valley, but was now flooded by the new reservoir.

The predecessor of the Old Stone Church was the second house of worship for the Baptist Society in West Boylston, dedicated on December 6, 1832.

The church and its neighboring church, Saint Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church, were destroyed by a fire on May 2, 1890.

The present Old Stone Church was built on the same site and was scheduled for dedication on March 17, 1892, but a fire again badly damaged the interior of the church and the dedication was postponed until May 19, 1892.

In June 1897, the Metropolitan Water Board awarded the Baptist Society $22,500 for the loss of the church for the construction of the reservoir. The last Baptist service was held in April 1902.

On April 13, 1973, the Old Stone Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On June 27, 1974, the State awarded $87,000 for reinforcing the roof and walls of the church building. The following month, the church roof and three walls collapsed requiring rebuilding which was completed in the Spring of 1977.

On September 25, 1983, on the occasion of the year of the 175th Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town of West Boylston, the Rededication of the Old Stone Church was held.

As you can imagine, the Old Stone Church is a popular backdrop for wedding and engagement photography and looks magnificent when bracketed by New England’s special offering of magnificent autumnal colors!

Enjoy a little quieter bit of Grace Potter with Things I Never Needed!

Have a wonderful day!

Saturday’s Sunrise – pt. 4

Morning mood

There may be a little rain in the forecast, which is much appreciated by the garden, but the clouds that bring this rain will not deter us from celebrating another great sunrise.

The Yoga Tree stands strong on this cloudy morning, awaiting the incoming weather, anticipating the revitalizing rain.

2014-12-28 14.44.36 HDR-1 — *Cloudy Morning*

This image is from late December in 2014, before the massive snow fall of that Winter had arrived. This was one of those mornings that provided a wonderful mood to capture a scene of simple beauty.

Hope you have a wonderful day!